“I know,” Sam replied, “but I still want it. If we aren’t able to hold and charge them this time, we can still build the case and charge them later.”
She sure as hell didn’t want to have to tell Amara that her emotional statement wasn’t enough to charge her parents with murder.
* * *
“Where are we with finding Ivanov?” Nick asked his stressed-out team more than an hour after they’d been briefed by the FBI, DNI and the Bureau of Diplomatic Security on what they knew about the Russian who’d been paying visits to the vice president at her official residence.
That sentence still felt surreal as it traveled through his mind for the thousandth time since he was first informed.
“No sign of him,” Terry said. “They’re checking all his known locations.”
“So the FBI and Diplomatic Security were aware he was in town and visiting the VP, but didn’t think I should be told?”
“As Director Monroe reported, Gretchen assured them he was an old friend and, for lack of a better phrase, ‘nothing to see here.’”
“Well, thank goodness one Secret Service agent keeps up with current events,” Nick said, “or we might never have known about it.”
“To be fair, Mr. President, it would be wildly irregular for law enforcement to investigate the actions of the sitting vice president. That’d be like starting something with their boss’s boss’s boss. They’d be concerned about it coming back around to haunt them.”
“I get it, but now we have a Russian who may have been plotting the overthrow of the Petrov regime running loose in our country, and no one has any idea where he is.”
“If I may, Mr. President,” Trevor said. “Would the vice president know where to find him?”
The question stopped Nick in his tracks. “Get her in here.”
While they waited, Nick paced the Oval Office like a bear in captivity. He could rarely recall a time in his life when he’d been angrier. Rage filled every cell of his body that she’d be so stupid as to endanger everything he’d been working to achieve by hanging out with a fucking Russian.
“Take a breath, Mr. President,” Terry said quietly.
He didn’t want to, but he did it to try to get himself under control before he faced off with her.
Gretchen arrived with Christina a few minutes later, looking rattled. Her eyes were red and puffy from crying, and her hands were trembling so hard that she locked her fingers to try to contain the movement.
“Where is Ivanov?” Nick asked her.
“I don’t know.”
“Where was he staying when he wasn’t shacked up with you?”
“A friend got him a room at the Willard, but that was only for a short time. I’m not sure if he’s still there.”
Nick glanced at Terry, who went to the desk to call the information into the FBI.
“Where else did he spend time?”
“I… I don’t know. He has some other friends from Oxford that he was planning to see.”
“What are their names?”
“I… I don’t know them.”
“Call him.”
“Excuse me, sir?”
“Call him and find out where he is.”
She retrieved her secure BlackBerry from the inside pocket of her suit coat, and hands still trembling, she made the call.
