Page 98 of Warlord’s Empire

“Oh my god,” Saskia whispered, stopping the recording. Votes? Five years? The president’s term in office was five years and it was up in just a few months. But why would they use golf to speak to each other in code? What were they doing that required such secrecy?

Again, she was annoyed that she didn’t know enough about golf to know for sure if the conversation was off. There was only one person in her orbit who apparently knew a lot about golf.

There was no way Shola would take her to see him and as much as she wanted to confront him in person, she wouldn’t risk her baby. She’d have to do it over the phone.

She scrolled her contacts, finding his name. The phone rang and he answered right away.

“Saskia, what a pleasure to hear from you,” Prime Minister Branislav said in his fake jovial voice. “Now, I hope this isn’t about your job. I instructed HR to deny your request to come back. You need rest.”

“I know,” she said, in as sweet a tone as she could manage. “I’ve missed my work though and thought I’d check in to see how you’re doing, see if you need anything.”

It was a bit of a stretch as they barely spoke when she’d worked at the office. Her position was too far beneath his, but the few times they met, he was friendly towards her.

“That’s very kind of you, Saskia,” he said, his tone becoming distracted. “But you know you’ll have to wait until after the baby is born and your maternity leave is finished before you can start working again.” She heard papers shuffling in the background. “Did you receive the flower arrangement?”

“Yes, thank you. It was very kind of you.” She sighed theatrically before continuing. “Look, I know I can’t come into the office, but can I ask you something?”

“Of course,” he said, then she assumed he muffled the phone with his hand because she could hear mumbling, then he was back. “You can ask me anything.”

“When you’re playing golf, how difficult is it to get a hole-in-one?”

“What?” he asked, confused. “It’s nearly impossible.”

“But it happens sometimes?” she persisted.

“Yes, of course,” he said. “Why do you ask?”

She ignored his question, asking, “Have you ever gotten one?”

There was a long pause. “Yes, I have.”

“Congratulations on making a such a difficult shot,” she said, then asked, “And how does one go about joining a golf club? Do the other members vote you in or something? Or do you just buy your way in?”

Dead silence dominated the airspace between them following her questions and she figured she now had his full attention.

Finally, he said, “What do you really want, Saskia?” His tone was no longer kind. It was dangerous, deadly.

A shiver rippled down her spine and she knew she was right.

“I have one more question.” She held the phone so tight her hand shook. “Did you have Aurelia killed? Did you try to kill me too?”

Chapter Forty-Three

“You have the transcript,” Branislav said flatly.

“Yes.” There was no point in denying it. “I don’t understand it and I’m guessing Aurelia didn’t either. So why did you have her killed?”

He said nothing for a moment, then, “Why don’t you come in to see me? Bring the transcript, I can explain everything.”

“I’m not going to do that. I’ve already emailed a copy to my cousin so if anything happens to me, he’ll know.”

She frantically tried to do exactly as she’d just told him she’d already done, but the file was too large for email. Fuck, fuck. What to do? Oh, the family photo gallery. It was a private server where the Kobas uploaded their family photos for the others to see. Only Leeza used it to upload pictures of her children, but it would work.

“… come to the office for a meeting. Bring Jozef if you’re more comfortable, but we should talk about this. You can’t go around saying I had something to do with….”

Branislav was still trying to convince her to come in, but she wasn’t listening. She logged into the family server and hit the upload button on the transcript file, breathing a little easier when it finished.

“I’m not coming in, but you can probably expect a visit from Jozef,” she told him in a flat voice. “When I tell him about all this, he’ll want these questions answered as badly as I do.”