“Yes, two things,” Frost said. “First, I got a call this morning from the agent leading the investigation into whomever hacked into the drone’s flight path to fly it over the border. We believe it was someone named Diedrich Wyngarden. He’s a rather infamous hacker based in Holland, but we think he may have been on the move recently, and we think we’ve discovered an alias he uses here in Canada.”
“Wyngarden,” I said. Why did that name sound so familiar?
“Is he Anna’s brother?” Dutch asked.
“Cousin,” Frost told him.
“Wait, who?” I asked, still having trouble recalling the name.
“Anna Wyngarden was the girl Des Vries is thought to have murdered, and the reason he fled Holland,” Frost reminded me.
My jaw fell open. “That cannot be a coincidence!”
“Exactly what we were thinking, and that explains why you thought there was some connection between the drone theft and Des Vries. We think Diedrich set up the heist to make it appear Des Vries took the drone, so that we’d go after him. The fact that Des Vries got nabbed by the Israelis was an unforeseen coincidence, and we doubt that Diedrich even knows about it.”
I looked at Dutch. “Which means that Dutch’s life is in serious danger if Diedrich shows up at the auction, because either he’ll expose Dutch as an impostor or he’ll buy the disguise and try to kill Dutch to avenge his cousin.”
“Yes,” Frost said simply.
“You guys have a handle on where Diedrich might be?” Dutch asked.
“No, and that’s what’s so troubling. Our guys have been able to trace his signature hacking tags right up until ten days ago; then nothing. It’s like he’s gone completely radio silent, which is highly unusual for this guy. He hacks compulsively, but now we can’t find his signature anywhere.”
“What’s his connection to Kozahkov and the Chechen Mafia?” I asked.
Frost sighed. “So far, we can’t find a connection,” he admitted. “Viktor did say he was contacted by a newcomer,” Dutch reminded us.
I had an unsettling feeling about all of this. Something didn’t fit, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.
“In any case,” Frost continued, pulling up a picture and showing it to us, “you’ll need to be on the lookout for this guy.”
I stared at the image. “No, we won’t.”
“Yes, you will,” Frost insisted. “This is Diedrich Wyngarden.”
“No,” I told him. “That is a dead man who used to be Diedrich Wyngarden.”
Frost turned the picture around to look at it. “How do you know he’s dead?” he asked me.
I tapped my temple. “It’s one of the many perks of my particular talent,” I told him. “If you show me a photograph, I always know when someone’s dead, and that guy has definitely expired.”
“Shit,” said Frost. “Then we’ve got another player in this and no idea who it is.”
“Which is right where we were before we knew about Diedrich,” Dutch pointed out. “I say we move forward with the plan, Frost.”
Our handler nodded and got on with the briefing by handing us each a small compass and a map with a grid. “We know that Boklovich has an electronic scrambler of his own over most of his compound, so using your cell phones will be impossible. If you use the homing pens, you’ve got to get outside of the compound’s perimeter. Their signal strength is good enough to get through the scrambler from about fifty yards outside the walls, but you won’t be able to get a clear signal on your cells for several miles beyond that. If you activate the pens, try to follow the coastline on the east side of the island to this location.” Frost pointed to a small section of the aerial map that had almost nothing but green around it. Faintly, however, when I looked closer, I could detect another patch of light green, as if the area was a large clearing near the water. “This is another unused airstrip,” Frost said. “We should be able to drop in a helicopter or small plane to retrieve you if the worst happens.”
My radar pinged when Frost said those words, but I didn’t say what was circling around in my brain, which essentially was, Expect the worst.
Later, as I was packing, Frost found me and came into the bedroom to have a private chat. “You up for this, Cooper?”
My hands were shaking a little, and I had the most foreboding feeling about going on this mission, but what could I do? If I backed out, I knew Dutch would carry on, and sending him in alone was sending him to his death; of that I was positive. “I’m up for it,” I told him hoarsely.
He was silent for a time, watching me pack, and I had to admit that his company actually helped to calm me. “You’re attracted to Grinkov,” he said suddenly, and the calm I’d been feeling left in a flash.
I even dropped the sweater I’d been holding. “What?”
Frost had a slight smile at the corners of his mouth; he knew he’d hit a nerve. “I’ve heard the two of you together,” he said. “It’s obvious that you’re attracted to him, and that you like him in spite of who he is.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I just reached down and grabbed the sweater, turning away to refold it for my suitcase. “You can use that to your advantage,” he added, and it felt like he was trying to goad me.
I rounded on him, angry and defensive. “What do you want me to say, Frost? I mean, how can I even respond to something like that? You saw what he did to Dutch! You know he’s a ruthless criminal! How could you accuse me of being attracted to someone like that?”
Frost’s eyes clouded with something unexpected. If I had to guess, I’d say it was regret. “You were right about my wife,” he said softly.
I blinked. “Wait. . . . What?”
“My wife, who was murdered,” he explained. “She was killed by the man who’d recruited her for the FSB.”
“What’s the FSB?” I said, still blinking and trying to catch up.
“Its former name was the KGB.”
I sat down on the bed, clutching the sweater. “Your wife was a double agent?”
Frost nodded. “Yes.”
“And you found out about it?”
“Yes.”
Neither one of us spoke for several seconds. Finally, I told him what I thought. “Your energy is suggesting that you betrayed her in some way.”
Frost looked steadily at me, but I didn’t think he was actually seeing me as much as he was seeing what unfolded with his wife so many years ago. “I was going to turn her in,” he admitted. “And I made the fatal mistake of hinting that I was going to do that. She told her superiors, who decided that she was too much of a risk to keep alive. She was run down outside of our home early the next morning. We never found the car and we never officially learned who ordered the hit, but I know that I caused her death, and it kills me just a little bit every single day.”
In that moment I felt terribly sorry for Frost, especially now that I’d gotten to know him and found him to be a really decent man. “Why are you telling me this now?”
His eyes came back to focus on me again. “Because, Cooper, I wanted you to understand that it’s possible to be attracted to your enemy. Hell, you can even love them, and still find a way to do the right thing. It’s hard, but it’s not impossible.”
I smiled sadly at him. “Okay, Frost. I get it.”
He stood and came over to me. “A lot of this hinges on you, you know.”
“No pressure, though, right?”
He squeezed my shoulder and left.
Chapter Twelve
Dutch, Mandy, and I met Grinkov at the small Bishop Airport, where his private jet was docked. Eddington was there to help us load our baggage and see us onto the plane. I’d dressed casually in a pair of camel pants and an ivory sweater coat with faux rabbit-fur collar, and I was relieved to see Grinkov dressed in jeans and a navy blue blazer with a crisp white shirt. Dutch . . . I mean Rick was similarly attired in jeans and a brown tweed sport coat, while Mandy was in her usual hoochie skirt, six-inch stilettos, and tight pink sweater.
Her skinny knees were bright red from the cold—it was unseasonably chilly—and her teeth chattered as she boarded the plane. Still, I had to give her some credit; she was hanging all over my fiancé as if he were her one and only true love. Dutch was doing a great job of masking his distaste, which I picked up on my radar, but wasn’t otherwise visually apparent.
Remembering Frost’s words to me, I chose to sit near the front, where I guessed Grinkov would be, and I was happy that he did in fact choose the seat right next to mine.
“Are you comfortable?” Maks asked when he’d settled in.
I felt my pulse quicken. Sweet Jesus, he was sexy. To distract myself, I looked around the luxurious interior filled with roomy creamy leather seats and polished wood. “Very much so, thank you.”
The captain came on board then and nodded to Grinkov, who nodded back. “We’ll be departing shortly, sir,” the captain told him.
“Excellent, Bruce,” Grinkov replied.
Eddington also appeared in the doorway, setting aside his walking stick to pull up the ladder and close the door before taking his seat in the back of the plane. I was a little surprised that Grinkov would bring his butler, but reasoned that Maks probably wanted to keep an eye on Eddington now that I’d pegged him for an art thief.
I still felt bad about that, but, at least I’d saved his life.
We were airborne shortly after that, and the moment we reached cruising altitude, Eddington began passing out flutes of champagne and serving us toast and caviar. I looked at the little black granules with barely hidden disgust and didn’t notice that Grinkov was eyeing me curiously. “You don’t like caviar?” he asked me.
I forced myself to smile. “It’s not really my favorite.”
Grinkov chuckled and removed the plate we were sharing from the table in front of us. “You should have mentioned it the other night,” he told me. “I would have prepared you something else.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I told him hastily. “I’m not very hungry.” Grinkov snapped his fingers, however, and Eddington appeared at his side. “Yes, sir?”
“Take this away and bring us something else, William.”
The tray was removed and I felt instantly better.
“Are you looking forward to the auction?” Grinkov asked me next.
I took a sip of champagne and resisted the urge to look over at Dutch. I had to keep mentally checking myself from glancing over at him to see how he was faring with Mandy. “I am.”
“Vasilii will want a demonstration,” he said, leaning in so that we couldn’t be overheard. “Is the software encoded?”
“It is. But Rick and I both have the password.” I offered him that tidbit so that he’d know Rick and I were truly partners in the deal, and not try to cut me out of the auction.
Grinkov’s eyes squinted and I swore there was a hint of alarm there. “Tell no one that you both have the password,” he whispered.
Eddington appeared at our side and Maks sat back to allow the butler to serve us a plate of assorted cheeses and fruit. Once he’d left us alone again, I leaned in toward Grinkov and asked, “Why shouldn’t we reveal that we both have the password?”
“It’s too dangerous,” Maks said. “The people joining us at Boklovich’s estate are some of the most ruthless, treacherous, and cutthroat men in the world. They will not hesitate to use any means possible to gain what they want, and believe me, Abigail, they are all most anxious to have this technology.”
“You think one of them would try to kidnap me to get Rick to give up the software?”
“No,” Grinkov said, and his answer surprised me. “I think they would kill Rick, steal the software, and torture you to get the password.”
I gasped. I couldn’t help it; the idea of that shocked me to my toes.
Grinkov squeezed my hand. “Don’t look so worried,” he said. “Boklovich has many armed men with orders to keep the peace and everyone safe, and I will be especially concerned with your well-being, but you’ll still be wise to take some precautions. And one of those should be to keep your role as Rick’s partner very subdued. We’ll say that you are his accountant to take the mystery out of things.”
I nodded dully. “Okay.”
“After this is over,” he said, his eyes lingering seductively on mine, “I would like you to consider another partnership altogether.”
I cocked an eyebrow. “Oh, really?”
He grinned, and lifted my hand to brush his lips against my fingers. Heat seeped up into my cheeks and I tried in vain to keep my quickening pulse in check. “Rick is a bad choice in business partners,” he said softly, and I was relieved he didn’t look behind him to where I could feel Dutch’s gaze boring a hole into my back.
“He seems to have been a good choice so far,” I told Maks.
My companion’s lips lingered delicately over my fingers again. His breath was warm against the skin of my knuckles. “Yes,” he agreed. “But I’m convinced he is someone with an expiration date, and he may not live long beyond the auction.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “What do you know?”
Maks laid my hand down gently on the armrest and shrugged his shoulders. “There are rumors,” was all he would say. “And if I were you, Abigail, I would consider, where there is smoke, there’s fire.”
“Someone’s got a hit out on Rick?”
Maks shrugged again, as if we were talking about a sports game he wasn’t especially interested in.
This time I did glance behind me. Dutch was looking pointedly out the window while Mandy snuggled close to him, and although he wasn’t resisting her, his posture was stiff and distant.
I turned back to Grinkov, who was selecting from the assorted cheeses to put on a slice of apple. “Thank you for the warning,” I said. “I’d be happy to discuss this with you further.”
Grinkov must have thought I meant the partnership, because he said, “Excellent. I believe we will be a very good team, Abigail.”
We landed several hours later at the small landing strip on a good-sized island not far from the city of Victoria, B.C. Looking down with rapt attention at the scenery as we approached our destination, I was struck by the beauty of the place. I’d never been to the Pacific Northwest and even from the air it was spectacular. Huge evergreens carpeted steep mountainous terrain, and breathtaking gorges opened to wide beautiful valleys, while snaking rivers twisted their way through the landscape. But gazing at all this beauty was also tempered by the realization that it was incredibly remote. For miles and miles and miles around there wasn’t anything but wilderness, and it further clarified how precarious our situation was if things got dicey.
We landed a bit on the bumpy side, which earned our poor pilot a glare from his boss, but otherwise our flight was without incident. Eddington did his duty with the door and the short ladder, standing at the bottom to help me and Mandy climb down in our heels.
Once I was on the grass, I became aware of the chill this close to dusk. I hadn’t brought a coat and was already regretting it. A limousine appeared and stopped in front of our plane. A chauffeur bounded out and hurried to help Eddington with our luggage. While we waited for them to load our gear, another vehicle appeared—an army green Hummer with several men in fatigues and assorted assault weapons.
At the sight of them, Grinkov swore under his breath, and every hair on the back of my neck stood on end. This was about to get ugly; I was sure of it.
Instinctively I edged a little closer to Dutch until I caught myself and moved in the other direction, closer to Maks. “What gives?” I whispered to him, lifting my chin in the direction of the armed guards.
“My friend Vasilii has chosen not to trust me,” Grinkov snarled. He then wrapped a protective arm around me and whispered a warning. “Call no unnecessary attention to yourself and if asked, tell them you’re with me.”
I had a terrible feeling about this, but there wasn’t much I could do, and sure enough, the clear leader of the soldiers approache
d Dutch and stuck a handgun right in his face. He barked something in a foreign language, which I guessed was Russian, and Dutch glowered at him before putting his hands in the air. The soldier never wavered as he held Dutch at gunpoint and another soldier stepped up and began to pat down my fiancé, while Mandy backed away and hid behind Eddington. Another order was barked and Dutch grudgingly spread his legs while growling something at the man with a gun in his face.
“A slight inconvenience, Richard,” Grinkov told Dutch loudly, and I could hear the tone in his voice meant, “Simmer down, dude.”
The soldier patting Dutch removed Des Vries’s gun and held it out for his leader, who looked at it thoughtfully before tucking it into his belt. The soldier then discovered the CD with the Intuit program’s software on it. This he also handed to his leader, who smiled like he knew exactly what he held in his hands before motioning to a man still in the truck.
The guy in the Hummer got out and carried with him a laptop computer. Opening the laptop, the soldier took the CD and inserted it into the disk drive. We all waited tensely while the computer booted up and the program loaded. More words I couldn’t understand were exchanged and Dutch shook his head no.
The soldier with the gun in Dutch’s face moved the muzzle slightly to the right and fired right next to Dutch’s ear. I yelped—I truly couldn’t help it—and Grinkov squeezed my waist and hissed, “Shhh!”
Next to me, still hiding behind Eddington, Mandy stood completely frozen in terror, but she found her voice the moment the soldier pointed the gun back in Dutch’s face to bark his command again. “Give him the damn password, Rick!” she pleaded.
Several tense seconds passed while Dutch glared hard at the soldier, and then he said something too softly for me to catch. Again another tense moment seemed to pass until Grinkov stepped in. “Allow him to enter the code, Yurik. It’s a reasonable request, after all.”
I held my breath as Yurik glared hard into the eyes of the man I loved. I could tell a lot about this soldier—his energy was especially loud, and I knew he was cold-blooded and ruthless, capable of killing someone and not thinking twice about it.