Page 55 of Air Force One
“Continue.”
“He has investigated the President and the CMC members to the limits of his abilities—which are not insubstantial—and deemed them innocent of collusion in this event. As General Liú’s personal Falcon Commando operative…”
That, in turn, elicited a big reaction from Elizabeth and verified her analysis of that too-thin file on Wang Daiyu. It also brought Kali’s hand onto her weapon as she rose up on her toes. That she revealed being one of CMC’s personal elite warriors had interesting implications. Did she say it to distract or to provide a very convincing level of honesty?
“…I myself maintained access to a moderately extensive network of, uh, willing informants. These include most of those able to envision and execute such an act. There is nothing from any of them either.”
Sarah looked at Elizabeth.
“It fits. The chatter we’ve been seeing does nothing to contradict what Ms. Wang is saying. It also explains the odd caginess of the PRC’s ambassador this morning; he’d been muzzled and didn’t know why.”
Sarah took a second bite of her sandwich to buy herself some time to think. The pieces fit well enough—until she found something new. “Okay, let’s consider that answered for the moment. My thanks to you and your general for going to so much trouble to inform me directly. What’s your Number Two item?”
Daiyu didn’t speak right away. Instead, after taking a steadying breath, she spoke briefly in Chinese, which earned her questioning looks from her two companions.
“What was that?”
“She asked us for forgiveness for what she has just done.” But Chang Mui’s voice was tentative, asking a question even as she answered. Whatever her secret, Wang Daiyu held it alone.
48
Inessa had nearly leapt out of her skin when her phone rang last night. For three long hours she’d paced her broken top-floor refuge. Should she make a run for the border? Would they let her escape? Would anyone on the other side of any border accept her arrival?
For the first hour after risking the message, she’d awaited the arrival of an FSB kidnap squad to assist her in suffering a fatal accident to release Artemy into Murov’s plans.
For the next hour, she’d slowly shifted to hope that the message she’d dared send just might have arrived safely and securely.
And by the third hour, Inessa had recovered enough sanity to start thinking about how she might save herself if she never received an answer—though she’d found no solution yet.
Any attempt to leave on a commercial flight would fail. She must assume that her name was already on every database. Murov couldn’t afford to have Artemy’s wife alive and out of the country. If she remained in Russia, that would give him the necessary time to arrange her accident. Escaping abroad or being disappeared would only taint Artemy’s political future—she had to die very publicly.
To escape, she’d need her own pilot and plane. But would she be shot down for trying to fly over a closed border, even if she could find a pilot willing to do so rather than betray her? She simply didn’t know.
But it was guaranteed that she knew too much to be left alive. Not only had she counseled Artemy, but General Murov had often asked her advice of late. If she ran, they would hunt her down. Her fate would become that of the Skripals and Gebrev in England, and Navalny when he’d refused to die any other way—killed by poison.
And how could she?—
The phone call was all that saved her from madness. It came from that same odd number as before, with a single ring. As before, she’d swung the phone in a slow circle about the room. Two years ago someone had hacked her phone’s camera and not actually called until she’d proved she was alone. Once she had shown her empty room, it rang again.
Holly Harper’s voice was such a gift, she’d had to stop her after twenty seconds and ask her to start over. She hadn’t heard a word through the intense wave of relief.
“Do you ever travel to remote places for your business?”
“All the time. I try to cultivate universal appeal by resourcing designs from?—”
“Is one of those places Nalchik?”
It wasn’t.
“I want you to pick a series of small cities you’ve never been to. Hire a private jet and go on an…I don’t know what.”
“A fashion scouting tour?”
“Sure, yeah, whatever that is.”
Under other circumstances, Inessa might have smiled. She would probably never find a person who cared less for her life’s work in fashion.
“In twenty-four hours, I want you in Nalchik. Make it your second stop and the next stop should be to the west from there.”
