Page 10 of The Shadow Friends

He looked down at his whisky and for a moment considered her question. “Do you remember Sophie Benoit?” he asked quietly.

The mention of Sophie’s name made her go momentarily silent. She felt an ache in her chest, like an old wound that refused to heal. “Hardly a day goes by that I don’t think of her,” she said quietly. “And Gordon. And Simon.”

“I never stop thinking about them either. Simon’s widow never remarried. Gordon’s wife, at least, was able to move on. Vicky married a nice fellow from Omaha. Had another child. A daughter.”

“Why are you bringing them up now?”

“Because of why they all died. Gordon and Simon, because of patriotism. And Sophie, because she had a conscience and she tried to do the right thing. Tried to help us bring down that syndicate. Those three people, they all did the right thing, and they paid the ultimate price.”

“Are you saying it’s not worth it? Doing the right thing?”

“Oh, it sounds so noble, dying for our country. For the good of the world. But think of the people you leave behind. How many other twelve-year-old boys will suffer, like Gordon’s son did, because his father was a patriot?” He took a gulp of whisky and stared at the glass. “I still hear from Vicky from time to time. She says their son never really got over his father’s death.”

“I can’t imagine any boy would.”

“And when they heard how he died—”

“They were told?”

“She wanted to know if he suffered. She demanded to know. HQS finally relented and allowed her to see the autopsy report.”

Ingrid thought of that hot and windy day in the valley of lavender. She remembered Gordon lying on his back outside the stone guardhouse, his blood seeping into the soil. And she thought of the stiletto in his eye, its tip buried deep in his brain. “Oh God,” she murmured. “They learned the details?”

“Unfortunately, yes. Which probably made the loss all the worse for them. Knowing how he was killed.”

Even now, the circumstances of Gordon’s death still shook her, and she cupped the whisky glass with both hands, as if it could steady her. Anchor her.

“He paid the ultimate price. So did his wife. So did his son,” said Rodrigo. “And what did they get for it? A pension, a lifetime of grief. And Gordon got a pretty star on the memorial wall.”

“So you think patriotism isn’t enough.”

“I’m saying there should be tangible rewards for doing this work. We have skills honed by years in the field. That’s worth something in the private sector.”

“You’re offering me a job?”

“We made a good team once and we could do it again. And on this particular issue, you’d be perfect.”

“What issue is that?”

“It’s another reason I came to this conference. Our client is focused on the possibility of biological warfare. They’d like to know which bacterial or viral agents might be used by the enemy, and how to respond to it.”

“Is this client one of those governmental agencies you mentioned?”

“Perhaps.”

“You’re not going to tell me?”

“If you worked for Argus, I’d be able to. What I can tell you is my client wants to know which bioweapons might be currently in development. Since Dr. Maslov’s one of the few scientists who’s actually worked in a Russian biolab, I wanted to meet him.”

“Has he agreed to speak with you?”

“Not yet. I want to approach him in just the right way. As a Russian defector, he’s probably skittish. Looking over his shoulder, wondering if Moscow will come after him with an umbrella dart.”

“It’s been eighteen years since he defected. At some point, everyone gets tired of looking over their shoulder.”

“Is that what he told you?”

“He accepted our invitation, didn’t he?”