Page 63 of The Enforcer’s Pawn

I say the first thing I built to keep my son safe. “Blue lunchbox.”

Kathryn goes silent.

In the background, Evan says, “Patrick told me you’d say that.”

14

DMITRI

Kathryn Walsh answers on the second ring, and Evan Mercer’s voice comes through behind her when Cara says the code.

“Patrick told me you’d say that.”

Cara barely reacts, not enough for a careless man to catch. I catch it anyway. Her fingers tighten around the handset.

A pause. Then Kathryn comes back on the line.

“Evan, I’m on the phone,” Kathryn snaps.

I reach for the phone.

Cara looks at me once, fast and hard. Don’t.

Everything in me wants to take the call from her. Evan is close enough to hear. Patrick has called him. Morozov is breathing behind Patrick, and the line may be watched. Abramov is tracing what he can, Yuri is watching the relay, and every second gives someone else time to listen.

Cara knows Evan is standing there. She knows Patrick has already reached Kathryn, and she knows one wrong word could make this worse. She also knows Kathryn’s voice when it’s scared, and I don’t.

I pull my hand back an inch.

Cara returns to the call. “Hey,” she says, her voice eager enough to pass for bad reception. “Sorry, bad signal.”

Kathryn inhales sharply. “Cara, where are you?”

“In a conference that won’t die,” Cara says. “I need you to stay where you are for now and keep everything normal.”

Maksim stands near the far wall, watching the trace screen instead of Cara. Elena remains beside him, her focus on Cara’s face. Abramov’s deputy works over the console, tracking numbers that vanish as fast as they appear. Yuri sits hunched at his station with both hands off the keys, smart enough not to interrupt.

Evan’s voice comes through again, nearer now. “Patrick called me back. He said she might need me to explain something.”

Cara’s mouth twitches once.

Kathryn snaps away from the phone. “Evan, she can’t talk right now.”

“I’m just saying,” he answers casually. “He asked if she was okay.”

Cara closes her eyes for half a second, then opens them. “Kath.”

“I’m here,” Kathryn says, and panic rides under the words.

Cara’s thumb moves over the phone’s edge. “You’re a gem.”

Kathryn says nothing for ten seconds.

Then she says, “I know, Cara. I know.”

The phrase does what she meant it to do. I see that much. I don’t like being the man who misses it. Cara has sent a warning in plain words, and no one in this room knows how to read it.

Kathryn recovers quickly. “Right. Sure. I’ll handle the office-line thing when it comes.”