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But they both knew that was a lie. Obviously there was something important in Elaine’s journals she didn’t want strangers to see. He couldn’t stand it.
“I captured a bit of it before it deleted itself. Let me see what’s here.”
His fingers flew over the keyboard. “Here’s a fragment from a week ago. Brought VK on board. And the day before that, Vlad, then two blank words, 1:00 p.m.”
“A meeting? And there was nothing more?”
“Victoria said she saw Vladimir Kochen with Elaine at the museum café at lunchtime. It must have been a scheduled meeting.”
Mike leaned over his shoulder, reading his screen. “Brought VK on board. After a meeting with him the day before? Does it sound to you like she hired him?”
He hated it, hated it. There it was, in black and white. Proof, in her own words, that Elaine was directly involved with Anatoly’s soldier.
Mike’s phone buzzed. “It’s Ben. He’s run into a couple of snags, but it won’t be long now before he’ll have the remote feed up and running.” She found herself patting his shoulder, probably the last thing Mr. Super-Spy wanted or needed. “Look, we’ll see what Ben gets out of Anatoly. Soon I’ll have Elaine’s bank records, so we’ll know if there are any money transfers to Kochen.”
Nicholas scanned the rest of the screen shots he’d captured. Words stood out here and there, fragments, but they made no sense.
He tried a program he’d written to reconstruct coded messages received from assets in the field during his time with the Foreign Office. He fed the copied screenshots into it and watched the words reassemble themselves on the screen in the correct order. He slammed back in the chair, his eyes never leaving the screen.
“Bloody hell. Look at this, Mike.”
23
Mike looked at the screen, but it made no sense, and she said so.
Nicholas pointed at the screen. “It’s garbled, but there are several key phrases, fragments of thoughts. Scared something is going to happen. I need to keep myself safe. She clearly knew something was up.”
Mike said, “And you’re thinking she hired Kochen to keep her safe?”
“It looks like it. See here, Vlad escorting me to work. Feel safer already.”
“But that doesn’t make sense, Nicholas. I mean, if she felt like she was in danger, why wouldn’t she tell Bo? She was a cop, tough and smart—no, I don’t understand this at all. And why, of all things, hire one of Anatoly’s men?”
Nicholas was very afraid he did understand. The murdered Russian hadn’t only been her bodyguard, he’d also been her accomplice. He said, “She would have told Bo unless she was involved and Kochen was part of it.” Saying the words aloud somehow made them more than simply possible, it made them true. But why were they murdered? He knew to his gut there was something else going on here just as he knew time was running out.
Mike said, “Here’s a text from Ben. It’s starting. We can talk about it after the interview.”
Nicholas had to admit Andrei Anatoly wasn’t at all what he’d expected. With his mane of silver hair and black-framed glasses, he looked more like a diplomat or a university president than a crime boss. He was a big man, all buffed and polished, wearing an Armani tux if he didn’t miss his guess, being escorted into a small, white-walled, purely impersonal room to a table with four chairs, two on either side.
“He looks a treat, doesn’t he?” Mike said. “Talk about false advertising.”
Then came a tall, elegant man, slender, fit, tanned, not wearing Armani, but still a well-fitted tux. Both had clearly been intercepted on their way to the gala. Nicholas bet that had made Anatoly mad. Good.
The men took seats across from Special Agent Ben Houston. Three FBI agents stood leaning against the opposite wall, their arms crossed over their chests, their Glocks clearly in view of Anatoly, and they looked on with slitted eyes.
Anatoly leaned back in his hard metal seat like he didn’t have a care in the world and smiled pleasantly at Ben.
Mike said, “Poor Ben. He’s had no rest, and he looks whipped. He better perk up; Anatoly’s lawyer might look like a senator in that beautiful suit, but he’s got the personality and instincts of a great white. I’ve gone up against him before, and I didn’t like it a bit.”
Ben introduced himself, thanked the men for coming, then said, “Let’s get started. As you know—”
The lawyer interrupted him. “Agent Houston, my name is Lawrence Campbell, and I represent Mr. Anatoly. I want it on the record that Mr. Anatoly is here voluntarily, as a courtesy to the FBI. However, he is a very busy man and tonight is the gala at the Met. As you know, Mr. Anatoly is not only a lover of the arts, he is also one of the museum’s benefactors. He is naturally very involved in tonight’s gala unveiling England’s crown jewels. We hope you will not keep him or me long.”
Ben said smoothly, “We certainly appreciate Mr. Anatoly’s cooperation. Let me hurry right along, then. Mr. Anatoly, would you please tell the whereabouts of one of your men, Vladimir Kochen?”
Campbell said agreeably, “This sort of question is a waste of Mr. Anatoly’s time, Agent Houston. We know as well as you do that Mr. Kochen was found murdered yesterday, in, I believe, an English police officer’s apartment.”
Anatoly nodded. “I was very saddened to hear of Vlad’s unfortunate death. He was a valued employee until a year ago, when he left my employ. I have not seen him since.”
