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Now I have to deal with the aftermath of the last few days. Although it can’t be too bad because neither Cristiano or Lucas tried to reach me.
“Anyone looking for our friend?”
We covered our tracks, but there will be questions. They’ll never recover a body, but no one will believe Tomas just got up one day and decided to live off the grid. The police will have questions, but I’m not worried about them. The owners of the other Port lodges are a different matter.
They’ll have plenty of questions, and they’ll expect answers. Not that they give a goddamn about Tomas. They’ll be worried about themselves.Am I next?That’s all they’ll care about. As president of the Douro Port Wine Foundation, I’m going to be doing a lot of hand-holding and giving out reassurances like condoms in a whorehouse. Everyone’s going to need at least one.
“Nobody’s asking questions yet,” Lucas replies. “Although there’s a lot of activity happening at your uncle’s house.”
Not a surprise. “What kind of activity?”
“More cell phone chatter than normal. I’ve been tracing the pings that are ricocheting around the world, to throw us off, but so far I’ve only come up with dead ends.”
That type of diversion is not uncommon, but it takes a certain kind of skill to make it happen. With a little time and luck, Lucas will figure it out. I’m confident.
“What’s going on with Fedorov’s shipment?”
“It was delayed leaving Columbia, but it’s on the way. If there are no issues, we’re looking at an ETA of four days. Could be five.”
Good. Because the minute his shipment exits the country, I want a name. Operating with a traitor in our midst poses all sorts of risks.
The biggest unknown regarding Tomas’s death is Chernov. There’s no telling how the Russian will respond. We don’t know how long he’s been working with Tomas, or how many resources he’s poured into the scheme. I know what Tomas told me, but my guess is Chernov was working the angle long before he approached Tomas. That’s how they operate. While I don’t trust Fedorov, the oligarchs, with their direct connection to Moscow, are a bigger problem.
“Hey.” I glance at Cristiano. “How come you never told me your mother was going on vacation?”
He pauses briefly, as if surprised by the question. “To be honest, I almost forgot myself until she called me this morning. Her boss gave her the day off to pack. What a guy.”
I snicker. Cristiano forgetting isn’t quite like Lucas forgetting, but it’s unusual enough to keep me probing. “I’m surprised you picked now to send them, right before the Feast of St. John.”
Cristiano knows the boat and the moods of the river better than anyone. I’m the captain, but he is as skilled a second mate as anyone could hope for, and certainly a better sailor than I am. We would never win the regatta, year after year, without him. “Your mother loves to take a picture of you on the winning stand.”
Lucas chuckles. “She’ll have to wait until next year. I can live with it.”
He doesn’t want to talk about the trip, which makes me want to talk about it more.
“You didn’t answer my question. Why now?”
“I’m not sure,” he says, looking me straight in the eye. “I’m not sure.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” Lucas taunts.
If Cristiano tells me he got a message from God, or some dead relative came to him in the night, I’m going to smack him. It’s one thing to listen to that shit from Alma, but it’s quite another from my right-hand man.
“I don’t know if it’s all the stuff that’s come to light in the last month, but—” He shakes his head. “I just want them out of Porto for a little while.”
His unease awakens something in my gut, but it doesn’t churn.
It’s been a fucked-up time that’s lasted too long. It’s always a shitstorm, but this has been extra, no question. Cristiano has sisters, and the sisters who have children have girls. All this with my father, and uncle, and Tomas has got to have made his blood run cold. He grew up with me. Those men touched his life—if not every day, often.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Lucas cries, his eyes glued to both monitors on his desk. “Sergei Chernov has been called home.”
“He’s dead?” Because as much as I’d like that, dead creates a whole other set of concerns.
“Called back to Russia. But what does it mean?” he adds quietly, engrossed in what’s on his screen.
Called back to Russiaisn’t all that much less complicated than dead. “Too soon to tell.”
“Maybe Moscow knows about Tomas,” Cristiano says, “and they’re pissed Chernov fucked up. They could be calling him back to rap his knuckles.”
