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“Why not?”
She tapped the photo. “You’ve worked for him previously. What type of blackmail do you think she had on him?”
He leaned forward and Moe tensed. “I’ve never worked for him.”
Only Lydia, then.
“Who ordered you to abduct Lori Miller in 1993?” Parker asked and Moe tensed. “Charmaine?”
The guy frowned, scanning her face as if searching for the reason she would ask about that. “It was an anonymous arrangement. I did the deed, collected my pay.”
Moe wanted to tear his head off.
“Anonymous, right.” Parker cocked her head, returning to the previous line of questioning. “Think about it, Romalov. Charmaine double-crossed you. Why steal the watch and hire your team to sneak into the States to kidnap her just so she could give it to you to bring to this man? Why not simply deliver it to him herself? That’s far too elaborate for a simple case of blackmail and you know it.”
She’d stumped him. His forehead creased as he worked through the logic of it, but his shoulders hunched defensively. He wanted to say something but remained quiet.
Not waiting, she continued. “Hiring my team, on the other hand, makes sense. We’re already employees of Petit, easy enough for us to steal it. Plus, we know how to stay under the radar. I would have, too, if you hadn’t screwed it up.” She shrugged. “Now neither of us is getting paid, and I guess she manipulated you to get you here. Once you’re dead—she won’t want you captured because then you’ll talk—she’ll add another notch to her illustrious career.”
The shoulders tightened, his biceps flexing against his restraints. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Taking out the terrorist who kidnapped her best friend and threw the woman in a Siberian prison? Who then kidnappedher? That makes her look like a hero to everyone, while she covers her tracks.”
He swallowed, realization falling into place for him. His jaw clenched, his mind still fighting the scenario. “This was all for show,” he bellowed. “For her to capture me?” He shook his head. “You’re wrong.”
“Am I? You just stated you’re an expert, right? RING is famous, you especially so, and she has an impressive track record of taking out terrorists. Maddox is probably in on it with her. He used to be her boss at MI6, you know.”
Moe tried not to gape. That made more sense than any theory so far.
Romalov chewed it over, glaring daggers. Did he believe it? He pointedly looked at Moe. “You may as well shoot me. I can’t go to prison.”
“We can make a deal,” Parker told him. “You tell us everything, and I’ll make sure your sentence is light. You won’t be extradited, and you might get out of jail in twenty years or so. Start a new life.”
He laughed. “I’m as good as dead if you hand me over to law enforcement, and there is no way I won’t be extradited. I’ll be the next one in a Siberian prison.”
She sat back. Drummed her fingers on the table. Her expression hinted that she was thinking it over. “I’m sure that my friend over there in the corner could accidentally trip while escorting you to the helicopter and you could get away.”
He spit on the floor. “Why would you do that?”
“It’s not so muchwhyas opposed to the fact I can. I’m in charge of this team, and as I’ve mentioned, we’re not exactly do-gooders. Our bosses know nothing about the fact we were paid to get that watch for Lydia. They don’t even know you’re here right now. They think we’re close to apprehending you, but…” She let that hang in the air. “If I’m not getting paid, I want Charmaine to go down. Maddox, too, if he has anything to do with it. I would think you’d want the same. You’ve lost your whole team, as well as the cash.”
His jaw tensed again as he thought it over. “If you let me go, I’ll tell you everything.”
Moe was almost disappointed that he didn’t get to rough the guy up, but Parker smiled.Gotcha, buddy boy. “Let’s start at the beginning, the first time Charmaine hired you.”
Moe watched in silence as she got the terrorist to reel off detail after detail. The “anonymous” client from 1993 was Charmaine as Parker had guessed. She and Romalov had a long history of working together, all of their deals creating the allusion the spy was brave, crafty, and could outfox anyone she chose. Finally, Romalov gave them gold.
“The deal was to draw Maddox and the woman here with the promise of the watch and then kill them both. But he stole the watch,”—his chin jutted at Moe—“and blew the mine shaft so Petit and the others couldn’t enter. Her plan was to take them out, then meet with Maddox and Miller here and eliminate them. When everything went sideways, she told me to put her outside with a bomb on her chest to draw Petit and his team in while I went after the watch. She said to bring it here and fulfill the original mission—kill the other two while she was distracting Petit and the CIA. I almost didn’t.” He gave a derisive laugh. “I should have stuck to my gut and fled the country.”
A deadly silence filled Moe’s head. “Bloody hell,” he muttered.
Parker recovered faster than he did. “I’m still betting she planned for you to be captured or killed once you offed them. The device has very sophisticated tracking and other tools. You’d be easy to follow, and that would wrap everything up nice and tidy for her.”
He offered no rebuttal.
She stood. “I’m going to go squeeze Maddox now, see if I can get anything out of him. Maybe we can get our money yet.”
“You keep it,” Romalov said. “I just want to go.”
