Jeffery Deaver - Watchlist

A police car was just arriving as Tesla returned to the Queen Elizabeth hotel. She detoured to the impasse entrance and went upstairs. The door to their room wasn’t locked.

“She’s gone,” Tesla whispered. “Dead.”

Charley was curled on the sofa, hugging her knees. She looked up at Tesla, face ashen.

“It won’t stop,” she said.

Tesla set the gun on a table. Charley was in shock. She went and sat down next to her.

“It’s OK, Charley,” Tesla said.

“It won’t stop.”

“I know. But-”

“The phone,” Charley said. “It won’t stop.”

Tesla’s whole body ached and her head was spinning. But she realized that Charley was staring at something on the carpet. It was Jana’s cell phone.

Tesla picked it up. The screen showed five calls and three messages. “Did you answer it?” she asked.

Charley just shook her head.

Tesla quickly scrolled through the calls. All from the same number but she didn’t recognize it. She punched in the message retrieval. The first one was in Hindu, unreadable to her. But the second was in French: ÒU ÊTES-TU?

It was the third one that made her stop. It translated to REPORT CM MISSION STATUS.

CM? Charlotte Middleton? But what was the mission?

Tesla hesitated then punched in a text response in French: MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.

Immediately, the cell hummed then the message appeared: ALIVE OR DEAD?

So there was her answer. It was Harold’s daughter they wanted. But why? Then she realized that she hadn’t heard from Harold since he left-from either his regular cell or his encrypted one. Which meant he had either been apprehended-or killed. One call to Charley or her would have pinpointed their locations. Harold did not want his daughter’s whereabouts discovered.

Tesla looked over at Charley, rocking slowly back and forth.

Bait, a distraction. That is what Charley was. They wanted to use her against her father somehow. She was his one weakness and if Harold thought she was in danger, they knew he would do anything to get to her.

Suddenly, Tesla knew what she had to do.

She punched in a text response. CM DEAD.

Tesla shut her eyes, waiting for the response. When it came, her blood chilled.

SEND PROOF.

Again, she looked to Charley. Could she do this? Could she get this shattered young woman to help?

Tesla went to the sofa and took Charley’s hands in hers. “Charley, I need you to listen to me,” she said gently.

Charley just looked up at her.

“Charley, I need to take a picture of you.”

“Picture?”

Tesla scanned the wreckage of the room. She spotted the bloody blouse she had used as a gag on Jana. “Help me, quickly,” she said.

Leading Charley by the hand, she picked up the blouse and took Charley over to where Jana had been sitting. “Put this on,” Tesla said.

Charley recoiled. “What?”

“Please, Charley, we don’t have much time.”

“Why? What-”

“Charley, this will help your father. It will help Harry.”

“Harry?”

“Put the blouse on.”

Charley shook her head. “No, not unless you tell me why. Where’s Harry? What’s happened to him?”

Tesla bit back her impatience. She quickly told Charley that her father was in Russia and that he couldn’t do what he needed to do unless he believed she was safe.

“Then why do you want him to think I’m dead?”

“Not your father. I want whoever sent Jana after you to think you’re dead. Your father has to be able to… to do what he needs to do. Can you understand that?”

Charley looked away.

“Charley, do you trust me?”

She nodded slowly but wouldn’t look at her.

“Then please do what I’m asking you to do. Please.”

Charley took the bloody blouse and slipped it over her t-shirt. But then she stopped and went to the desk.

“Charley?”

She scribbled something with bold strokes of a felt pen and brought the paper back to Tesla. “Put this in the picture,” she said.

Tesla took it. Charley had written three words: GREEN LANTERN. EVAC.

“What is this?”

“When I was little, Harry and I made up a code in case I ever got in trouble. Mom thought it was stupid but we… ” Her eyes filled with tears. “Green Lantern is our favorite comic book hero. ‘Evac’ means I’ve gone somewhere safe to wait for him to come get me.”

Tesla hesitated then wrapped Charley in a hug.

It took just minutes to position Charley for the photograph. She posed, slumped against the wall, with the backdrop of Jana’s blood on the wall and carpet. Tesla positioned the note so it looked like a harmless piece of paper spilled from a waste basket.

Tesla was sending the photograph by the time Charley emerged with her suitcase. Downstairs, they hurried out the kitchen, avoiding the quickly expanding crowd around the dead clerk in the lobby.

A plan was already forming in Tesla’s head. She would send Charley on the first plane to the States. Once Charley was safe, she would find a way to get to Harold.

Jana’s cell buzzed. As they exited the hotel and started along rue Pierre 1er de Serbie, Tesla glanced at the cell’s screen.

One word in English:

BEAUTIFUL.

“ You must know what Sikari has in mind,” Harold Middleton said to Chernayev. His blood had run cold when the Russian had told him the U.S. secretary of state would be visiting the Baglihar dam. He told the man about the email message from Sikari to Kavi Balan-the plan for the Village. To blow up the dam with the thermobarics explosives from Florida. Middleton now understood.

Chernayev seemed to consider Middleton for a moment. “Sikari is dead,” he said.

“Dead?” The American gasped.

“By his own arrogance, from what I understand. A man he called his adopted son has assumed control of Sikari’s interests. Sikari’s interests were in the dam itself. It is the son, Archer, who has seen the opportunity the secretary of state’s visit will create.”

Middleton stared at nothing, stunned by the news. The whole point of the Volunteers’ mission was to find Sikari and bring the war criminal to justice. And yet even with the man gone, it seemed more horrifying events were now in motion.

“But you’re responsible, Chernayev. You sold him the explosives.”

“No! My companies sell explosives, yes. And I shipped some to the site of the dam, along with a lot of other materials. I’m a partner in the construction project.”

“Thermobarics are military grade.”

Chernayev gave a faint smile. “That’s why I had to ship them in a, let’s say, circuitous route. My engineers didn’t want to use TNT. The foundation work takes forever. They wanted the real thing.”

“Well, that real thing is going to be used to blow the Village to smithereens.”

Chernayev grimaced. “You traced me through a company of ours in Tampa, right? Sindhu Power.”

“That’s right.”

“Before we closed it up, we were robbed. Explosives were stolen.”

That explained why Sikari was interested in the place. And why the thieves had left the bomb that killed Jean-Marc Lespasse.

“Still, you funded Sikari’s education.”

“Ah, the past… the past. How I wish we could change it. Yes, I recognized him as brilliant, one of the sharpest young men I’ve ever known. I wanted him to work for me, creating lower cost nuclear energy for developing countries. We had a falling out. I didn’t like where he was going. He wasn’t interested in peaceful use of heavy metal. He was interested in weapons. But would he listen? No. Like so many young idealists, he wanted to go back to his home country and fight for independence.”