Iris Johansen - Silent Thunder

"If you'll answer your phone," he growled.

"I'll answer my phone." She hung up.

Kirov was blazing angry.

Hannah instinctively tensed, readying for battle, as she watched him walk in the restaurant door. She'd been prepared for irritation, not thunderclouds and lightning. She'd never seen Kirov angry before.

"Talk to me." He sat down across from her. "Tell me why you walked out of that hotel without a word to me. Didn't it occur to you that I might think something was just a little amiss?"

"I promised Cathy I wouldn't tell you or anyone else that I was coming here."

"I would have thought you'd be able to trust me by now."

"Don't be an ass. She was scared, and she wouldn't have asked it if it hadn't been important to her." She met his gaze. "And she has a right to be scared. If she didn't, I wouldn't have called you. I don't like the idea of asking you to come and risk Pavski-" She drew a deep breath. "But I did ask you, and now I have to deal with it. So just shut up and let me-" Her hand clenched on her coffee cup. "It's the kids, Kirov."

He went still. "Cathy's children?"

She nodded jerkily. "And Cathy is trying to work through it but she's scared. I'm scared."

"Does Pavski have them?"

"No, Cathy says they're safe for the time being. I don't know if she's right. It sounds to me as if-"

"Start at the beginning. How do you expect me to sift through all that guilt and nail biting you're throwing at me?" Kirov interrupted as he motioned for the waitress to fill her cup. "And stop worrying until there's something to worry about. We'll work it out."

His bluntness was oddly more comforting than gentleness would have been. He was working, thinking, cutting through all the chaff.

She lifted the cup to her lips. "I don't bite my nails." She smiled slightly. "And I won't feel any guilt at all if you keep on barking at me." She quickly filled him in on what Cathy had told her and ended with her primary concern, "How far do you think we can trust George Preston?"

"I have no idea." He grimaced. "That's not the answer you wanted to hear. It's the best I can do. On the surface it seems as if he's now playing it straight. On the other hand, it could be some elaborate double dealing."

"He has control of the kids. He arranged for bodyguards for them. Which means he could call them off if he's the one paying their salary."

"Then it behooves us to make sure that there's other protection."

"You can't go near them. That's what Pavski wants."

"Then I'll make sure not to give it to him." He stared her in the eye. "Trust me. I won't let anything happen to those children, Hannah."

Warmth moved through her, and for the first time since she'd met Cathy today, the panic subsided. "I do trust you. That's why I called you." Her lips twisted. "Even though I knew it was going to put you at risk."

"Guilt?" He smiled. "Now, let me think how I can use that."

"I'm the one who is using you. Now, how can we safeguard the kids?"

"I'm working on it." He looked down into his coffee. "Except for the children, this may not be an entirely bad thing."

"I can't see how it could get much worse."

"Pavski's getting ready to set a trap. When you're concentrating on capturing the enemy, it takes the focus away from a possible trap laid for you."

"And how are we going to trap Pavski?"

"By using his trap against him." He was frowning. "But the bait has to be too tasty to resist. He has a possibility of getting the information about how to find the cradle from Danzyl in Moscow. He may want me dead, but he wants the cradle more." He thought about it. "We'll have to use the Silent Thunder . If we can lure him to the sub, he'll be out in the open, and we can get him."

"He'd never risk going down that hatch."

"We may get to him before he leaves the dock. All we need is to bring him out in the open. Even if he's on the pier, I have a chance at him. Guns aren't my weapons of choice but I'm a very good shot."

"I imagine you are," she said absently as she thought about it. "It would be risky." But hope was beginning to stir within her. "We can turn this mess around?"

He smiled. "And upside down. If we work it right."

"How do we do it?"

"We pull in all the help we can get from both solid and questionable sources." He reached for his phone. "And we start with a few telephone calls…"

She shook her head. "What would you do without that cell phone?"

"Perish the thought." He made a face. "I don't even like to think about it."

Kirov received a call from Eugenia four hours later. "I've got it, Kirov. It's all coming together."

"What have you got?" He put the phone on speaker for Hannah.

"There were two statues given to Russia by the Greek government in 1937," she said. "It was supposed to be a gesture of enduring friendship."

"What does the other statue look like?"

"No photos. It's not here in Moscow. Evidently we're lucky it was even entered into the historical art archives. It wasn't an important art object. But since it was Greek, I searched the Greek art Web sites. I went after the symbol first and hit a bonanza. It's the identifying mark used by sculptors in an artist colony near Athens. They've been signing their work with it since 1924." She paused. "And the figure is supposed to be Phineas and the Harpies. According to mythology, Phineas was saved from the harpies by Jason and the Argonauts. He was grateful and told Jason where to find the Golden Fleece. But Jason had to travel to Midia in Thrace to ask Phineas."

"So?"

"According to the transcript of Heiser's last conversation with his father, he mentions taking his father to the Rioni River when he came back."

"Eugenia, a hell of a lot of intelligence manpower was spent in that area because of that one casual reference. Including mine. It was wasted effort."

"Because you weren't looking at it the right way. You weren't tracing a link with mythology. The people in that area claim that the Golden Fleece was based on fact."

"Fact?"

"For centuries the farmers in that area would wash their sheep fleeces in that river and others to catch the gold washed down from upstream deposits. That's where Jason supposedly found his Golden Fleece."

"And you think the second statue is there?"

"Maybe. There's a chance. But I'm betting on Midia. I think Heiser was mentioning the Rioni River to give his father a frame of reference to think Golden Fleece. Midia was once the city of Salmydessus in ancient Thrace. Jason had to go there to get the answer to his quest. Everything centers around Phineas and the place he lived." Eugenia was speaking quickly, her voice vibrating with excitement. "Don't you see? What other city would be such a likely candidate to get that second statue? I can't find any reference to Midia's receiving it, but I'd bet I'll find it there." She added, "I'm on my way now. I'll call the artist colony in Athens and see if they have a record of where the second statue went, but I'm not waiting for an answer. Danzyl is sharp. He'll figure all this out too. I have to get there before he does. I'll call you when I find it." She hung up.

Hannah shook her head. "Damn, she's good. But it's still a long shot."

"Eugenia doesn't think so." Kirov smiled. "And she has excellent instincts."

"Well, her instincts are telling her that Danzyl could beat her to the punch." She shivered. "And you said Pavski has already told him to remove her as an obstacle."

"That won't be easy to do. And I couldn't stop her now if I tried. Didn't you hear her voice? She's alert, excited, on the hunt."

Yes, Hannah had detected all of those emotions in Eugenia's tone. She had never heard her sound more vibrantly alive.

She just hoped she'd stay alive.