Джеймс Паттерсон - Private Rogue

“We traced the billfold to the penthouse apartment,” she went on.

“Figures,” Sci remarked. “Looking at his profile, he’s definitely a penthouse kind of guy. Top of the heap.”

“What do you want us to do?” Jessie asked.

In Jack’s absence, they were looking to Justine for leadership.

“Put a tail on him,” she replied. “Find out where he goes, who he talks to.”

“What about counterintelligence?” Mo-bot asked.

Justine nodded. “We should notify the Bureau. Share what you’ve found. If there’s an intelligence cell operating in New York, they need to know about it.”

“Send an anonymous tip to Max Pimenta. Tell him to look into it himself,” Jessie said. “He’s a good man.”

The phone on the console that stood against the back wall rang. Jessie rose to answer it.

“Do you think you can map out his business interests?” Justine asked Mo-bot while Jessie took the call.

Mo-bot nodded. “I have some of it already. I can complete the picture.”

“Yes... Yes, I’ll just get her,” Jessie said, and Justine registered the change in her tone immediately. “Justine, it’s Dinara. She’s on the satellite phone. I can’t get any sense out of her. She says she wants to talk to you.”

Justine rose slowly. Somewhere deep within, she felt a dark dread building.

She crossed the room and took the phone.

“Hello?”

“Justine. It’s me — Dinara.”

Justine didn’t need to hear any more. She knew from Dinara’s cracking, tearful tone, the croak in her voice.

“No,” Justine said quietly.

“I’m sorry,” Dinara replied. Justine heard shuddering sobs. “There was nothing we could do. Nothing. I’m so sorry.”

Justine felt a hand on her arm.

“What’s happened?” she heard a voice ask, without registering whose it was.

The room shrank away to nothing, as though the foulest darkness had oozed from the receiver and consumed her world. There was no shape, no form, no meaning.

“No!” Justine cried. “Bring him back! Bring him back to me!”

“I can’t,” Dinara replied. “There was an explosion. Jack and Joshua...”

“No,” Justine said. “No. This isn’t real.”

It didn’t feel real. She was alone. Utterly alone in a void. Holding a phone that connected her to somewhere she despised. A source of misery.

Justine dropped the receiver and heard it clatter against something. Tears flowed, and she heard herself gasping for air, sobbing, but it was all so distant, as though it was happening to someone else. She was aware of ghosts clustering around her, trying to soothe away the pain, but they were shades, existing on a different plane. They couldn’t touch her grief, nor do anything to make it better.

She was aware she kept repeating the same phrase over and over.

“He’s gone. He’s gone. He’s dead. Jack’s dead.”

“They have my name,” Victor Andreyev said. “They seem competent.”

He was standing on the rooftop of the gray stone building on the northwest corner of Madison and East 26th Street, diagonally across the broad intersection from Private New York’s headquarters, using an Optika Blu, a Russian handheld version of Camero’s XAVER LR 80 field imaging system, which enabled him to see what was happening inside the meeting room. Taras Gurin, the cunning psychopath headquarters had assigned to be his head of operations in America, held a directional microphone that had picked up almost all of the conversation that had taken place between Jack Morgan’s team.

Taras had a reputation as a man without conscience. He was rumored to have undertaken some of the most difficult interrogations during the Ukrainian uprising. He had a narrow face that almost seemed too small for his muscular body, and his eyes were set close, which Andreyev had always thought signaled a lack of intelligence, but this man was sharp and possessed of a rough street cunning that made him very insightful and dangerous. As an enemy, Taras would be formidable, but he was fiercely loyal to Russia and served Andreyev with devotion.

Taras had discovered the signal transmitter concealed in the billfold the Americans had left at Andreyev’s apartment building. It was an effective if unsophisticated ruse, although he was surprised they had been able to discover the location. It suggested they had advanced surveillance techniques he was not yet aware of. If his phones were compromised... he would ask Taras to conduct a full sweep to be sure.

Taras had traced the signal from the billfold to its receiver, turning Private’s tricks against them. There was now no doubt these people knew Andreyev wasn’t really Elizabeth Singer’s father, which meant subterfuge and deception with them would no longer be useful. Hostilities were inevitable.

“Do not overestimate their competence,” Taras replied with a smile. “The billfold tracker is available from any gadget store. A child could have used it.”

“American law enforcement has never troubled us,” Andreyev countered.

“True, but that is no measure of competence,” Taras sneered. “What should we do about them?”

Andreyev had been alarmed to hear the woman babbling that Morgan and Floyd were dead. That was a major setback. He would have to verify the report with Kolokov, who was leading the Afghan mission, but he very much doubted Private would be giving false information. There was little to no chance they knew they were being watched. The death of Morgan was of no concern; Floyd’s death, however, was more of a problem.

“We need to find the wife,” Andreyev replied. Elizabeth Singer would know the location of the Bull, and her children would be all the leverage needed to make her talk. “Put a team on these people,” he said, nodding at the figures on the infra-red display.

They were gathered around the grieving woman, and he felt sorry for her in the way one might pity a cat pining for a mate that had been hit by a car. Sad, but ultimately the fault of the animal for playing on the road. “One of them will lead us to the target,” Andreyev said.

Taras nodded, and Andreyev stepped away from the edge of the roof, heading for the stairwell. A hot bath then perhaps a cognac before lunch would warm him up after exposure to the elements, he thought. He hurried inside, eager to get to his chauffeur-driven Bentley Mulsanne, which waited on the street a couple blocks away.

Nikita Kolokov was furious. He’d spent days tracking the American pilot across Nuristan. Despite the mistakes of others, he’d executed the mission to near perfection. The first error had been the trigger-happy operator who was supposed to disable the Osprey once it was on the ground and the American troops had deployed. Instead, he had opened fire on the aircraft as it had been coming in to land. Thankfully, Floyd had not been one of those to die on impact, but the rocket had made their job much harder. The Americans had been ready for a fight, rather than running into the ambush Kolokov had planned. He had lost five men to the Americans, but they had been in a strategically inferior situation and their defeat had been inevitable. Kolokov could have engaged them far more effectively if he hadn’t been under strict orders to capture Floyd alive. So five comrades died — six if he included the trigger-happy operator, who was quietly executed for his failure.

Now, after everything he’d done to successfully entrap Floyd, another trigger-happy maniac had blown up their target, along with half a mountain.

The loss of their target wasn’t Kolokov’s only problem. He now had eleven wounded soldiers and had lost another three to the explosion. He had no idea of the identity of the man killed with Floyd, or where the Bell GlobalRanger helicopter had gone, but he was certain he would find out. Some intelligence analyst would compile a comprehensive report. Kolokov would do his best to ensure the bony finger of blame stayed away from him.