Eric Lustbader - Blood Trust

The third and final message was a total bombshell that rattled Jack to his core. Naomi detailed her meeting with a woman who had taken her out to Roosevelt Island. There, the woman had shown Naomi the newly buried corpse of Arjeta Kraja. The implication was that the two men had buried her. Had the Arab killed her or had McKinsey? Impossible to tell. Naomi said the woman had mentioned Arjeta’s sisters, Edon and Liridona, both of whom, it appeared, she knew, and who seemed somehow important. The sisters knew a secret, most probably concerning Arian Xhafa or his network. The woman said the Krajas lived in the Albanian coastal city of Vlorë. Liridona was presumably still there, but Edon had run away, probably from Xhafa’s men.

Possibly to better allow him to absorb her news, Naomi left the identity of her mysterious benefactor until the end, but when Jack heard Annika’s name his blood ran cold. He sat down on a tree stump. His heart was racing; he felt icy hot, a sensation that threatened to annihilate his thought processes.

Annika had resurfaced, and, of all places, in Washington. Then he heard Naomi in her last line: “I think she’s behind everything, and she knows where you are.”

Jack, realizing that he’d been holding his breath, struggled to get oxygen into his lungs. He felt as if he were trapped underwater. He tried to calm himself, to figure out what the hell was going on, but it was as if his brain had shut down. Annika, the rogue Russian FSB agent whose life he had saved, only to find out that she was not FSB and the man he thought he’d saved her from was a confederate of hers. She had been working for her grandfather, Dyadya Gourdjiev, all along. He’d accepted that because for a brief time, at least, he and Gourdjiev were on the same side. He’d been powerfully attracted to Annika from the moment they’d first met in the bar of his Moscow hotel last year. And that attraction had turned into a love he’d believed was mutual until on his last day in Moscow he’d received an e-mail from her telling him that she had killed Senator Berns, a murder that had created a political firestorm and had been the starting point of Jack’s investigation into political corruption at the highest level in both the American and the Russian governments.

I neither regret what I did nor feel pride in it, she had written. In peace as in war sacrifices must be made, soldiers must fall in order for battles to be won—even, or perhaps especially, those that are waged sub rosa, in the shadows of a daylight only people like us notice.

So you hate me now, which is understandable and inevitable, but you know me, what I can’t stand is indifference, and now, no matter what, you’ll never be indifferent to me.

God damn her, he thought now. He put his head in his hands. Over the intervening months he had tried to put her out of his mind.

My grandfather warned me not to tell you, but I’m breaking protocol because there’s something you have to know; it’s the reason I haven’t come, why I won’t come no matter how long you wait, why I’m not being melodramatic when I say that we must never see each other again.

Her involvement all but paralyzed him. It threw the entire scenario into another arena entirely, and all at once, pieces, tiny and disparate, began to fall into place. Another murder that set an entire group of people into motion, most notably him—and Alli. Could this be another elaborately staged setup choreographed by Annika? It had her hallmarks, certainly, but there were marked differences, not the least of which was the brutal torture of Billy Warren. That wasn’t Annika at all. Her rage at her father had exploded quickly and definitively. Annika had been the victim of physical abuse; there was no circumstance under which Jack could imagine her torturing someone, unless the person had done grievous bodily harm to her or to someone she loved. This was not Billy Warren’s profile.

All at once, he became aware that Paull had broken away from Alli and the girl, and was standing beside him.

“Everything all right?”

“Fine,” Jack muttered.

“You look as if someone just walked over your grave.”

All Jack could manage was a wan smile.

Paull cleared his throat. “Listen, I’m useless here,” he said. “If I’m being perfectly honest with myself, worse than useless. I almost got us all killed.”

“Could have happened to anyone,” Jack said.

Paull smiled and clapped Jack on the shoulder. “You’re a good friend. I appreciate the support, but you’ll have to continue on without me.” His eyes cut away for a moment. “The truth is my field days are behind me. I’ve lost the feel. Wet work takes a different kind of person than I’ve become. My years behind a desk have changed me, Jack. Like it or not, my expertise is now in lending my people tactical support and protecting the missions against political meddling. Believe me when I tell you that I can be of more help to you in D.C.”

Jack nodded. It was difficult to argue against his friend’s assessment.

Paull indicated the girl with the porcelain skin. “I think you’d best take a listen to what Edon has to say.”

Instantly, Jack pricked up his ears. “What did you say her name was?”

“Edon.” Paull looked perplexed. “Edon Kraja.”

THE BEST way to lead a man unwittingly to his death is with a beautiful girl. This was a motto Gunn had lived by during the time he’d toiled in the spook shadows. It was a method old as time, but that was what made it virtually infallible. Occasionally, he’d had to substitute a beautiful boy for a beautiful girl, but the mechanism remained the same.

Vera Bard was still a day away from returning to Fearington from her weeklong medical leave, and he called her. Of course she said yes, this venture was right up Vera’s twisted little alley. He gave her her instructions.

“How long will it take you?” he said.

“I’m not far away,” Vera said. “Forty minutes max.”

Forty minutes later, he took the stairs down from the official Fortress offices to the auxiliary office used by Blunt between assignments. Try as he might, he could never get used to Blunt’s new legend name, Willowicz.

Blunt was making coffee, or what passed for it in this stinking hole.

“I’ve got a job for you and O’Banion.”

“It had better pay well,” Blunt said, “I’ve got gambling debts up the wazoo.”

“As a matter of fact, it does,” Gunn said. “It’s a rush job—gotta be done today.”

“I don’t like rush jobs—they have a nasty habit of turning out messy.”

Gunn was anticipating his answer. “How’s triple your fee grab you?”

“Right in the nuts. Who, where, and when?”

Gunn gave him the particulars and left. He couldn’t get out of there fast enough, but he didn’t go back to his office. He had another destination. He had pondered his plan in agonizing detail ever since his thoroughly unpleasant meeting with Pawnhill. He was dealing with ghosts—very dangerous ghosts who between them had been responsible for twenty kills, possibly more. He wondered fleetingly whether Pawnhill had any idea of what a difficult assignment he’d given him. Knowing the bastard, he didn’t give a shit. Pawnhill wanted what he wanted; Pawnhill knew he was in no position to defy him.

Someday, he thought, he was going to get out from under Pawnhill’s thumb. But, sadly, that day was not today.

“THE SCHOOL was nothing more than a front,” Edon said. “There are six orphans here—enough to keep the illusion going. The rest of us are like me—girls sold into slavery by their parents, or snatched off the streets. Either way, no one is looking for us.”