I coughed. ‘If you too have finished bonding, maybe one of you would like to let me know what’s going on?’
And for the second time, I got sucker punched.
‘What do you mean? It was Paul who hit me!’ I turned to Ramin as Julius explained what he had seen. ‘And you knew? Are you fucking kidding me?’
‘I don’t know what to say. I just didn’t trust him. And when I told him he’d been mistaken, he agreed with me.’
‘Of course he did! He was probably terrified that you might attack him.’
‘I would never —’
‘He doesn’t know that!’
I was shaking so hard that I didn’t know what to say.
‘Can I speak?’
I looked at Julius, who seemed calm. Certainly calmer than me or Ramin. I took a deep breath. Why not? Why not listen to some wet behind the ears, know nothing Beta? He couldn’t do worse than we apparently had.
‘The way I see it, you are on some sort of self-imposed deadline. Why don’t you just call your boss and explain the defection? Call for re-enforcements.’
‘The deadline is fixed. By Wednesday we’re going home, with or without the egg. And we don’t get back-up. All we can do is report problems; if we screw up, we have to fix it or abort. No one is coming to save the day.’
Julius interrupted her. ‘So, you’re isolated and you can’t trust your team?’ Julius didn’t wait for Neith to agree and ignored Ramin’s protest. ‘You want the egg and I want whoever killed my friend to be put behind bars. Was it Paul who killed Charlie?’
‘No!’
‘Any proof of that?’
‘He wouldn’t.’
‘Honestly Neith, you seem like a smart person and a born leader, but you’re not thinking clearly. When we last met, you said you suspected another team was working against you. I say it was Paul. And he clearly wasn’t working alone. I told Ramin here what was going on and he failed to tell you. Clio hit me hard enough to damn near kill me. What sort of team are you running?’
‘Enough!’ snapped Ramin. ‘I would never betray Neith.’
I smiled at him. He didn’t need to say that. I would trust him with my life. Him and Clio. That said, two hours ago I’d have trusted Paul with my life as well. I was compromised. The whole team was and I needed to fix things quickly. But first I wanted to try to understand Julius’ calm.
‘You seem remarkably relaxed? You have been the target of a second kidnap attempt, had a gun aimed at you, and you’ve lost your girlfriend. Why aren’t you a gibbering wreck?’
He looked at me and shrugged, a wry smile on his face. ‘No idea. But this is a puzzle, and I’m good at those. I can’t do anything about the stuff that you mentioned. That’s in the past, all done and dusted. But here and now is a problem, a situation that needs fixing, and that is something that I can do. No doubt I’ll have a full-on melt down soon, but for now I’m intrigued.’ He shrugged again and I smiled back at him.
‘That’s the spirit. Right, Ramin. Tell me, what else did you discover when you were examining Paul’s case notes?’
‘I found missing files, lots of blanks. So I went back to the beginning. I looked up the police report regarding the death of Zofia Guskov, her body was only found a week ago. Neighbours were worried that they hadn’t seen her for a few days. The story that Paul told us was a pack of lies.’ Ramin ran his hand through his hair, messing it up. ‘When you asked him to check the CCTV cameras of the drive-by shooting? He didn’t. So I did, half an hour ago. And I could see that the footage had been expertly edited. There are lots of little things like that. On reflection, I can only conclude that Paul was working with the assassins. He didn’t miss the car. He was actively helping them. Same as when he was charged with covering the exit at the church. He saw them, of course he did. He set us all up. He knew where we were going and set up the ambush. When you were winning the fight, he took you out. And as Julius here saw, the rest of the team stopped fighting straightaway. They had failed to grab Julius as Clio had got him to safety.’
I could barely take it all in. If what Ramin said was correct then Paul may have killed Zofia and been actively trying to steal the egg ever since we arrived.
Ramin turned to Julius. ‘You should thank Clio for saving your life by the way, when you next see her. Not cast aspersions her way.’
Julius snorted. And I felt a touch of sympathy. Having your life saved by Clio could sometimes be bruising. Thinking of her, I gave her a quick call, whilst I tried to process Ramin’s report.
‘Sitrep please.’
‘Hey, beautiful. All good at our end. Hang on, Rebecca, wave at the screen.’
Next minute Rebecca was smiling cautiously at the screen.
‘Rebecca, are you okay?’
‘Yes Julius, I am. I’m sorry about cutting and running, but this is just not my thing. We’re pulling into Stanstead now. I’ve got to go.’
The screen cut off. ‘Well, she seems to have bounced back quickly?’ said Neith.
Julius left out a deep breath. ‘Good. I’m glad she’s safe. Now, let’s get that egg and get you out of Cambridge, and out of my bloody life.’
I looked at him thoughtfully. He was still a bit too calm for my liking.
‘Is there something you know that I don’t?’
‘I should imagine there’s quite a lot. But as pertains to the egg, I know how to find it.’
‘What!’ shouted Ramin, saving me from having to do it myself. Instead, I tried to keep my temper.
‘When were you planning on telling me this?’
‘When I knew Rebecca was safe.’
‘Well. Go on. Where is it?’
He shrugged
