“I’m sorry, Chief. I couldn’t let them take her without trying to follow.”
Brown sat again. “It’s over, Green. Yeah, you should have listened, as usual. But . . . if you had, we might not have recovered Veena.”
I blinked. Admitting that couldn’t have been easy for him. “How did you find us?”
“Now that’s a story.” And from the closed look on his face, he wasn’t going to tell it right now.
“Is the team okay?”
“Fine. Mostly happy you’ll live.”
“And Connor?”
“Better than you, believe it or not. He lost more blood, but the bullet sliced his muscle, more like a knife wound.”
“Lucky him.” It was all coming back to me now. The way he handled the weapon, his moves. Whatever guilty secret he wanted to tell me. “Who is Connor, Brown? He was no athletic trainer. Or he was something else, too.”
He held up his hands. “Nope. I’m not going there. He can do his own confessing.”
Frustration choked me, but I set it aside for now. “All right, how was the mystery man involved in the rescue? Who the hell was he?”
“Again, not my story to tell.”
I closed my eyes. “Can you at least tell me about the kidnappers? Where were they from?”
He eyed me. “They were Eastern European.”
“I knew it! Darya!”
He shook his head. “Not Belarusian, Ukrainian. We don’t have all the details yet, but looks like the Chinese government hired them. It’s a good deal for the Chinese: their military gets the nanotech, and with Veena out of the way, their snowboarders get on the podium. A nice return on their investment for this operation. Not that we can touch them, even if we get proof, which we probably won’t. They’re masters at covering their tracks. But your tip about the Chinese coach meeting with Darya’s coach led the CIA to information confirming Chinese involvement.” He lifted his phone. “We’ll know more after the Swiss get through with their interrogations . . . I mean interviews of the suspects.”
“Will Veena get to do her final run?”
Brown swiveled his head until his neck cracked. Little bags had set up shop under his eyes, and he needed a shave. “The Olympic Committee is holding an emergency meeting to decide.”
I straightened too fast and felt it in my arm. “They have to let her. None of this was her fault.”
“I hope they will. But she was pretty shaken up.”
I heard what he wasn’t saying. They might allow it, but Veena might not be able to pull herself together to ride at all, much less lay down a medal-winning run. She was hauled away on a snowmobile, held hostage, and saw multiple people shot. I wouldn’t blame her if she never wanted to go near a ski resort again.
But the judges wouldn’t hand her sympathy gold for being kidnapped. She’d have to earn it.
Brown’s phone rang. I heard Bart’s British accent on the other end. “Uh huh. Yeah. I got it.” His eyes flicked to me. “Yeah. I’ll tell her.” He listened for another minute and hung up. “Well, guess what. Muth called. Local PD found Newman packing up his stuff with a one-way ticket to Paramibo.”
“Why? And where’s Paramibo?”
Brown’s mouth thinned. “It’s the capital of Suriname.”
“Why Africa?”
“Learn some damn geography, Green. Suriname is on the east coast of South America, north of Brazil. And he’s probably going because disappearing there is easy. Three million would go far. IT at the school notified Muth about some suspicious activity in Newman’s account, so Muth called local law enforcement. They got a warrant to dig around on Newman’s personal computer. He’d sent the kidnappers emails about Veena’s schedule, her training, travel, and media appearances. All the details of when she was leaving for Copper, where she was staying. Even last-minute changes. He was their contact on the inside. And he’d already been paid some money upfront.”
What a weasel. I should have wondered how Newman paid for all those expensive scarves. And there was his mug—I’d rather be at the beach. In South America, apparently.
“A student was also involved,” Brown said, “but before you go ballistic, it wasn’t Darya. Veena’s friend, Alison King, was Newman’s eyes on the ground. She passed along what Veena was doing in training, her social plans, times that might be exploited. The Swiss scooped Ali up at the Zurich airport a few minutes ago to interview her—she had a ticket booked back to Australia with a continuing flight to Brunei.”
He sighed at my blank look.
“An island country near Malaysia. The ruling sultan doesn’t cooperate with foreign governments much.”
Things clicked into place. Darya was in the foam pit before the tramp was slit, but so was Ali. Ali took the video of Veena dancing at the bar. She knew every class Veena took, every competition she entered, what tricks she was working on, where she was going and when. And Ali had made it clear she was broke.
Gage’s warning yesterday: Don’t let her fool you. She wants to win as much as anyone. With Veena gone, Ali had a better chance to land on the podium. Brunei must have been plan B, when things went sour with the kidnapping.
Veena had admitted she and Ali were more friends of convenience, but I knew she’d still be hurt when she heard this. And knowing we had Muth to thank for nabbing Newman and Ali wasn’t easy for me to swallow, either.
“Then . . . Darya did that damage to her own face?” I asked. “Girl really wanted to get rid of me.”
“Must have. Maybe she wanted to get rid of Veena, too, but we don’t have anything connecting her to Ali or Newman.”
So, I was wrong about Darya. Of course.
A nurse swooped in, switching from speaking German outside the door to smooth English as she checked my IV bag. “How are you feeling?”
“Better. When can I go?”
Brown chuckled and yawned.
“A few days.” She refilled my water glass and messed with the beeping equipment I was hooked up
