“If you’re the target, they won’t miss again. Being killed isn’t the part of his legacy your father would want you to repeat.”
“This mission is so important, it will save millions of lives.” And Every Drop being deemed worthy by Time Magazine would be the best salute to her father she could think of, a way to cement his legacy that would have mattered to him. She could imagine the Every Drop celebration cover framed next to his own on her office wall as clearly as if it already hung there.
“What about your family, Eva? You want your childhood for your daughter?” Gordon really knew where to hit.
“It’s not the same thing.”
“Isn’t it? You want her to be that angry with you?”
Anger was underrated. Eva used it to drive her and her vision for Every Drop. Anger at the injustice of a world where power and money meant more to those who chased it than the lives of others was a force for good. She tapped into it often.
And the other, the monstrous presence of her personal fury, she thought she kept that hidden. She knew she fed it too often, the rage at her father for leaving her, for taking away his haphazard constant in her life, for leaving her to scream and cry in her empty bedroom, in the silent tomb her childhood home became, for leaving her alone.
She sat straighter. “I can’t delegate my obligation, the donors will be more generous for me because I know how to press their buttons.”
“Hit that guilt trip, eh?”
“Always, but with a smile.”
He picked up a pen from his desk, held it between the fingertips of both hands, looking at it as though it was something priceless, dangerous.
His door burst open, and Nora was a whirlwind over to his desk. “Look at the news.”
“Which site?”
“Any of them.”
Something big. Gordon turned his giant monitor sideways so they could all see the footage. Sirens wailed through the speaker.
It was hard to tell where it was from the street scene of nondescript buildings. A woman in a fur-edged coat addressed the camera. “There is no official word of anyone claiming responsibility. Authorities will release a statement in due course, but this will have a far-reaching impact on diplomatic relations between the US and Russia.”
The feed returned to the studio where the presenter looked suitably serious. “We will bring you more on that story when we get it. To recap, the American Ambassador, Hunter Malone, and two aides have been killed in Moscow by a suspected car bomb. A statement from The White House has condemned the incident. The newly appointed ambassador was a friend of President Jed Carson.”
“We know anything else?” Gordon asked.
Nora shook her head. “Not beyond he got into his official car with his aides to attend a long-standing engagement set up for his predecessor when it blew.”
“What are the White House doing?”
“No red flags yet. We’ll keep on it.” Nora left them to it.
“Assassinating the Ambassador? What were they thinking? And a car bomb?” Eva asked. “That never used to be the Russians’ style. I’m out of touch, but I’d stake money it wouldn’t be now. Unless they’re dissembling, shifting the blame onto someone else. Would they want a war?”
Gordon muted the news feed, let the silence stretch around the room.
“You’re right. This is a deviation, not in line with current behaviours. I’d like for you to come back as a consultant on this. I can protect you then, if you are being targeted.”
“You’re into protection now?”
His hands on his desk switched position, right over left. “Let’s just say one of the biggest advantages of having my own unit is that I can deploy resources as I see fit. It’s in my interests to keep my people safe.”
The reminder on Eva’s phone silenced her maybe, her tell me more, the wondering how she could make that work with everything else.
“It’s impossible.”
“You underestimate what you’re capable of, but you have to do what you have to do.”
“I’ll be in public tonight, lots of witnesses.”
“As was the ambassador, as was Eric.”
She couldn’t argue with that. “Take care, Gordon. It’s nice to see you.”
“Good luck with tonight. Put me down for five hundred.”
“Thanks, I really appreciate that.”
He stopped her at the door. “Be cautious, not just tonight. If you think something’s suspect, it will be.”
9
Eva’s ringtone intruded into her checking the streets as the cab took her to the hotel hosting the charity ball. She grabbed it out of her clutch bag, but it wasn’t Charles calling her.
“How’s my god-daughter today?” Friendly, warm, the voice on the other end, just what she needed.
“Per, can’t you find the hotel?”
He sighed. “I’m still in Stockholm, marshalling a spat between two public figures who ought to know better, but the outcome matters. I’m sorry to let you down.”
Eva tempered her disappointment. After Charles’ behaviour that morning, Per’s absence would be better for him, but it had been too long since she’d last seen her god-father. “That’s a shame.”
“Listen, why don’t you come here for Christmas? I bet I can convince Lily Santa Claus is real.”
“That I’d love to see. Let me talk to Charles, see if we can co-ordinate some time off.”
“Tell him I’ll get a whisky in that’ll blow him away. How’s he doing?”
“Disappointed.” What else could she say? She hadn’t understood his reaction at all. Her logical, clear-thinking husband being almost superstitious in his expectation and predictions of disaster.
“If his work had made it through the preliminary round, I’d have stepped aside to let the consideration be without bias, based on what he’s achieved.”
Oh, Charles, out in the first round, that would hurt.
“You shouldn’t tell him,” Per went on, “but it might help you guide him going forward with this work. It is cutting edge, it would have won, but we had intelligence that it wasn’t original.”
“Charles would never cheat.”
“The information’s source is impeccable.”
“A rival?”
“Not even in the same arena. Someone we couldn’t discount,
