“You think they’ll just hand it over?” asked Flash.
“Sure — if we’re there to fix it.”
“How do you get around not speaking the language?” asked Danny.
“I have a hearing aid,” said Nuri. “I pretend I’m hard of hearing, and I use MY-PID. Used to do it in Africa all the time. Plus my Romanian is getting better. Same language.”
The computer continued to churn through various bank records, first looking for obvious connections like direct transfers, then gradually becoming more esoteric. It looked for accounts that had similar usage patterns, but the only thing it could identify was an account used by GazProm, the Russian energy company, which made large transfers to cover payroll. No other accounts had received large transfers from the Russian account, and the only transactions the Moldovan bank account had on record, aside from interest payments and fees, were cash withdrawals.
“They probably use other banks,” said Nuri. “This just happens to be the one account we found.”
“Or this is all the money they get.”
“Maybe,” admitted Nuri. “But Moreno paid a hell of a lot more than this.”
“Maybe their agent takes a cut.”
“Hefty cut.”
“Subject Mercedes sighted,” reported MY-PID.
Nuri hit the keys on the laptop and pulled up the image, which was beamed from the fire hydrant. The car turned left instead of right — away from the house.
“Love to bug the car,” said Nuri.
“Oughta bug the Russian spymaster’s house instead,” said Danny.
“Probably already is.”
Nuri looked up at Danny.
“Shit,” he said. Then he grabbed his sat phone to see if he was right.
21
“I didn’t mean to have an argument with you,” Zen told Breanna after they put Teri to bed.
“It’s OK,” said Breanna, sitting down on the couch. The flowers he’d bought were sitting on the coffee table.
“You’re under a lot of pressure at work. I know. It’s gotta be — it’s a difficult assignment.”
“Mmmmm.” She picked up a magazine and began leafing through it.
Zen recognized her mood. It was as if she was bruised all over, and touching her anywhere would hurt. Yet he felt compelled to do something, to reach across the distance between them.
“I had lunch with Daly and Sullivan today,” he said, searching his brain for some anecdote that might be even distantly funny. “The dynamic duo. Sullivan was eating this bacon cheeseburger. Didn’t he vote in favor of the fat tax last year?”
Breanna shrugged.
“I think he did. His party suggested it,” added Zen. “What are you reading?”
Breanna held it up so he could see the cover.
“In the mood for some decorating?” he asked.
“Not really.”
“The hallway could use a new coat of paint.”
She didn’t answer.
“Remember when we painted the apartment?” he asked.
It was a preaccident memory, which put it in a special category, potentially touchy for either one of them. But it was also a happy memory, the two of them working together at a time when they were both very much in love — way beyond that, completely infatuated with each other, unable to get enough of each other’s words and bodies.
“Jeez — what was the color?” he said, growing nostalgic. “Peach or something? Mauve. Something that I would have never thought would be a good color.”
“You’re not really much on color.”
“I don’t have your color sense,” Zen admitted, trying to push through the small opening. “Not at all.”
Breanna put down the magazine.
“You’re still going to Kiev?”
“Well, yeah,” he said.
“I have to go to Brown Lake at the end of the week. Did you remember?”
Brown Lake Test Area was the Technology Office’s facility at Dreamland, part of the expanded complex there. Dreamland itself was an Air Force command; the Technology Office was both a contractor and a customer, and kept a small contingent at leased space there. Zen guessed she was going for the demonstration of one of her projects, though she kept the actual identity of the project itself secret, even from him.
“Sure,” he said, though in fact the date had slipped from his memory. “Are you taking Teri with you?”
“I can’t. You know that.”
“She can come with me, then,” he said.
“Jeff—”
“Actually, I had a thought about leaving a day or two early and stopping in Prague—”
“Prague?”
“There’s an air show. Teri’ll love it.”
“You can’t take her, Jeff.”
“Why can’t I?”
“She has school.”
“Ah, school.”
“It’s too dangerous — didn’t you hear anything I told you the other day?”
The last thing he would ever do was put his daughter in danger. The suggestion that Teri go with him was just a spur of the moment thought, something that just popped into his head. Had he thought about it, he might have rejected it himself. But Breanna’s sharp retort put him on the defensive.
“There’s going to be plenty of security in Kiev,” he said.
“That’s not the point.”
“Hey, it’s not a problem. She doesn’t have to go. Caroline can stay here.”
Caroline was Breanna’s niece, a college-age student who lived nearby and often babysat for them.
“I don’t know if she can,” said Breanna.
“Well then her mom can. You know there won’t be a problem.”
“I don’t know that at all.”
“Hey, I have an idea,” said Zen. “What if Caroline and Teri came with me to Prague, and stayed there while I went to Kiev? That would be great for Caroline, right? She’d love it. The art? Right up her alley. I’m going to call her right now.”
“You really want to take Teri out of school?”
“To visit Prague? In a heartbeat.”
“I don’t know what gets into you sometimes.” Breanna practically leapt off the couch, stalking past him to the kitchen.
Zen took a deep breath, struggling to keep his own anger in check. Prague wasn’t a bad idea at all — he’d only be away from the girls for a day and a half, at most. Caroline had gone with them to Hong Kong just the year before, spending two days alone with Teri while he and Breanna flew to Macau on a secret government mission for the State Department.
More like a secret junket, since it only consisted of having lunch with a hard-to-deal-with Chinese trade official, but that wasn’t the point. Caroline and Teri would be fine.
