She was stooped over and looked even older than she was. “Hera?”
The guard turned, still holding Hera’s hand.
“What are you doing with my granddaughter?” asked McEwen in Ukrainian.
“She is trespassing down a restricted corridor.”
“A restricted corridor? In a museum?”
“This is not just a museum.”
McEwen walked close to him, practically touching his shirt, then pitched her head back to look into his face.
“I sent her to find the restroom,” she said. “Perhaps you could help us.”
The guard let go of Hera’s arm. She rubbed it — he’d clamped it so hard it hurt.
“That way. Out there,” he said, pointing.
“Are you married?” asked McEwen.
“Yes.”
“Too bad. My granddaughter is from America,” she added.
“You must go back. Get out of this corridor.”
“Of course, of course,” said McEwen. She put her hand to her side. “I do have a cramp.”
“A cramp?”
“Could you help me?” she asked. “Just walk me to the restroom.”
As the guard bent toward McEwen, Hera took a step to the side and put her hand against the wall, pushing the small video bug into the fire hose assembly, then closed the door. She caught up with McEwen and the guard just as they reached the main corridor.
“You must not come down here again,” warned the guard, pointing them toward the ladies’ room.
“No, no, of course.”
“You can make it?”
“My granddaughter will help.” McEwen smiled at him. “You are sure you are taken?”
“Thanks,” said Hera after he’d gone.
“Don’t mention it. I almost got you a date.”
“That would have been something.”
“Ukrainian men are very considerate,” said the older woman. “Don’t be so quick to judge. I thought your MY-PID system would warn you.”
“It did. Too late.”
McEwen smiled, and shook her head gently.
“What?” asked Hera.
“You put too much trust in electronics,” she said.
“MY-PID’s pretty useful.”
McEwen shrugged.
“You don’t think…?”
“By the time we see anything important, it’ll be too late,” said McEwen. “You can’t replace humans.”
“These don’t.”
“Human intelligence,” said McEwen, her tone almost one of incantation. “Should we look at some paintings?”
“I have one more to place.”
“Then we’ll start with the baroque.”
“The electronics don’t replace humans,” said Hera defensively as they walked into a gallery area. Now that she wasn’t acting, McEwen’s pace was strong, as swift as Hera’s. “They let us do more.”
“In some ways. Not in others. You have to be careful, Hera. You can’t let them be crutches. Sometimes you need a little old lady in the back of the alleyway to help you out.”
“I don’t disagree.”
“You don’t think he was cute?”
“His breath smelled like stale sardines.”
“That could be fixed.”
24
Communications from the Russian embassy were routinely monitored and translated, but the private homes of the leading members of the mission were not. Nuri had Reid put the request in; it wasn’t clear how long it would be before it was executed, let alone what it might yield.
Getting approval to bug the house itself — absolutely necessary in the case of a diplomat, Nuri knew — would take at least several days at best; by then the Kiev meeting would be over. He wasn’t sure it was worth the risk.
So for now their best bet was to concentrate on the doctor. They set up more video bugs in the area, enough so MY-PID could track his car to the main road. Then they rented two more cars, so they could wait in either direction to follow him. It wasn’t an ideal setup, but Nuri figured that it would give them a good chance at sticking a tracker on the doctor’s car. Once they had that, MY-PID would take over entirely, watching him as he moved around the city.
Danny, though, was getting impatient. Three more of his people — Sergeant Clar “Sugar” Keeb, Paulie Christen, and a tech specialist named Gregor Hennemann — were due to arrive in Kiev by nightfall to help McEwen and Hera. He knew he ought to get there himself, to make sure everything was set up. He also had to make the final call on whether to work with the NATO and local security. At the moment he was leaning toward doing so.
Sugar was a covert CIA op like Hera, though different from her in almost every way. A little older, with a much more easygoing personality, she had become something of a big sister to most of the newbies.
Christen was a surveillance and security expert who’d been recruited from the FBI right after the team’s first mission. While Danny and Boston had a great deal of experience in security, they hadn’t set up pure surveillance networks, and Danny thought the operation in Africa and Iran could have gone smoother with more help.
Hennemann was a technical whiz kid who’d come to Whiplash from the NSA. There wasn’t a computer in the world he couldn’t hack into or rewire. Neither Hennemann nor Christen were what was generally referred to as “shooters”—weapons-oriented team members. Danny would have to decide whether to bring more on, and when. He couldn’t make that assessment, or felt he couldn’t, from Chisinau.
Unless, of course, they caught the Wolves here.
“Hey, he’s coming at you,” said Nuri over the team radio. “You see him?”
Danny glanced in his mirror, waiting.
“He should be just about to you,” added Nuri.
A black Mercedes swept into view. Danny had to wait for two more cars to pass before he could get out, but the Mercedes was still in view.
“Heading toward the city on 581,” said Danny.
“I’ll be behind you in a few minutes,” said Nuri.
“Flash?” said Danny.
“I’m down on Stefan cel Mare, the big cross street.”
“Cut over.”
“Yeah, well, you should see the damn traffic down here. Looks like every car in the country is in front of me. They got some sort of construction going on, and a cop’s directing traffic.”
“Did you see his face?” Nuri asked.
“No,” said Danny. They still didn’t have an image.
The jam-up actually helped them. The doctor got bogged down in traffic a half mile from the city limits. He
