Crossing the Line (31 page)

Ethan drove straight to La Dorada and pretended to be checking for his mother. Flashing his FBI badge would make no difference if Katya wasn’t there. For twenty dollars the maitre d’ let him scan the reservations list. No Petrenko, Kusmin, or no-shows. Ethan was as certain as he could be that the restaurant had never been the destination.

He returned to the university, made Alice go through everything again and reduced her to tears.

“Have I done something wrong? I called you right away.”

“You did exactly the right thing. If you hadn’t, we wouldn’t even know she was missing.”

“Is she in trouble?”

“I hope not.” But the sick feeling in his gut told him she was.

“What shall I do with her violin?”

Ethan opened the case. Her cell phone was there, switched off. “Look after it for her. When she comes back, please call me.”

He still hoped it was “when” and not “if”.

Surveillance reported Kusmin hadn’t returned. It had been harder to set up a team to watch Petrenko’s place. They had one guy in the gatehouse, another gardening. When they claimed Petrenko hadn’t left his home, Ethan told them they were wrong and to call him the moment he got back. He had no one watching the new apartment. Tom had only given them the address that morning. Ethan took a chance and drove there. The girl who answered the intercom said Katya was at work.

Somehow, he’d fucked up.

* * * * *

A dumpster saved Katya. She pulled herself over the wall behind it, dropped into the parking lot of a car wash and ran to the nearest vehicle.

“Please help me. Two men are chasing me. I need to hide.”

The guy hesitated.

“Please.”

“Get in the back and lie down.”

She climbed in, closed the door and lay flat on the seat.

The drumming of the rollers on the car matched the beating of her heart. The blue plastic brushes swept down the sides of the vehicle and the car rocked under the onslaught. Water and suds obscured her view, although that didn’t mean to say no-one would be waiting when the car emerged at the other end.

“So what’s up?” The driver looked at her through his mirror.

“I threatened to tell my boss’s wife he was sleeping around and he’s sent two guys to persuade me not to.”

“You serious? Want me to call the police?”

“No. That’s not going to help.”

“Well, what you want to do? We aren’t going to be in here forever.”

Katya fingered the money in her pocket.

* * * * *

Ethan groaned when Luisa called for him to hold the elevator.

“Thanks.” As the doors closed, she moved closer. “You look hot.”

“Bad morning.”

“I bet you could do with a nice cold drink and a back massage.” She reached over and Ethan jerked away.

“For Christ’s sake, Luisa, I don’t want to go out with you. Leave it, okay?”

She burst into tears and the moment the doors opened, rushed down the corridor. Jack Bosman raised his eyebrows as she passed.
Fuck.

“Everything okay?” he asked.

“Just dandy.”

Back in his office, Ethan called in Tom and Lindy.

“Katya’s disappeared.” He tried not to let his panic show but every second that passed, she was more in danger. “Petrenko came to take her to lunch and according to Alice, she was reluctant to go. Katya asked Alice to tell Tom she might not be there for their meeting at two. Petrenko said she’d be back. She isn’t.”

“I hadn’t arranged anything,” Tom said. “But—”

“She mouthed my name to Alice. I checked the restaurant. They were never there.”

“Oh damn,” Tom muttered.

“It could be innocent,” Lindy said. “A long, late lunch somewhere else?”

Ethan wished he could believe that.

“She’s been abducted?” Tom asked.

“But why? What happened to tip him off? Tell me again what she gave you this morning, Tom.”

“Anna’s possessions. Proof of who she was, but no help in proving who killed her.”

“Have you looked at the disks?” Ethan asked.

“Not thoroughly. I mean, they’re porn.”

Ethan didn’t hide his irritation. “You should have checked them.”

“If there was something on them they don’t want seen and they know Katya took them, they might be trying to persuade her to say where they are,” Lindy said.

“Go and get them,” Ethan snapped.

* * * * *

Her savior turned out to be a Mexican angel. He’d taken her to a motel just off the turnpike on Golden Glades Drive.

Had she been right to run? She’d never trust Petrenko, especially with Kirill in the car. Natasha was trying to save her own skin and Katya had no idea where Aleksei had gone. Everything screamed at her to think before she did anything because the way she felt now, she was done. No more. She was too scared. It wasn’t the dying, it was the way she’d die. She lay on the bed with the world pressing down on her until she thought she’d suffocate. But even in her despair, she knew if she gave up now, Petrenko and Kirill were going to get away with murdering her sister.

* * * * *

Ethan loaded the first disk as the three of them sat around the desk.

“That’s Anna,” Tom said.

Anna smiled as she removed her clothes and then those of the man she was with.

Ethan pressed fast- forward several times. “Do you recognize the guy?”

“Maybe his ass,” Lindy said and they all gave a half-hearted laugh.

“Get a still from it. His face, not his ass, and try to ID him.” Ethan ejected that disk and put in another. “Ah, Valentina.”

Lindy sighed. “That guy works in the DA’s office.”

“Oh shit,” Ethan said.

The door opened and Revnik put his head around. “Got a minute?”

“Later.” Ethan’s finger hovered ready to change the screen. Revnik backed out again. “His name?”

“Jared Madison,” Lindy said.

Ethan checked the other disks, relieved to find nothing worse than a few demonstrations of unusual ways to gain sexual pleasure. Hardly suitable for general release, but no murders, torture, rape, underage participation and no one else they recognized.

Finally, he leaned back in his chair. “Thoughts, Tom?”

“Best case scenario, Katya was unnecessarily worried when she saw Petrenko, they went elsewhere for lunch and she’ll turn up for work later today or tomorrow.”

“The worst?” Ethan asked.

“She’s dead.”

His heart twisted in his chest. “What should we be doing?” He was keen to see if they could come up with something he hadn’t thought of.

“Continue surveillance on Kusmin’s house,” Lindy said, “and his downtown apartment, boat and the new place Natasha and Katya were in last night, plus Petrenko’s place. Then wait and see if she turns up at work.”

“If she’s in trouble, she has a number to call,” Tom added. “Assuming she’s memorized it.”

“If she’s being held, phoning isn’t an option,” Lindy said.

Tom nodded. “Nor if she’s dead.”

Ethan had to bite his lip to stop himself snapping at Tom.

“Could she have decided to disappear on her own?” Lindy asked. “This is a mammoth amount for her to deal with. Maybe she’s had enough. I mean she doesn’t see us as her saviors. We’re asking her to risk her neck by staying with Kusmin. She’s made it clear she doesn’t want him involved even though we all know that’s not possible. She might have decided not to go through with it. How did she seem this morning, Tom?”

“Fine. She handed me Anna’s documents and the disks, and asked if we’d done anything to find out who in the FSB tipped off Petrenko about her sister.”

“Your answer?” Ethan looked at him.

“We were working on it.”

“Are we?”

Tom shuffled. “Well, not exactly.”

“Maybe she heard that in your voice,” Ethan said.

“I don’t think she was getting ready to run,” Tom said defensively.

“I agree. If she’d planned to run she’d have taken her violin. If she
has
run, she was forced into it.” Ethan ran his fingers through his hair.

“Where could she go?” Tom asked.

“Your place?” Lindy glanced at Ethan. “It was just once she went there?”

Ethan didn’t miss the dig. “I already called my neighbor. She’s seen no sign of anyone. She’ll phone if she does.”

“So we wait?” Lindy asked.

Ethan nodded. And he’d pray to a God he didn’t believe in.

Ethan was still in the office long after almost everyone had gone home. He’d kept calling the teams watching all locations but there was no sign of Katya and every call he’d made left him pacing. Petrenko returned home at five. Ethan made it clear he wanted to know the moment he left. No mistakes. There’d been no sign of Kusmin. It was only that he’d disappeared before Katya that reassured him. The jet Kusmin regularly hired was on charter to a businessman and his family who’d flown to Orlando for a long weekend. The boat he owned was still in the marina with no one on board.
So where the hell is she?

Rubbing his eyes, he stared at his cell phone and willed her to call. He didn’t feel she was dead because he couldn’t accept it might be true. If anything else happened to her he’d blame himself. He should have had Petrenko under SOG surveillance from the beginning. His head ached, his stomach churned.

He wanted to wish he’d never slept with her in Paris, but he couldn’t. Even so, he knew he was behaving not just badly, but unprofessionally. If Katya ever revealed what he’d done, he’d be forced to lie about his intent.

When his phone rang, he snatched it up but the caller was unknown. “Yes?”

“It’s me,” Katya said.

“Oh Christ.” Ethan swallowed hard. “Where are you? What’s happened?”

“I had to run. I was scared they’d kill me. I’m in a motel – The Luxor – near the Turnpike, just off Golden Glades Drive. Room seventeen.”

“I’m coming.”

He was almost out of the door when he thought again and called Lindy and Tom, and then Frank.

“What the hell happened?” Frank asked.

“I don’t know yet. Only that she feared for her life.”

“Is she compromised?”

Ethan bristled. “Yeah, I’d think so.”

“I’m under pressure to treat the matter of the uranium with the greatest importance and urgency. We have to do everything we can not to let this slip through our fingers. Find out what happened and call me back.”

Ethan waited outside the motel for Lindy and Tom to arrive before he went up to the room. He watched her take in that he had company. Not disappointment but he wished it had been.

She sat on the bed and the three of them found places to perch away from her.

“What happened?” Ethan asked.

“Petrenko turned up to take me for lunch and told me Aleksei was with him, but it was Kirill. Petrenko wants me to persuade Aleksei to help with the uranium deal. If I refused, he said he’d tell Aleksei I stole Anna’s documents and the disks. Then I’d die.”

“Why didn’t you just agree?” Tom asked.

She looked straight at him. “Because I’d die anyway. Petrenko wants Aleksei to get rid of me to show he knows better.”

“How did you get away?” Lindy asked.

“Threw myself out of the car.”

Ethan’s heart lurched. “Shit, Katya.”

“I’m okay. I hid and got a lift here. But now I’m stuck. I have no money and nowhere to go.”

And no information. Shit.

“The uranium…” Ethan said.

She gave a short laugh. “You want me to go back and persuade Aleksei to agree to help his father sell the uranium. I can find out who, when and where, tell you and you tell your boss and he tells his boss and everyone lives happily ever after.”

Ethan sucked in his cheeks. Tom nodded.

“How will you explain where I’ve been? About the things of Anna’s I took?”

“We can fix it,” Tom said.

“How?” she asked.

Tom glanced at Ethan before he began to speak. “After you got away from Petrenko you found a cheap motel—here. You didn’t go out. The clerk will recognize your photo if asked, because he’ll be one of our agents. The disks you took from Natasha have been copied, Anna’s stuff too, and the originals can be taken back to the apartment and hidden with Natasha’s money. We can find a way in. When Kusmin or Petrenko find those, knowing you have no key, they won’t believe Natasha’s version of events. There’s also a copy of the disk of you and Max Hastings. We retrieved it from Nik’s computer. It takes more than a hammer to stop an expert reclaiming data from a hard drive.”

Tom glanced at Ethan. “Think it will work?”

“If it does, they’ll kill Natasha,” Katya said.

“She didn’t care they’d kill you,” Ethan said.

“I know the uranium is important to you. I understand why, but you have to promise me Petrenko will pay for what he did to my family.”

“Of course,” Lindy said.

“You want me to risk my life.”

“It’s your choice,” Lindy said.

Katya sighed. “The deal Petrenko is planning might or might not be something. Maybe there is no uranium or an old friend in Abkhazia, but there
is
a buyer and that’s dangerous for everyone. If I walk away and something happens, maybe some idiot drops a dirty bomb on a big city, you’ll feel guilty forever and you’ll blame me. And I’d feel guilty too. I’ll do what you say.”

Ethan had never felt so conflicted. Guilt choked him, along with anger and jealousy, but the bottom line was that he needed her to go back. He listened as Lindy and Tom ran through everything with her. The safest way to get her in place was for her to go into work on Monday and let Aleksei find her, rather than the other way round. Too risky to allow her to return to the new apartment in case Natasha called Petrenko.

“So how do I explain why I didn’t keep calling Aleksei?”

“You’ve called him since you’ve been here?” Lindy asked.

Katya nodded. “No answer.”

And Ethan knew if Aleksei
had
answered, they likely wouldn’t be here.

“The number will be on his phone,” Tom said. “He’ll call you back. The plan will still work.”

“I think it would be better if he didn’t get through,” Ethan said. “It’s going to make him more anxious about Katya, more pissed off with his father and maybe we can work on that and persuade him to cooperate with us. Get the phone line sorted, Tom.”