The Take(73)

“No,” she said aloud, standing taller. Emotions lied. Emotions deceived. Like people, they were not to be trusted. Her loyalty was to the PJ, not Riske. Her first order of business was to call the lieutenant and tell him everything she knew about Coluzzi, so he might alert their counterparts in Marseille. Consequences be damned. She would atone for her sins and finish her punishment with equanimity and grace.

And then? Sooner or later someone would bring in Coluzzi. The thought of another benefiting from her efforts made her sick to her stomach.

“No,” she said again, louder this time. “This one is mine.”

The answer had been there all along. She would use Riske as he was using her. Next time there would be no question whose name would be listed at the top of the arrest report.

Happier now that she’d decided on a course of action, Nikki climbed out of the shower, dried her hair, and dressed for the day. She glanced at her un-smiling, un-dreamy reflection in the mirror. She liked what she saw. A cold, calculating professional.

Reaching for her pistol, she looked once more at the half-filled overnight bag sitting on the floor.

And Riske?

Nikki grabbed her dress from the armoire and threw it in her overnight bag, along with her pistol and ammunition.

Que será, será.

She had fifteen minutes to get to the Gare de Lyon.





Chapter 41



Did you get the numbers?” Barnaby Neill asked a technician seated at an electronics console in the mobile surveillance center. “Send them to NSA lickety-split.”

“Already done, sir. Confirmed receipt. Substation Five. Western Europe.”

“Make sure the duty officer patches us into their feed in real time. If these phone numbers really are Coluzzi’s, I don’t want to wait to find out about it. I want to hear every word he says, as he says it.”

Neill stood up to stretch, careful not to hit his head against the roof. The van was a Mercedes Sprinter with blacked-out windows and fitted with a standard surveillance package. There was a StingRay, similar to Simon’s, if many times more powerful, a directional microphone hidden beneath the van’s opaque turret, high-def cameras linked to facial-recognition software, and much, much more. All with direct access to the new combined intelligence database code-named “Beast,” which linked together the combined resources of the CIA, the Pentagon, the FBI, and a dozen other three-letter agencies, including the DEA, ICE, NGA, and IRS. It had taken 9/11, fifteen years of haggling, dozens of false starts, and twenty billion dollars, but the United States intelligence and law enforcement communities were finally functionally integrated.

Ten years earlier, he’d needed a month to shepherd a request for information from one agency to another. Today, he could do it in a few seconds from an automobile traveling at eighty miles per hour along a highway three thousand miles from Washington, DC. That, concluded Neill, was progress.

“What can you do with the picture?” he asked a second tech seated on the opposite side of the van.

The technician brought up the photograph of the Russian woman taken in the lobby of Falconi’s apartment building. He cropped the photo close to her face, then applied a variety of filters and sharpeners, serving to amplify and clarify the pixel count. When he’d finished, he had a near-perfect, full-frontal portrait. “That’s as good as we’re going to get.”

“Pretty little thing, isn’t she?”

“Better than the girls I was at the Farm with.”

The Farm being the CIA’s training compound in rural Virginia.

“Hush,” said Neill. “That’s unpatriotic. Let’s see if she shows up in any of our registries.”

“May take a minute.”

The van hit a bump and Neill put out a hand to steady himself. He walked forward to the driving cabin. “Everything ready for our departure.”

“The bird is on the tarmac. Flight crew aboard and waiting.”

“Outstanding.”

“Sir,” called the photo tech. “We have a hit.”

“I’m listening.”

“Valentina Asanova. Ph.D. candidate in electrical engineering at Moscow State University. Graduate of the foreign intelligence school. Assigned to Directorate S, Department 9. First spotted in Dubai 2008, as part of the team believed to have assassinated a key fund-raiser for Hezbollah. Suspected of taking part in that car bombing in Sana’a in 2016.”

“That mess?” An extremist group backed by the Russians had detonated a car bomb in the center of a large religious gathering near the Yemeni capital, killing over two hundred people. The problem had been that the gathering was a wedding when the intended target was attending a funeral.

“Last known assignment to be in Mumbai. Officially retired from duty last year. Reputation as being reckless with no regard for collateral damage.”

Neill wrung his hands. Oh, Vassily, he thought. We’ve got you hook, line, and sinker. “Looks like she’s back, though I’m betting it’s unofficially. Did Mr. Riske provide her number as well?”

“He did.”

“Let’s see where she’s hiding.”

The technician input Valentina Asanova’s phone number into his computer. The number was sent to the National Security Agency at Fort Meade, Maryland, where it was surreptitiously uploaded to a satellite operated by Russphon, the handset’s service provider. The satellite “pinged” the number. Less than a second later, the GPS coordinates of the handset appeared on the screen, along with an address. “She’s presently at the Gare de Lyon.”