Vision Impossible (30 page)

Ah, Frost. Ever the optimist.

“The pen with the green cap is an electronic scrambler. If you’re in a position to make an escape, twist the cap and hide it anywhere within five feet of Boklovich’s digital command center. It will turn all his video surveillance monitors to snow and give you guys the opportunity to get out of there without being tracked by camera.”

“How will we even know where his command center is?” I asked.

“It will likely be somewhere in the center of his compound, inside the main building. You and Dutch will have to do some surveillance on your own to find it.”

I looked uneasily at Dutch. He mouthed, “It’s okay” to me, but I hardly felt better. This mission was proving to be far more complicated than I’d ever imagined.

“Carry the pens on your person at all times,” Frost said to us.

I put the pen in my pocket and hoped I’d never have to use it.

Next, Frost pulled out what looked like two small manicure cases. Unzipping them, he revealed the usual toenail clippers, cuticle scissors, and nail file. Mandy leaned in, looking especially interested. “Where’s mine?” she demanded.

Frost ignored her and focused on me and Dutch. “Pull out the clippers and the back panel will open,” he said, demonstrating by removing the clippers and revealing a small tab that allowed the lining of the case to be removed. Behind the panel were several small syringes, lined up neatly and held in place by thin elastic bands. My stomach flipped over. I knew exactly what those were. “How many shots would we need?” I asked.

“Two,” he said. “And they must be delivered in quick succession within a minute or two of getting hit.”

“Are those drugs?” Mandy asked, her eyes large and immediately interested.

Frost turned to her, completely out of patience, and said, “You may be excused, Mandy.”

Mandy stuck her tongue out at him and clomped off loudly to her bedroom, leaving her pen behind. Frost eyed it with such irritation that I picked it up and said, “I’ll make sure she holds on to it.”

Frost looked like he was working to rein in his temper, and after a minute he said, “I wish we didn’t need her. But she’s the only one who can help cover Rivers here as Des Vries.”

“It’ll be okay,” I told him, only half sure it would be.

“Is there anything else?” Dutch asked, trying to get the briefing back on track.

“Yes, two things,” Frost said. “First, I got a call this morning from the agent leading the investigation into whomever hacked into the drone’s flight path to fly it over the border. We believe it was someone named Diedrich Wyngarden. He’s a rather infamous hacker based in Holland, but we think he may have been on the move recently, and we think we’ve discovered an alias he uses here in Canada.”

“Wyngarden,” I said. Why did that name sound so familiar?

“Is he Anna’s brother?” Dutch asked.

“Cousin,” Frost told him.

“Wait, who?” I asked, still having trouble recalling the name.

“Anna Wyngarden was the girl Des Vries is thought to have murdered, and the reason he fled Holland,” Frost reminded me.

My jaw fell open. “That cannot be a coincidence!”

“Exactly what we were thinking, and that explains why you thought there was some connection between the drone theft and Des Vries. We think Diedrich set up the heist to make it appear Des Vries took the drone, so that we’d go after him. The fact that Des Vries got nabbed by the Israelis was an unforeseen coincidence, and we doubt that Diedrich even knows about it.”

I looked at Dutch. “Which means that Dutch’s life is in serious danger if Diedrich shows up at the auction, because either he’ll expose Dutch as an impostor or he’ll buy the disguise and try to kill Dutch to avenge his cousin.”

“Yes,” Frost said simply.

“You guys have a handle on where Diedrich might be?” Dutch asked.

“No, and that’s what’s so troubling. Our guys have been able to trace his signature hacking tags right up until ten days ago; then nothing. It’s like he’s gone completely radio silent, which is highly unusual for this guy. He hacks compulsively, but now we can’t find his signature anywhere.”

“What’s his connection to Kozahkov and the Chechen Mafia?” I asked.

Frost sighed. “So far, we can’t find a connection,” he admitted. “Viktor did say he was contacted by a newcomer,” Dutch reminded us.

I had an unsettling feeling about all of this. Something didn’t fit, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

“In any case,” Frost continued, pulling up a picture and showing it to us, “you’ll need to be on the lookout for this guy.”

I stared at the image. “No, we won’t.”

“Yes, you will,” Frost insisted. “This is Diedrich Wyngarden.”

“No,” I told him. “
That
is a dead man who
used
to be Diedrich Wyngarden.”

Frost turned the picture around to look at it. “How do you know he’s dead?” he asked me.

I tapped my temple. “It’s one of the many perks of my particular talent,” I told him. “If you show me a photograph, I always know when someone’s dead, and that guy has definitely expired.”

“Shit,” said Frost. “Then we’ve got another player in this and no idea who it is.”

“Which is right where we were before we knew about Diedrich,” Dutch pointed out. “I say we move forward with the plan, Frost.”

Our handler nodded and got on with the briefing by handing us each a small compass and a map with a grid. “We know that Boklovich has an electronic scrambler of his own over most of his compound, so using your cell phones will be impossible. If you use the homing pens, you’ve got to get outside of the compound’s perimeter. Their signal strength is good enough to get through the scrambler from about fifty yards outside the walls, but you won’t be able to get a clear signal on your cells for several miles beyond that. If you activate the pens, try to follow the coastline on the east side of the island to this location.” Frost pointed to a small section of the aerial map that had almost nothing but green around it. Faintly, however, when I looked closer, I could detect another patch of light green, as if the area was a large clearing near the water. “This is another unused airstrip,” Frost said. “We should be able to drop in a helicopter or small plane to retrieve you if the worst happens.”

My radar pinged when Frost said those words, but I didn’t say what was circling around in my brain, which essentially was,
Expect the worst.

 

 

L
ater, as I was packing, Frost found me and came into the bedroom to have a private chat. “You up for this, Cooper?”

My hands were shaking a little, and I had the most foreboding feeling about going on this mission, but what could I do? If I backed out, I knew Dutch would carry on, and sending him in alone was sending him to his death; of that I was positive. “I’m up for it,” I told him hoarsely.

He was silent for a time, watching me pack, and I had to admit that his company actually helped to calm me. “You’re attracted to Grinkov,” he said suddenly, and the calm I’d been feeling left in a flash.

I even dropped the sweater I’d been holding.
“What?”

Frost had a slight smile at the corners of his mouth; he knew he’d hit a nerve. “I’ve heard the two of you together,” he said. “It’s obvious that you’re attracted to him, and that you like him in spite of who he is.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I just reached down and grabbed the sweater, turning away to refold it for my suitcase. “You can use that to your advantage,” he added, and it felt like he was trying to goad me.

I rounded on him, angry and defensive. “What do you want me to say, Frost? I mean, how can I even respond to something like that? You saw what he did to Dutch! You know he’s a ruthless criminal! How could you accuse me of being attracted to someone like
that
?”

Frost’s eyes clouded with something unexpected. If I had to guess, I’d say it was regret. “You were right about my wife,” he said softly.

I blinked. “Wait. . . . What?”

“My wife, who was murdered,” he explained. “She was killed by the man who’d recruited her for the FSB.”

“What’s the FSB?” I said, still blinking and trying to catch up.

“Its former name was the KGB.”

I sat down on the bed, clutching the sweater. “Your wife was a double agent?”

Frost nodded. “Yes.”

“And you found out about it?”

“Yes.”

Neither one of us spoke for several seconds. Finally, I told him what I thought. “Your energy is suggesting that you betrayed her in some way.”

Frost looked steadily at me, but I didn’t think he was actually seeing me as much as he was seeing what unfolded with his wife so many years ago. “I was going to turn her in,” he admitted. “And I made the fatal mistake of hinting that I was going to do that. She told her superiors, who decided that she was too much of a risk to keep alive. She was run down outside of our home early the next morning. We never found the car and we never officially learned who ordered the hit, but I know that I caused her death, and it kills me just a little bit every single day.”

In that moment I felt terribly sorry for Frost, especially now that I’d gotten to know him and found him to be a really decent man. “Why are you telling me this now?”

His eyes came back to focus on me again. “Because, Cooper, I wanted you to understand that it’s possible to be attracted to your enemy. Hell, you can even love them, and still find a way to do the right thing. It’s hard, but it’s not impossible.”

I smiled sadly at him. “Okay, Frost. I get it.”

He stood and came over to me. “A lot of this hinges on you, you know.”

“No pressure, though, right?”

He squeezed my shoulder and left.

D
utch, Mandy, and I met Grinkov at the small Bishop Airport, where his private jet was docked. Eddington was there to help us load our baggage and see us onto the plane. I’d dressed casually in a pair of camel pants and an ivory sweater coat with faux rabbit-fur collar, and I was relieved to see Grinkov dressed in jeans and a navy blue blazer with a crisp white shirt. Dutch . . . I mean
Rick
was similarly attired in jeans and a brown tweed sport coat, while Mandy was in her usual hoochie skirt, six-inch stilettos, and tight pink sweater.

Her skinny knees were bright red from the cold—it was unseasonably chilly—and her teeth chattered as she boarded the plane. Still, I had to give her some credit; she was hanging all over my fiancé as if he were her one and only true love. Dutch was doing a great job of masking his distaste, which I picked up on my radar, but wasn’t otherwise visually apparent.

Remembering Frost’s words to me, I chose to sit near the front, where I guessed Grinkov would be, and I was happy that he did in fact choose the seat right next to mine.

“Are you comfortable?” Maks asked when he’d settled in.

I felt my pulse quicken. Sweet Jesus, he was sexy. To distract myself, I looked around the luxurious interior filled with roomy creamy leather seats and polished wood. “Very much so, thank you.”

The captain came on board then and nodded to Grinkov, who nodded back. “We’ll be departing shortly, sir,” the captain told him.

“Excellent, Bruce,” Grinkov replied.

Eddington also appeared in the doorway, setting aside his walking stick to pull up the ladder and close the door before taking his seat in the back of the plane. I was a little surprised that Grinkov would bring his butler, but reasoned that Maks probably wanted to keep an eye on Eddington now that I’d pegged him for an art thief.

I still felt bad about that, but, at least I’d saved his life.

We were airborne shortly after that, and the moment we reached cruising altitude, Eddington began passing out flutes of champagne and serving us toast and caviar. I looked at the little black granules with barely hidden disgust and didn’t notice that Grinkov was eyeing me curiously. “You don’t like caviar?” he asked me.

I forced myself to smile. “It’s not really my favorite.”

Grinkov chuckled and removed the plate we were sharing from the table in front of us. “You should have mentioned it the other night,” he told me. “I would have prepared you something else.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I told him hastily. “I’m not very hungry.” Grinkov snapped his fingers, however, and Eddington appeared at his side. “Yes, sir?”

“Take this away and bring us something else, William.”

The tray was removed and I felt instantly better.

“Are you looking forward to the auction?” Grinkov asked me next.

I took a sip of champagne and resisted the urge to look over at Dutch. I had to keep mentally checking myself from glancing over at him to see how he was faring with Mandy. “I am.”

“Vasilii will want a demonstration,” he said, leaning in so that we couldn’t be overheard. “Is the software encoded?”