Chapter 6
Chapter 6
Fearghas slipped into the trousers Catya had found for him and pulled the sweatshirt over his head.
He ran his hands over his clothes. As Catya had predicted, they were drying fast. After adjusting the jacket and trousers to allow other areas of the fabric to dry, he turned his boots around and moved them closer to the stove.
He didn’t have to look to know Catya lay awake, her gaze following him around the room.
“Sleep,” he said. “I’ll wake you if anything comes through.”
“Lay with me,” she said softly.
He shook his head. “You need to sleep. If I join you on that bed, neither of us will sleep. I’ve got first watch. At least close your eyes and rest, even if you don’t fall asleep.”
She sighed and did as he suggested. A few minutes later, she opened her eyes. “I’m not sleepy.”
“I’m not talking to you.” He pulled out one of the chairs and sat facing away from her.
Every fiber of his being wanted to do as she’d asked and join her in the bed.
He had to be strong for both of them. If he laid down, they’d make love again. Afterward, he might fall asleep and miss an important message, maybe even a warning that trouble was coming.
No. He had to remain vigilant.
After thirty minutes of stubborn silence, he glanced over his shoulder to find Catya sound asleep, her chest rising and falling in deep, even breaths.
He sighed. Further temptation avoided.
For the hundredth time, he checked the laptop for any messages.
Nothing.
Fearghas pushed to his feet and stretched his arms over his head, working the kinks out of his back. He could never work a desk job. He needed to keep moving.
He checked the satellite phone to ensure the ringer was turned on, then lifted his cell phone. It appeared dry enough on the outside. He pressed the button to turn the phone on and waited, holding his breath.
After a long pause, the screen lighted up, and the phone sprang to life. He immediately checked his text messages.
Ace: The team flew back to Zurich this afternoon. If you need backup, Dmytro’s plane is available. We can be there in a few hours.
Fearghas nodded. That they were back from Jordan was good to know. He and Catya might need their support if things got much worse.
The second text was from Hank Patterson.
Patterson: Spoke with Dmytro. Passed information to Swede back in Montana. Like Dmytro, he’s got his feelers out looking for Atkins and more information about the disk's contents. More info as we get it. Stay safe.
Fearghas liked that his boss and his boss’s boss had checked in and offered to help. He and Catya were not alone in the effort to find Atkins, the disk and discover the source of the problems.
With little else to occupy his time, he searched the internet for the names he knew of the people involved in the mission that had almost killed Catya.
He started with Gia Rosolino, the woman Catya had been sent to kill. When he entered her name in the search bar, the screen filled with several Gia Rosolinos. He looked at each until he found the daughter of Rocco Rosolino, owner and CEO of Rosolino Industries, specializing in international commerce and logistics.
He found few mentions of Rosolino’s daughter. One congratulated her on being named teacher of the month at a preschool in a community outside Florence, Italy. The other mentioned her with a group of volunteers visiting the elderly at a nursing home.
Catya was right. Gia didn’t seem to be the kind of target the MI6 would want to eliminate.
He turned his attention to Rocco Rosolino. He found the man’s obituary. He was survived by an only child, Gia Rosolino. Another article mentioned the fire at Rocco Rosolino’s house and that the owner of Rosolino’s Industries had died in that fire, making it seem as though the fire had killed the man.
Catya had told him Rocco had suffered a gunshot wound to the head before his house had burned to the ground and that he’d facilitated illegal arms shipments before his untimely death.
If he’d been involved in illicit arms deals, he might have compiled a list of buyers and sellers. If that list was released to the public or governmental organizations, it could cause an uproar or point to key individuals who’d prefer to keep their involvement a secret.
Why would Rocco’s daughter have that kind of information on a disk, and how would anyone have found out about it?
Unless she’d contacted an organization she’d thought she could trust to hand it over.
If she had been as she’d appeared on the surface—a sweet preschool teacher and volunteer—turning over a damaging list of players in the illegal arms trade would make sense.
If her status as a preschool teacher and volunteer was nothing more than a cover for her real job of supporting her father in his illicit affairs, she might have put the disk up for auction to the highest bidder. Such an act would have brought a shitload of bad guys out of the woodwork to get their hands on that data.
Discovering Gia’s motivation wouldn’t help the dead woman, but it might help them determine who was pulling the strings and why MI6 got involved.
He moved on to query Peter Atkins of MI6. Fearghas didn’t expect to find much on the agent. Like the CIA, MI6 agents didn’t broadcast their affiliation with their spy organizations.
Like Gia Rosolino, several Peter Atkins from the UK came up in his search. One was a general surgeon at a prestigious hospital in London. Another worked as a stevedore on the Felixstowe docks on the southeast shore of England.
A stevedore could be a good cover for a spy with access to ships coming into the UK from all over the world. Fearghas dug deeper. This Atkins managed stevedores, which meant he wouldn’t have time away from the job to conduct missions for MI6. His employees would notice.
Fearghas moved on to the next Peter Atkins. He found an image of a Peter Atkins with what appeared to be his grown daughter in front of Trinity University. She held up a T-shirt emblazoned with the Trinity logo, proudly announcing her acceptance into the university.
When he followed that Peter Atkins, the trail led to a man who worked for a real estate company. There was no mention of a wife or other children. Peter and his daughter lived in London.
Fearghas made a screenshot of the photo of Peter Atkins and his daughter and then glanced at his watch.
Catya had been asleep for four hours. The sun would rise in another hour. He’d hoped they’d hear something by then. If they didn’t find Atkins, Catya would insist on showing up for the exchange in Bruges empty-handed.
Whoever showed up would know something. At the moment, they had nothing and nowhere to start digging.
Fearghas would prefer to whisk Catya away to some quiet island where they could start over and make a new life together.
He glanced at the sleeping woman.
Maybe she’d consider it once they found Atkins, retrieved the disk and discovered who had authorized the hit on Gia.
Fearghas stayed on the internet, reading news stories from around the world.
Venezuela continued to implode, with fighting breaking out between the military government in power and civilian rebels tired of being wrongfully persecuted and suppressed.
A resurgence of ISIS attacks on Syrian cities had NATO in talks on how to respond.
Fighting continued between warring factions in several countries scattered across Africa.
He’d shut down the news sites after reading too many articles about everything wrong in the world when a message came through on Catya’s laptop.
He read it, frowning.
Take a chance. Today’s a date. Join me where the almond blossoms bloom ASAP, and don’t be late. It could be our last chance.
The note was signed U.S.
He turned, hating to wake the Russian woman sleeping peacefully with a hand tucked beneath her chin. But he’d promised to wake her if any messages came through.
Though this message was confusing, he needed to wake her.
“Catya,” he called out softly.
She sat up instantly, the sheet and blanket falling down around her waist, exposing her naked breasts.
Fearghas’s groin tightened. He tamped down his automatic response to her lovely curves and nodded toward the laptop. “You have a message. I’m not sure what it means. It seems to be gibberish. Maybe you can make sense of it.”
She swung her legs over the side of the bed, detoured to the wardrobe, snagged jeans and a T-shirt and carried them over to where Fearghas sat in front of the open laptop.
Catya leaned over the monitor and read the words, frowning. “I don’t know what that means. No one has ever tried to ask me out on a date through this message application.”
“How is your messaging account used?” Fearghas asked. “Is it a social media platform where anyone can message you?”
She nodded. “I use it to pass messages to some of my contacts and to receive messages back. But this—” she shook her head, “—might take a minute to understand.”
“Could ‘U.S.’ stand for the United States?” Fearghas asked.
Catya shook her head. “Take a chance? Could it mean someone I don’t know or trust?”
“I assume today is self-explanatory,” Fearghas said.
Catya nodded, frowning. “Join me where almond blossoms bloom.”
Fearghas’s gut clenched. Was some bastard trying to hit on Catya? He pushed back on his desire to hit something. “It doesn’t make sense to mention almond blossoms and ASAP. Does that mean he wants you to meet you in a field?”
Catya shook her head. “There’s urgency in this message. Meeting in a field of almond blossoms could take time for us to locate..”
“He said meet me where the almond blossoms bloom ,” Fearghas pointed out. “Do you know of any fields of almond blossoms nearby?”
Catya’s eyes widened. “No, but I do know a place where almond blossoms bloom .” She smiled.
Fearghas didn’t see what Catya saw. “I don’t understand.”
“Amsterdam is famous for several museums,” Catya said. “One of which is the Van Gogh Museum.”
Fearghas’s brow lifted. “The Almond Blossoms painting is one of his most famous paintings. I’m supposed to meet in front of Van Gogh’s painting by that name. ASAP means as soon as possible.”
“The museum doesn’t open until nine o’clock,” Catya said.
Solving the riddle in the message didn’t make Fearghas feel better. “The main question I have is who sent the message?”
Catya’s frown was back. “U.S.”
Fearghas shrugged. “Uncle Sam?”
Catya shook her head. “I don’t know anyone with the initials U.S.”
“Maybe it’s not his name,” Fearghas said. “Perhaps it’s the initials of where he’s from. Like the U.S.”
“I don’t know anyone from the U.S. who would send me a message to meet with him at the Van Gogh Museum,” Catya said. “It worries me that someone knows I’m close enough to get there by the time it opens at nine.”
“Another setup?” Fearghas’s fists clenched.
“It’s possible,” she said.
The satellite phone rang, making Fearghas jump. He grabbed the device and received the call, tapping the speaker button so Catya could hear.
“Fearghas?” Dmytro’s voice boomed.
“Tell me you found Atkins,” Fearghas said.
“Not his exact location, just the city,” Dmytro said. “I ran facial recognition software on all the major airports and train stations. I got a hit a few minutes ago.”
“He’s in Amsterdam,” Catya stated, her lips pressing into a tight line.
“That’s right,” Dmytro said. “You already knew this?”
“Catya got a cryptic message a few minutes ago on her computer.” He read the message aloud, “ Take a chance. Today’s a date. Join me where the almond blossoms bloom ASAP, and don’t be late. It could be our last chance. U.S.”
“Is U.S. an alias for Peter Atkins?” Dmytro asked.
Catya’s gaze met Fearghas’s, and the corners of her mouth tipped upward in the closest she’d come to a smile since he’d arrived. “Actually, it is,” she said. “I didn’t want a partner on the job. I made that clear to Atkins. U.S. stands for Unwanted Sidekick. It’s Atkins. He wants us to meet him at the Van Gogh Museum when it opens at nine o’clock.”