Chapter Twenty-Eight
After summoning Patrol to transport Henderson to HQ, Sam and Freddie returned to the Secret Service SUV.
“Why is it so utterly satisfying to see Gretchen Henderson—and her ex-husband—up to their eyeballs in shit on the same day?” Sam asked when they were in the back seat on the way home to the District.
“Because she screwed over your husband.”
“That must be it.”
“Of course that’s it. Anyone who crosses him crosses you, too.”
“Ain’t that the truth?”
Sam’s phone lit up with a text from Collins Worthy that had her groaning. When you have a moment, could you please give me a call?
“What now?” Freddie asked.
“My mother-in-law’s boyfriend wants me to call him.” On the top-ten list of people she didn’t want to deal with today, they were tied at number one.
“What’s up with that?”
“Hell if I know, and I don’t want to know. I’ve had a blissful couple of weeks with no word from the lovebirds, and I like it that way. Any time either of them resurfaces, they send my anxiety soaring.”
“Why is he the one contacting you instead of her?”
“He’s trying to rehabilitate her and knows neither of us wants to talk to her. He’s hoping for a reconciliation that simply isn’t going to happen. But hey, he can knock himself out trying to make her a better person. There’s plenty of room for improvement there.”
“It’s weird that he’s hitting you up right when news breaks that Nick had to fire his VP.”
“Their timing is always impeccable.”
“Will you call him?”
“Eventually, but only so they don’t bother Nick with whatever it is they want now. An encounter with his mother is the last thing in the universe he needs right now—or ever, for that matter.”
Dealing with them exhausted her, but she’d take one for the team to keep them far away from Nick. Any time his mother slithered out from under her rock, she sent him into a tailspin that he could ill afford at any time, especially now that he was consumed with cleaning up Henderson’s mess.
“You should just call him and get it over with, so you don’t have to dread it,” Freddie said.
“You’re right.”
“Could you say that again so I can record it for posterity?”
Snickers of laughter came from the front seat.
“You’re supposed to be on my side,” Sam reminded them.
“Always, ma’am,” Vernon said.
He called her that only when he was being cheeky. Lucky for him, his cheekiness was one of the things she loved best about him, along with his wit and sarcasm.
Sam flipped her phone open, found Collins’s contact and made the call, bracing herself for whatever fresh hell he’d launch her way.
“Hi, Sam, thanks so much for calling.”
The man was elegant, polite, successful and, as far as Sam could tell, far too good for her grifter of a mother-in-law, but hey, that was his problem, not hers. “What’s up?”
“I wanted to let you and Nick know that Nicoletta is in the hospital with pneumonia. It’s been rather touch and go the last few days. I thought you might like to know.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“She’s asking for Nick.”
Why did Sam know he was going to say that?
“Sam? Are you there?”
“I am. As you can imagine, this is a tough time for him. I’m not sure if he’ll be able to get there in light of current events. What hospital is she in?”
“Inova Fairfax ICU.”
“I’ll mention it to him, but I can’t promise anything. He’s due to leave on a trip and will be gone until Sunday morning.” Her heart sank at the thought of days without him around to make everything better.
“I understand. I wanted to pass the information along.”
“Thank you for calling.”
“No problem.”
“Collins…”
“Yes?”
“Are you all right?” Sam wasn’t sure why she asked, but he’d been nice to her in their previous dealings, and he sounded rough.
“It’s been a difficult few days. I thought I was losing her on Sunday, but she seems to have rallied somewhat. The doctors say it’s still hard to tell for sure if she’ll recover.”
“Well, make sure you’re taking care of yourself.”
“You sound like my daughter. She said I won’t be any good to Nicoletta if I let myself get sick, too.”
“She’s right.”
“Thank you for your kindness, Sam. I need to get back to her, but you take care, too.”
After they said their goodbyes, she closed the phone. “She’s in the ICU with pneumonia and asking for Nick.”
“Ugh,” Freddie said. “Just what he needs.”
“I know.”
“Will you tell him?”
“I suppose I have to. I mean, if she dies, I wouldn’t want him to have regrets—not that he has anything to regret where she’s concerned.”
“Agreed. You tell him, and what he does is up to him.”
“I just hate that mentioning her name messes him up. It’s hard to watch.”
“I get it. I’m sorry you have to deal with this on top of everything else.”
Sam sent him a text on the BlackBerry to ask him to call her when he got a break in the action.
As they approached HQ, Sam took in the view of the bombed-out front entrance to the building, which was roped off with yellow crime scene tape and swarming with federal agents working the scene. “Speaking of things that are hard to deal with.”
“No kidding, right?”
“That they’d have the nerve to bomb our building to steal a body…”
“How’d they get into the morgue, anyway?” Freddie asked. “You have to have an ID to get in there.”
“Maybe someone opened the door in the chaos, and they snuck in.”
“I want to ask Archie to pull the video on that.”
“He’s probably already done it.”
“I’m sure.”
“I hope Nick makes the Russians pay for this in every possible way,” Sam said.
“I have no doubt he’ll make them sorry they ever messed with us.”
“Mr. President, President Petrov is holding for you, sir.”
“Thank you.” Nick looked around the Situation Room where Graham, Teresa and the rest of the national security and intelligence team had gathered for the call.
“Put it through,” he said to Terry.
Petrov’s face appeared on the screen. “Mr. President, it is nice to see you,” he said in heavily accented English. Petrov, who was in his late fifties, with thinning blond hair and an often expressionless face, had been educated in London. As such, his English was excellent.
“Let’s not bother with bullshit. Your diplomatic team bombed my wife’s workplace yesterday, which is an act of war.”
“It was a misunderstanding at best.”
“Why did you want Ivanov’s body back badly enough to bomb MPD headquarters?”
“That order did not come from me. I’ve demanded an explanation for these events from the ambassador.”
“We’re going to want you to waive immunity so the bombers can be prosecuted here.”
“Now wait just a minute, Mr. President—”
“You wait just a minute. Your people bombed the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Department. Four people were killed, and the chief and deputy chief are in the hospital.”
“I am very unhappy about that, and they know it.”
“How unhappy do you think I am? Unless you want this to turn into a much larger issue than it already is between our two countries, you’ll waive immunity.”
“I’ll need to give that some thought.”
“Think quickly. What I don’t understand is why anyone from your embassy would want Ivanov’s body badly enough to risk hostilities with the United States to get him back.
Not to mention, he was initially dumped from a vehicle with diplomatic plates, which means they had him to begin with—and perhaps are the ones who killed him. ”
“From what I’ve been told, a lower-level staff member made two unfortunate decisions—first to dump the body and then to use a bomb to retrieve him. You have my apologies for these events. I have no desire to be in conflict with you or your government.”
Nick didn’t believe that for a second, but he wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth since he’d basically just confirmed that they had killed Ivanov. “Those people will be tried here.”
“We will ensure justice is done.”
“That’s not good enough for me. The American people will want to see them dealt with right here, and that will happen or the bombing will be treated as an act of war.”
After a long pause, Petrov said, “What will become of Ivanov’s body once your police are done with him?”
“That’ll be up to his family. Our State Department has been in touch with them about their wishes.”
“His followers are raising hell around the country and accusing me and my government of having him killed.”
Nick wanted to laugh at his indignant tone, as if it wasn’t common for him to have his adversaries killed. He didn’t believe for a second that he hadn’t ordered Ivanov’s murder. “You did have him killed! He was in your custody before he was dumped.”
“I never gave that order,” Petrov said, “and I’d like to know what’s being done to find the person who killed him.”
“The investigation is being handled by the Metropolitan Police Department, which has jurisdiction.”
“In other words, your wife is investigating?”
“She’s involved. Yes.”
“Then I trust that we’ll soon have an answer to who would’ve killed him. The sooner I can tell his supporters the truth about what happened to him, the better it will be.”
For him, Nick thought. He wanted the heat turned down, but he lied as easily as he breathed, and Nick had no doubt he did order the man’s murder and was doing damage control after the situation caused an international incident with the United States.
“I understand your now-ex-vice president was a friend of his?”
“Yes.”
“I find that to be extremely unsettling. Are you aiding the opposition movement while telling the world you’re not in the business of regime changes in other sovereign nations?”
“We’re not aiding the opposition. Ivanov was a longtime personal friend of the former vice president. Her interactions were not sanctioned by me or my government.”
“And you didn’t know any of this?” His little chuckle had a menacing edge to it. “How interesting.”
“Her actions in no way represent the position of my government.”
“She was your vice president. How can you say that?”
“Because she had no directive from me or anyone else in my government to participate in the opposition movement. Whatever she was doing was unsanctioned.”