Chapter Fifty-Two
Teterboro Airport
Bergen County, New Jersey
Everett Westcott didn’t like being blindsided, and he certainly didn’t appreciate being told minutes before boarding that the man he trusted most wasn’t getting on the plane with him.
“What do you mean you aren’t coming?” he asked.
“I apologize, sir,” Mpassi replied. “I really need to get to the bottom of this. Give me a couple of days, and I’ll catch up with you in Geneva.”
Westcott stared at him, trying to process what Mpassi had told him.
“Are you absolutely sure about this?” he asked, incredulous. “There must be at least two hundred women named Mia Hernandez in the country. Chances are it’s not even our Mia.”
“It’s her. My contact at the FBI confirmed the name’s been run in several federal databases. Same from my guy at the IRS. And the date of birth attached to the query is Mia’s. There’s no doubt.”
Westcott slammed his palm against the driver’s seat in front of him.
“Fuck,” he hissed. Then louder. “Fuck!”
They were still in the armored Escalade, which was parked fifty feet from the waiting Gulfstream G550.
The plane’s engines hadn’t started yet, but the pilots were on board, and the flight attendant was ready.
Westcott and Mpassi were scheduled to fly to Paris for several high-level meetings before continuing to Geneva, where they would meet with a delegation from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
But now it seemed like he’d fly solo.
Westcott had been in regular contact with President Mutombo, who had not only regained control of the National Assembly but had also secured the necessary votes to pass Westcott’s initiative.
The stakes had never been higher. If things stayed on track, his hydroelectric initiative would begin funneling money into the DRC’s government coffers within five years.
It would be slow at first—an infrastructure of this scale always was—but the outcome would be transformative.
He would live to see the people of the DRC receive the universal health care his wife Nailah had fought so hard for.
A rare, near-impossible feat in any developing nation.
But here we are . . . on the cusp of greatness.
The health care system he had envisioned with Nailah, one that was professionally administered and publicly funded with the funds coming from Hearts United’s project, would lift an entire nation out of generational neglect.
The DRC would go from having 0.2 doctors per thousand habitants to one.
Far from the European Union average of four, but still a big step forward, and hopefully enough to drop the maternal mortality rate from 345 deaths per one hundred thousand live births to under 150.
Westcott wasn’t doing this for vanity or for accolades. He was doing this for women like Nailah’s mother, whose life might have been spared had there been even the most basic medical care within reach.
Nothing was more important than that. Not even Mia.
“How exposed are we?” Westcott asked, forcing himself to stay focused.
“We’re not, for now,” Mpassi said without hesitation. “And that’s true across all our operations. But if Mia gets captured—”
“She’d never talk,” Westcott said instantly, knowing he sounded desperate.
Mpassi met his gaze. The man’s eyes were steady, and there was a weight behind them. One Westcott didn’t appreciate.
“Not willingly, I know,” Mpassi said. “But people break, sir. Even the best.”
Before Westcott could respond, Mpassi’s phone buzzed. He answered it quickly and said almost nothing. When the call ended, he slowly brought the phone down to his lap and stared ahead, as if the world had just tilted beneath him.
“Who was that?” Westcott asked.
“Director Cortés. CNI.”
Westcott knew Lucía Cortés well. She was the head of the Centro Nacional de Inteligencia, Spain’s foreign and domestic intelligence agency. She was more than just a contact; she was one of his most reliable special assets.
“What did she say?”
“It took some time, but they were able to identify the man from Port de Sóller. He used his real passport when he first flew in. Name’s Caspian Anderson.”
Westcott inhaled sharply, but Mpassi wasn’t finished.
“The woman with him was Liesel Bergmann. Sofie’s twin.”
As if frozen, Westcott’s brain simply refused to accept what he’d heard. His face flushed hot, and he felt his gut twist. He’d suspected Sofie might have said something to someone before she’d been shot dead, but her sister? He hadn’t seen this one coming.
But I should have . . . what I shouldn’t have done was to bring her in.
Liesel and Sofie Bergmann, Caspian and Nelson Anderson?
Had they been working together from the beginning?
And who were they working for? When he’d recruited Sofie Bergmann, she’d been a German army officer.
A logistics specialist who had a lot of contacts in Afghanistan.
The Andersons were Americans. Could Nelson or his brother—or both—be CIA officers?
It wouldn’t be the first time an intelligence service embedded one of their operatives with Doctors Without Borders now, would it?
But could the Germans and Americans be working together this closely?
Was this a rogue operation or a sanctioned one?
But even if they were backed by an agency, what did they know? Could they prove anything? Surely, if there was an active investigation, someone within his deep network inside the US government would have sounded the alarm, right?
“Do we have the influence to shut down any federal investigation into Mia?” Westcott asked, already thinking ahead.
“I can arrange to get regular updates, which would give us ample time to warn her,” Mpassi replied. “But shutting it down outright? I don’t think it’s possible. Not without raising alarms.”
“What about Blackstone? Were you able to cut all ties? Do you know if anyone has been digging?”
“There were some inquiries,” Mpassi conceded, “but there’s no legal link between Blackstone and Hearts United. Nothing admissible. At worst, there might be breadcrumbs, enough to raise suspicions, but not enough to prosecute.”
“But they could find out we used them.”
“It’d be hard, but not impossible. Again, nothing anyone could drag into court.”
Westcott shook his head. What was it that Mpassi didn’t understand? Did he not see that even a suspicion by the wrong people could be enough to derail everything? It was as if he didn’t care.
“So right now,” Westcott said slowly, “you think the only threats are the Anderson brothers and that Bergmann woman?”
Mpassi pursed his lips. “I know you don’t want to think this way,” he said, “but if Mia’s caught and decides to save herself—”
“I told you,” Westcott snapped. “She wouldn’t. Never.”
Mpassi sighed. “We’re so close to achieving Nailah’s dream . . . do you really want to jeopardize that?”
Westcott pressed his fingers against his temples.
A pulse had begun to throb behind his eyes.
Mpassi kept mentioning Mia, but he hadn’t raised any question about Henry’s loyalty.
Why was that? Was it because Henry was Mpassi’s man?
Because Mpassi had handpicked him? Not for the first time, Westcott wondered if he hadn’t given Mpassi too much leeway.
“If you’d like to hear it, sir, I have an idea on how we could take care of everything at once,” Mpassi offered.
“No! I don’t want to hear it. The only thing you’ll do while I’m gone is to give Mia and Henry the green light to take care of the Andersons and Liesel Bergmann. That’s it. Is that clear?”
“Crystal,” Mpassi replied.
Westcott stared at Mpassi, and he didn’t like the way the man was looking back at him. He didn’t like the faint gleam of calculation in Mpassi’s eyes. Trust was a fickle thing. It was slow to build and quick to collapse.
Without another word, Westcott stepped out of the SUV and climbed aboard the Gulfstream where he sank into one of the beige leather seats.
He would speak to Mpassi when he returned from Europe.
And if his instincts were right, and if Mpassi had started to think of himself as more than just Westcott’s number two, then maybe it was time to find someone else to replace him.
And he couldn’t think of anyone better than Mia Hernandez to do so.