Chapter 32 Jo
Jo
Before she could even ring it, the door opened. Maggie pulled her inside and swung the door shut again.
“What’s the rush? What’s this all about?” Jo demanded.
“Someone could be watching the house.”
“Why would anyone be watching the house? It’s four in the morning.”
“And we’ve been here all night. So let’s get straight to business, then we can all go home to bed.” Maggie looked like she’d been up all night, her eyes puffy, her silver hair awhirl, as if she’d just trudged through a sandstorm.
Jo eyed Maggie’s black turtleneck and pants, then she focused on the gun strapped to her hip. “What is this, some kind of James Bond cosplay?”
“We have a situation.”
“That’s what you said on the phone.”
“And he’s in the other room.”
He?
Jo followed Maggie down the hall and into the family room, where a cheery fire crackled in the hearth.
Declan was crouched at the fireplace, casually prodding the logs with a poker, and Ben sat in an easy chair with a gun on his lap, sipping a glass of what looked like whisky.
Except for their weapons and their black clothes, this could be just another boozy get-together, and all three of them looked perfectly at ease.
Unlike Agent Tanner Minnihan, who sat on the sofa with his wrists zip-tied together.
Minnihan saw Jo and blurted out: “Oh, thank God! Tell these people who I am!”
“We caught him in the act,” said Ben.
“What act?” Jo asked.
“He was breaking into this house.”
“I was not breaking in! I never set foot in the house! You dragged me inside.”
“After you opened the sliding door.”
“I noticed it was unlocked, that’s all. I wasn’t about to come in. I don’t have a warrant!”
Jo groaned. “Oh God.”
“I just wanted to check the house. Confirm that the Slocums have returned.”
“At three in the morning?” said Ben.
“Well, they weren’t here during the day.
I came by twice to check. I know the Slocums flew from Madrid to Boston on Friday, aboard a commercial flight.
Then they just vanished, and their phones went dead.
Until a few hours ago, when I got the alert that their phones are now active and pinging from this location. ”
“You couldn’t have waited until morning to pay a visit?”
“I was already wide awake.” Minnihan looked at Jo. “I’m still dealing with jet lag. It’s ten thirty a.m. in Brussels right now.”
“He’s telling the truth?” said Maggie, looking at Jo. “He really is FBI?”
“A poor excuse for one, if you ask me,” said Ben.
“He’s actually a physicist,” said Jo.
“Strictly speaking, not really,” said Minnihan. “I just have a master’s degree. I don’t consider myself—”
“They don’t need to hear all that,” said Jo.
Minnihan held up his bound wrists and looked at Ben. “Could you cut me loose, please?”
“A physicist, huh?” Ben produced a pocketknife and efficiently sliced apart the zip tie. “Well, that explains things.”
“You’re here because of the polonium?” said Declan.
Minnihan nodded as he massaged his wrists. “I was brought in because there’s only one source for polonium-210. It means we’re dealing with . . .” He paused and looked at Jo. “Why am I even talking to these people?”
Jo glared at Ben. “Because they can be very persuasive.”
“They threatened me. They’re the ones who should be in handcuffs.”
“I often think that.”
“Aren’t you going to do anything?”
Jo sighed. “Agent Minnihan, they believed you were about to break into this house. They acted based on that assumption. Count yourself lucky they didn’t shoot you.”
“They were going to torture me first! That’s what that”—he pointed to Ben—“that thug said.”
Jo looked at Ben. “Is this true?”
Ben shrugged. “I get carried away sometimes.”
“What are you people doing here, anyway?”
“We were staking out the house,” said Maggie. “Waiting to see who showed up.”
“Why?”
“We can’t tell you.”
Jo looked around the room. “Where are Ingrid and Lloyd?”
Maggie glanced at Minnihan, then back at Jo. “We can’t tell you.”
“What can you tell me?”
“Maslov’s dead. Karen O’Brien’s dead,” said Maggie. “We think Ingrid’s next.”
“This is news to me,” said Agent Minnihan. “How do you know all this?”
“Trust me, they have their sources,” said Jo. She turned to Maggie. “So you’re here waiting for some killer to show up. What were you going to do if he had?”
“Interrogate him. Find out who’s behind this, and why.”
“And then what were you going to do with him?” She looked at Ben, then Declan. “Oh God, don’t tell me.”
“We would have done it in a different jurisdiction,” said Ben.
“You’re not doing it in any jurisdiction. You people are way out of bounds!”
“Ingrid’s our friend,” said Maggie. “When it comes to protecting our friends, sometimes we have to bend the rules.”
“And the people doing this aren’t saints, Jo,” said Ben. “They’re contract killers. We can give you a list of people they’ve murdered. People they’ve tortured.”
“You mean like you were going to do to me?” said Minnihan.
“But we didn’t, did we?” Ben shot back.
“Are these the Vory killers you told me about?” asked Jo.
“Maybe,” said Maggie. “Or we could be dealing with something else entirely. Someone far more sophisticated than prison mafia. Someone who was able to slip into Purity last week, kill two people, and slip away without ever being noticed.”
“And now he’s coming for Ingrid? Why?”
Ben, Declan, and Maggie exchanged glances. Oh, Jo knew what those looks meant. They were collectively weighing their decision. Deciding whether to trust her with this information.
“I hold top security clearance,” said Minnihan. “I need to hear this too.”
Maggie nodded. “Sit down, Jo. This is complicated.”