Last Snow - Eric van Lustbader [138]
“Edward, I suppose I don’t have to point out that we’re talking about your political enemies here. What makes Paull think he can trust them?”
“He doesn’t, not really. But, concerned about intelligence leaks, he’s been immersed in a sub-rosa investigation of everyone in my inner circle, during the course of which he found evidence that Alizarin did, indeed, fund Brandt’s winter trips to Moscow. Now Brandt is so out of control he authorized a sanction on you. Naturally, I canceled it the moment I got off the phone with Dennis.”
“Is anyone left in the field?”
“No,” Carson assured him, “all the agents have been successfully recalled.”
There was a short silence while, Carson supposed, Jack absorbed the shocking news. At length, he said, “I can see how I’d be a threat to him, but what I can’t understand is how he’d know it. How would Brandt have knowledge of where you sent me and what I’ve been doing?”
“A good question,” Carson said. “I think you’d better find the answer.”
“I’m trying to do just that,” Jack assured him. “What about the accord?”
“From what you’ve just told me there doesn’t seem to be an easy way out of signing it, Jack,” Carson said bleakly. “If I refuse to sign it, or even move to postpone the ceremony after Yukin has bent over backward to meet all our demands, I’ll not only look foolish, but I’ll destroy whatever political capital I’ve gained during the run-up to the signing.
“No, unless you can come up with another solution, the signing will commence at eight tomorrow evening.”
JACK, PUTTING away his cell phone, was running the multiple vectors of the information the president had given him. Much of the information seemed contradictory or an outright lie. He didn’t for a moment think that Benson and Thomson had anyone’s best interest in mind except theirs. According to the president they didn’t want the accord with Yukin signed. It was their contention that both the accord and its chief architect, General Brandt, were a danger to the country, but were they telling the truth? From the damning evidence that Paull had discovered it seemed they were telling the truth about Brandt. Were they then lying about the danger inherent in the accord? He already knew from Kharkishvili the likelihood of events if it was signed tomorrow. If he was to find a way out of this damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t conundrum he had less than twenty-four hours to do it.
His musings were interrupted by Kharkishvili striding purposefully toward him.
“Mr. McClure, I’m glad I caught you. I’ve received some alarming news.”
At once Jack’s mind sprang backward to the aide bending over Kharkishvili, whispering in his ear, and that strange, circumspect look Kharkishvili had given Annika.
“Annika’s uncle Gourdjiev has shot one of AURA’s members, a dissident oligarch and a friend of mine by the name of Riet Medanovich Boronyov.”
“I find that difficult to believe,” Jack said. “What on earth would cause him to murder one of your people?”
“I have no idea,” Kharkishvili confessed. “Nevertheless, he shot Boronyov in front of two of Batchuk’s men and gave the body over to them, this was confirmed by an eyewitness.” Kharkishvili appeared genuinely distraught. “This is a disaster, because Boronyov was one of the dissidents who, as far as Batchuk and Trinadtsat were concerned, were dead. We made certain of that. Now Batchuk knows better, and it’s a fair bet he’ll check on the others who were supposed to be dead, all of us here, me included.”
Now Jack gleaned another piece of the puzzle: Like Annika, Dyadya Gourdjiev was a part