Spirit Bound - Christine Feehan [86]
“Is Judith involved in some way? How would tracking a microchip lead you to Sea Haven? That seems too big of a coincidence.”
“What do you know about Judith’s past?”
Lev’s face closed down immediately. “The sisters rarely talk about one another. They guard their pasts carefully and I’ve never pried. I wouldn’t want anyone asking questions about me and I give them that same respect. Here, we take one another as we are.”
“I understand, Levi, but if you want to know why I’m here then you’re going to have to accept that Judith’s past is mixed up in this.”
“You’re telling me the truth? Judith Henderson is somehow a person of interest in the disappearance of sensitive materials our brother was guarding?”
“That’s the truth,” Stefan said and waited for his brother to make up his mind.
He could see why Lev wouldn’t believe him. It was absurd to think that a woman like Judith could possibly be mixed up in international intrigue.
“Let me get this straight. Our brother, Gavriil, was assigned to guard Theodotus Solovyov and they were ambushed.”
Stefan nodded. “Solovyov’s wife betrayed them. She was having an affair and she sewed the microchip into her husband’s coat. No one else knew. Gavriil was stabbed seven or eight times, but he kept firing, keeping them off Solovyov. The attackers left the briefcase and went for the coat. They knew exactly what to look for.”
“I take it you tracked down the wife,” Lev’s voice was grim.
“Damn straight. Gavriil was taken to a hospital and knew orders would have been given to terminate him. I went out the window with him. I knew a doctor, a surgeon who owed me, who would take care of him if he lived long enough for me to get him to the doc. He’s tough as nails, our older brother. And then I tracked down the wife and her lover and had a little talk with them. It wasn’t difficult to get the information I needed. That led me to France—more precisely, Paris.”
Lev closed his eyes briefly. “Judith was an art student in Paris a few years back. I remember Rikki telling me she’d been to France, studying.”
“She met the wrong man. The trail led back to Jean-Claude La Roux, who at this moment is sitting in prison surrounded by photographs of Judith. The pictures span the last five years. He’s had her watched all this time. I know, because I shared his cell, trying to get information out of him. He was picked up on a gun-running charge, but his crimes far exceed that. He’s ruthless and vicious and even from prison, his network is still up and running.”
“You think he has the microchip.” Lev made it a statement.
“I tracked it to him. He had it in his possession right before the French arrested him. They got to him before I did. If he’d sold the information to the highest bidder, we would have known by now. Certainly some of the documents would have surfaced. And someone would have made a threat. There was very sensitive material on that microchip. Theodotus Solovyov was transporting the chip to a meeting. He is a brilliant man, and that chip contains the only copy of his latest work.”
Lev rubbed his jaw. “Is it possible it also contains documents regarding the training schools we attended? The reporter who printed the excerpt, who was he?”
“It was a publication out of France, and the man is a respected journalist. We’re certain he got his information from La Roux and since it was recent, La Roux must be planning a move on the microchip. He hasn’t trusted anyone to retrieve it and act for him, so he has to be planning to retrieve it himself.”
“He’s getting