of all the cards she had to play, this one was the most critical.
After a protracted search, she walked back into the kitchen, pulled a small, etched glass from the cupboard, and took a bottle of chilled vodka from the freezer.
As Teplov watched, she poured a tall shot and knocked it back. When it looked as if she was setting up a second, he stopped her.
“We’re almost done here. Why don’t you wait until you’re back home?”
Christina glared at him. “My uncle’s dead, but at least you’re consistent. That’s exactly the level of empathy I’d expect from Wagner.”
He didn’t know what she wanted and he was running out of patience with this woman.
While driving to the clinic, he had contacted his offices in Moscow and had verified that she was who she said and that her husband had died while employed by his company. Even so, there was something about her that bothered him. He didn’t trust her.
Nevertheless, for the moment, he had to humor her.
“I’m sorry. Is there someone I can contact for you?”
She put on an all-too-obvious fake smile and shook her head. “There’s no one to contact. You and President Peshkov killed my husband. And now, somehow, the two of you have figured out a way to kill the only other family member I had left.”
Teplov didn’t know what to say.
“Okay if I have one more?” Christina asked as she poured another shot and, without waiting for his response, tossed it back.
Setting the bottle down, she left the kitchen and walked back into the living room. She looked through her uncle’s desk and then, with her hands on her hips, she stood staring at the bookcase.
Teplov was watching her. As with the pen, he again noticed that something had caught her eye. What, though, he couldn’t tell.
Before he could ask her what it was, she pointed to a large atlas covered in green fabric. It was out of place, its spine unaligned with its neighbors, as if someone had failed to properly put it back.
Teplov stepped forward and removed it. Casually, he flipped through several pages and then tossed the book on the couch.
Damn it, Christina thought to herself.
“Did I miss something?” Teplov suddenly asked, returning to the book.
It was as if he had read her mind. Nevertheless, she needed to play dumb. “You asked me to look for things that were out of place.”
“Interesting that you chose this atlas.”
“Why is that interesting?”
“I don’t know yet,” he said, as this time, he flipped through the pages much more carefully. When he got to the part where she had removed one of the maps, he stopped.
Christina felt a bad feeling growing in the pit of her stomach.
“There appears to be a page missing,” Teplov declared. “That doesn’t seem like something a neat freak would do, much less a man who owned his own GPS.”
He looked at her and Christina stared right back at him. The alcohol was continuing to embolden her.
“Doctor Volkova,” he asked, “why would your uncle pull pages out of such a beautiful atlas?”
Christina shrugged. “He was an old man. They do weird things.”
“I agree,” said Teplov, as he produced the missing page and held it up. “My men found this buried between the seats of your car.”
She wanted to curse, but the words wouldn’t come. Despite the circumstance, all she could think of was Harvath. She had failed him, but she knew that as bad as things now were, she still might be able to buy him a few more minutes with which to escape.
But before she could say anything, Teplov approached her, drew back his fist, and punched her in the stomach, knocking the wind out of her.
As she doubled over in pain, he grabbed a fistful of her hair and painfully jerked back her head.
“Out of respect for your deceased husband, I’m going to give you one, and only one, chance,” he hissed. “Where the fuck is Harvath?”
CHAPTER 45
* * *
* * *
ON APPROACH
FINNISH AIR SPACE
We heard from Harvath,” Nicholas explained as The Carlton Group jet was about to land at Helsinki Airport.
“Thank God,” replied Sloane Ashby, who had taken the call over the plane’s encrypted satellite phone. “Where is he? Is he okay?”
“What’s going on?” Chase asked.
“Harvath made contact,” she answered as she put the call on speaker and everyone moved closer. “We’re all listening now. What do we know?”
“There’s not much,” Nicholas replied. “Apparently, he was in the Russian town of Nivsky, headed west.”