if they tried to sail a boat out into Loch Ness to get closer.
No, the scuba divers would not be diving off a boat. They would enter the water close enough to make their way to the castle directly, without using a boat at all.
It was probably four hundred meters across the water here, an easy swim for fit men in still water.
She looked on her GPS again, and within moments she found the spot. An inlet, just a half mile north of where she stood, was completely obscured by a hill from the castle across the blue water, yet close enough to swim from cover there to the area at the bottom of the cliff.
Zoya was back in her car in seconds, racing to get a vantage point on the inlet.
* * *
• • •
As she drove up the road in the blue Nissan, a gray commercial van passed by on her right. She normally wouldn’t have paid any attention to an oncoming vehicle, but in the front passenger seat was a blond-haired giant.
She didn’t run into many men who were six foot nine, so she identified him instantly. It was the monster who always shadowed Fox, the man who had beaten poor Court so badly.
Twice.
The gray van just drove on to the south, while Zoya drove on to the north.
But not for long. Once the van rounded a turn behind her Zoya slammed on her brakes, turned her little car around, and took off in pursuit.
She didn’t know if her father was in the vehicle, but she sure as hell did know that these men were part of his crew, so she decided to follow them.
* * *
• • •
The tail lasted less than ten minutes before they entered the beautiful little town of Fort Augustus, on the southern bank of Loch Ness, and here Zoya saw the commercial van pull to the side of the road. She herself stopped, pulled out her binoculars, and focused them on the scene just in time to watch her father, wearing a crisp suit and tie, step out of the side of the vehicle.
Alone.
The van drove off, leaving him there.
Zoya couldn’t believe her eyes. He was less than fifty meters away, unguarded, and she could walk right up to him, drive right up to him, run him the fuck down if she wanted.
But for a few precious seconds, she froze.
Could she really do it? She had been so certain until this moment. But now, when the fantasy met the reality in front of her, she hesitated.
Slowly she shifted the Nissan into gear, but just then a taxi pulled up next to her father, and he climbed in.
She muttered softly, “Kagogo cherta?” What the hell?
She drove off, tailing the taxi.
* * *
• • •
General Feodor Zakharov took a deep breath to calm himself as his taxi pulled up to the guard shack in front of Castle Enrick. There were a few cars ahead in the line; each driver and each passenger had their documentation checked out by both Scottish military in full combat uniforms and men and women in civilian attire, no doubt Metropolitan police or even MI5, British domestic intelligence.
The taxi driver looked in the rearview mirror. “I take it you’ve got your papers to get in ’ere. Been ferrying people back and forth from hotels and B&Bs in Fort Augustus and Inverness to this big government conference, and the blokes here at the gate are all business.”
Zakharov was using his David Mars legend. “Don’t worry, old boy, I’ll zip right in. They’ll be quite happy to have me.”
They inched their way to the front of the queue, and then a young Scottish soldier looked in on the taxi driver, who said, “Evenin’, mate. This gent is here for the conference.”
Zakharov rolled his window down, and the soldier reached out a hand. “Papers, sir.”
“Listen carefully, lad. Inside that building is a woman named Suzanne Brewer. She’s a Yank. I am here to see her, and she will quite like to see me.”
“You got papers?”
He pulled out his passport and handed it over. The man looked at it. “No, sir. You need a special pass to get into the conference.”
“That passport says ‘David Mars.’ Be a good lad and go tap that name into your computer, and see what pops up.”
The young soldier stepped over to a man in a suit and tie and talked to him a moment while showing him the passport, and then the man looked in on the