compromise to my operation. Days from the culmination of my life’s work, and this security leak happens. We’ve been careful, exact. I must know why CIA is looking into a long-dead GRU general now.” Mars looked up at Fox. “Perhaps I have a traitor in my midst.”
Fox sniffed at the older man’s comment. “Do you think I’m working for the Central Intelligence Agency? What, I was turned by the allures of the West?” He looked down at his $5,000 suit and brushed the sleeve with his arm. “I have all the allures of the West I can handle right now, Mr. Mars.”
Mars smiled a little at this. No, Fox wasn’t a traitor.
Fox said, “There is someone else here in the UK who knows the truth about Zakharov.”
Mars’s eyes narrowed a moment. Then he shook his head. “No . . . if there is one man I trust, it’s him.” Mars looked to Fox. “You’ll come back with me to London. I’ll sleep on this tonight and decide what to do in the morning.”
Jon Hines had been standing silently next to them. As Fox and Mars turned for the helo he spoke the first words in some time. “And Visser, sir?”
Mars looked back over his shoulder, directly at Hines.
“Dump his body in the Thames.”
“Understood, sir.”
Hines turned back towards the barn, not bothering to put his gloves back on. He could snap the little banker’s neck with ease, and that way he wouldn’t hold up the return flight to London.
CHAPTER 22
The aircraft carrying former Russian SVR operative Zoya Zakharova flew south over England above a sea of gray clouds. The pilot, Arkady Kravchenko, had been silent for over an hour, but now he spoke up.
“Forty-five minutes from landing. Pay me now.”
Zoya was in the right seat, right where she’d been most of the sixteen hours of their flight time, and she replied, “I’ll pay you in forty-five minutes.”
Kravchenko growled softly. “No. We’ll fly around up here until I get the money.”
“Not a good idea.”
“I assume you don’t have it in cash. You can wire it from my laptop to my account in the Caymans.”
Zoya just looked out through the windshield for several seconds. Finally she spoke with nonchalance. “There is no money.”
She glanced over to the pilot after a few more seconds. The Russian had reddened, his muscles were tensed, but Zoya could tell he’d known the entire time this might happen.
“You aren’t with SVR, are you?”
She shrugged. “I was. At present I am a free agent. I needed a lift. Don’t feel bad, you did a fine job. Next time I talk to Yasenevo I’ll put in a good word for you.”
He reddened even more. “I will turn you in to the British when we land. Tell them you hijacked me.”
“I’ll be gone before we get to the ramp, and you’ll have no proof. And we both know you don’t want to draw attention to yourself after this.”
The man thought a moment. “I’ll contact Yasenevo directly. They’ll know you’re here in the UK. They’ll track you down.”
Zoya answered in a tone that conveyed boredom with the topic. “You do that.”
For the next ten minutes it was silent in the cabin. Then Kravchenko said, “I’m going to the bathroom once more before landing. You have the controls.” And then, “But don’t touch a damn thing. Leave the autopilot on and just sit there.”
She reached over and handed him a Bluetooth earpiece. “If I have any problems I’ll call you.”
He put it in and she slipped one into her ear, pushing back her headset a bit to accommodate it while also allowing the microphone to pick up her voice.
* * *
• • •
Kravchenko slid back his seat, climbed out, and headed towards the cabin.
He walked to the rear, opened the lavatory door, and stepped inside. Immediately he looked back up to the cockpit. He saw the brunette woman in the copilot seat, her attention focused on the gray outside the windshield.
“I’ll just be a minute,” he said, and her reply came over the Bluetooth.
“No need to rush.”
Still looking her way, Kravchenko spun out of the lavatory and moved across the cabin to the galley at the rear. He stepped in, again shielding himself from the woman at the controls. Quickly he reached for an access panel on the wall there and upon opening it he put his hand below the manual cargo-door override lever and felt around for a moment. Quickly his hand found what it was looking for, and he pulled out