Page 51 of Gryphon

“This goes one bit sideways, it costs a very nice lady her life. And I’m not talking about me.”

“You’re never nice.”

He meant it as a joke but the silence that crashed down left him plenty of time to pick out the sound of a jet engine on her end, the way it sounded inside a plane.

“Okay, what are the endpoints?”

“Me,” Holly’s voice sounded painfully businesslike, “on my encrypted phone in nowhere Sweden, and a number I’ll give you at the time in Moscow. Is there any way to make sure the person is alone before you ring the phone?”

Harry could already picture about half the masking he’d need—thirty minutes was going to be tight for that level of obfuscation—when the question registered. “Uh, sure. Kinda. I can listen and, depending on her on-system fortification, maybe take a peek out both the front and back cameras. Of course, if it’s in a purse or pocket, all you’ll see is a bunch of fabric. Seen that enough times to gag a hamster. Better if I ring once and hang up. That way they draw it out, then I turn everything on.”

“Okay, plan on doing that. I’ll call you the second I’m down.”

“Holly, about what I just said…” Harry stopped. He was talking to himself.

39

Inessa’s phone rang a second time, five minutes after the first. No one there by the time she answered. It was a ten-digit number, just like all Moscow numbers, but not in any form she’d ever seen: 07734-07734.

This time, as she’d dragged her phone out of her purse, it had come into her hand upside down. Inverted, did the digits spell out…hELLO-hELLO? In English?

Yet no one was there when she answered.

Her husband worked at the FSB and she’d learned much from him how to look beyond the obvious. She, in turn, had helped him become one of the most powerful men in Russia’s Federal Security Service—the KGB’s replacement.

The obvious? Some prankster was ringing her phone. The non-obvious? Someone was ringing her phone but somehow knew she wasn’t alone.

It was as good an excuse as any. This tearoom meeting had started late and continued to drag on tediously with nothing productive to show for two hours listening.

Every wife, mistress, and more than a few men wanted the ear of General Turgenev’s wife now that it was clear he’d been chosen as General Murov’s right hand. Murov ran the FSB and was in turn the president’s right hand. That alone made her one of the most powerful women in the country. If they only knew the reality—well, she’d be dead.

Inessa was glad of the interruption. Information flowed to her in volumes that she’d never anticipated. Often from the sycophantic climbers hoping she’d pass to her husband some key revelation or cocked-sideways plan. But far more came from discontent or simply gossipy wives and mistresses of the oligarchy. She’d become a clearing house for so much information that she had to be selective about what she dared send to the West.

Her present rule: without at least two corroborations she ignored everything.

And her tea companion this afternoon, General Garin’s mistress, had fallen so far since his sudden death—never say execution in modern Russia—that she had nothing to offer except her anguish.

“It’s been lovely seeing you, dear. Please remember: the snail is coming, who knows when it arrives.”

The girl took comfort from the old proverb, missing the truth that another snail coming for her was age. She was no longer twenty, and thirty loomed close. The chances of another such man as General Garin scooping her up was unlikely, especially not with the unstated stigma under which Garin had died. It now attached itself to the pretty brunette by association. What had made his death most unusual was that General Garin had been father to the president’s mistress, but that very sinecure had made him careless.

Inessa bowed low to the old Chinese grandmother who no longer ran this tearoom but still came every day to watch over her daughter’s efforts. She received a polite nod, more honor than most were given.

Inessa took a last look around as she wouldn’t be able to come here for a time. Not until Garin’s lost mistress had found a lesser station to fall to and would be unable to afford to return regularly on the chance of Inessa visiting again. The low tables, tall vases, and the white-washed brick walls adorned with rolls of calligraphy and exquisite drawings offered a brief escape to another world that Inessa would miss.

When she bowed a second time, Old Grandmother watched her carefully. Had the wizened woman guessed that Inessa might not return for a long while?

Perhaps. But Inessa was out of time for such considerations. The first two calls had been precisely five minutes apart. She hoped there’d be a third, she doubted there’d be a fourth.

With thirty seconds to spare, she stepped outside to the sidewalk. A bitter wind sliced along the Moscow streets, rushing straight down from the Arctic. But she couldn’t take a cab; most of them had listening devices, in addition to nosy drivers only too glad to make extra money reporting suspicious behaviors to the FSB’s numerous minions. Even her husband’s position wouldn’t protect her from those.

She put her back to the wind and began to walk slowly south. Her apartment lay a few blocks to the west, but her husband’s office lay five blocks to the south. Curiously, the closer she came to the Lubyanka Building, the safer she became. The FSB’s monitors always made the mistake of thinking that sedition lay either inside the building or far away, creating a security gap around their headquarters in the heart of Moscow.

Her phone, now clutched in her hand, rang again—only once.

On the off chance that she was right, she held it facing outward and performed a slow turn. Other than passing cars and trucks, and a few men rushing by hunched as deeply as possible against the hard wind, she walked alone.

The phone rang again.

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