Page 52 of Gryphon

“Hello. Hello,” she answered to prove that she’d received the message.

“Who shot your husband?” A woman asked.

For an instant Inessa froze in terror, then realized it was an identity test. A very specific one—something only two people in the world knew, three if she counted her husband. “You did. With a Taser.”

“I did.”

“How is my almost-sister?” Inessa asked in turn. It too might be construed as a test, but she truly wanted to know. She’d shared Miranda Chase’s parents as the mentors who had taught her how to live life.

“She’s been better. Not as bad as you last saw her, but…” Even the worried tone didn’t scare her. As long as she never again had occasion to hear that poor woman’s soul-scraping scream. Its memory still woke her on occasion from soundest sleep.

“Now tell me why you took such a risk for both of us by calling me directly. It must be very important.” In fact, knowing who and what Holly Harper was, the biting Arctic wind was the warmest thing she felt.

“Would you know if the GRU were launching a clandestine attack on Sweden? Perhaps as punishment for joining NATO.”

Inessa blinked in surprise. That was exactly the kind of information that should have come to her. The Armed Forces’ Intelligence Directorate would be involved. Such an attack would take months of planning and should have easily filtered down in a society where the only true economy remaining lay in the trade of secrets.

“We have a maximum of two more minutes that we’re safe to speak,” Holly said when Inessa didn’t immediately respond.

Rather than questioning who had hacked her phone and set up such a secure connection, Inessa sifted through everything she knew. She even considered the pitiful leavings that Garin’s ex-mistress had offered like stray leaves left at the bottom of a tea cup’s fine white porcelain.

“One minute,” Holly counted down. She didn’t push, but there was an urgency to her tone.

“Nothing. And I should have heard. I know many of the women in places to be overhearing of such a thing in both the Directorate and the elite military units they command directly.”

“Then any guesses as to who?”

An old proverb came to mind. “Don’t dig a hole for someone else or you will fall into it yourself.”

“Someone setting up Russia to be the villain?”

“Perhaps. As if we were not already the world’s antagonist. Does that help?”

“It might at that. Thank you.”

“Do let Mir—” better not to use any names no matter how secure the call. “Please tell my almost-sister that I think of her each day.”

“I will.” And Holly was gone.

The bitter wind no longer caught and swirled about her heart. Finally there was a crime that her beloved country had not committed. She hoped that her Western friend made sure that Russia didn’t pay the price for it.

40

“What if it wasn’t Russia?” Mike repeated Holly’s words in wonder. “But everything points to—”

“What if it wasn’t?” she insisted. “Who stands to gain from that?”

“How did you…” But he didn’t finish the question. She’d told him of the woman she’d met when she parachuted into Kaliningrad to rescue Miranda—a Russian patriot fighting to save her country from its own worst self.

They stood in the snow along the E12 road. There was no evidence to be had from the two vehicles that remained. A tow truck even now hauled the shattered VW Passat off into the failing daylight. The blue van, bullet-shot and spatter-painted with frozen brain matter, crouched beneath spotlights. Two p.m. and the three-hour day had already ended here in Storuman; the long winter twilight being hurried along by fast-gathering clouds.

It was cold enough that it hurt to breathe, though Mike figured that was better than smelling the dead guy’s brains.

A trio of military police stood nearby with their submachine guns tucked in the crook of their arms, scanning the horizon for fresh attackers. Two police, locals by their gear, conducted a thin stream of traffic along the far shoulder.

By the van lay a pair of five-foot-long tubes, one still attached to what Holly had told him were targeting hardware for MANPADS. Man-Portable Air-Defense Systems, she’d had to explain. Stinger. Nasty against aircraft. SAM—Surface-to-Air Missile.

SAM he understood.

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