Page 90 of Poison Evidence

He wiped dirt from the surface as more rained down from above. He pulled out a flashlight and shone it on the object with one hand while he wiped the dirt away with the other.

He brushed away more soil, his light exposing a wide, curved panel that could be a wing, tucked up against the fuselage, like a bird’s wing tucked against its body.

Sonofabitch. He’d found it.

Or CAM had found it.

Either way, he had the AUUV, and the endgame had begun.

Chapter Thirty-Two

The house on Peleliu was untouched since Dimitri’s last visit, and had everything he needed to wait for the exchange. It even contained the tools he needed to open up the AUUV and see what secrets she held.

The AUUV was the length and width of a surfboard, but with wings that tucked in, like an eagle that could transform into a seal. The organic design felt more Asian than Russian to him. But he wasn’t an engineer, so what did he know?

He carefully opened the panels to access the data ports and power pack. He didn’t really give a damn if he returned the AUUV intact—the deal was he’d hand it over, not that it would be functional—but he didn’t want to advertise that he’d cracked it open, if he could avoid it.

The design was impressive. Lightweight, durable, and sleek housing. Watertight, yet it could transform shapes and launch from the water to take flight, or dive from the air and swim.

But the feature he found most worrisome was when he powered up the AUUV after it had rested under a poison tree for five months, itworked.

It had a hibernation mode that lasted for months, meaning it could be planted in a strategic place and be called into action much later. The ultimate sleeper spy.

He quickly powered it off, in case it could somehow contact its home base, although that had been Russia’s problem to begin with—the person who hijacked it had disabled the two-way communication with Russia. They could no longer control it by remote, and couldn’t locate it to recover it themselves.

Whoever had stolen the AUUV must’ve been able to hack the code to hijack it in mid-flight or swim. Was it possible the AUUV had been on a mission and not just on a test run when it was taken?

Could there be data here that would be valuable to the US—or damaging to Russia?

The technology the AUUV represented was one thing—a tool for the new Cold War, and highly advanced at that. The sleeper-spy ability was worrisome in an age where both Russia and the US were trying to gain advantage with tools instead of weapons.

This tool all by itself could be very, very dangerous. But if it contained actual intelligence, if it had been spying on China, Taiwan, or a US military base in Japan when it was hijacked… That was different.

Intelligence was the real commodity. Intel could change the balance of power as tensions between the US and Russia grew ever more precarious.

Dimitri wasn’t a fan of the president of Russia and the way the man had returned the country to a dictatorship. Acting as the Kremlin’s enforcer had been an ugly, horrific pill.

His final act as the Kremlin’s puppet was to return their lost technology, but what if the cost of that was too great? His life, his sister’s life, and even his nephew’s life weren’t worth more than the thousands—even millions—of lives that could hang in the balance if the Russian president’s quest for power was bolstered by this technology or the data it contained.

Before he blithely handed over the AUUV, he needed to know if it held any actionable intel. He needed someone who understood computers and coding, and intelligence gathering via drone.

He needed Ivy.

He pulled out Ian Boyd’s business card again. No. Less risky to contact her through Ulai.

Ivy paced the deck of the cabin cruiser. It seemed all she could do these days was pace. At least now she had a hard cast protecting her arm. She’d opted for a vivid aqua-colored cast, because it matched the tropical sea, but now she wished she’d gone for bright pink, because she was getting tired of blue as they fruitlessly trolled the islands for signs of Dimitri.

She’d shown Dimitri’s note to Luke and Ian the evening she found it. Not surprisingly, they’d made sure her spy wouldn’t be able to access her via the lanai again, which was a bummer. Although she doubted Dimitri would have taken such a risk a second time.

Ian was more irked at the breach than angry. He admitted he’d left the lanai vulnerable in hopes Dimitri would do exactly what he’d done—thus triggering an alarm Ian had set up. But Dimitri had disabled the alarm, remaining one step ahead.

They were now heading back to Koror after a second day on the water. They would spend the night in the hotel again and plan their strategy for tomorrow.

Her cell phone buzzed, telling her she was within tower range as they neared the marina. She headed below so she could hear the call over the loud boat engine, noting as she went that the call came from an NHHC number.

“Ivy, it’s Mara.”

“Hey, Mara, I heard you’ve been ill, so why are you at the office?”

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