Page 84 of Dangerous Secrets

She turned it over and searched for the price on the bottom flap. Her eyes widened.

Nick nodded curtly. “That drug is worth a thousand euro, more than one thousand three hundred dollars at the current exchange rate. It’s experimental, and expensive. Or would be, if it were genuine. What you’re holding is about ten cents’ worth of printed cardboard, glass for the vial and tap water. Worontzoff’s business partners slipped these packages into shipments to hospitals. Not a bad business at all. One thousand dollars for ten cents’ worth of product. We’re talking a markup of near as dammit to a million percent. Most profitable business on earth. Nothing else comes even close. In comparison, dealing in cocaine and heroin is for chumps. The only downside is thatsome poor kid dying of leukemia will get a shot of tap water in his veins instead of a drug that could save his life.”

Shocked, Charity turned to Di Stefano. He nodded. “Yeah. New spin on the drug trade.”

“And this?” Nick continued, handing the washer to her. “A very expensive component of the latest generation of wide-bodied airliners, made of a titanium alloy and machined to within a tolerance of a few microns. They cost seven hundred and fifty dollars each because of the rigorous testing each washer goes through. Except that this one is made of cheap nickel. It’ll start splitting at about the tenth takeoff. For a while there, until they figure out what’s going on, it’ll be raining planes.”

Charity dropped the washer as if it had suddenly become red-hot.

“And this?” Nick held the flash drive up. “I saved this for last. On this flashdrive are the access codes for about twenty percent of our nuclear arsenal. We intercepted it on its way from Worontzoff to the Iranian Minister of Defense and replaced it with fake codes. Cost—something in the range of twenty million dollars. It will take the Iranians some time to figure out they’ve been ripped off and when they do, it is my earnest hope that they will whack Worontzoff for us, so we won’t have to go to the expense of bringing him to trial.” He clenched his jaws so hard the skin over his temples moved. “And right now? Right now, good old Worontzoff, man of letters, is going to meet tonight with one of the world’s top terrorists and it is very likely that scumbag one will have something nuclear to sell to scumbag two.”

Charity swallowed. Her throat had tightened so much it was hard to get the words out. “That’s his business meeting?” she whispered. “With a terrorist?”

“Not justaterrorist,” Di Stefano said, “Theterrorist. A guy we’ve been after for years.”

“So you see, Charity,” Nick said heatedly, “there is no way on this earth that you can go to Worontzoff’s house tonight. As a matter of fact, we’re going to take you into protective custody as of right now, until this whole thing is over.” He slanted a hard glance at his partner. “That right, Di Stefano?”

“Yes. It wouldn’t be a good idea for you to be there, Miss Prewitt. Some bad things are going to happen and it’s best you be far away.”

“But—I still don’t understand what Vassily is doinghere. In Parker’s Ridge. It’s certainly not a crime center. It’s not a center of anything. It’s a remote little town in northern Vermont. What could he possibly want here?”

“You,” Di Stefano said bluntly.

Charity jolted. “Me?”

Nick tossed something else on the table—a photograph of a woman. “Last item in my Worontzoff kit.”

Charity turned it around and gasped.

The photograph was a color close-up of a woman done by a professional photographer. At the bottom of the photograph were Cyrillic letters, perhaps the photographer’s name. The woman had dangling earrings and was made up in a way that was slightly old-fashioned. She had pale blonde hair cut in a bob. Charity scanned the familiar features, heart pounding.

She made a little sound of shock. The woman could have been her twin.

“Yeah,” Nick said. “She’s a dead ringer for you.”

Charity couldn’t take her eyes off the portrait. She picked it up, drinking it in with her eyes. It was like looking at herself in the mirror, wearing a wig. She touched the hair in the photo. A pale blonde, several shades lighter than her own.

“He—he wanted me to bleach my hair. Light blonde. And cut it. In a bob. Like this.” She ran the tip of her finger along the line of the woman’s hair, cut at the earlobe.

Di Stefano winced. “He’s wanting to turn you into her in every way. To make you exactly like her. Physically at least. Wasn’t there some creepy Hitchcock film about something like that?”

“What was her name?” Charity whispered, without looking away from the portrait. So many things were becoming clear to her. The way Vassily sought her out. The way he looked at her, seeing her but not seeing her. He wasn’t seeing her at all. He was seeing his long-dead love.

“Katya.” Nick’s voice was harsh. “Her name was Katya Artamova. She was a poetess and the love of his life. She was arrested together with him. They were both sent to Kolyma. She lasted about two days.”

“Katya,” Charity murmured, touching the face that could have been her own. Poor Katya. Poor Vassily.

Vassily had not only lost his love in the prison camp. He’d lost his soul.

Charity turned to the table and touched the objects, one by one. She was cursed with a vivid imagination. It took very little to imagine a child dying of leukemia, desperately hoping that the tap water in his IV was going to save him. Or to imagine one of the planes going down. She’d read that the newest generation of planes could carry from 400 to 700 passengers. Thousands of dead, charred bodies. Or—God!—nuclear secrets in the hands of an Iranian minister who hated America.

She looked up. “How are you going to follow the meeting tonight?”

Di Stefano and Nick looked at each other. Finally, Nick gave a what-the-hell shrug. “We’ve got a special device aimed at his study window that lets us listen in on conversations.”

“Is it the same kind of device that let you listen in on my conversation with Vassily just now?” she asked sharply.

Nick looked embarrassed. “Ah, no. Those are just old-fashioned bugs I planted. What we have aimed at Worontzoff’s study window is a laser-driven remote listening device, controlled from a surveillance van about a mile out.”

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