Page 85 of Dangerous Secrets

Charity frowned. “Just the study? What happens if they talk business in the living room, or the conservatory or the winter garden? Vassily’s house is huge. If you’re just listening in on one window in one room, what are you going to do if they hold their talks elsewhere?”

Di Stefano heaved a huge sigh. “Good question. With no good answer. All we have is the one laser device, so we’re just going to have to hope that they meet in the study. And that they meet soon. Because of course there’s the problem that—” He stopped suddenly and looked uncomfortable.

“What?” Charity asked. “The problem what?”

Nick slanted Di Stefano a hard glance, a warning. Di Stefano bit his lip.

“What?” Charity asked, her voice sharp. “What problem?”

“Well, the thing is, we can’t use the laser much after last light. Just like we can’t use it in a heavy snowstorm. The laser beam becomes visible. It’s like a huge neon sign—we’re listening to you.”

“So what happens if they meet after dark? Vassily invited me over for dinner, presumably after the talks or negotiations or whatever are over. Or what happens if it starts snowing, just like the weather forecast says. What’s Plan B?”

Silence. Di Stefano looked embarrassed and Nick looked grim, jaw muscles jumping.

Finally, Di Stefano spoke. “There really isn’t a Plan B. We’ll try to get photographs of who goes in and out. Use thermal imaging to count warm bodies.” He shrugged. “We’ll do our best with what we have.”

“There’s another way,” she said softly. “To get more information.”

“Yeah?” Di Stefano raised his eyebrows. “Which is?”

“Wire me,” she said simply.

Nick exploded. “No!” He jumped up from the sofa and ran a hand through his hair. “Not just no, butfuckno. Are you crazy? Omar Hammad and Vassily Worontzoff in the same fucking room and you walk into it? Together with God knows how many of their goons? There’s no way in hell you’re going anywhere near that place.” He whirled. “Goddamn it, Di Stefano, you tell her.”

But Di Stefano was looking at her thoughtfully.

“It could work,” Charity said, ignoring Nick.

“It could,” Di Stefano replied.

“No! Jesus, you can’t send a civilian into that! There’s no precedent, no protocol. We can’t do that!”

Di Stefano swiveled his head to stare at Nick. “Seems to me that you’re the first one here to have thrown precedent and protocol out the window, Nick. We’re just picking up the pieces here.”

“Well, I don’t want to pick upherpieces,” Nick snarled. “Did enough of that in Moldova. This is not an option, so you can just forget it.”

Charity stood, too. Nick had an unfair advantage with his height. It was bad enough while standing, with her on the sofa and him upright and quivering with indignation. It was positively lop-sided with both of them standing, an angry Nick looming over her.

“I’m not too sure that is a decision for you to take, Nick,” she said softly. She was speaking to him, but looking at Di Stefano.

What they’d said about Vassily had sickened her. Was that where he had got all his money? Not from his books but from essentially killing kids and abetting terrorists?

Charity didn’t really think of herself as a brave woman. She didn’t go in for martial arts, she didn’t rock climb or go parachuting. She was a very staid librarian who thought a new Nora Roberts book was a real thrill.

By the same token, though, she had a strong sense of honor and of patriotism. It turned out that the man she admired so much, Vassily Worontzoff, was a dangerous man, a man to be stopped.

In some small portion of her heart, she understood well that it was Kolyma that had changed him. He wasn’t responsible for the horrors that had been inflicted on him, that had cost him his health, his love and, in a real sense, his sanity. But he was responsible for what he became.

She recognized that she was faced with another one of those moments where you show what you are made of. And she was made of steel. Life had handed her the possibility of stopping something horrendous and she wasn’t going to walk away.

“Do you have the necessary equipment?” she asked Di Stefano softly.

“Yeah, I’ve got a body wire in the car and a button camera. All you’d have to do is just spend some time there. We’d need everyone’s voice on tape and clear visuals of everyone’s face, which we won’t get with long-range cameras. This would be invaluable, Ms, ah Mrs?—”

Di Stefano stopped, not knowing what to call her. Fair enough, she didn’t know what to call herself, either.

“Charity will do.”

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