“Better bring the bottle,” I told her.
She studied my face. “Why aren’t you relieved?”
“I am. You know I am. But he’s still missing.”
“We’ll find him,” she promised, grasping my shoulder.
“I hate this,” I muttered.
Leaving me for a moment, she was back quickly and set a double bourbon on the table beside me, along with the bottle of Pappy Van Winkle 23. I drained the glass hungrily and filled it twice more before I finally felt like I was back in my own skin and wasn’t dreaming.
“Thank you for coming,” I told her. She’d been putting in more hours lately, as Hasana couldn’t travel in the third trimester.
“Don’t thank me.” She took the seat beside me, her dark-mahogany eyes absorbing my face. “It’s Owen. Of course I’m here.”
When we reached cruising altitude, Arden put the plane on autopilot and joined me and Jing in the forward cabin.
“Who the hell is in the coffin in the cargo bay?” Arden took a seat across from me. “Because as soon as I saw you, I knew it wasn’t Owen.”
I nodded. “I was so scared, and then I saw the man on the table. Even being in the water for three days, it was clear to me right away that was a stranger.” I exhaled loudly.
She stared at me, not saying a word.
“Or I could be wrong.”
“No,” Arden assured me. “I believe in your gut, and whatever you thought first is right. It’s not him. Let’s go with that.”
“Okay,” I agreed because it was the only way I was holding it together.
The three of us sat quietly for long moments.
“So I filed the false flight plan as you directed,” Arden said into the silence. “But do you mind telling me where we’re really headed so I can actually get us there?”
“Nepal.”
“I’ll make sure we are authorized to land at Tribhuvan International. You look like hell, by the way, boss.” Since she’d seen me in better shape, and worse, she was allowed to make that judgment.
“You know,” Jing chimed in gently, “the flight is about three and a half hours. Maybe you should try and get some sleep.”
I barked a harsh laugh. “I’ll try.”
“Good,” Arden said, then glanced at Jing. “You should try and sleep too.”
Jing nodded, and Arden returned to the flight deck. Moments later, Jing moved to the opposite side of the plane to stretch out. She knew I couldn’t talk, couldn’t break down what was running through my head, so she left me alone to run through, again, the jumbled events clutching at my brain. I fished out my mobile and dialed one of the five numbers I had in Favorites. I appreciated Darius answering on the second ring.
“Well?” he asked without preamble.
“They tell me it’s him.”
“But clearly, from that opening, you don’t.”
“I don’t,” I rasped. “But I could be wrong.”
“What do you need?”
I took a breath. “I just left Bangkok, and I need a medical examiner in Kathmandu who can tell me who the dead man on this plane really is.”
“On it,” he offered simply and disconnected.
Thirty minutes later, I was relieved when my phone buzzed and I had Darius’s face on my screen. “Hey,” I greeted him.
“I’ve made all the arrangements,” he said crisply. “And Lee Tae San, my second, will meet you there.”
I was quiet a moment.
“Fuck, why did I tell you he was my second? You know that.”
I did. “We’re both being weird because this situation is one that neither of us could ever have foreseen.”
“Yes,” he agreed softly, his voice smooth and low.
“Thank you.”
“If it’s…” He didn’t have to finish. We both knew where he was going with that. “If it is him, call me immediately so I can get there.”
There was no arguing with him, and why would I want to? I would be more broken than I was now, wondering, running it over and over in my mind that I had, in the end, failed both the parents and the son.
“Keeping in mind, of course,” Darius said, and I could hear the irritation in his voice, which was a welcome change from pain, “that Lee will be there, and unfortunately, he’s just as you remember.”
“So kind of an ass, then,” I replied with a relieved sigh, glad for the distraction. And it was good that some things didn’t change. Before Lee was in Darius’s employ, he was possibly the most lethal contract killer in the world, so it made sense that along with that title came a fair amount of cockiness. Lee had swagger and pride to spare.
“Whatever you need after you get your answers…call me.”
I heard the regret in his voice clear as day. “This isn’t on you,” I assured him.
He took a quavering breath. “I kept you in Paris longer than I should have.”
“An evening? You’re blaming yourself for a few extra hours?” I scoffed and felt that in my soul. “All of this—whatever this is—was done days ago. You and I having dinner is the last good memory I have.”
“Don’t say that. You don’t think that’s Owen in the cargo hold, and I don’t either. I truly don’t. It seems too strange an end.”
And that, I agreed with.
“But please, do call.”
“You’re going to be the first one I make,” I promised him and hung up.
Alone with my thoughts again, my mind drifted back to the conversation I’d had with Aaron Sutter that had led to the last forty-eight hours without sleep.
THREE
A FEW DAYS EARLIER, PARIS
Unlike Torus Intercession’s warm offices in Oak Park, Chicago, the work space for the Paris branch was quite different, purposely so, taking up the entire top floor of a 404-foot, twenty-six-story skyscraper. I loved the twenty-eight-foot ceilings and the raw concrete and glass and steel that to others appeared Spartan. I liked the feel of the place. It felt serious, and that was what needed to be projected. The building was in the La Défense area outside Paris, which I’d picked so that my business would blend in. Just another company among thousands.
I was on the phone with my friend Mikhail Aronov, who was thanking me for helping with his asset exchange earlier in the week. His cover as a Russian attaché had been in jeopardy, and I’d made certain it wouldn’t be blown. And yes, it was ridiculous. Everybody who mattered knew he was in intelligence, but keeping up the charade was important to his bosses back in Russia. If the pretense was working and it looked good on paper, that was the story they were peddling. I was glad I’d been able to give him an assist, as I could always count on him to come through for me. Back in the day, he’d gotten a number of my people out of life-and-death situations and had put himself in the line of fire. I would always be there for him if at all possible. And this time, we hadn’t even been forced to lie. He’d gotten the green light from the CIA to ask for my help, and since the Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation knew me, they’d given the go-ahead as well.