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It had felt like being jabbed with a cattle prod when he’d looked at the photograph Rowena claimed to have taken from Bjorn’s office but figured he’d hid his reaction well enough. He needed a moment to think. To process.

To…

Fuck.

Fuck.

Fuck .

Not only was Dougie Cavanagh looking very cozy around that campfire, so was a young-looking Darmawan Hurek, Nolan Gilder, and Leo Spartan—the fucking UN ambassador for Zimbabwe.

Fuck .

Had Bjorn known all along who Hurek’s friends were? Seemed likely. The photo of Bjorn and Cavanagh looked to be around the same vintage. Was Cavanagh supposed to be some sort of decoy? A deflection?

It might explain why Bjorn was so reticent to talk to him about Hurek in the first place. Perhaps it risked exposing something in Bjorn’s own past he wanted to keep hidden. Associating with terrorists was never good for someone working internationally with munitions.

Kurt needed to get both of the photographs to the FBI geeks who could figure out if they were authentic and when and where they were taken.

Could Rowena be working for Hurek, feeding him a line in order to figure out what the FBI knew?

But why bother when someone had arranged to take him permanently out of the picture by bringing down a commercial airliner—murdering him alongside hundreds of innocent souls.

He flashed back to that babe in arms, and he wanted to vomit.

That plane crash was no accident.

Rowena could be complicit with whoever had killed Bjorn, but he didn’t think so.

Her tale was so convoluted without turning itself inside out that she was likely telling the truth.

If she was involved with the bad guys why show him that photo at all?

Why stop him from getting on that flight?

No way would the tech billionaire or the UN ambassador want their association, no matter how ancient, with a terrorist at the top of the FBI’s Most Wanted list to be made public.

Did they know where Hurek was hiding?

Did Hurek have dirt on them?

The opportunity for Kurt to question them was long gone, if it had ever existed.

With this new computer factory, Gilder was effectively holding the keys of the kingdom in this country.

He was a national hero. He could probably murder someone on camera, and as long as it wasn’t the Zimbabwean president, all would be forgiven.

And Gilder was possibly even more powerful in the US .

Who’d taken that photograph of the four men sitting together? Bjorn?

Given the stakes, chances were someone in the photograph had killed or arranged to kill his old friend.

Why?

To tie up loose ends? To keep a secret that was almost thirty years old? To get this photograph and make sure no one else ever saw it?

In the photograph, they looked like they were in some sort of bush camp. Gilder and Spartan were smiling whereas the other two looked more serious.

Had Bjorn pointed him in Cavanagh’s direction as a stalling tactic?

Or perhaps some sort of backup plan. Or had the four of them decided that the link to Cavanagh would be a dead end as he’d been deceased—supposedly—for decades.

Kurt had a lot more questions than answers and unfortunately, the discovery Gilder might be involved meant the situation had changed drastically and so had his tactics.

“Pop the SIMs out of all three cell phones. I have a paperclip if you need one.”

“I have something I can use.” Row’s mouth tightened as she pulled one out of her voluminous bag. “Why? You think the police can track us?”

He weighed up whether or not to level with her. It was a risk, telling her the truth, but she seemed smart, and the better she understood the stakes the more likely they were to be successful in escaping their current situation.

“I don’t think we can trust any electronics right now, not even encrypted ones.” Just as well the car was an older model. “Make sure the phones are powered all the way down. If you can pop the batteries, even better.”

The fact the ZESA had gone down was a blessing. Without the power outage, whoever blew up that flight and presumably murdered Bjorn would already know Kurt had never boarded that plane. It was possible they already did .

And if they were willing to take down a commercial aircraft to get rid of him, then chances were they’d employ other methods to make sure he didn’t leave the country too.

Why? Why kill him?

Because they knew he’d met with Bjorn and were worried about what Bjorn had told him? Or because of Rowena?

The latter didn’t make any sense. She felt like a wildcard thrown into the mix at the last moment.

He could no longer assume his communications were encrypted or untraceable.

Not when Gilder owned the satellites that bounced the signals around the globe.

Nor could Kurt assume any of his messages would arrive at their intended destination.

Was that why his connection to Jordan Krychek had been so crappy last night?

Perhaps Bjorn had set him up, knowing Kurt would be effectively incommunicado before being blown out of the sky. He probably hadn’t expected to also be eliminated.

Owning the satellites, Gilder could intercept any text or email message that went to an FBI number or employee or have his AI bots analyze everything in real time.

Nope, Kurt had to assume any form of electronic communication was unsafe until he could get to a secure network or SCIF.

He gave Row a minute to double check each phone. The burner wasn’t activated yet, so he didn’t worry about it.

“Don’t suppose your uncle happens to have an old-fashioned map-book around here somewhere?”

“I’m not sure. Let me look.” She unclipped her belt and leaned over into the back.

“Yes!” She dragged it out of the pocket behind her seat and flopped back down, turned the dog-eared pages.

She flipped through until she found the right area and put her finger on the road they were currently traveling on.

He was impressed despite himself. Not everyone knew how to read a map these days.

“Who did you tell about your quest to talk to Anders?” He needed to know who might have spotted this young woman. Whose radar she was on.

“No one.” She pushed her hair behind her ear. “I didn’t even tell my uncle about him.”

“Why now? What triggered you to come here now?”

“It’s a long story.”

“Do I look like I’m busy?”

She blinked at his tone, and he winced.

“Sorry.” Dammit. He softened his voice. “It’s important.”

Clearly uncomfortable, she chewed her lip and clasped her hands together—a clear tell when she was nervous.

“After Peter and Anoona died, I decided to move back into my childhood home—my grandmother’s house.

She died eight years ago. Peter and Anoona lived there, but I’d moved out after I went to uni and found a little flat to rent when I moved back.

My grandmother’s house is old—like older than the United States old, and way too big for me on my own, but it’s gorgeous, facing the river, with a huge rambling garden.

” She rubbed her arms. “I’ll probably sell it, but…

it’s a connection to my family that I needed in the aftermath of their deaths. ”

He knew what it was like to lose people.

“Uncle Peter was the last blood relative I had, which is why finding my father suddenly seemed like a good idea. Trust me”—She cocked her head at him—“I’m currently regretting that decision.”

He felt his lips twitch.

“At the start of December, I went up into the attic to pull out the Christmas decorations which was both grief-inducing and comforting. I found an old chest hidden in one corner that I’d never seen before.

When I opened it, I realized it was full of my mom’s things—schoolbooks, teen diaries, old posters, photographs and even her old SLR camera.

Then I found the letters, and I started to do some online snooping about Dougie.

I discovered he’d died young, just like my mom, which was a gut check.

So I researched the other man in the photo next, Bjorn Anders, and discovered he was going to be at that diamond conference”—Her long fingers traced the road—“I decided to visit my aunt’s family here for Christmas and try to meet with Bjorn and see what he could tell me about my mom and Dougie’s relationship.

Coming to see Uncle Gamba and my cousins was a lot better than staying home alone among all the ghosts.

” She hunched her shoulders at the admission.

“My uncle has a house up at the Falls. He and my cousins drove back on the twenty-eighth, but I stayed on. I spotted Anders a couple of times, but I never saw him alone, and I didn’t have the nerve to approach him with anyone else there, so that was a bust.”

“You lied to me.”

She raised a haughty brow. “I didn’t tell a perfect stranger things that weren’t any of his business.”

“And after the Falls?”

“I drove back to Harare. Bjorn’s workplace was closed all last week. Reopened this morning. I figured it was my last chance to see him before I went home, so I drove over there first thing. We both know how that turned out.” She grimaced.

“How did you know he was going to be at the Jam Café last night?”

She looked sheepish now. “I went to his house last night. He came out while I was still building up the courage to knock on the door. I followed him.”

“Any chance he spotted you? Could he be the one who stuck a nail in your tire?”

“Why would he do that? I only wanted to ask him a couple of questions?” She rubbed her forehead. “It’s possible though. I popped to the loo, and when I came out you were there alone, paying the bill. I headed straight to my vehicle and found the flat tire. I was pretty pissed when you turned up.”