Page 86 of Poison Evidence

“It can wait,” Curt said.

She frowned at the screen. “It’s Fredrickson from the DIA. You’d better take it.”

“I’ll call him back.”

“What if they’ve called another damn meeting and left you out of the loop?”

Mara was right. Fredrickson was the only person within the DIA who kept Curt informed in a timely manner. He took the phone and swiped the screen to answer. “Rudy. What’s up?”

“The briefing I just received on the situation in Palau is pretty ugly for Ivy MacLeod. The boys here know they fucked up, and now it sounds like they’re going to hang MacLeod out to dry. There’s even speculation she and Veselov were colluding from the start.”

Curt’s head throbbed, and the look on Mara’s face as she took in his reaction to words she couldn’t hear made him worry for her health.

“That’s bullshit, and everyone knows it.”

“I wish it were that simple, but there is evidence she called Veselov twice prior to her departure for Palau.”

Dimitri held the satellite phone in one hand and Ian Boyd’s business card in the other. He needed to know how Ivy was doing. One call. He might even get to speak with her.

But every contact was a risk. Raptor might have technology to track his location through the phone.

It was easier this way. It would hurt Ivy, but she was going to hurt no matter what.

He shoved Boyd’s card back in his pocket and dialed the number he’d memorized months ago and which he’d been reporting in to on a weekly basis, a requirement of their bargain. The phone was answered on the first ring.

The Russian on the other end of the line used a voice distorter as before. Dimitri didn’t know if the person was male or female, young or old. “You have acquired the AUUV?”

“Not yet,” he said in Russian. “But I expect to find it soon.”

“You are taking too long, Veselov. Your sister suffers while you waste time fucking the cartographer.”

He tightened his jaw against issuing a denial. Nothing he could say would protect Ivy. The person was fishing for a response. He wouldn’t fall into that trap. “Send your man to collect the AUUV. Have him wait at the new resort in Koror. I will have it in two days.”

“We wish to amend our arrangement.”

“No fucking way. You will release Sophia and Yulian, or you won’t get the AUUV.”

“We will still release your sister and nephew. That hasn’t changed.”

“There is nothing else you can offer me that I want.”

“Not even your own life? A chance to be with the cartographer?”

Were they fishing, or did they know something? If they had an inside man in the FBI, CIA, or DIA, then everything Ivy said would reach his handler’s ears.

“We’ll release you from your commitments to Mother Russia,” the person on the line continued, “if you kill Luke Sevick as you were ordered to do last fall.”

“No. I won’t kill for you again.”

“You don’t understand, Veselov, this isn’t up for negotiation. If you don’t kill Luke Sevick, Ivy MacLeod will die.”

Chapter Thirty

“You push too hard. He’ll never kill Sevick.”

“I don’t want him to kill the SEAL.”

“Then why issue the order?”