Page 41 of Radar (Iniquus Certified Cerberus Tactical K9 #2)

“The food studies you were conducting and the systems that you designed were created specifically to keep Orest’s family alive through a nuclear winter if one should occur,” White said.

“He and his family do not traffic in nuclear weapons. But they believe that there is a distinct possibility that the act of terror they’re planning might result in worldwide dire consequences.

If they are successful with their plan, there’s a potential that a nuclear war would ensue.

We need to stop him. And we specifically need your help to do that. ”

“Me.” She put her finger on the genealogical page with her name. “Belov.” Her eyes widened, and she fixed on Xander. “Are we cousins?”

“No. You and Xander are not in any way related,” White said without hesitation.

Now that that was out of the way, the FBI guy next to White seemed to have the conversation baton handed to him.

“I’m Finley.” He pointed to his card. “And as you know, I’m with the FBI.”

She flicked her eyes toward Xander. “The FBI because the man tried to get me on his snowmobile this morning?”

“Elyssa,” Finley said, “you escaped that event, but Eddie and Claude Burns—the man you call Paca—did not. They were kidnapped. We believe that it might have something to do with Orest going to Singapore.”

Those were words sitting on the table. They didn’t seem to want to go into Elyssa’s mind. “But he left this morning.” She flailed to make sense of this.

“And left you and his other two invitees in an Alaskan forest?” White asked.

“He had a family emergency. I switched my plane to leave Alaska early because I wasn’t able to handle the freezing temperatures.”

“How are you right now?” Xander asked. “Is there anything I can get you to make you more comfortable?”

“I’m okay. It’s just a lot to take in. I introduced Eddie to Orest. Someone kidnapped Eddie?

Dear god.” She shook her head in bewilderment.

“I didn’t know Paca. Orest never spoke of Paca’s work, just about his sled team in Alaska.

You asked if Orest simply left us there.

No, we had a plan. Orest would leave very early in the morning. ”

“Why didn’t you go in the same car?” White asked.

“Because his flight was very early this morning, “Elyssa repeated. “He had to leave the cabins just after four o’clock to make it, and he wanted to sleep in the car.”

White laid a paper in front of Elyssa, and she scanned over the copy of a plane ticket in Orest’s name, from Fairbanks to San Francisco. White put her finger on the departure time.

“That was an hour after I was supposed to leave.”

The room fell quiet, giving Elyssa time to process.

“He wanted to go without me. He left hours before he needed to.” Elyssa looked at Xander. “How does that make sense?”

“We have pieces to that puzzle that tell us that Orest Kalinsky arranged to have Eddie, Paca, and you kidnapped.” Finley let that information sit for a moment before continuing.

“This morning, before your departure, Eddie and Paca were kidnapped from their rooms. Someone tried to break into your room as well.”

“Elyssa was in my room with me,” Xander said. “She left my room and was walking to the car when the assailant on the snowmobile was waiting on her path.”

“Did you recognize him?” Finley asked Elyssa.

“No. The attacker was wearing a helmet,” Elyssa whispered, her chest growing tighter. “The only thing I saw was that he was red-faced. He was angry.”

“Did you recognize him, Xander?” Finley asked.

“I didn’t wait around for that. I was following Elyssa to make sure she was safe.”

“You followed me?” Elyssa asked. “Not just tracking me?”

“I got in my car as soon as I could and tried to catch you. Should your car have stopped, I would have been just behind you to help.”

“I have a lot of questions about that,” Elyssa said. “But I’m here to give you answers. I’m assuming that since you know about the kidnappings, you’ve saved Eddie and Paca, and they’re okay.”

“No, Elyssa,” Finley said. “That’s not what happened. Eddie and Paca were flown to Russia, and we believe they are now on a flight to Singapore.”

“How does that make any sense? Why? Eddie prints meat, and Paca studies squirrels. No one is kidnapping Eddie and Paca for their science. No one is kidnapping them for money. Research scientists make little despite their high level of education.”

“We don’t have those answers,” White said. “We think we know why they tried to kidnap you, though.” White put a pile of pictures in front of Elyssa.

Elyssa picked them up and fanned through them. They were all pictures of her in gardens and parks.

She put them down and looked at Xander for a long time, then flicked her attention back to White. “There are only pictures of me. Orest didn’t take them. Who was taking my picture?” She spun on Xander. “Was it you?”

“I met you in Lumberjack,” he said evenly. “It was by happenstance. I knew nothing of you until that moment.”

“You have these pictures, so someone you know took them?” Her gaze didn’t waver from his. “But why?”

“Because,” Hiro said with an edge to his voice that she hadn’t expected, “you saw things without knowing the significance. Our guy, who took the pictures, knows what you know, but he’s non-responsive in a hospital bed, so you, whether you like it or not, might just be the person standing between life-goes-on and nuclear winter. ”

“Stop it,” Xander’s voice was low and controlled, but no doubt there was a knife’s edge in the base.

“There’s no need to frighten Elyssa. And given her medical situation, it’s dangerous as hell to scare her.

” He lowered his voice, but Elyssa could still hear.

“What if she ends up in the hospital like York? Then what would we do?”

“AI can’t find this?” Elyssa asked, feeling like the room was sliding sideways. If humanity were picking a superhero to leap in and save the day, and somehow the spin of the dial had landed on her, well, the Fates made a pretty shitty choice.

Her body drooped forward.

“Elyssa?” Xander put his hand on her arm and lifted her from the chair, kicking it out of the way and guiding her body to the floor. “Give me a signal, paramedic?” He was steady as a rock.

Elyssa managed to shake her head. She hated the circus that came with public episodes.

Xander lowered himself behind her, letting her rest against him.

White came around and pulled Elyssa’s legs out to lie more comfortably in front of her.

As soon as White finished that task, unbidden, Radar came and sprawled across her lap, acting like a weighted blanket that helped push her blood up toward her heart.

Xander lifted a hand, and White reached for an electrolyte drink from the table and passed it over.

After a few minutes, Elyssa felt well enough to speak if she stayed in Xander’s arms with Radar on her legs. “Can I have the pictures, please?”

Elyssa could feel Xander’s disapproval of her pushing herself, but he said nothing as White handed her the stack.

She switched to the next photo. “I was asking about AI searches?”

“It’s a picture of you and a tree, Elyssa,” White said. “We don’t have the digital photos with embeds. There’s no data on the prints.”

She put her hand down on Xander’s thigh. “You know who took these pictures.”

“I believe so,” he said. “And that person is the reason I went to Alaska. Again, Orest Kalinsky, traveling with Claude Burns, was my target. After Orest went to sleep, I went to the lodge to see if I could meet Claude, who is Paca, and there I met you. And you came over to speak to me, then Eddie and Paca came in.”

She turned to the pictures.

“Elyssa, as a group, do these photos tell a story of some kind?” White asked. “What do these images have in common?”

“My uncle— This is surreal. I’m having trouble believing this is happening right now.

What do these have in common?” She laid the photos beside her and knitted her fingers together.

“Orest Kalinsky has an apartment in Paris. He told me that there was a convention in Paris, the topic of the conference was world cuisine and the new things we can anticipate in the next decade. I knew about it because Eddie was going to discuss 3D-printed meat. There are also cheeses that can be lab-made, under-ocean farming, and GMOs that allow food to grow in a new environment where the air is saturated with moisture, but the ground is dry. It’s a new phenomenon that I anticipated and wanted to overcome with my own research of community vertical farms that could exist in any climate and survive any cataclysmic weather event, making them useful as emergency shelters as well. ”

“Orest told you about the conference,” White said. “Did he attend?”

“He said that he wanted me to go, and he paid my way. He also asked me to hang out with him for the ten days before, as he did a bit of food touring, which we did. He was buying cider for the year for his family, and we were doing a little game for the children.”

“Were the children with you? Any other family members?” White asked.

“No. Specifically, Orest wanted to go around Normandy sampling the ciders and ordering them for the family. I thought the family must adore cider because he was basically tasting and then ordering everything they had. I was worried that he was wiping out supplies for others.”

“Where did he send the cider?” Hiro asked.

“That I don’t know. Orest handed them a piece of paper. He was speaking in French, and my French is wobbly at best. I did what I had to get through my basic requirements in high school.”

“These are all taken around Normandy?” Hiro asked.

“He met me in London. Orest was in London, and I had never been there before, so I flew there for a couple of days first. Then, we took the ferry from Portsmouth to Le Havre, France, and worked our way back to Paris for the conference. One day, he invited Eddie to have dinner with us after we visited Versailles. I had been telling Orest about Eddie’s discoveries in meat production, and Orest wondered if I could add that to the vertical farms. Orest invited Eddie to work with him, and I assumed that meant work with me on the Feed the World project, but Eddie had just signed a contract with NASA.

” She reached out and kneaded her fingers into Radar’s scruff.

“Meat for the Mars astronauts,” Xander explained.

“How did your uncle respond to Eddie declining the job offer?”

“He invited Eddie to Alaska. And he really sold it. I thought it was just my kindly great-uncle being overly enthusiastic.” Elyssa leaned down and kissed the top of Radar’s head and left her cheek resting there on his warm velvet fur, taking what comfort she could.

There was a knock at the door. Finley went to answer it and was handed a note. He read it and walked back to the table. He sat in a chair and leaned his forearms onto his thighs so he hovered near Elyssa. “Elyssa, do you know someone named Dr. Klara Westergren?”

Elyssa looked at the floor as she searched her memory, then shook her head.

“Dr. Westergren works in a lab that developed lab-grown butter and—”

“Cheese?” Elyssa lifted her head, sitting upright. “This is out of Seattle?”

Xander whispered, “No sudden moves, please,” then eased her back into his arms.

“Yes,” Finley said. “You know Dr. Westergren?”

“No. But Eddie was talking to Orest in Paris about cheese, and Orest asked Eddie to give him the name and contact information of the person Eddie knew who was developing the process. Oh shit.” She clamped her hands over her mouth, muffling her, “Why?”

“She went missing two days ago. Her partner said that she went out to walk the dog. When the dog came home unaccompanied, a search was conducted. There is no sign of her anywhere.”

“Seattle isn’t far from Alaska,” Elyssa whispered.

“Box number four?” White asked cryptically.

Finley’s phone buzzed, and he quietly answered.

“Elyssa, drink.” Xander touched her hand. “Do you need a break?”

“Yes, if I could have a minute.” She’d gone clammy, and exhaustion weighed heavily over her body.

“Just before you take that break,” Finely said, stretching out his arm to hand her his phone, “I have your roommate on the line. Tell her where your passport is and that she’s to hand it to the FBI special agent at the door.”

“My passport?” Why in the world? Maybe to check my country stamps? Elyssa accepted the phone. “Jen?”

“Elyssa, what’s happening?” Jen’s voice quivered.

“I’m sorry for the disturbance. My passport is in the center drawer on my desk, right in front. Can you give it to whoever is there?” Elyssa asked.

“Are you okay?” Jen whispered.

“Yeah, well, do I have a story for you. Just not now. I’ll talk to you when I can. Okay?”