Her mistake, Ekaterina determined, was in focusing on the woman. She’d wanted to know what the woman wanted, what she was after, what she knew about Marcus, what she might have told other people. And yes, Ekaterina still wanted to know all of that. Yet in the end it was unimportant — a red herring. It didn’t matter what Meghan wanted or thought she wanted or what she knew or thought she knew. What mattered was Marcus — Mischa now.
She had to get Mischa back. That was the key. Of course he’d felt threatened when Abe approached, demanding that Meghan accompany them. Although he hadn’t admitted it, Abe had probably brandished that gun of his and spooked Mischa, which was why Mischa had reacted by running away and hiding. Ekaterina pushed her fingers against her temple. Honestly. Men. If they weren’t so preoccupied with comparing relative dick size, they’d be capable of awe-inspiring feats. Next time she was hiring a woman to run her security. Too bad Meghan wasn’t going to be available.
Still, she couldn’t blame Abe entirely for what had happened today. True, he hadn’t kept her informed every step of the way — he’d examined the computer, and made a guess about what Mischa had seen, and acted on it, as much a leap of faith as an act of careful analysis. At the same time, she had charged him with getting Mischa back, and so he had tried. That blunder was hers. It was a rare misstep in her dealings with her brother, and she was going to have to repair it somehow. And she was going to have to do it personally.
How she wished Yuri were here —
She sighed and activated the chip. Mischa hated that but it couldn’t be helped. She scrounged up the hand-held electronic tracker just as her executive assistant buzzed her. “Mr. Vogler is on his way up.”
Ekaterina hadn’t decided exactly what she intended to say or do until Abe came barreling into her office, blustering in that peculiar way of big men who want to put an opponent on the defensive without being accused of bullying.
“Why the hell didn’t you tell me about the safe word? He was all set to come along — ”
“Horseshit,” she said, calmly and succinctly, the terse word cutting off Abe’s diatribe before it could get well and truly started. “Isn’t that the word you use when one of your subordinates fails to execute and then tries to blame someone else?”
She went to her desk and took her chair. She indicated the visitor’s chair. Abe ignored her, running an agitated hand over his face. “Do you know that son of a bitch almost killed me?”
“Sit down, Abe,” Ekaterina said sharply, as she might have said “Heel!” to a rambunctious setter. She forced a smile and gestured at the visitor’s chair again. This time Abe sat.
She straightened several papers on her desk, making sure the edges were perfectly aligned. That was merely for show. She wasn’t anal-retentive; she was effective. Sometimes that required particular attention to details and other times to grand, visionary thinking. She was good at both.
“I am certain you were never in any danger from Mischa. If he wanted to kill you, you would be dead. If he wanted to hurt you, you would be in the hospital. What he wanted was to get away from you, which, as you already reported from the field, he managed to do successfully.”
Abe wisely dropped his complaint and leaned back in his chair, his hair standing up in agitated puffs. She wondered how much of his apparent upset was real and how much was for show.
After a moment, she continued. “As for your other charge, that I failed to give you the safe word, may I quote you? ‘What are we, ten years old?’ There was no safe word, as you have no doubt surmised by now, so I don’t know why you’re trying to use it against me to suggest the failure of your team to fulfill its assignment had to do with my incompetence rather than yours.”
She might be fully aware of the mistake she’d made but she wasn’t going to hand it over to Abe so he could bludgeon her with it. She gave him a long cool look, making sure he remembered who the boss was.
“I have a different assignment for you now,” she said and when she was sure she had his full attention, she told him about it. If he seemed annoyed by being demoted to errand boy, he had the sense not to show it. If he’d demonstrated such emotional control upon coming into her office, perhaps she wouldn’t have had to exert her power this way.
She buzzed her executive assistant. “Greta, Mr. Vogler needs a seat on the next flight to Berlin. He has many demands on him at the moment, so I’m trusting you to personally ensure that he makes that flight.”
There. The intimation that she knew he was up to something he wasn’t sharing with her, coupled with a mild threat couched as concern that his trip not be delayed, should hold him for a bit.
She gave Abe a thin smile. “I’ll need to borrow three or four of your staff. Your very best,” she said, knowing that he’d get the message. If she couldn’t trust him to do the job, she’d just have to do it herself.
He hesitated for just a moment, probably wanting to compare dicks, then said, “May I borrow your phone? I’ll set it up right now.”