Slaton set a hard turn to break his descent down the mountain. He coasted to a stop in the trees on the northern side of the main run, a recess with a commanding view of the spot where Romanov had gone down.
A man and a woman, both in ski gear, were taking measurements at the scene. The woman stood near the small cordoned area, while the man had climbed forty yards uphill and was standing next to a flag that had been planted in the snow. Using some kind of optical measuring device, he took readings and called them out to his partner, who dutifully recorded them in a book. It was all very organized. All very Swiss.
Unknowingly, they were doing much of Slaton’s job for him. The two were clearly calculating where Romanov had first been hit. It was likely a guess based on where he’d fallen, referencing the first tumbling gouges in the snow, although it was possible they’d obtained some kind of camera footage of the event—Slaton supposed ski resorts maintained surveillance to fend off liability. Whatever the source, he allowed that the position of the uphill flag was based on known facts.
Soon the man and woman, who could only be police, packed up their gear and disappeared downhill. There was no one else in sight. Unsure how long that would remain the case, Slaton seized the moment and kicked off toward the higher of the two points.
Slowing as he approached the flag, he rounded the spot and then continued downhill. His speed and direction were governed by the mental diagram he’d created at the granite ledge far above. Slaton skidded to a stop and looked uphill. He assumed the police had plotted the pertinent details of the crime—where Romanov had been shot, and where he had come to rest—with a reasonable degree of accuracy. He alone, however, knew the most critical point: where the shot had originated.
He lined up the high ledge to the point where Romanov had been hit, and from there drew a line straight downhill. He extrapolated the path the bullet would have taken after passing through its target. Because the police had no starting point, they would be relegated to searching acres of snow-covered mountain for the bullet. Slaton hoped he could narrow things down to something far more manageable.
He glanced briefly at the base of the mountain. If his pause near the accident scene had drawn any interest, he saw no sign of it. A few staff and ski patrol members were milling about, and a police evidence van was parked nearby with its rear doors ajar. There was no sign of the man and woman who’d just departed with their measurements. All the same, Slaton knew his time was limited. He had no good reason to be here, and sooner or later he would be confronted.
Along the trajectory he’d calculated, he eased very slowly downhill. With his skis carving wide, slow turns, he plowed ever so cautiously in search of the telltale mark.
* * *
The images arrived early that afternoon, and Sorensen was alerted by Mike.
“Two of the three have anchored,” he said, shuffling satellite pictures between two monitors in the embassy comm room.
Sorensen studied the God’s-eye views, and was not surprised by their clarity. The CIA kept its best birds over the Middle East. She saw anchor lines angled off the bow of each ship. Argos was distinguishable by her uniquely situated deck crane, Cirrus by a pair of large lifeboats mounted astern.
“What about the third ship?”
“Tasman Sea is still moving. She’s in the Persian Gulf, nearing the Straits of Hormuz.”
“Can you give me a map that shows all three?”
Mike typed, the screen flickered, and soon a map was presented with Saudi Arabia at the center. The three data points were clearly marked. Argos was stationary off a remote section of the Saudi coast in the northern Red Sea. Cirrus lay in the Gulf of Aden, off the shores of Yemen near the Omani border. Tasman Sea was skirting the narrowest channel in the Persian Gulf, and a small vector arrow showed her heading.
“The two that are anchored,” she said. “Can we tell if they’re in international waters?”
In a decidedly untechnical maneuver, Mike pulled the swizzle stick from his coffee cup, set it over the scale on the electronic map, and used a fingertip to mark off twelve miles. He gauged the positions of the two anchored ships to the nearest coastline. “Looks like both are just outside the limit. You think that’s important?”
Sorensen thought about it. “If it was only one of them, maybe not. But both having taken up identical positions, and at the same time … it’s too much of a coincidence.”
“Should we run it past the front office?” he asked, referring to Langley.
Sorensen pondered it. On appearances there was nothing damning, just two freighters that had thrown down anchor hundreds of miles apart. It was curious because they were owned by the same company. And unremarkable for the same reason. “Maybe their corporate controllers told them to lay up,” she speculated. “I’ve heard that oil tankers often do it as a business strategy. They’ll drop anchor outside a port to delay delivery if the owners think the price of crude is about to go up.”
“Could be, I guess. But we don’t know what they’re carrying.”
“No, not yet.” Sorensen thought about it long and hard, then shook her head. “I can only play my director card so many times. This isn’t enough—we need to keep watching.”
“Okay, I’ll stay on it.”
Mike went back to his coffee, then began typing.
Sorensen moved toward the door, yet before she left the room she turned and looked at the screen one last time. From a more distant vantage point, the big picture on the map left a more unsettling impression. From where she stood, it looked very much like Saudi Arabia was being surrounded.