Chapter 50
After departing Zander’s house, Michael, Christine, and Kiana took the man Kiana had captured to the San Diego police department where he would be detained until Beckman could send another USIA agent to retrieve him. Like before, she wanted to handle his interrogation personally. After dropping him off, they rented a room in a hotel in downtown San Diego, since they were all in desperate need of showers and some sleep. During her time as an agent, Kiana had never had a longer, busier, more hectic day. While Christine was taking her turn in the shower, Michael contacted Beckman using Kiana’s laptop. And it was a good thing he did since Beckman had some important information to tell them.
“I completed my interrogation of the man you captured at Whistler. His name is Antonin Gregorovich. We don’t have too much on him and as far as we can tell he’s little more than a petty criminal. During his interrogation, he revealed he was working for a man named Pavel Voronov.”
“Voronov?”
“He was a prestigious general in the Soviet military. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, he fell into disregard and eventually left the country completely. For years he worked as an arms dealer and weapons manufacturer, mostly in Afghanistan and the Middle East. Over the years, we tried to put the squeeze on him several times but we were never successful. A few years ago, he disappeared completely and we assumed he had either died, been killed, or simply retired.”
“Why would an arms dealer have a man watch Zander’s house?”
“That’s what I’d like to know. I had our analysts take a look at that 1.5 million dollar deposit you discovered while going through Zander’s bank records. Guess where the money came from?”
“Voronov?”
“Exactly.”
“But why? What’s the connection between Zander and Voronov?”
“That’s what I want you to find out. I put in a few calls, in an attempt to find Voronov’s current whereabouts. We believe he is on an island off of the west coast of Costa Rica.”
“Costa Rica?”
“Yes. As far as we can tell he’s on a small, uninhabited island off of the mainland, approximately fifty miles from shore. It looks like Voronov purchased the island quite some time ago, but we have no idea why. In the past year, large amounts of supplies and construction material have been shipped to it, so we believe he is finally up to something. It may be nothing more than a private estate he’s building for himself, but I want you, Christine, and Kiana to take a closer look at it to find out.”
“What about Zander?”
“We believe he’s there, too. We were able to locate an image of him on a security camera at the main airport in San José. In the image, he is accompanied by a man named Dimitri Nikitin, who is an associate of Voronov’s. As such, the two men, Zander and Voronov, are clearly linked somehow.”
“When do you want us to leave?”
“First thing in the morning. Once you arrive in San José, you will be met by our operative there, a man named Francisco Moratalla. Moratalla is already in the process of obtaining a boat that can get you covertly to Voronov’s island. I want you to keep things as quiet and as low-key as possible for now. Simply do some surveillance, so we can try to find out what is actually going on, if anything. I do not want you to do anything to alert the Costa Rican authorities unless you must. I’ve already purchased your tickets to San José and they’ll be waiting for you at Lindbergh Field tomorrow morning. I want reports every six hours upon your arrival in San José.”
“Understood.”
Beckman’s image vanished from the screen.
For a minute, Kiana thought Michael was done, but then he grabbed his phone and dialed a number.
“Jones. It’s Michael. Sorry for the delay getting back to you. Were you able to find anything?”
He waited for several seconds as the man on the other end spoke. Unfortunately, since he had the phone to his ear Kiana couldn’t hear what was being said on the other end.
“I see. Keep digging and give me word if you find anything more. You may need to check her mother’s files. What? I know. Do your best.”
He hung up, then turned to Kiana. “Have you heard anything from your sister lately?”
Kiana instantly grew concerned. Actually, since Olivia’s departure, Kiana had sent her numerous texts including one while they were waiting for their flight at the airport in Vancouver and another after their arrival in San Diego but she had received absolutely nothing from Olivia in response.
“I haven’t received anything, either,” Michael said. “And I’ve sent her several texts.”
“Do you think something has happened to her?”
“No. I’m not worried about that, at least not yet. But I think there is more to your sister than meets the eye.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I had one of our people at the USIA do a background check on her.”
Kiana couldn’t believe what she had just heard, and she had no choice but to interrupt him. “You did a background check on your own daughter?”
“Of course. We’re secret agents, Kiana. That’s what we do. And especially since her mother is one of the most cunning British operatives I’ve ever met.”
“You think Olivia is an agent? Like her mom?”
“It wouldn’t surprise me at all. Especially since she isn’t really a student in Sydney.”
“What do you mean?”
“I had an operative in Sydney take a look at her school. He discovered Olivia is indeed registered at the school, and like all students there she has a class schedule and official transcripts. And her grades are excellent. But when he went and spoke with her professors, none of them had ever heard of her. And the same was true of her classmates. None of them had ever seen anyone who matched her description.”
Kiana’s head was spinning. Her own sister was a spy, for England? She couldn’t believe it. Or could she?
“There’s something I should tell you.”
Michael raised an eyebrow. “What?”
“We did a little sparring one night. She was as good as me. Maybe better.”
“Interesting. Perhaps the Brits have a program similar to ours. Maybe Olivia was recruited by her mother years ago and then sent through a training program similar to what you went through.”
“You don’t think the whole thing was a lie, do you? She is your daughter, right? And my sister? She didn’t just come to Seattle to get information on us, did she?”
Michael shook his head. “That part of her story does check out. She’s your sister. There’s no doubt about that.”
“How do you know?”
“I had a DNA sample tested. I got a strand of her hair from a brush in your bathroom.”
Kiana let out a large sigh of relief. She had really enjoyed having a sister so it would have broken her heart if she had found out Olivia wasn’t her sister after all. But at the same time, she was deeply concerned about her and she really wanted to know what was going on.
“Even if she is an agent, why wouldn’t she be responding to our texts right now?”
“I’m not certain. But I did verify she did not return to Sydney like she told us. Holley returned to Sydney, but Olivia boarded a plane that was headed to Los Angeles.”
“Why would she go to Los Angeles?”
“I’m not certain. And it’s highly possible LA wasn’t her final destination. It may have just been a layover before she caught a connecting flight to somewhere else. I have a contact in LA looking into it but he hasn’t been able to find anything yet.”
As he spoke, Kiana sat back in her chair. She definitely wasn’t happy about what she had just learned. Maybe having an older sister wasn’t quite as good as she had originally thought.