Oracle's Diplomacy

by A. Claire Everward

  “Think they’ll buy it?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine. Still, all this has to do is seed doubt, and considering that they’ve stopped moving forces, could be it’s done the job, that they’re now not sure where they stand. Which buys us time. I hope.”

  “And they just might turn on whoever they used, demand answers.”

  “Which could flush them out. Who knows, maybe they’ll make a mistake.” Anderson let out a long breath. “Hey, it could work, Frank.”

  “It could,” Scholes said. But would it matter? Ultimately, Sendor was the most crucial part of the equation. If he was alive, they had to get him back. If he was dead, nothing else mattered. “In the meantime, we have restless, trigger-happy Russian soldiers on the borders. An hour ago a fighter jet—a manned fighter jet—crosses the Srpska-Russia border not far from Brčko District, shoots down a Srpskan surveillance drone, then crosses the Srpska-Croatia border into alliance airspace, buzzes IDSD drones sent to intercept it, and crosses southeast, back to Russian airspace.”

  “That’s risky.”

  “Baiting us to make the first move, which would make us look guiltier than we already do.” Scholes rubbed his face. This was not good.

  After a lengthy pause, Anderson took his eyes off the mayhem in Europe and met those of the man who had what they needed. “Do you have it ready?” he asked quietly, careful not to specify his precise meaning.

  Scholes knew what he was asking. “It’s being prepared, so that it can be deployed on demand if and when.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Donovan was looking at cases his investigative teams were working on. Some were in the closing stages, and there was nothing in the rest his lead investigators couldn’t handle without his involvement, other than perhaps the occasional guidance, a word of advice. Still, he was the agent in charge, and these were his teams, his responsibility. And while the investigation that held the fate of too many tugged at his attention, there was nothing he could do right now, not without risking consequences that weren’t his but the multitudes’ whose fate was uncertain.

  “Sir, you have a visitor.”

  “Who is it?” Donovan asked, preoccupied, his focus on his desk screen, but raised his eyes to the junior agent at the door when he heard the answer.

  “A Mr. Tom Holsworth, sir. He’s been cleared and is on his way up.”

  Donovan reached the elevator just as it opened. He nodded at the escorting agent, and only Lara’s brother got off the elevator. The two men faced each other. Nearly the same age, the same height. While Donovan had strength and years of training written all over him, Tom was slighter, sharing some of his sister’s delicacy of posture. Dressed in a meticulous black suit and tie, unlike Donovan’s equally meticulous but slightly less formal ware. Suits were fine, he was used to wearing them in his job. But ties, those he stayed as far away from as he could.

  He scrutinized his visitor. The man bore a distinct resemblance to his sister, but there was something different in him, something Donovan couldn’t quite put his finger on.

  Tom laughed, the smile easily reaching his eyes, and Donovan remembered a photo of a younger Lara, at a time before death intervened, in which she had an equally easy laughter in her eyes. There was some of that back in them, more recently. He made another promise to her in his heart, to make sure it came back, that happiness, and stayed.

  “Yes, she gives a different impression, my sister,” Tom was saying. “There is an intensity about her, an awareness that you must have already seen, that I don’t have. Unlike her, I’m just a regular person.” He extended his hand. “Agent Pierce.”

  “Donovan, please.” The firm handshake didn’t surprise Donovan.

  Tom nodded. “Yes, well, I guess there is no place for formality between us. Call me Tom.”

  “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised to see you here.” Donovan led Tom to his office.

  Tom nodded. “So, what’s going on between you and my sister?”

  Donovan settled in his chair, saying nothing.

  “I managed to talk to her earlier, albeit rather briefly,” Tom said, sitting down on the other side of the desk. “She’s told me more about how you protected her. The inside details, so to speak. And I know she’s told you what she hasn’t told anyone, about our brother and Brian. You were in her house in the middle of the night—I’m not asking what you were doing there, she’d kill me. But she brought you to me, and she wouldn’t do that, case or not. I’m her family.” He stopped.

  Donovan remained silent. Tom was understandably inquisitive. And normally, Donovan wouldn’t go along with this. His and Lara’s relationship was just that, theirs, and too precious for him to risk. But the man before him was there because he himself was protective of her, and they were obviously very close. And he’d only just recently had a scare, learning of what had happened to his sister, that he’d almost lost her.

  “It’s serious,” Donovan finally said.

  Tom contemplated him. “Yes, well, what you said last night, about not letting anything happen to her, that kind of gave it up.” He nodded. “I haven’t seen her this way with a man since . . .” his voice trailed off and a flicker of grief crossed his face.

  “Brian was your friend,” Donovan said quietly.

  “Yes. Yes, for many, many years. He was Jason’s best friend, but yes, he was my friend too.” He paused, his eyes on Donovan, thoughtful. “You two are very different. You and him, I mean.”

  “You seem to be okay with this.”

  “I want Lara to be happy. And you seem to be a good man. I’m worried about what you do for a living, though. It obviously allows you to protect her, but it could come at a price that she’s already had to pay once and had barely survived it.”

  “I promised her I would always come back to her,” was all Donovan said.

  Tom contemplated him. Donovan’s eyes held his without wavering. Finally, Tom gave a slight nod. “It’s that serious.”

  “Yes. And it’s also new, and Lara has a lot to overcome. So.”

  “So you want me to butt out.”

  “No. You’re her brother, and you’re here, which says a lot. And I get that this wasn’t just Lara’s tragedy, what happened. It was yours, too. But I’m with Lara, first. I’m here for her, first. And what we have, she and I, it will require some building. And that’s for her and me to do. Ourselves.”

  Tom felt torn. Lara was looking, sounding, different. Better. Something he’d begun to think would never return was back in her eyes. And this man was responsible for that. But Brian he’d known for a long time before he began dating Lara, while Donovan he didn’t know at all. Despite what he knew, having checked about the agent using his contacts, and despite his instincts about this man, he was afraid for his sister.

  “Don’t break her heart,” he finally said, his voice quiet.

  “It’s already broken. I’m going to mend it and keep it mended. I’m not going anywhere, Tom.” Donovan leaned forward in his chair. “It’s time for Lara to live again. And she’s going to do that with me.”

  Something inside Tom loosened, as if he’d been holding his breath for five years. Ever since the day he had watched both his brother and his friend being lowered into the ground, his sister standing on the opposite side of the two graves, her eyes empty.

  “Well then. But just so we’re clear,” Tom began, waited.

  “Big brother. Got it.” Donovan nodded and for the first time in the conversation allowed a smile to cross his face.

  “So. Now that we’ve taken care of the important things, let’s talk shop.” Tom settled back and crossed his legs, all business now. “Your guy’s grandparents owned the house. They originally lived in the United States, but the grandfather had some business dealings in Micronesia, and when he retired, he and his wife chose to live there. The Micronesian authorities allowed it because he’d visited the place a lot, had made friends, was known there. When the grandparents died, your guy inherited the house.”r />
  Donovan waited. He knew most of this already.

  “All nice, dandy and backed up by enough records. Except that the grandparents were killed in a car accident on a trip to Singapore five days after the retirement. And they never even owned a house in Micronesia. Certainly not this house.” He placed before Donovan a small screen with images of the property. Donovan skimmed through them. This was not the image he had seen in Bourne’s file, of a simple one-story house with an acre or so around it. The house he was looking at and the grounds around it spoke of luxury. And it looked relatively new.

  “It’s situated in a restricted area, a gated community. There are several parts of the island that are private nowadays, all are luxury gated communities. The residents of this particular one guard their privacy jealously, and the Micronesian authorities assist. Among other things, they don’t keep any updated records of ownership, purchase or sale, nothing. The properties are maintained by people who live either in Pohnpei or on the adjacent islands and who, may I say, are very generously provided for, them and their families. And everything, anything, is paid for from a single central account.”

  “So how do you know the house is Bourne’s?”

  “The property you saw in your files is in fact the property you see here. Same plot. Or rather, a small part of it. The image is of a house that stood there years ago, before these people purchased it from the Pohnpei administrative division. It’s still the photo in Micronesia’s formal—and very outdated—property records. And the original house is formally in his name. Every property in the gated community has a different owner, that much I’ve managed to ascertain. Interestingly though, I couldn’t access the vast majority of these names, they are all hidden under the guise of a single umbrella ownership. Bourne included, although he has a certain visibility, probably because of the need due to his job. Even more interesting, the mansion you mentioned is also registered under the same umbrella ownership.”

  “So, whoever is behind these properties faked Bourne’s background and inheritance, which if anyone looked into would stand to scrutiny, while in reality they paid for the house and maintain it.”

  “Chances are no one ever looked too deeply. Bourne has enough friends, enough clout, and, as you already know, a clean record. And these people are good. They only put close enough to the surface information that would be required for the background checks Bourne’s job mandates. Anything else, I had to look for otherwise.”

  “And the checks wouldn’t go any deeper because by the time this ‘inheritance’ came to be, he was already in a sensitive position at ARPA, although he wasn’t its director yet. He’d been checked several times already over the years and was known to be trustworthy and reliable. And he has a daughter in Australia, so it wouldn’t seem far-fetched for him to travel with his family to the not-so-far Micronesia, a place his grandparents were supposed to have lived in for years.” Donovan shook his head. So much for foolproof security vetting.

  “And no one looked into the grandparents, if they were even alive to retire there. They had been to Micronesia in the past, in fact they lived outside the United States for years at a time for business purposes, and they died outside the United States. And after the initial security vetting they were no longer persons of interest, Bourne could easily lie about them.”

  “And he did. One small lie. And he got away with it for years.” Donovan chuckled in appreciation. “How did you get all this, and so quickly?”

  “First,” Tom said, “I have to admit that if you hadn’t told me something was fishy there I never would have thought to look deeper either. Everything about the Bourne-Micronesia connection looks legitimate unless you actually know there’s something to look for. As for how I got it, well, that’s a trade secret.” He laughed. “Let’s just say IDSD Legal has certain cover entities for this very purpose.”

  “And you can use them.”

  “My firm is closely affiliated with Legal, it is in essence its arm in the private sector. We are all either its veterans or family members of IDSD personnel. In my case, I am both.”

  “And then some.”

  “True.” Tom laughed again. “So what’s got my sister working so hard this time? She was in her office when we spoke and was called away rather urgently. What, she’s involved in that Europe debacle?” The laughter died as Donovan stayed quiet, serious. “God. She’s involved in the Europe debacle. No wonder she is working this way.”

  Lara had received the call informing her of the incident status change for her early that morning, while Donovan was still at her house. She would now remain at IDSD Missions, with updates streaming live to her office, until this was over. There were many points of contact where the situation could go wrong, and a black swan would be needed. “Don’t worry,” he said to Tom. “When this is over, I’ll take her away for a few days. Make sure she gets some rest.”

  Tom nodded thoughtfully. He could worry, but there really was nothing to say, nothing to argue. It was simple, really. His sister was Oracle.

  As soon as the elevator doors closed behind Tom Holsworth, Donovan returned to his office and called Emero.

  “You secure?” was the first thing he asked when the haggard-looking agent came on-screen. He was in his office.

  “It’s only us here,” Emero replied, frowning.

  Donovan told him what he now had, leaving the how and Tom out of it.

  Emero knew better than to ask. “Right,” he said. “Right. This does change quite a bit. How did we miss it?”

  “It’s simple, if you think about it. Bourne is a US citizen and the director of a prominent US institute, who is monitored by a US agency that has had no reason to doubt him. This extremist faction he belongs to is unknown, is based outside the United States—and outside the alliance—and is being looked into only by IDSD Southern Territories Intelligence. The chances of the connection being made were near impossible.”

  Emero shook his head in disbelief. “What a mess.”

  “Listen, I can use this on Bourne.”

  “You think you can rattle him into giving up enough?”

  “Yes.”

  Emero considered this. “If you’re wrong, and if he clams up or, worse, if he manages to get word out to his co-conspirators, this could blow up in our faces. And then nothing will matter. But then, seems you’ve been right about Bourne all along, haven’t you? And I suppose there’s no more time, no choice really, is there?” He nodded. “Go for it.”

  Donovan ended the call, stood up and signaled his lead team in the investigation. Time to pick up Richard Bourne.

  “Well?” Rostovtsev did not bother to turn around when the man came in, closing the door behind him as quietly as he could. He was intent on the strategy table with its newly replaced top. The others in the room—military ranks, trusted advisers—did turn.

  The man stood fidgeting. He was, and would be until he delivered his news, in charge of the Foreign Intelligence Service. He knew the news would cost him his hard-earned job. He just hoped it would not cost him his life.

  “We have nothing, Minister,” was all he had to say.

  Rostovtsev had to force himself not to react. The Foreign Intelligence Service—or those loyal to him in it, which were the majority of its people, he had ensured that over the years—had been tasked with attempting to contact the man who had been paid to kill the Internationals’ ambassador. The death of that particular official had been the pillar of Rostovtsev’s plan to loosen the Internationals’ grip on the former Bosnia-Herzegovina, a strategic region that the Russian administration wanted for itself.

  Not only had this enigmatic man, who had insisted on remaining as anonymous as the group he belonged to was, agreed to do this, he had come back to Rostovtsev with the claim that they could kill the ambassador in a way that the Internationals would be blamed. The Internationals and the United States. The man had cautioned patience and had then come back again, months later, just as the peace treaty was looming and Rostovtsev was im
patiently considering another venue, and had laid before him an elaborate plan. A brilliant plan that would ensure a clean kill and the permanent unraveling of the peace talks in the region, paving the way for Russia to step in, save the day, and take over the warring countries and perhaps even venture beyond with the crumble of trust in the alliance.

  Rostovtsev would have liked Croatia to be next, all the way to the Adriatic Sea. If he could make that happen, take this stronghold and advance beyond the line Russia had been forced to halt at all the way north and south all those years ago, and with the mayhem such wins would cause in the West, he was sure that Russia, his Russia, would be unstoppable. But with the alliance forces permanently stationed in Croatia, and with Croatia itself a strong member of Joint Europe, it would make more sense, he had to concede, to next take over the remaining countries in Southeastern Europe, which would then be cut off from the rest of Europe and from the alliance. This would strengthen his Russia’s hold on the region.

  Next would be the taking over of the countries in Eastern Europe that were not in his Russia’s control yet. Its victories, the Internationals’ betrayal of Srpska and Bosnia, and the weakening of the alliance would be enough, he was sure, to make these countries afraid. Regimes and citizens could be either swayed or intimidated, and alone without the alliance to turn to, with the Internationals no longer able to convince them with promises of empowerment and hope, surely they would easily fall.

  His eyes were on the map, but he did not see it, in his mind he saw only the map of his dreams. In it, his Russia would finally be the only remaining superpower. The alliance would crumble into the cluster of fearful countries they had been in the days when the United States and Europe—not yet Joint Europe then but its predecessor—were too weak, too hesitant to stop it and his Russia was able to do so much more, freely march forward into states that had dared claim independence from the once formidable union. And perhaps, when all went according to his plan, the presidency of the once again great country would be his. All proof was in place to position him as the hero who had returned Russia to greatness. The president was weak, so weak, seen as having bowed down to the Internationals back when they had stopped Russia’s successful incursion into the territory the West had stolen from it all those decades before. He had followed a ruthless presidency and had thought he could keep the power his predecessor had, but the unexpectedly strong-minded Internationals and the alliance they had created had been his undoing. The image of strength counted in Russia, and he would be easy to impeach. And the people, without the lure of the Internationals’ promise of new possibilities, and with their homeland once again a source of strength and pride, he was sure they would heed him, follow him, allow themselves to be controlled by him.