Yuri frowned and glanced over at the window, slightly surprised to see bright morning sunlight pouring down the skyscraper canyon of Sydney’s central business district. “What’s happening?” Boris hadn’t alerted him to any crowds gathering on the street below.
“Callum Hepburn is in reception. He’s refusing to leave until he sees you.”
“Why do I know that name? Is he one of our targets?”
Kohei grinned. “No, chief.” His mInet threw Callum’s picture on the wallscreen.
Yuri peered at a young red-haired man with a mildly bewildered smile on his face as he shook hands with Ainsley Zangari himself. Boris backed it up with a biography file. “Riiight…he cleared up Gylgen. I remember.” Connexion’s Emergency Detoxification team had been headlining the news streams after the potential disaster at Gylgen had been averted…until Icefall took over media interest. “What’s he doing here?”
“No idea. But he’s started shouting quite loudly at our people when they asked him to leave—most impolite.” Kohei pointed at the screen. “Given who he knows, I thought it best we shouldn’t just sling him out on the street. He’s angry about something.”
“But—”
“Publicity, chief. We don’t want it.”
“Fuck it. Bring him up here.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And Kohei, I want two uniformed staff outside my door.”
“Way ahead of you, chief.”
Yuri spent the intervening minutes reviewing Callum Hepburn’s file. It was ordinary enough, except for one entry concerning Gylgen, which was classified higher than Yuri’s rating could access. He raised an eyebrow at that.
Callum stomped into the office. On his pale skin, the red flush of anger was very pronounced.
“Mr. Hepburn, please, have a seat—”
Callum marched over to the desk and put his hands down on it hard so his face was thrust over the screens, glaring down at Yuri. “Where is she?”
Yuri glanced over at Kohei, who was standing in the doorway, curious and amused. “I don’t respond well to people shouting at me, Hepburn. So you need to back off, calm down, and tell me what this is about.”
Callum paused for a moment, then took his hands off the desk, straightening up. “Savi Chaudhri. She’s missing. Where is she?”
Training allowed Yuri to keep his face expressionless, but only just.
“I’m sorry. I’ve never heard of that person.”
“Bollocks. She’s one of your covert agents. She went undercover for you. She didn’t come back.”
“What makes you say that?”
Callum breathed in deeply, his nostrils flaring. “She’s my fiancée. She went undercover after our holiday. It was supposed to be for five days. It’s double that now. No way does anyone stay out of contact for that long.”
“Your fiancée?”
“Yes. And yes, I know she’s supposed to inform you lot so I can be vetted. But it was a whirlwind thing. So…what’s happened and where is she? Just tell me she’s safe, and I’ll piss off and leave you alone.”
Yuri could read the anxiety burning away behind the man’s anger. “Okay, it’s like this. If one of our agents is undercover, they have specific contact protocols. That includes several emergency methods of alerting us if they get into difficulty. If we had received one of those alerts, then we would extract them at once.” He spread his hands: the reasonable man. “It’s been quiet around here.”
“Like bollocks it has. There was a riot out at Kintore when the Icefall started. Were her students there? It’s the kind of stupid stunt those morons live for.”
Once again, Yuri was startled by how close the man was to the truth. He was furious with Savi for compromising herself so badly—and for what? An impetuous fling? When he tracked her down, her career with Security was over. “What students?”
“She was…monitoring student groups for you, playing spot the radical. Are they the ones who protested Icefall?”
“No. No student groups Security watches were there. And you have my word on that.”
“So where is she?”
“Look, I appreciate your concern. This is your fiancée, you’ve every right to be worried. But all of my personnel are accounted for. So I’m sure she’ll be calling you as soon as she surfaces.”
Callum stood still for a long moment, processing what he’d heard. “All right, then.” He nodded as if he was generously letting Yuri off a felony charge. “I’ll give it a couple of days.”
Yuri watched him walk out of the office. “You’re welcome,” he told the empty doorway.
Kohei came in. “Did I hear that right? They’re engaged?”
“So it would seem. And someone like Hepburn isn’t going to lie about that. He’s a fool; he sees the world in black and white.”
“What do we do?”
“Only one option left now.”
Yuri knew he should wait until he’d had a sleep, at the very least. His rumpled shirt, stubble, tired eyes, all spoke of someone not making the best decisions. But this couldn’t wait any longer.
—
Poi Li’s Manhattan office was in one of Connexion’s downtown buildings, a temporary location until the new American headquarters was built overlooking Central Park. Like Yuri, she didn’t put a lot of weight on expensive fittings as symbols of status.