The Backup Asset

…19

She’d had a moment of inspiration while in the client’s office, working with Brian on his new case, and couldn’t wait to see if it made sense in front of her crazy wall. When she arrived home, she went straight to the blue bedroom, not even bothering to get rid of her high-heeled shoes, and pulled open the curtain hiding the corkboard timeline.

She’d been stuck in this long, boring planning session at the client’s firm, where her role was to observe who might have had a different agenda. While sitting and observing, her mind started speculating on how people gain access to positions of power. What makes them get it, what makes them seek it? What makes others want to be their followers? We all want the same things, she responded to her own thoughts. We want achievement, financial stability, security for our families, and a sense of purpose.

So, then, what the hell could the mysterious Mr. X promised his followers? His followers had been some of the wealthiest men on Earth, natural born leaders, not followers. So how does one enroll the support of such moguls? What would they still want to achieve that they hadn’t already?

The answer was simple: a sense of purpose. The men who had it all had followed Mr. X, or V — if that piece of intel about his name would ever prove to be accurate — to gain or satisfy a sense of purpose.

Her initial thinking might have been wrong. She’d always assumed the common denominator had been the Islamic connection of all conspirators, which canned them as typical Islamist militant terrorists. But that didn’t tie into Russia’s beliefs, interests, or agendas at all. And V was definitely Russian; several sources had confirmed it. That’s why she couldn’t find V. He wasn’t about Islamism, or typical Muslim terrorism. He was about something else, something they all had in common, Muslims or not. Something she hadn’t thought of yet.

She stood in front of her crazy wall, eyes fixated on the Post-it note marked X. Her cell phone rang, startling her. Still thinking of Mr. X, she accepted the encrypted call.

“Hello,” she answered.

“Hey, Alex, it’s Brian. Did you send it?”

“Umm… send what?” she asked without thinking.

“Oh… you forgot,” Brian responded, his disappointment discernible in his voice. “You were going to send me the email activity logs for the product and R&D teams.”

Oh, shit, she mouthed quietly as she heard Brian’s explanation.

“Oh, that,” she said, trying to fix it. “No, I haven’t forgotten. I’m on it as we speak. I thought you meant something else. You’ll have it in just a few, Brian.”

She ended the call with an irritated hand gesture and rushed to her laptop, swearing colorfully as she trotted in a hurry to make up some of the lost time. She hated to disappoint her team; yet lately it seemed that was all she was capable of doing.

Her old case was killing her, driving her crazy. She needed to close that chapter once and for all. She needed to catch the bastard.