The Switch

14

Will’s heart was still pounding, and he could feel the flop sweat running down his neck, behind his ears. That had been a complete, utter disaster.

He covered his face with his hands for a few seconds.

I don’t have your laptop, Mr. Robbins. I’m sorry. I don’t know what you’re talking about.

Was there something in his delivery, his tone of voice, that had given him away?

It had to be the right Michael Tanner. Otherwise, he would have said something like, Laptop? I don’t know what you’re talking about. Instead, Tanner had outright lied, denied having it, for some reason.

What a screwup.

Now what was he going to do?

He definitely couldn’t have the boss call Tanner now. There’d be no way to explain why the senator had just had someone call him pretending to be “Sam Robbins.” That bell couldn’t be unrung.

The Russian security consultant answered on the first ring. “Yes?”

“It’s Will Abbott from Senator Robbins’s office.”

Sharply he replied, “Is there problem?”

“No. Well, yes.”

The Russian was still on Capitol Hill. He returned to the office in less than twenty minutes.

“You said there was always another route.”

Yevgeniy tipped his head to one side and arched his eyebrows questioningly without speaking.

“You said, ‘If this doesn’t work, there’s always another way. Another route.’” Will explained about the disastrous call to Michael Tanner.

“So man who has senator’s laptop refuses to return it.”

“Pretty much.”

“Why don’t we make things easy and simply retrieve object? We know where he lives.”

Will blinked a few times. He wasn’t sure what the Russian meant, exactly, or maybe he did and he didn’t want to acknowledge it to himself. But even thinking about it, and discussing it, felt like crossing some kind of a line. He didn’t know how much he should ask about it. Finally he said, “What would that involve?”

“We know people in Boston area. We ask and they retrieve.”

“Without... Nonviolently, right?”

“Of course. He will never know.”

“Let me think about it.”

A casual shrug. “As you wish, but I thought this was matter of urgency.”

“It’s just a damned inconvenience,” Will said. “No big deal.”

Yevgeniy turned away, a man with far more important things to do.

Will’s phone announced a text message with a tritone. He pulled it out. It was from the boss.

It said only, Well?