While the target was safe in the high-security area, he would surely come out to a less-secure area, if she could find the right reason.
Somehow, she had to figure out the right reason during the next few hours.
Sooner or later, of course, the office where Wesson worked would probably notice she had not shown up. They might call her apartment, and get the answering machine. No problem, unless, for some reason, those concerned thought to check the building's security computer. If that happened, they would see that Christine Wesson had arrived for work at her normal time — which might cause some raised eyebrows. If she was here, where was she? To stall that, the Selkie had asked more or less politely if Christine would do something for her. She had been more than willing. So, Christine Wesson had called her supervisor in the Office Supply Section in which she worked, and told her she would be a few hours late, that she had an important personal medical errand to run. The supervisor had no problem with that, and a few hours could easily stretch to noon. Then a timed-e-mail would show up at the supervisor's terminal from Wesson, explaining that things had run late. A lot later than anybody but the Selkie knew. At the least, the e-mail would buy the rest of the day. Which should be more than enough.
Toni went through her djurus, pausing after each one to do the corresponding sambut. She was the only woman working out. There were a few other men in the gym today, but Rusty was not among them. When she'd told him she wasn't going to be sleeping with him anymore, she thought he'd taken it rather well. No obvious anger, no tears, just a kind of surprised acceptance. "Oh?" It had gone much better than she'd hoped or expected.
Except that she hadn't heard from him since. She'd said she was going to try to be in the gym today and she expected him — he hadn't missed a class before — to show up.
Surprise. So maybe it hadn't gone as well as she'd thought.
She came up from the squat in Djuru Three, threw the right-vertical-forearm strike, then punched, continued to rise, alternating the next two punches.
She hoped Rusty wasn't going to quit class. She had been enjoying having a student, and learning a lot in the process of teaching.
But of course, it was his choice.
What was it with men that they could be your friend, then your lover, but they couldn't go back to just being friends if the other didn't work out?
She finished the series and shook her hands out. She was still tight.
A brunette in office clothes walked to the water fountain and smiled and nodded at Toni. Toni didn't recognize the woman, but she nodded absently back. Solving the Rusty problem didn't solve the Alex problem. How was she going to get him to notice her?
The brunette went into the locker room. Toni dismissed her from her thoughts, but a moment later, the brunette came out, all upset.
"Excuse me, miss," she said. "There's a lady having some trouble in there — she looks like she's having some kind of seizure! I called Medical but, oh, I'm afraid she's going to hurt herself! Can you help?"
Toni nodded. "Sure."
She followed the brunette into the locker room.
Jay Gridley and John Howard had joined Michaels in the small conference room. He knew protocol said he should keep these two meetings apart, the need-to-know business the spooks were always hammering at everybody, but he figured his top people needed to know what each was doing. Besides, if he happened to feel like it, there wasn't much Jay Gridley couldn't find out from a computer system he'd helped design and install.
"Jay?"
"Okay, Boss, here's the way it lays out." He waved the presentation computer to life. "We've been able to piece together some of Plekhanov's itinerary over the last few months. I can give you the details and show how brilliant we were in making some connections, if you want."
"I'll stipulate to your brilliance," Michaels said. "Let's hear a bottom line."
"All right. This is iffy, you understand, but what it looks like is, he's trying to buy himself a government or two."
Michaels nodded. Lobbyists did that all the time, and as long as they kept within the legally established limits, that was acceptable.
"Some of the people he connected with are less careful than Plekhanov. We think he's got a good chance of deciding who the President and Prime Ministers for two, maybe three CIS governments are going to be in the next elections, including those in Chechnya, where he lives. We don't have any direct proof, of course. We'd need his files for that."
Howard said, "What do you suppose our chances are of getting him turned over to us if the head of the government we ask owes Plekhanov big-time?"
It was a rhetorical question. Michaels said, "I don't much like this, Jay."
"Well, then, you're really going to hate this next part. Some of those people we were able to put in Plekhanov's vicinity? There are a couple of generals in there."
Howard looked at Jay. "Great."
Michaels said, "You think he's planning some kind of coup?"
Jay shrugged. "No way to be sure. But given the way this guy moves, yeah, I'd have to say it's a possibility."
Michael turned to Howard. "Colonel?"
"It would make sense, sir. Getting himself elected into power would be easier, but if I were him and willing to stage big-time computer theft and sabotage, maybe worse, I'd want a backup plan. Sometimes when ballots don't work, bullets will. A key military commander on your side, control of the media, nobody knows what's going on until it's too late — it would be good insurance."
Michaels stared at the other men, each in turn. "So, even if we could come up with proof that this guy was about to buy himself an election and then get somebody in power to believe us…"
"He'd probably bag the election and start a civil war instead," Howard said. "By the time anybody from outside got there, the party would be over, a done deal."
"Shit."
"Yes, sir," Howard said. "I believe that about sums it up."
Michaels blew out a big sigh. Jesus. What a can of worms this was turning out to be!
"Okay, Colonel. You have some happier news for me?"
"Relatively speaking, sir. My best-case scenario for the operation to, ah, collect Mr. Plekhanov comes in at seventy-eight percent."
"That's good, isn't it?"
"I would prefer a higher percentage from the S&T computer, but anything over seventy percent is considered militarily acceptable. Although no battle plan survives first contact with the enemy."
"I'll want to see it," he said.
"Sir. Right here."
Alex's secretary came in. "Commander? Toni Fiorella on the private line."