Chapter 3 - A Language of Lies
Nadia Vale was alive in a motel sixty miles away under a name that belonged to a dead woman.
That was all Archer would reveal.
Stellan reacted badly.
Not loudly.
Stellan Varo did not need volume.
His anger compressed the room.
“You moved a witness without telling me.”
“I moved a target.”
“Using my security.”
“Using two men I trust.”
“Apparently more than me.”
Archer’s face remained still.
“I trust you to protect people. I do not trust you to remain uninvolved when somebody threatens them.”
Celia understood what he meant.
Stellan’s first instinct was action.
His second was control.
Questions came later.
“Stop,” she said.
Both men looked at her.
“This is fascinating male dysfunction, but somebody tried to kill Nadia twelve hours ago.”
Archer’s jaw moved.
“The safe location was hit at dawn. She escaped through a bathroom window.”
Celia’s heart kicked.
“Where is she now?”
“Moving.”
“Does she have a phone?”
“Burner. One incoming call only.”
“Call her.”
Stellan said, “No.”
Celia turned.
“You hired me to interpret.”
“I hired you for Grekov.”
“And Nadia may know what Grekov is hiding.”
“She may also lead whoever is hunting her directly here.”
Celia stared at him.
“We are already here.”
That ended the argument.
Archer made the call.
Nadia answered on the fourth ring.
Her voice was breathless.
“Archer?”
“It’s me.”
“Who else?”
“Varo.”
Silence.
“And Interpreter Eight,” Celia said.
A surprised laugh came through the phone.
“You actually took the job?”
“I have poor financial judgment.”
Nadia breathed once, then said, “Listen carefully. I don’t have long.”
Celia switched into Russian.
Nadia answered in the same language.
Her first sentences were ordinary.
Weather.
Road.
A motel sign.
Then Celia noticed the grammar.
Every third verb was imperfective when perfective would have been natural.
Intentional.
She wrote the unusual verbs.
To carry.
To watch.
To enter.
To bleed.
To return.
Stellan leaned over the desk.
“What is she saying?”
“Two things.”
Celia kept listening.
Nadia’s spoken message said Mirov was alive and working through Grekov.
The hidden verb pattern said something else.
Celia rearranged the first letters.
C W E B R.
Not enough.
Then Nadia switched dialect.
Omsk.
Celia froze.
Her grandmother used the same trick in childhood word games: first letters of every sentence after a dialect shift.
Celia wrote them.
C E L I A.
Then the next sentence began.
“Your mother’s clinic is not safe.”
Celia stopped breathing.
“What?”
The line went dead.
Stellan was already reaching for a phone.
Celia grabbed his hand.
“My mother.”
“I heard.”
“She’s at dialysis today.”
“What clinic?”
Celia told him.
Stellan called Archer’s deputy.
“Two cars. Quiet. No uniforms. Get to Rowe’s dialysis center now.”
Celia was already grabbing her coat.
Stellan blocked the door.
“You stay.”
“No.”
“Celia.”
“That is my mother.”
“And if this is designed to pull you outside?”
“I’m still going.”
“So am I.”
Archer stepped forward.
“You can’t both go.”
Stellan looked at him.
“Watch me.”
The drive took forty-seven minutes.
Celia called her mother six times.
No answer.
On the seventh, a nurse picked up.
“Mrs. Rowe is in treatment.”
“Is she okay?”
“Yes. Her phone is in her bag.”
Celia closed her eyes.
Relief lasted three seconds.
Then the nurse said, “A gentleman was here asking whether her emergency contact information had changed.”
Celia opened her eyes.
“What gentleman?”
“He said he was from billing.”
Stellan’s expression darkened.
“Description?”
Celia repeated the question.
The nurse described a clean-shaven man in his forties with a navy coat and a gold signet ring.
Archer, on speaker, swore.
“Mirov used a gold falcon ring.”
Stellan told the driver to go faster.
They reached the clinic twelve minutes later.
Celia ran inside.
Her mother lay in a dialysis chair beneath a thin blanket, watching a game show with the volume low.
She looked up.
“Why are you dressed like you escaped a Russian funeral?”
Celia nearly laughed and cried at once.
She hugged her carefully.
“I’m fine,” her mother said. “What happened?”
“Nothing.”
Her mother looked past her at Stellan.
“Nothing is six foot four and looks expensive?”
Stellan stopped.
Celia wiped her face.
“Mom, this is my employer.”
Her mother looked at his open collar, dark coat, and the two security men outside the glass doors.
“You finally took a normal office job, I see.”
Stellan almost smiled.
“Mrs. Rowe.”
“Elaine.”
He nodded.
“Elaine.”
A billing administrator entered.
“Celia, I need to speak with you.”
Not now.
The woman’s face told her it had to be now.
In the hallway, she handed Celia a statement.
“Your payment plan was canceled this morning.”
“What?”
“The outside assistance account covering your mother’s copayments was frozen.”
“I don’t have an assistance account.”
The administrator frowned.
“Yes, you do. It began six months ago.”
Celia stared.
“By who?”
“I can’t disclose the donor.”
Stellan had become very still behind her.
Celia turned slowly.
“You.”
“No.”
“Do not lie to me.”
“I’m not.”
The administrator checked the file again.
“The donor is listed as North Crown Foundation.”
Archer’s voice came through Stellan’s phone.
“That’s Mirov.”
Celia felt sick.
For six months, before she had ever met Stellan, someone connected to Anton Mirov had been quietly paying part of her mother’s medical bills.
“Why?” she whispered.
Stellan took the statement.
His eyes moved down the page.
“Because he knew your name before I did.”
Celia thought of the job offer.
The unusually high rate.
The agency calling her specifically.
“Was I recruited?”
Stellan looked at her.
“Maybe.”
Her phone rang.
Unknown number.
She answered.
A man spoke Russian.
Smooth.
Cultured.
“Ms. Rowe, your mother looks tired.”
Celia’s blood went cold.
Stellan reached for the phone.
She stepped away and kept listening.
Mirov continued.
“You have something I need.”
“What?”
“The phrase Nadia gave you.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You will.”
A pause.
“Ask Stellan what happened to the third interpreter’s mouth.”
The line went dead.
Celia slowly lowered the phone.
Stellan’s face had gone unreadable.
“What did he say?”
She looked at him.
“Exactly what Archer told me to ask.”
Stellan did not speak.
“The third interpreter,” Celia said. “What happened to her?”
For the first time since she arrived at the compound, Stellan looked ashamed.
“She was hit.”
“By who?”
He met her eyes.
“One of my men.”
Celia’s stomach dropped.
“On your order?”
“No.”
“Did you punish him?”
“Yes.”
“That isn’t the question I asked.”
Stellan looked toward Elaine’s treatment room.
Then back at Celia.
“The man who hit her was my cousin Tomas.”
“And where is Tomas now?”
Stellan’s silence answered.
Celia felt the pieces moving.
Inside access.
Security codes.
A relative Stellan would hesitate to suspect.
Archer’s guarded fear.
Mirov’s certainty.
“Tomas still works for you.”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
Stellan reached for his phone.
Archer answered immediately.
Stellan spoke one sentence.
“Find Tomas.”
There was a pause.
Then Archer said, “I was about to call you.”
Stellan’s eyes hardened.
“Why?”
“Tomas just left the compound.”
May you like
“With what?”
“Celia’s personnel file.”
