Knight nodded. “Yes, it’s a city located on the western bank of the Volga. It’s a refinery town. Have you heard the word Indeitsy?”
Ian let out a long sigh. He needed more Russian mob shit in his life. “It’s a mafia term. It means Indians. They use it to refer to an organization that functions a little like the raiding parties of the Old West.”
“It’s not a secret that Indeitsy has its fingers in the oil industry rackets,” Knight said.
“They don’t have their fingers in it,” Baz interrupted with a roll of his eyes. “They run the whole damn thing. Give them credit, mate.”
Jake sat forward, his face serious. “What exactly do you mean by racket? How does it function?”
“They traffic in stolen crude,” Simon explained. “They literally tap into the pipelines and steal the shit. I know about this because of my family. My uncle runs Malone Oil. They’ve had an enormous amount of trouble in the region. All the American companies have. The mob has to have a man on the inside. The pipelines are guarded.”
Baz stared at Simon. “Really? So you just happen to be connected to one of the biggest oil companies in the world? Aren’t they headquartered here?”
Ian knew about Simon’s connections, knew damn well it was one of the reasons he’d been willing to come to Dallas. He had an uncle and aunt and two cousins in Fort Worth, and they were loaded. But he said nothing, allowing Simon to give away what he wanted.
“Yes. I haven’t tried to hide my connections. Malones and Westons have been connected for years. I spent some summers here with my cousins. Why do you ask?” Simon stared at Baz.
“I just find it interesting,” Baz replied.
“Could we get back to the topic at hand?” Ian requested.
“So someone who works for the rightful oil company takes a cut for tipping off the mob. They come in, steal the crude, and get out.” Alex summed up the situation nicely. “What does that have to do with Nelson? Somehow I don’t see him working a pipe cutter.”
“Who’s the head of Indeitsy in the region?” Ian was pretty sure who it would come back to.
Knight turned his tablet around. “A man named Dusan Denisovitch. Mikhail’s son, so that makes him your wife’s cousin. He gave Dusan the territory a couple of years back.”
Charlie’s family was everywhere, it seemed. So Nelson was regularly visiting the same region that man controlled. Coincidence? Not likely.
“So can we absolutely connect Nelson to Mikhail?”
“I’ve placed Mikhail Denisovitch in Saint Petersburg.” Adam had that kind of constipated look on his face that he always got when he was about to tell him something he wouldn’t like.
“Spit it out, Adam.” It wasn’t like he’d punched Adam for delivering bad news. Much. There was really just that one time. Adam had totally punched back. It had tickled.
He slammed a photo down. It was grainy and shot from long range. “Interpol keeps tabs on Denisovitch. I have a friend there. He sent this over.”
Nelson. There he was plain as day, standing with Denisovitch in what looked to be a park overlooking a river. Saint Petersburg. He recognized the baroque buildings and canals of the famous city.
He stared at the picture for a moment, a cold hate in his gut. In all his years as an operative, his years in the Green Berets fighting some of the worst dictators and terrorists imaginable, he had never really hated anyone. He’d killed them, sure, but it had been a job done with the efficiency of a pure professional. Emotion was where Nelson tripped him up. Emotion and ego. He was honest enough to admit that to himself.
He had to think instead of react. His first instinct was to get on a plane to Russia, track down Denisovitch, and throttle the man until he told him where Nelson was. He was running on emotion and not logic. He had been since that moment when Charlie had shown up on his doorstep. Hell, maybe he’d been running on emotion where it came to Eli Nelson for much longer than that. He could still remember watching the fucker put bullets into Sean while Ian maneuvered into position. He could still hear the man taunting his brother, telling Sean all of Ian’s secrets.
And he remembered feeling like he was sixteen years old all over again.
Take care of your brother. The last words his father had said to him before he’d walked out of their lives. You take care of your brother and your mother. I can’t anymore.
Yep. He wasn’t capable of thinking logically at this point. He needed a clear head.
He stared at the picture for a moment. “Adam, I need to talk to the whole team. Liam’s not here, but could you bring the rest of them in? Including my sister-in-law.”
This affected Grace as well. He couldn’t leave her out. If he was going to put everyone in danger in order to find out the truth, they needed to have a say.
He was a long way from the Agency. He wondered if Nelson was counting on that. He wondered if his family connections would bring him down.
Adam let out a long breath as though truly happy he hadn’t gotten his ass kicked. “All right then.”
He turned and walked out.
“Damon, could we have a moment? This is a family matter.”
Baz frowned. “We made a deal.”
Knight stood up, putting a hand on his partner’s shoulder to bring him up. “Of course. We’ll wait in your office.”
Baz was arguing his case as they walked out of the room.
Jesse walked in, looking back at the bickering agents. “What happened to them?”
“They don’t ever like being left out of the loop,” Ian replied.
“What are you thinking, boss?” Simon asked in that crisp accent of his.
He was thinking that it was time to finish everything, to bring down Nelson and figure out what he was going to do with his wife. “I’m wondering why we got this. The last time he surfaced, it was a coordinated effort to get us exactly where he needed us to be.”
There were another couple of photos Adam had left on the table, and Jesse took one in his hand, looking down on it. “This is that rogue dude thing?”
God, he needed to put new employees through a test to make sure they didn’t sound like idiots when they talked. “We prefer to use the term rogue operative, though he’s been disavowed by now. Now he’s just a traitor.”
“He’s hanging out with Kris’s…Charlotte’s uncle? The mob dude?” Jesse yelped a little as Simon slapped him upside the head. It was a move Ian had perfected on Adam. He knew there was a reason he liked the Brit.