“All the way to the top.”
“To the president?”
“Yes,” she whispered again.
“Is it something they’d kill you over?”
Malin didn’t answer, but Dutch knew it’s what she believed. At this point, so did he.
“Thank you for trusting me enough to tell me.”
“How did you know?”
“That you were into something this deep?”
“Yes.”
“I told you—intuition, instinct, my gut. Whatever you want to call it.” He scrubbed his face with his hand. “The way you looked at me when Orlov had his gun to your head. I thought it was him that you were afraid of. You told me that he wouldn’t have killed you, and now I believe you. You weren’t afraid of him; you were afraid of me.”
“More that the mission was ending before I had the final pieces to ensure my safety. Not that if I had anything, it would’ve been enough.”
“What was Sergei’s role?”
“Finding out if United Russia was involved and if so, how.”
“I killed him before he could brief you.”
“That’s right.”
“What does your gut tell you?”
“He wouldn’t have shown up if they weren’t.”
“Exactly. Now we have to figure out how. What’s your theory?”
“That the money came from them in the first place.”
It was his theory too. What he didn’t know, and what Malin didn’t seem ready to tell him, was what all this meant after it was pieced together.
“What about Ghafor? What piece of information were you waiting for from him?”
“What he did to earn the money.”
Why would United Russia send money into the US only for it to go back out in payment to Ghafor? Why not just give it to him directly? Dutch’s guess was that Ghafor could provide that answer as well.
“We’ll meet Onyx at the dock in the morning. He’ll fly us to California, and by tomorrow afternoon, maybe we’ll have some answers.”
“Striker may have those answers already.”
Dutch nodded. If he were in Malin’s position, he wouldn’t be convinced he could trust Striker either, or Ranger or Diesel. They’d all been close enough to this conspiracy—and that’s what it was—to know as much or more than Malin did. That meant each of them posed a threat to her.
“Let’s do an inventory of who you feel you can trust at this point. I want you to be completely honest with me about it too, Malin. If there’s anyone you are unsure of, they need to go on a different list.”
“You.”
Dutch smiled. “Is that it?”
She smiled too. “No. Onyx.”