Lara shrugged as she got into the front passenger seat. “By all means, but I think he’s considering it a game. He doesn’t seem to care.”

“He told me he was a very private person, so he does care. There might come a time when it’s necessary that we do know everything about him.” She started typing. “Like he told me, information can be a weapon, too…”

*  *  *

Tanner didn’t come out of the office for another thirty minutes. When he did, he was talking on the phone, and his expression…He wasn’t frowning, it was more of an intense absence of expression.

Lara tensed. “I think something’s wrong.” She sat up straight in the seat, her gaze on Tanner’s face. “I don’t like the way—” She opened the door and jumped out of the Land Rover. “I’ve got to find out.” She was moving toward him. “I’ll be right back…”

The next moment she was standing in front of Tanner, glaring up at him. “What’s happened? Why do you look like that? What can I do to help?”

“Maybe nothing.” He hung up the phone. “Why do you think—”

“What’s happened?” she interrupted. “Don’t lie to me. I can see it. Don’t shut me out. I might be able to help.”

He was studying her intense expression. “You’re…different. I’ve never seen you like this. Almost as fierce as you were in Avgar Forest…I don’t know if I’d dare shut you out. Providing there’s any problem to solve.”

“There’s a problem. What is it?”

He was still staring at her with narrowed eyes as he murmured, “Very different.” Then he said with sudden abruptness, “I can’t get in touch with Nash and his crew. I tried to contact him from the cockpit an hour before we landed, but I only got static. I decided to try again using the equipment in Sherman’s office. It’s much more sophisticated, and there shouldn’t have been any trouble.”

“But there was?”

“Same result.”

“Your friend who runs the airport in Stockholm?”

“No answer.”

“Damn,” she whispered. “Not good. What orders did you give Nash?”

“He had a slight engine malfunction. It shouldn’t have taken any more than a few hours to fix. I told him to do the repair and get out of Stockholm ASAP. He was supposed to head back to the base in England.”

“Not back to Russia?”

“I’m not an idiot, Lara.”

“I don’t know what you are,” she said curtly. “I just know that I don’t like this. You said you knew the Gulfstream had not been seen or tracked. What about the helicopter that picked up Maria and brought her here?”