Ian, also fluent in French, knew Daniel told Lucien that hopefully they wouldn’t meet again. He hadn’t known Daniel was multilingual, however. The man never ceased to amaze him.
Once they get outside, Ian turns to Daniel. “Now what?”
Flashing him a beaming smile, Daniel says, “Our friend is a terrible liar, Ian. He just found out, via Natasha, that one of the brothers is his biological father.”
Ian’s mouth drops open in astonishment. He starts to ask Daniel how he knows but thinks better of it just in time. “Are you certain?”
“Yes. Did you not see his face when I asked if they had children? It was written all over it. I got the sense he just found out or he’d be more comfortable with the knowledge. He’s probably worried, too, that if the truth comes out, he could lose his fortune to his French father’s genuine blood heirs, if any exist. I don’t know about French law but in the U.S. he’d be protected since a legal father is the one who raises the child… but where so many millions are involved, you never know.”
At that moment, Ian’s ringtone blares loudly from his pocket. He looks at it. “Ella,” he tells Daniel. “Hey there,” he answers.
“Ian, thank God! I’ve been trying to reach you all day. I was worried about you. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, Ella. I was planning to call you once we finished with Lucien. We’ve only just now left him.”
There’s a pause as she digests this information. “I hope you don’t mind but I gave Maya your cell number.”
“Maya?”
“Yes. Maya St. Sauveur? Lucien’s half-sister.”
“May I ask why?”
“I called her to see if she knew anything more about the Sobels. She promised to ask her mother for any more info and get back to you. Since she’s in New York and so are you, I thought it might be worth it to get together with her.”
“I see. Where are you now?”
“Home, where I promised I’d be. Where exactly are you?”
“As I said, Daniel and I just left Lucien’s loft. He was alone and didn’t know where the men were but said they were with Natasha. Ella, I have another call I need to take. I’ll call you a little later, okay?”
“Okay. I love you, Ian.”
“Love you, too. Talk soon.” He clicked on the next call.
“Yes,” his answered tersely.
The voice on the other end was loud enough for Daniel to hear both sides of the conversation. “Mr. Blackmon. I have that name you asked me to obtain. It’s Greshenko, Gregori Greshenko.”
“Very good,” he replies brusquely, a man of few words, and disconnects without so much as a goodbye. Ian’s employees and business colleagues are used to his ways and no longer take offense at the lack of civility.
Quickly, he punches in his grandfather’s Phoenix number. “Grandpa,” he says as the man answers on the second ring. “It’s Ian. I have the name you asked for, our Russian friend? It’s Gregori Greshenko. Ring any bells?”
The call lasts a little less than three minutes but it is enough: Ian’s face looks grim when he disconnects. He turns to Daniel. “This whole thing began with a case of my grandfather’s. He asked me to get him Natasha’s grandfather’s name. I just checked with him: he says Greshenko was bad news from A to Z. Not only was he supplying high-tech assault weaponry to terrorists and other enemies of state, he was also moving large quantities of heroin and synthetic drugs throughout suburban America. I just happened to read a New York Times article about the latter drugs: they cause severe psychosis and astonishingly are largely legal. Once the government acts to ban one, the chemists change a single molecule of the formula, a single fucking molecule, and voila! It’s a new drug and it’s legal again. The majority of proceeds from selling this shit generally fund terrorism against western countries. On the ground, the tainted drugs cause numerous deaths and other problems associated with them.
“At the time of his arrest and internment, Greshenko was also being accused of getting into human trafficking—actually helping to bring slaves into the United States from other areas of the world, channeling them through counterparts in Saudi Arabia. A real charmer all around.
“My grandfather said that by the time he was deported, Greshenko had both the Colombians and Mexicans after him for turf incursion with regard to the heroin, and the synthetic drugs were cutting into cartel profits on more traditional drugs. Greshenko was trying to move out of drugs—hence the human trafficking—to get the cartels off his back. The Feds should have let them have a go instead and that would have been the end of it—at least for the Blackmon family.