Eternal Empire by Alec Nevala-Lee Page B

cell phone rang. Fishing it with some difficulty out of her purse, she checked the display, then fumbled the phone open. “Lester, how are you?”
    â€œI’m fine,” the pathologist said, although his voice was tense. “I just got off the phone with the orthopedic center at the Royal London. They’ve identified your body. You need to hear the name now.”
    Wolfe saw that Asthana was watching her intently. Even through her alcoholic fog, she had a premonition of what was coming, and, much later, she would wonder if she had known all along. “What is it?”
    Lewis hesitated. “I don’t quite know how to say this. It’s Garber. Your dead man is Arnold Garber—”

14
    A sthana knew what the call meant as soon as she saw the look on Wolfe’s face. After hanging up to dial Cornwall, Wolfe had to be forcibly dissuaded from going to the office. In the end, Asthana managed to get her partner into a cab that would take her home. Then she headed on foot back to where she had left her own car, glad for the chance to think in private.
    As she walked, Asthana recalled the last time she had seen Garber alive, parked in his car near the Battersea Power Station. Garber, who had been a loyal but disillusioned officer of law enforcement, had told her that Putin’s regime would never give up control as long as the world needed its energy resources, and that he suspected the agency’s current investigation was nothing more than a game being played out between the civilian and military sides of the Russian security services.
    Looking out at the power station’s four monumental smokestacks, Asthana had asked him what their colleagues thought of his theory. Garber had replied that he hadn’t told anyone yet. And he had seemed genuinely surprised, a few seconds later, when Asthana had cut his throat.
    Thinking back to that moment now, Asthana knew that she had taken a considerable risk, but to her credit, she had remained calm in the aftermath. Around her, the street had been quiet. After wiping the blade on Garber’s shirt, she had left a message for her fiancé, telling him that she was going to be late. Then she had taken the dead man’s keys and gone around to the trunk.
    After a moment of rummaging, she had come up with a heavy blanket. Returning to the front of the car, she had covered Garber’s body so it lay across the seats. When she studied the result, she had been satisfied that the body was not obvious from the street. Then she had locked up the car, crossed to the opposite curb, and stood there in the darkness, thinking very carefully.
    Even after the killing, her thoughts had remained clear. She did not think that anyone had seen them leaving the office. For all the world knew, Garber, who was unmarried and lived alone, had gone home as usual after work. If he failed to appear the next day, the agency would suspect that something was wrong. Unless, of course, she managed to shape the story in the meantime.
    Once her plan was complete, Asthana had taken out her phone and made two calls. A quarter of an hour later, she had accompanied the car as it was towed by a breakdown truck to Dalston. The mechanic had spoken only after they were safely inside the garage. The vehicle, he had said slowly, would be cleaned and taken to a car breaker in Norwood. He would look after the body himself.
    Thinking back to this now, as she neared the office, Asthana was newly incensed at the botched job he had done, but it was too late for recriminations. And in any case, she had more important things to consider.
    Arriving at her car, Asthana drove home to Knightsbridge, where she found Devon seated with a laptop at the dining room table. She gave him a kiss. “How are you, darling?”
    â€œSwamped, as usual,” Devon said, not looking away from the computer, on which rows of government spending figures were arranged in an indecipherable spreadsheet. “How