“I think you know what I’m getting at, Chief Randolph.”
“Breaking out Oskar is something your friend might do,” her father prodded. “Thwarting the entire block’s security is something you could manage.”
“I was inside the ballroom at the time, remember? Besides, our friend steals cars and wine. Where’s the profit in stealing a prince when he has no way to fence him? I can assure you, he’s not nearly that well connected.”
“So you haven’t spoken to him since your last job together?”
“Why wouldn’t I?” Since her father had told her not to do something, he could be assured that she would do the very opposite. “The man is a colleague, and I might need his services again. It’s common sense to keep the door open.”
“Lila.”
She dropped her fork loudly on the china. “Don’t channel Mother. It does you both a disservice. Peter Kruger bombed that office building, not our friend. What’s your complaint with him now?”
“I don’t trust him, and I don’t like him.”
“You’ve never met him, and you don’t have to like him. I don’t even have to like him.” She picked up her glass. “I’m tired of being your first suspect when neither of you has another. It is tedious.”
“My apologies,” Shaw said, inclining his head. “I’ve become far too casual since we’ve begun working together.”
Lila retrieved her fork. “There are two sides in Germany who have an interest in Oskar. One side wants him dead. One side wants him alive. Since this group in the basement didn’t shoot him, they obviously want him alive. They must be traditionalists.”
“Which means that we have German agents inside Saxony. I told you last night, prime minister. You’ll have to call in the local militias for assistance. Bullstow can’t handle the increases to port security alone. The airports alone would overtax us.”
“And I told you that I refuse to call in the militias,” Lemaire said. “It would make everyone afraid for no reason, not to mention the cost. Besides, the matrons would have a field day with it.”
Lila donned her best matron voice. “All this fuss for one little slave? The prime minister is merely using it as an excuse. He’s up to something.” She pointed her fork at Shaw. “That’s what they’ll say after supplying their guess as to my father’s real objective. It will be worse when the media gets hold of the story and talks it to death.”
“I don’t care what they say,” Shaw said. “They can let us do our jobs.”
“You should care what I say, chief, and I say no.” Her father punched a few buttons on his palm and slid it across the table with a little grin. “Look at this, Lila.”
She did, then wished she had not. Her father had gotten hold of the unedited video from the night before and saved a frame as his palm’s desktop. She had already leapt toward Mr. Schulte. Her crimson dress and arms flailed at odd angles, and a comical expression covered her face.
Out of every possible frame, he’d chosen that one.
“You either suck at technology, or I’m even less photogenic than I thought.”
Shaw snickered. “A little from column A, a little from column—”
“You look noble,” her father said. “Heroic.”
“I have it on good authority that I looked like a flailing housecat.”
“No, a lioness.”
Lila raised a brow.
“An alley cat, at least.” When Lila did not relent, her father grunted and stared at the image again. “The boy’s safe now, isn’t he?”
Lila didn’t know how to answer. Os
kar hadn’t been killed, but would he truly be safe at the Holguín compound?
Lemaire slipped his palm into his pocket. “Enough talk of Oskar. The boy is a job for me and Chief Shaw.”
Lila nearly choked on her wine. Wasn’t that why he’d called her to breakfast?
“As you might recall, I visited with the oracles last week,” he said, stealing another piece of bacon from the tray.