Monday was always a quiet day, and without Anderson to bother her, Charlotte could easily cope with the usual influx of email and phone calls, plus the occasional personal caller. Charlotte and her business partner varied their hours to suit, more or less keeping to a five-day week, with two part-time staff filling-in when necessary. Contrary to her outward show of annoyance, Anderson’s visit had been a welcome diversion, although he had an arrogant streak she always felt the need to counter, something not helped when his wild assumptions – or perceptive deductions as Anderson liked to call them – turned out to be correct.
Jessica’s plan to share the burden of reading all three of Zhilin’s books might not have met favour with Anderson but Charlotte had been more receptive, borrowing The Failures of Counter-Terrorism and managing to get past the first hundred pages. Now with time dragging, she decided to work on her own perceptive deductions.
The veracity of Rebane’s story would seem to depend in part on the nationality of Yuri and Lara, and Charlotte followed Anderson’s success by focusing purely on the book’s acknowledgements. One name at a time she began the challenging task of matching each of the thirty-four names to an actual person, her task made a little easier by assuming everyone on the list had some connection with terrorism, be it job-related, as a consultant, an academic, or even as an ex-terrorist. Name, age, sex, nationality, expertise and internet link were all duly recorded onto her phone.
By late afternoon Charlotte had found all but nine and she now racked her brain to recollect everything Anderson had said about Yuri and Lara, his comments in turn culled from Rob at the Farriers. Common language Polish or Russian; Lara, in her fifties, possibly blonde, good English but probably not American; Yuri, fortyish, English not as good as Lara’s. It wasn’t a great deal to go on but it would have to do.
None of the men came anywhere close, well over half of them American; however, one woman was an encouraging match to Lara’s profile – Klaudia Woroniecki, age 55, Polish, a political consultant and foreign affairs analyst. Appointed in November to Poland’s National Security Bureau, her official title of Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Counter-terrorism was particularly impressive, Charlotte downloading a couple of photos for future reference.
Charlotte sat back in her chair, pleased with her afternoon’s work. The thirty-four names gave a snapshot of Martin Rebane’s professional associates and whilst it would be foolish to put any faith into her deductions, perceptive or not, Charlotte’s possible success in identifying Lara might – if only for a second – smooth away Anderson’s slightly superior and always annoying frown.