Chapter Ten
After the Ball
Vivi came promptly when called, a desirable learned behavior in the family Schnauzer, but a disturbing trait in a fellow operative whose loyalties are suspect and whose supportive mission is unknown. She apparently knew my mission, since she’d led me so helpfully to the Pasha. What she did next, now that I had the information I’d come for, would prove whose side she was really on. As my former assistant at Keppelhoffer, she was undoubtedly part of a plot that involved the Secret Government and some unnamed international investors, the most prominent of whom turned out to be none other than my most wanted of men, international financial wiz and con man Walter Hemphill. Valerie had been and might even now be working for him, might or might not have been or now be
