Hunting The Kobra

by Cooper-Posey, Tracy

  Quinn shivered. It was weird being spoken about in the third person.

  “Leander is our unofficial profiler,” Dima said.

  Leander was already staring at his laptop once more, uninterested in the conversation.

  Quinn drew in a slow breath, trying to calm her heart, which had been running heavily since she stepped into the room. “You keep talking about watching my back. Am I safe? Will this be dangerous?”

  “The CIA is not in the habit of sending civilians into dangerous situations,” Dima said primly.

  “We leave that up to the Russians,” Scott said. His tone was bitter.

  Dima ignored the interjection. “You are safer with us watching your back than you would be crossing the street without us there. Aslan is only interested in your relationship with Denis. There is no danger in sharing any of it with him…or not. You must act as you would normally.”

  “I think I’ve forgotten how to do that,” Quinn muttered. She pushed the salad away from her. She couldn’t eat it. “How do you know this guy is actually connected to the Kobra? I mean, you’re going to a lot of trouble. How can you be sure?”

  “The Kobra was in Ukraine just before it fell.” Lochan leaned back on his chair to consider Quinn. “Aslan has been tracked back to Ukraine at the same time. Then there’s the tattoo.”

  “Tattoo?”

  The soccer mom cleared her throat and turned her laptop around so Quinn could see the screen. On the screen was a photo of several people standing on a beach with their feet in shallow water. Two of them had their backs to the camera. The photo had the grainy appearance which said it had been taken with a long lens, from far away. The taller of the two men was familiar to Quinn. “Aslan,” she said. She stared at Aslan’s bare back. His shoulders really were that wide. It wasn’t a product of the suit he had been wearing.

  He looked as though he was in intimidating shape.

  The soccer mom tapped on the keys and the photo enlarged, then enlarged again, until Aslan’s right shoulder filled the screen. Between the shoulder blade and the top of his shoulder was a tattoo. It was a snake, with its tail curled underneath it to form an infinity symbol. The snake had a flared head. A cobra.

  “The Kobra,” Quinn said. She looked at Dima. “You could find a dozen cobra symbols all over the Internet,” she pointed out. “Why does this mean Aslan knows the Kobra?”

  “We can’t even be sure the tattoo really exists,” Dima said. “Photoshop is fantastic these days. However, Aslan and the Kobra were in the same part of the world at the same time. It makes the tattoo highly suggestive.”

  “Who is everyone else?” Quinn asked, studying the people in the photo.

  “The blond man, there, is the reason we know the man with his back to the camera is Aslan,” Lochan said, pointing to the scaled-down version of the photo. “Blondie is Mitchell Peterson—as American as apple pie and as rotten as last year’s milk. He has a prison record, so he is known to us. Military prison, but prison is prison. His association with Aslan is also well known.”

  “And the others?” Quinn said.

  “We’re still ID’ing them,” Lochan said. “They could be tourists strolling the beach—except for the guy next to Aslan. Those two are clearly talking to each other even though we can’t see his face.”

  “I thought you guys can zoom in on anything,” Quinn said.

  “If only life was a TV series,” Scott said.

  There wasn’t much detail showing on the guy beside Aslan. He was as tall as Aslan and his shoulders were as wide. He wore a plain T-shirt. His hair was black and short. He could be one of millions of men with a similar physique and coloring.

  Quinn said to Dima, “I don’t understand how this horrible man had anything to do with Denis.”

  “A while ago you called him charming,” Dima pointed out. “I admit we are speculating a great deal, only Aslan’s relationship with Denis is confirmed. They lived together, Quinn.”

  Quinn dropped her gaze to her unwanted salad. “I feel as though I never knew Denis at all. Not really…”

  “Denis did not tell you about his life in Austria?” Dima asked.

  “He hated talking about Austria. All he would say was that his time there was tarnished and he was happy to get away. And even happier to meet me.” She could feel her cheeks heating. “When he mentioned Austria at all, he grew bitter.”

  Dima glanced at one of the others. Her brow lifted.

  Quinn turned in her chair.

  Leander had his chin on his fist. His eyes were narrowed again. “It further confirms their relationship had ended when he came here. It doesn’t sound as though it was an amicable breakup. There’s too little information to speculate on why. I could guess but that’s all it would be—a wild guess.”

  Quinn wrapped her arms around her middle. She shivered. “Maybe I don’t want to know, now. I already feel as if my head will explode.”

  Dima nodded. “Leela will take you back home. Get on with your life, as best you can.”

  “And if—when Aslan contacts me again, how do I reach you?”

  The mischief was back in Dima’s smile. “You won’t need to do that. We will contact you.” Her smile faded. “Don’t be afraid, Quinn. This is a simple matter. Talk to Aslan as you would normally. Then you talk to us. Then your part in this is over.”

  Leela got to her feet and put on her jeans jacket. She picked up car keys and raised her brow at Quinn.

  Quinn got to her feet as Agata came back inside carrying a cup of tea. Agata was as tall as Quinn and half her size. She was slender and incredibly young. Her eyes were a lovely green color which went well with the braid on her jacket.

  She glanced at the two of them, then held the tea out to Quinn. “For the road, then.”

  Quinn took the tea. “Thank you.”

  Leela pushed the door of the office open for Quinn. “After you.”

  Quinn stepped outside and looked at the overcast day. She had come here for answers and had got some. There were far more left unanswered.

  She didn’t want the answers anymore.

  Liar! a small voice whispered in her brain.

  Once Quinn had gone, Dima finished her salad with relish, as she thought things through. The salad dressing was excellent, although it left her fingers sticky. She licked them off then drained the bottle of Perrier.

  Scott dropped into the chair Quinn had been using and leaned back, watching her. “You’re really going to use her?” Disapproval tinged his voice.

  Scott, out of everyone in the room, had reason to be wary of involving innocents.

  “It isn’t me who has involved her. Aslan did that,” Dima pointed out.

  “You scared her into next Sunday,” Scott replied. “When Aslan rocks up, if she looks at him with those big eyes the way she looked at you while you told her about him, he will know you’re on to him. You’ll never find him again.”

  “Exactly,” Lea said. He lowered the lid on his laptop and rested his hand on it. “If Aslan thinks she is in any way compromised, if he even sniffs a hidden agenda, he won’t just be gone—he will scour the trail behind him. He did it in Texas. Fourteen people died to cover his tracks, remember.”

  “Allegedly,” Dima said, using the same tone Scott had used when he said the word.

  Scott rolled his eyes.

  “Most civilians have no idea how to lie with a straight face.” Ren screwed her hair up into a messy bun on the top of her head to get it out of the way. “They always have a tell. Quinn is right, she is shitty at lying.” Ren leaned back and put her sneakers on the desk and crossed her ankles. “We should have followed her. Leela could have stayed on her tail and I could take over when it wouldn’t seem natural for Leela to be there. Even Lochan knows how to tail someone.”

  Lochan rolled his eyes. “Thank you,” he said with a smile which showed his even white teeth.

  “I think you are all underestimating Quinn,” Dima told them.

  “I’ve been reading her
profile,” Lea said. He shook his head. “There is nothing in here. She has never experienced anything more stressful than stroppy musicians having a tantrum. She will fold at the first hint of conflict.”

  Dima shook her head. “You are forgetting she just lost the man she loved. And now she has learned he isn’t who she thought he was. She is facing conflict right now and still managed to look me in the eye.”

  “And if you’re wrong?” Scott’s question was soft. “You will tip off the one source who might lead us to The Kobra.”

  “We have no choice,” Dima said. “This is our one lead. Aslan came to her. Now we must wait for him to come back.”

  “What if Quinn is right about that, too?” Agata asked, her sweet voice lifting. “What if Aslan doesn’t come back again?”

  Dima shook her head. “He will be back.” She said it was far more firmness than she felt. She had to be right on this. She had spent four months learning about Aslan. If she was wrong, it meant she didn’t understand Aslan at all and the skills she had spent thirty years building were useless.

  He will be back, she told herself sternly.

  [6]

  Thursday, November 14th

  The rain wasn’t cold, although once it soaked through her jacket, the wind turned her jacket into an ice coat which left Quinn shivering and miserable.

  She would have caught a bus except none came along. It was at times like this when their decision to rent an apartment close to the University campus seemed insane. A house in the suburbs and a car each would have cost just as much as the apartment and on days like this, she would be warm and dry.

  Quinn hunched inside her coat and kept her eyes on the ground, watching for the deeper puddles. So far, her socks were dry. Her boots were leather, though. If she stepped into too many puddles, they would be soaked through, too.

  She didn’t notice the car pull up beside the curb. It was only her name being spoken at a volume higher the hiss of the rain which pulled her attention to it.

  The car was black and sleek and elegant. Smoked windows. The back door was open and Aslan lean across the back seat to look at her through the opening.

  “Get in,” he said. “I’ll take you home. You’re soaked. You need to get somewhere warm.”

  Quinn shivered. It wasn’t the rain and the wind which caused it. Her heart squeezed as she looked at the man. Dark blue suit today, French cuffs on his shirt and heavy cufflinks. The handkerchief in his pockets was the same light blue color as his shirt…and his eyes.

  Quinn shook her head. “No, thank you.” She walked again. He was here. He was back. Dima was right.

  Her heart swooped in a sickening way.

  Remember to act normally, Quinn told herself. Only she didn’t know what normal was.

  Tell the truth, Dima had said.

  Quinn could manage that.

  The car kept level with her. The door stayed open. “You are safe with me,” Aslan said. “You will notice the driver. You can even sit up the front with him if you prefer. Just let me get you out of the rain. It bothers me to see someone so damp when I have a warm and dry car to offer them.”

  Quinn gripped her elbows, shivering. She bent enough to look at him. “I’ll get the seat wet.”

  “It will survive.”

  Quinn looked up the road. There were no other cars. No sign of the bus. There was at least another mile before she would reach home. It would take maybe a minute in the car or another forty-five minutes of slogging through the rain.

  Tell the truth, she reminded herself. “I don’t deserve to be warm and dry,” she told Aslan.

  His head tilted. He considered her. “Survivor guilt, Quinn?”

  Quinn slicked back her hair, which slapped against her back. The one advantage of this rain was that he couldn’t see her cheeks were wet from crying. “Is that what it is?” she asked dully.

  He didn’t seem to care that the inside of the open door was getting as wet as the outside. He examined her for a long moment. Then he murmured to the driver, “Give me the umbrella.”

  The driver bent and lifted a long umbrella from the front seat and passed it over. Aslan slid along the back seat and stepped onto the curb, opening the umbrella as he got out. It was a coordinated movement which left him dry. She heard the raindrops hitting the nylon of the umbrella. It was big and black.

  Aslan closed the door of the car and patted the roof. He moved over to her and put the umbrella between them, so the rain no longer fell on her head. “Are there any rules against you having an umbrella over you while you walk out your penitence?”

  “I don’t know what the rules are,” Quinn confessed.

  “What does your gut say?”

  “I think an umbrella is okay,” she said doubtfully.

  Aslan waved toward the sidewalk. “Shall we?”

  They walked, and the car kept pace. Quinn barely noticed it. She was far too aware of Aslan beside her. He did not brush against her, yet she felt the heat from his dry, warm body. It made her even colder. That was good. She should feel cold in his presence.

  “Who are you?” she demanded. The question popped out before she could censor it. “Denis said nothing about you. He never mentioned your name. You just turned up at the funeral.”

  “Now you think I am one of those men who preys on grieving widows?”

  “I don’t have the fortune which would make it worth your while to do that.”

  Aslan didn’t respond at once. She listened to the rain hiss and patter against the umbrella, until he said softly, “I knew Denis in Austria.”

  Her heart squeezed. He had told her the truth. “You lived there?”

  “I still live there.”

  Quinn glanced at him. “You came all the way from Austria to attend his funeral?”

  Again, he hesitated. “I could tell you I had business here and my timing was coincidental. The truth is, I jumped on the first plane I could catch when I heard Denis was dead. He is the only reason I am here.”

  “You and Denis were such good friends?”

  “We were very good friends. Then we…” He sighed. “We had a falling out. You know what Denis is like. How, when he gets something in his head, he won’t let it go. He wouldn’t let this go, either. I figured I’d give him time to adjust to it and left him alone. Then he announced he was moving to America to teach at the Conservatory.” Aslan shook his head. “If anyone is to blame for this, it is me. Because of me, Denis was in Boston and in that jazz club when it blew up.”

  Quinn couldn’t help gasping as she looked at him. Her eyes widened.

  Aslan nodded. “We are both suffering survivor guilt,” he told her. “Have you slept much since the funeral?”

  Quinn shook her head. “I keep getting angry.”

  “Because he’s dead.”

  “Because someone killed him and I don’t know why.” Quinn halted and turned to face him. Aslan stopped, too.

  “Nobody will say anything officially. Yet everyone knows it was terrorists who set the bomb,” she said. “Only, which terrorists? Who did it? Who decided it should be done? And why a jazz club? Everybody in the world hangs out at jazz clubs. There’re blacks and women and Asians and Jews and every minority in the world. What sort of statement does it make when there’s no homogenous target? Did some asshole blow up a jazz club because it seemed like a fun thing to do?”

  Aslan didn’t look shocked, or uncomfortable. “You want to know why.”

  “Fuck why! I want to know who did it!” It was a short sentence. Yet she was panting as if she had run a hundred meters in ten seconds. She stared through Aslan, her heart thundering. She recognized what she had said was the profound and simple truth.

  She wasn’t interested in letting the system mete out justice. She wanted whoever was responsible to stand in front of her so she could look him in the eye. Then she would understand why this had happened. None of the answers she had learned so far explained anything.

  It seemed as though the more she learned
, the more confusing it became.

  Aslan seemed to understand. He touched her elbow to encourage her to turn and walk again. Under the hiss of the rain, he murmured, “I want to know who did it. Only I am afraid if I find out who did, then I’ll also learn why. I’m not sure I’ll like the answer.”

  “Because you think it’s your fault.”

  He glanced at her. “That’s astute of you.”

  She shrugged. “Survivor guilt. Right down at the bottom of my belly, I know this is my fault. I just don’t know why. It makes sense you would think the same way.”

  As she spoke, part of her marveled at the naturalness of her speech. With every sentence she spoke, she was lying and evading and omitting facts which would have Aslan running like a hyena, if he knew of them.

  She had forgotten what it felt like to speak as one person and think as another. It was all coming back to her now.

  The next half-mile passed in companionable silence.

  Then Aslan said, “Of course, neither of us is to blame. It just seems that way.”

  “I know.”

  The apartment was in sight when he spoke once more. “Denis thought he was one of the luckiest man alive, because he was born in the capital of music. I hate that I might have driven him away from Vienna.”

  “He loved his job here,” she told him. “We lived and breathed music.”

  “He was happy…” Aslan’s voice was nearly a sigh.

  He walked her right up to the apartment door, where the portico protected her and he could lower the umbrella. He shook it off as she dug out her keys. She was still shivering and looking forward to stepping inside.

  “You should come and visit Vienna,” he said. “You clearly love music as much as he did. And it’s coming up to ball season. Do you dance?”

  Something jolted inside her, as if it had touched a live wire. She shook her head. “I’ve never had time to dance,” she lied. She turned the second deadbolt and put her hand on the door handle. “Vienna sounds lovely. I have my job, though. And now I have twice the expenses to cover.”

  “And I am a stranger who Denis never spoke about,” Aslan finished.