It was a sore point for all of them. Including Cain.
Cain shifted on the seat so he was facing her better. “When you left France last year, you said Dima’s group would lock themselves in a room and sort out who the inside man was. You were not going to move from that room until it was figured out. Even if it took days. That’s what you told me.”
“Yes, I know,” Agata said. “It was the only smart thing to do. The inside man was tripping us up every time we moved. We had to figure out who he was.”
“Only, that didn’t happen,” Cain pointed out. “Instead, you guys have been running around Europe and Central Asia for months.” His gaze shifted to the driver’s seat. “I understand you can’t give me details, only I know you, Agata. You haven’t been happy about the work you’ve been doing. So what is going on?”
“This probably isn’t the place to have that discussion,” Agata said softly. She was conscious of Lochan listening to every word. “I’ve been away longer than I thought I would be—”
“No, that is not it,” Cain said. “We both knew, going into this, that you would be away a lot. I’m not being a princess and bitching about that. If I’m complaining it all, it is because nothing you have been doing lately makes sense.”
“Hear, hear,” Lochan said softly from the driver’s seat.
Agata glanced at him, startled. She turned back to Cain. “Dima has a plan, I’m sure of it. We just have to trust that she is working the plan.”
“I know nothing about your business,” Cain said, “But I’m a reasonably smart guy and I can put things together. And no, Lochan, Agata does not talk out of turn. Just for the record, okay?”
“Okay,” Lochan said.
“It seems to me that finding the inside man would be the priority. Running around Europe is not a way to find him. If you’re trying to find a mole, you focus on your internals. You trace your communications channels. You don’t go on extended tours of Finland and Belarus.”
“I was in Germany,” Agata said.
“Beside the point. I shouldn’t give a damn what Dima does. I don’t work for her. Only, the longer the inside man gets to run around free, the greater the risk becomes that he’ll go back to hunting everyone down. Forgive me for being concerned about risk when it comes to you.”
Agata stared at him, startled at this sudden anger. Perhaps it wasn’t sudden, though. She had been away for weeks. Every time she had slipped home for a few days, those days had been blissful and pleasure soaked, with nothing to blight them. Cain and she had spent their time in bed, or talking, with not much else in between. Eating and sleeping, occasionally.
This was the first time he had ever raised a negative note about her work.
“I like your guy a lot, Agata,” Lochan said.
Cain laughed. “Wait until you get to know me. And don’t distract me. I have a point to make.”
“You made your point and I agree with it,” Lochan said. He turned another corner, this time without indicating. The SUV slid around at the very last minute, in a high gear. Lochan didn’t seem fazed by the horns which blared behind him. “There is only one reason why Dima didn’t bother with the locked room deconstruct, straight after France.”
Agata’s chest tightened. Her heart ached for Lochan. “No one believes it, Lochan,” she warned.
“Believes what?” Cain asked.
“Why Dima has not pursued the inside man,” Lochan said. “The one reason she wouldn’t bother is because she thinks she has already found him and neutralized him.”
Agata sighed.
Cain’s gaze flickered toward her. Then he leaned sideways to look at Lochan in the front seat. “Without telling any of you?”
“Cain, no,” Agata said very softly.
“It’s fine,” Lochan said, his gaze shifting to her in the mirror. Then back to the road. “The Kobra was shooting at you two while he was shooting at Leela and me. Cain is a player, now.”
Cain grimaced. “I would make a terrible spy,” he said, his tone fervent. “Your business is far too ruthless for me. Which shocks the shine out of me, given my history. I’ve lost my taste for drama, these days. So yeah, I know the situation. Only I’m missing something. You’ll have to connect the dots for me.”
Agata grimaced. She remained silent, because Lochan would answer.
“The reason you two were ducking bullets in France,” Lochan said, “was because the Kobra decided to deal with the whole team, all at once. He came after all of us, one way or another. Or, I should say, he sent his minions. We all had to duck and run.
“Then, since France, nothing. He hasn’t come after any of us, despite romping across Europe and Asia. We have all been scattered and moving, except for one person.”
Cain still wasn’t following. Agata could see it by the tiny furrow between his brows. She said, “Lochan is presuming that the Kobra hasn’t come after us because he doesn’t know where we are. He has lost his inside man.”
“And there is only one of us who has died, recently,” Lochan’s voice was harsh, tight with control.
“Leela,” Cain said softly, understanding in his tone.
“Leela,” Lochan said heavily, his tone one of agreement. “I asked her to marry me and he killed her for it.”
[2]
Odesa, Ukraine. A few minutes later.
Misha was a good conversationalist. Fabian found him interesting to listen to and felt none of the awkwardness strangers generally stirred in her. He made the obvious questions, the get-to-know-you type of questions, seem interesting and noninvasive.
A wordless warning sat at the front of her mind, telling her to speak the truth as often as she could. Fabian wasn’t sure where she had learned it from. Possibly the movies, although more likely her father had passed it on. The truth was easier to remember than a pack of lies.
Mischa, though, did not start with the obvious “why are you here in Ukraine?” Instead, he sipped his tea and said, “You used a phrase a while ago. Something about tremors and…something else.”
Her misdirection had not worked at all. Fabian nodded. “Harmonic tremors and flank eruptions.”
“Yes, that was it. Are you a geologist?”
“I am a volcanologist.”
His eyes widened. “Really? I don’t believe I’ve met a volcanologist before. Not one who would confess to it, at least. Are you a good volcanologist?”
“If I was trying to impress you, I would tell you about graduating summa cum laude and how I had five job offers before I left university. Only, I got into the field because volcanoes fascinate me.”
“I remember when the volcano erupted in Iceland a few years ago and grounded planes all over Europe. They’re supposed to be the most powerful force on earth, when they really get going.”
“They are,” Fabian said. “Although most people focus on the power of the eruptions, which is bad enough. What they miss is the long-term effects of volcanoes upon humanity. And not just the Pompeiis of the world.”
Mischa’s eyes, which she had decided were blue, were steady as he considered her. “Is Pompeii why you got into the field?”
“My father took me there when I was quite small,” she said. “He is good at influencing people and wrangled a private tour of the city. We got to see things the tourists don’t see. I remember one of the remains—it was a small child, only as big as I was at the time. I remember thinking ‘here are the remains of someone who lived thousands of years ago. Were they just like me? Why did they not run away when the volcano erupted?’” She rolled her eyes. “It was silly, yet I still remember that child. I keep wondering about them, even today. Nobody is really sure who the girl was.”
“And so an obsession was born,” Mischa said. “Is that what you mean about the long-term effects?”
“The long-term effects I learned later, once I got into the business. I was lucky enough to get a job with the teams working on the two biggest volcanoes in Iceland.”
Mischa nodded. “The ones wit
h unpronounceable names.”
“Eyjafjallajökull and Katla,” Fabian said.
He laughed. “I am officially impressed.”
“Does that mean I am still to impress you unofficially?”
“Oh, you did that a while ago.” His tone warm.
Startled, Fabian slid her gaze toward the windows. She liked him thinking well of her, which was bizarre. She had only just met him.
“So, the long-term effects of volcanoes…?” he prompted her.
Fabian brought herself back to the point. “I’m working on Katla at the moment. In fact, I flew here directly from Iceland. Katla is fascinating. It erupted in the late eighteenth century and the eruption was so powerful, the gases and smoke it emitted shrouded the world for two years. Harvests across Europe were impacted for years and years. In fact, historians believe that the eruption of Katla is the reason why the French Revolution happened. The poor were unable to grow crops for a few years, which made them so desperate, they revolted.”
“The French Revolution changed the face of global politics,” Mischa concluded softly. His tone was admiring. “I haven’t heard that theory before.”
“It does make sense,” she insisted.
“If you are a reasonable and rational person, it does,” he said. “Unfortunately, there are people who believe the world is flat and global warming is a conspiracy of the Western world.”
“Do you think the USA is gaslighting the rest of the world?”
They were using English, yet Mischa still let his glance shift to the rest of the train, checking for listeners. “There are people in Ukraine who would willingly believe so, for it gives them a reason to be angry. Unemployment, inflation, corruption—there is a lot to be angry about in Ukraine. Even though it was thirty years ago, people still insist the Chernobyl disaster was a military action by the USA. Best not raise that topic while you are here.”
Fabian felt a little jolt of shock. She wondered why he was speaking of Chernobyl. It had to be a coincidence, though. The Chernobyl disaster was unprecedented in Ukraine’s history. She tilted her head. “You speak as if you are not Ukrainian.”
“That is because I am Russian.” His smile was easy. He did not seem apologetic about it. “You should not hold that against me. I’m actually a very nice man.”
Fabian laughed. “Do you live here? Or are you just passing through?”
“I live in Kiev. I have been in Greece, on holiday.”
“By yourself? That’s appalling.”
“Says the lady who is traveling by herself.”
“Yes, you’ve got me there. Although this is a working vacation.”
He just raised his brow, instead of asking the obvious question.
As she had deliberately set herself up for this, Fabian answered easily. “When I was growing up, I had an uncle… He was a step-uncle, really. At least, that was how we all knew him and were told to think of him. Elijah was such a sweet man. He always talked to me as if I was a grown-up. The way I thought grown-ups would be spoken to. None of that crouching and speaking with fake seriousness, the way adults who are not used to children tend to do.”
“I know exactly what you mean,” Mischa said. “A hundred years ago, those were the people who pinched children’s cheeks and thought children would adore them for it.”
“Yes, exactly. My uncle never did that. He did not make fun of me and I never felt as though he was laughing at me. We just talked like two people. He was the first person who ever talked to me in that way. He always looked out for me. Then he died. And…” She grimaced. And drank her tea. “Oh wow, way too much information. I’m sorry.”
It really was too much information. It had gushed from her.
“Your uncle came from here?”
“It took years for me to find that out. No one in my family would talk about Uncle Elijah. It was if he had never been there. When I asked my father and my uncles about him, they didn’t seem to know much about him. I didn’t understand it. He was our uncle—step-uncle. He was at every family function for years. Every Christmas, every Thanksgiving. Yet no one seemed to know a damn thing about him.”
“A mystery. That is why you are here? To find out more about him?”
“To find out more about him as a person,” Fabian amended. “It appalls me that no one in the family knew him well, when he was counted as a member of the family. It was only in the last few years I finally got my father to unbend enough to explain no one talks about him because he was my uncle Ignatius’ lover. Thirty years ago, gay men didn’t openly flaunt their relationships. So Elijah was introduced as a step-uncle. Then Elijah died and my Uncle Ignatius moved to South America.”
“Did you talk to Ignatius about Elijah?”
“It took two years’ worth of letters and emails to get Ignatius to admit Elijah had been his lover. Elijah died of AIDS-related issues and my uncle is now HIV positive, too. They didn’t understand it back then and didn’t know how to avoid it.” Fabian shook her head. “Even Ignatius didn’t know much about Elijah’s history before he moved to America. All he knew was that Elijah had come from Chernobyl, and moved to Kiev for a few years before he migrated to America. Elijah was an orphan, after Chernobyl.”
“So much for not bringing up Chernobyl,” Mischa murmured. He straightened up. “It seems you have resolved the mystery already.”
“About who he is, yes. About who he was as a person, no.” Fabian twisted her hair and threw it back over her shoulder, self-conscious. She was speaking the truth, more or less, yet some of what she said surprised even her. “I feel as though I have to find out more about him, to honor him. Does that make sense?”
“Because you took him for granted when you were a child?”
Fabian nodded. “Yes, I think so. I hadn’t thought of it that way. But yes, that is it. I mean, children are self-centered. Yet I feel that if I had been a nicer person, I would have taken a greater interest in him. I feel guilty because I did not. So now, if I find out something about him, it will make up for my lack.”
“I’m not sure why you think that makes you a bad person. As you say, children are self-centered. That’s part of being a child.”
Fabian shrugged self-consciously. “Anyway, I’ve been in Iceland for three months and winter has set in already, there. I thought, a week away, and Kiev is not that far, so…”
Mischa shook his empty teacup. He glanced at his watch. “The bar where I bought the tea is serving Deruny. Let me buy you lunch, Piá?”
“Deruny?”
“Potato pancakes.”
Her stomach rumbled. She had eaten breakfast on the ferry from Istanbul, but that had been many hours ago. “You bought the tea. Let me buy lunch.”
“No one speaks American here, remember?” He slid to the end of the seat and smiled at her. “I will buy lunch. It is payment for an interesting conversation. Russians like their storytellers, you know.” He got to his feet. There were fewer people moving up and down the aisle now. Everyone had found seats and were settled. Mischa looked down at her. “What was the name of your uncle? I mean, his last name.”
“Aslan,” Fabian told him. “Eli Aslan.”
The location for the wedding was the same location as the wedding breakfast would be held. It was a small function room in the bowels of a popular hotel. Rather than sit in pews, the eight guests arranged themselves in an intimate semicircle around Quinn and Noah.
Quinn wore a cream-colored pantsuit, with a long duster coat over the top. The pink roses in her hands shook as the pair of them repeated their vows. On the other hand, to Dima’s eyes, Noah was a rock. For these few moments, all the doubts and tensions he tended to carry in his shoulders had disappeared. He didn’t look around the room. His gaze remained on Quinn’s face.
As the celebrant pronounced them man and wife, Dima’s cell phone vibrated against her hip. It was loud enough in the small room that Scott, who stood beside her, raised his brow.
“It’s Santiago,” Dima murmured. “He�
��s the only one who can get through right now.”
“Do you need to take it?” Scott said.
“Later.” She returned her gaze to the newlyweds and enjoyed the moment. There were few enough such moments in their lives, these days.
Quinn and Noah signed their certificate, as the waiter circled with his tray of champagne. Slowly, conversations began. Dima took a moment to check everyone out.
“Everyone on board and accounted for,” Scott said softly. “This is the first time in two years we have all been in the same room, at the same time.”
“Technically, we’ve never all been in the same room at once. With Cain and Ren’s husband, this is a new group.” Dima turned her gaze to the other married couple in the room.
Ren and Peter stood with their shoulders together. Dima was aware of the stresses Ren’s work had placed upon their ten-year marriage. It seemed, though, the extraordinary pressure the Kobra had placed everyone under had actually brought them closer together. Dima could not remember them looking so comfortable together. It helped, she guessed, that Peter now knew a little about Ren’s work.
Only, he did not look as relaxed as Ren. There were signs of long-term strain around Peter’s eyes and mouth and Dima thought he had lost weight.
Ren had explained that with her usual economy. “It’s a case of be careful what you wish for. Peter has spent ten years wondering what I do. Now he’s glimpsed the truth, it hasn’t made him any happier.”
Scott was also looking at Peter and Ren. He rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m still not entirely comfortable having civilians mixed up in our business.”
“I’m still not sure I am comfortable being mixed up in your business, either,” Cain said from behind them.
They both turned to face him. Agata stood behind him, looking mildly uncomfortable at Cain’s forwardness.
“There is a reason why you and Peter are both here,” Scott said.
Cain raised a black brow. “I presume for a reason other than to make you squirm?”
Heart Strike (Project Kobra Book 3) Page 2
