“Oh, you’ll need me, Natasha.” His grin was as hungry as a tiger’s. It was rumored that Anton Zherov had developed a keen taste for blood. “Indeed you will.”
*
“Listen, Anton, we need to come to some sort of détente,” she said as she returned from the lavatory. “I have enough on my mind without worrying about you slipping a knife between my ribs.”
He looked up at her. As she sat back down, he said, “This was neither my idea nor an assignment I would have volunteered for.” His steely gaze seemed to track the movement of her eyes. “I don’t like you. You can change your name as many times as you want. I don’t like you; I don’t trust you. You’re the product of a recruitment program the parameters of which are no longer in existence, thankfully, since so many of you people blew up in our faces. In fact, you’re the last of your line, the only living proof that the program ever existed.”
She was careful to keep her rage out of her eyes. “So I’m an embarrassment to you.”
“No, not an embarrassment. You’re a clear and present danger—to me and to everyone else in the SVR. You may have Dima hypnotized, but rest assured that’ll never happen with me, no matter how wide you spread your legs.”
The words were no sooner out of his mouth than, in a blur, she leaned across the table and slapped him hard enough to make his head turn. A white flower, quickly turning red, bloomed on his cheek. He made no move to counter, said not a word, but rose and stalked to the rear of the plane.
To her horror, she noticed her hand trembling. She felt the sting where it had impacted his cheek all the way up her arm or imagined she did anyway. Her pulse galloped along at its own pace, and her thoughts squirmed away from her like fish frightened by the emergence of a shark. She bit her lower lip, dug her fingernails into the palm of her idle hand. When she smelled the blood welling, she brought it up to her face and licked, the coppery taste a reminder of who she was and what she must do to keep ahead of the pack of vindictive males snapping at her heels.
6
WASHINGTON, DC
The three-story cream stone and butterscotch stucco Italianate mansion stood near the corner of California Street NW and Massachusetts Avenue, two or so blocks from Rock Creek Park. A passerby might mistake it for the embassy of a foreign nation. It was nothing of the kind. A small courtyard paved with octagonal tiles was guarded by a pair of stone urns, each filled with a holly bush, their winter ruby-colored berries now gone, but their glossy dark-green foliage full and lush. Eight-foot evergreen hedges guarded the front of the building.
This was the home of Isobel Lowe. And it was to Isobel that Ben now carried Evan. Isobel and Ben had met in Israel, more than ten years ago. He’d been a field agent then, and she worked for Mossad. This was before he and Evan had even met. Eventually, Isobel became disenchanted with the current Israeli government, quit Mossad, and moved to DC. Her distrust and hatred of Russia never wavered, however, aligning with Ben’s own antipathy. Now she worked for one of those Silicon Valley companies that had amassed more personal data on more people worldwide than the NSA and the DOD combined. She and Ben were closer now than they had been in Haifa.
He had texted Isobel on his way from Herndon. She was watching for them at the side door and swung it open as Ben took the steps two at a time with Evan in his arms. Security dictated he not approach from the front, which was lit up with security lights.
“I’ll take her from here,” Isobel said, and Ben who would in normal circumstances tell her he was fine to carry Evan into the house and upstairs, acquiesced without a fight. The truth was, he was shattered, emotionally and physically and every other way he couldn’t for the moment think of.
As he followed Isobel and Evan through the kitchen, past the pantry, down the long, pecan wood–paneled hallway, gleaming and immaculate, into the spacious front entryway, he felt a heaviness of spirit.
Shock was finally setting in—the twin traumas of losing his beloved shop and seeing Evan slewing at speed into the light pole, almost dying. An unnatural cold penetrated his flesh to settle in his bones. The fear of losing Evan, the acknowledgment of what she meant to him, how he felt about her, had undone him. The deep-seated emotion had finally sunk its claws into him, and he knew he’d never be the same.
He paused, watching Izzy carry her up. His heart flipped over, and he hurried to follow them into one of Isobel’s spare bedrooms, where she tenderly laid Evan onto a bed. There was already someone else in the room. By the professional manner with which he examined Evan’s wound, Ben knew he must be a doctor. A hospital had been out of the question. That was the one thing he was sure about as he drove away from the fireball that had been Evan’s Charger. Too many questions for which he had no answers, and a bullet would automatically be reported to the police. These days, Isobel, with their history, her contacts, and her competence, was the only one outside of Evan he could trust.
After a few moments, Isobel turned away from the doctor and his patient, undoubtedly to ask Ben what the hell happened, and finally noticed his extreme pallor. She led him across the hall to her own bedroom, she sat him down in an oversized upholstered chair, brought him a double shot of bourbon poured from a decanter on the mahogany sideboard, placed his fingers around the glass.
“Drink,” she ordered. “She’s in good hands.” Then she left him alone.
Ben sipped the bourbon without tasting it. Eventually, though, the liquor’s warmth ran through his body. He realized he was gripping the arm of the chair with his free hand so hard his knuckles stood out, white and skeletal.
Taking out his mobile phone, he sent off a text to Zoe. She was staying at her best friend Rose’s house, five blocks from Ben’s own house in Georgetown. Rose’s mom, Mae Rand, was always willing to take Zoe in when he wasn’t around. The girls loved being together. The arrangement was convenient for everyone. It was late, so Ben didn’t expect a reply until morning, but he wanted Zoe to know he was okay as soon as she awoke.
He stowed his mobile away, put his head back, and closed his eyes.
Fully half the time he’d been a field agent Evan had been his partner in wet work. They had spent many sleepless nights on surveillance—a mind-numbing job if ever there was one, but necessary all the same. They had been in firefights, been wounded, had clung to each other for solace in the most godforsaken places, and, once, had spent the darkness making ferocious love again and again. Well. The way of the world—the world of evil, lies, and treachery in which he and Evan had chosen to live.
“Never again, Evan. I’ve already betrayed my vows to Lila for this one night, I can’t betray my love for Zoe.”
She held his hands in hers. “It’s our betrayal; I’m as guilty as you are.”
And how much more deeply did their guilt eviscerate them when Lila was killed. He had never told her their secret, had been unable to confess to the woman he loved. He and Evan were saucers full of secrets. What was another one to either of them? Their burdens were already too heavy to measure.
And yet it was everything.
When General Aristides had given him his own black ops shop Evan had been the first field agent he recruited. Predictably, Aristides wasn’t happy about the hire. “You two have a history together,” the general had complained. “You can’t be in the least objective when it comes to her.” Which was all too true. Not that Ben gave a shit. Evan was the best field operative he’d ever worked with. Her record was impeccable. When she was given a brief, she completed it, come hell or high water. Sometimes, to be sure, he suspected she had a death wish lurking somewhere in the back of her psyche. Maybe because of her sister. Evan and Bobbi had had a distinct sibling rivalry before their parents were killed, before Evan was forced into the role of Bobbi’s sister, mother, and father rolled into one.
Ben looked at his watch, scrubbed a hand across his face. Evan had caused so many complications in his life, had raised a ridge of guilt in him that could never be worn smooth. And yet, he wouldn’t have missed a second of
their time together.
The truth was he was still as ignorant of the flame that drove her as he had been the day they first met. She remained a complete enigma. For him, who spent his entire adult life solving the riddles of human motivation, treachery, weakness, and greed, she was a vault without a key code, an irresistible nymph in the deepest forest of the night.
Aristides’s prophetic words swirled through his mind now: “You can’t be in the least objective when it comes to her.”
No, he couldn’t, not in any way, shape, or form. In those horrific moments as he saw her Charger nearly folded in two, when he bolted out of his car, running so fast he thought his heart might explode out of his chest, when, terrified that she had been mortally wounded or already dead, he finally understood why. He understood why he had taken the unspeakable risk of making love to her, betraying Lila and Zoe, the loves of his life.
His eyes opened, barely registering where he was. He was trained to keep his emotions under control, to be stoic in the face of the most grotesque and stomach-churning situations.
But this was different.
This was Evan.
With a groan that emanated from deep in his belly, he hurled the empty glass across the room, where it shattered against the tropical flowers and birds wallpaper.
That sound of the glass shattering brought Isobel. She looked at the mess he’d made and, crossing to him, she said in her husky voice, “I see you’re coming back to yourself.”
Looking up at this willowy woman with wide-apart devilish tawny eyes and an enigmatic smile, so familiar, so welcoming, he knew he had made the right choice bringing Evan here.
“Sorry,” he said, giving her a watery smile.
“Don’t be.” She tossed her head with its thick cascade of dark hair. “Dr. Braun would like a word.”
He sprang up, a pang of anxiety returning. Isobel immediately reassured him. “She’s fine. Just resting quietly. You can talk to her after Dr. Braun leaves.”
Instead of leading him across the hall, they turned right, heading through a pair of polished mahogany doors with brass knockers in the shape of closed fists, into the large study that Isobel had used for her nightly poker games, where she hosted the Beltway’s elite in high-stakes rounds. She had stopped the games several months ago, and now the study was as it had been before, with a mahogany desk facing a pair of leather sofas and two matching easy chairs, a wet bar along a side wall, and books in orderly rows on shelves built into the back wall.
Dr. Braun was standing by the desk, his medical bag beside him on the gleaming wooden surface. Ben, at last regaining a sense of himself, crossed the room, shaking the doctor’s hand as he introduced himself. “Thank you for coming.”
Dr. Braun waved away his words. “Any friend of Isobel’s …” He was a short, compact man. If Ben squinted, he could pass for a middle-aged Mel Brooks. His eyes sparkled and there were deep laugh lines scored on either side of his mouth.
“I’ll make this short and sweet,” he said, as Isobel came to stand beside Ben. “First, your friend is in no danger; she did not suffer a serious head wound, or a concussion. Second, I have cleaned and disinfected the wound. I have also applied a liquid bandage. It contains an antibiotic and is waterproof. ” He shifted from one foot to the other, and now his voice lowered, taking on a warning tone. “Third, all that said, she was exceedingly fortunate. If that bullet had done anything more than take the first two layers of epidermis off her skull, we’d be having a completely different conversation. Oh, and don’t worry about the contusion behind her left ear. It will subside within a few days.” He dug in his old-school physician’s pigskin bag and handed Ben two plastic phials. “The same antibiotic that’s in the liquid skin.” He tapped the phials with his forefinger. “I doubt she’ll need it, but my training compels me to err on the side of caution.” He touched the second phial. “Analgesics. She’s going to have one killer headache for the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours, so only light activity and plenty of rest.” He snapped his bag closed. “Well, that’s about it.” He turned to go. “Isobel, if you need me …”
“Thank you, Stephen,” she said as they all stepped into the hallway. “Let me show you out.”
He shook his head. “I’ll see myself out, Izzy. You have better things to do.”
Which left Ben and Isobel standing face-to-face.
Ben’s face had regained much of its color, now he knew Evan wasn’t seriously injured. “Listen—”
“I know what you’re going to say. No need to thank me.”
He gave her a serious look. “Well, okay, then I’ll thank you on Evan’s behalf.”
She nodded. “Best she and I don’t meet, Ben. She was already here once for that ill-fated poker game. I’ve no idea what she thinks of me and now’s not the time to try and explain.”
He nodded. “Agreed. No reason for her to know about our association. But there may come a time.”
“I understand.”
“Okay then.” They kissed on both cheeks, in the European manner. It seemed to him a solemn goodbye.
Ben was left alone for only a moment before he went softly down the hall and into the room where Evan lay.
*
She heard voices, far away and sounding like the brook she and Bobbi used to push each other into when they were young girls. Even then, there had been a dark edge to their shoving, needle points to their laughter. They were more than sibling rivals. There was always something between them, a darkness, a shadow that she couldn’t understand then and which, later on when she was obliged to take care of her sister after their parents were killed, she dismissed as a fancy of childhood.
*
Through a red haze, she sees herself running down the steep slope to the bank of the brook. Bobbi is right behind her when it happens. Later, Bobbi claimed she’d tripped over a tree root, stumbled and pitched into Evan, knocking Evan head over tail into the brook. It is spring laden with bouts of heavy rains, and the brook is in full spate. She is pitched in headfirst, gasping, gulps water, starts to choke as she flails her arms uselessly. The water smashes into her, allowing her feet no purchase on the stony brook bed. She tries to get to the bank but has lost all sense of direction. Every time she strikes out with her arms and legs the current slaps her in the face and she goes under again. What would have happened if Bobbi’s arm hadn’t wound around her waist, hauling her up into the sunlit air. She will never know. She lies on the bank, feet still in the water, gasping and choking until Bobbi turns her on her side, and she vomits up the water she has taken in through her nostrils, down her throat, into her lungs.
“There now,” Bobbi says, sitting beside her. “There now.”
The next afternoon, Bobbi is ahead of her as they run down the slope where no tree grows. Bobbi hadn’t tripped after all.
*
Now Bobbi was dead. Now Bobbi was a traitor. Bobbi had been a Russian spy, a sleeper agent or a mole. What secrets had she gleaned or stolen from Paul’s political work over the years? When had she been indoctrinated? How had she been indoctrinated? Who had lured her over to the enemy, and what had they used to entice her? What would make Bobbi keep lying to Evan, to her children, the people who loved her the most?
*
Evan ached all over, as if she had been pummeled by a heavyweight boxer. Her head felt as if it were splitting in two, the pain so bad she could scarcely think. She opened her eyes, saw Ben smiling down at her, but even in her pain-riddled state she could tell the smile was off—strained, marred by concern.
“Hey,” he said.
She opened her mouth, meant to say “Hey,” but what came out was, “My head.”
“Right.” He moved out of her view for a moment, returned with a glass of water and a bendy straw. “Open.” He laid a pill on her tongue, placed the straw in her mouth. “Drink,” he said. “Swallow.” She did those things. Moments later the pain subsided to a dull roar.
“Ben,” she said, wincing only slightly. “What happ
ened?”
“The man in the backseat,” he said, “that’s what happened.”
“He was holding a gun to the back of my head. He hit me with the butt. I … I needed to get away while there was only one person.”
“Couldn’t you have found something else less drastic than deliberately totaling your car?”
“It seemed like the only viable idea at the time.” When he didn’t even crack a smile, she said, “Fuck, I want to sit up.”
He went to help her, but she batted his hands away. He put pillows behind her, instead, tried not to watch her struggling.
She had clearly heard the anxiety in his voice if not seen it in his face. Stoic Ben. Emotionless Ben. As always. “He jumped me in the parking lot as I got into my car, pointed a handgun at the back of my head and directed me to drive.”
“Where?”
“No idea. We didn’t get far after you lost us.”
“I doubled back. I went as fast as I dared in the weather. I got there in time to see the crash, to get you out before the fireball.”
“So no way to ID him from remains.”
“Not unless you know a good necromancer.”
“Google?” A bitter smile danced across her pallid face. Her hand reached up, touched the bandage. “The shot?”
“Just a scratch. Again, lucky.”
“Luck didn’t enter into the equation. It was because what I did threw him off-balance. It was because his world was collapsing in on him.”
Ben seemed to ignore this or dismiss it out of hand. Anger rushed through her, and she was back in the brook in full spate, gasping for air, for life.
“Did you see his face?” Ben asked. “Any distinguishing marks?”
“He wore a balaclava.” Evan tried to set her anger aside, but it seemed to be growing exponentially.
“What about his voice? Anything there?”
She tried to think back; too many images crowding her mind like a panicked stadium full of people all rushing to get out at once. “American, through and through.”
The Kobalt Dossier Page 5
