Tough. That’s all he was going to get out of her. She, on the other hand, would exact a yet-to-be-decided penalty for…
“Ya Kurov.”
The quiet announcement cut through Rebel’s seething thoughts. Tamping down her anger once again, she turned to the white-coated, white-haired scarecrow who’d entered through a side door hidden among the intricate carving.
“He is Kurov,” Gorsky translated.
The head of the Amber Room restoration team was thin to the point of emaciation. Bony wrists protruded from the cuffs of his coat. His cheeks formed sunken caverns. But when he spoke of the Facebook photo, his eyes blazed with the passion of a man who’d dedicated his entire professional life to a single room. Extracting a copy of the photo from his coat pocket, he positioned it alongside the recreated panel. A gnarled finger jabbed from one bloom to the other.
“As you can see,” Gorsky interpreted, “the rose in the photo is darker in color.”
“That could be due to camera settings,” Rebel pointed out.
When Gorsky relayed her comment, Kurov bobbed his head but had her count from the tight center bud of one amber rose to its unfolded outer petals. The bloom in the photo had fewer petals, and those it did have appeared rougher at the edges.
“But the workmanship is very fine,” Gorsky translated. “Very fine, indeed. Kurov says…”
He broke off, frowning, and fired several questions at the restorer. The answers made him purse his lips.
“Kurov says he told the men who came yesterday the same thing.”
“What men?”
The curator glanced at the guide standing a few feet away.
“Did one of them have a scar above his eye?” Rebel persisted.
The question seemed to shrivel the man inside his white coat. He dodged the question and said only that he very much wished to examine the piece in the photo.
The news that the woman who’d posted it was murdered and her amber medallion had disappeared shook him a good deal more than it had his boss. Kurov took a step back, his eyes shocked, and poured out a spate of Russian.
“He says he must go. He has much work to do.”
“Wait.”
“No, no, he cannot.”
The restorer turned away, hesitated, and appeared to remember his manners. He turned back and offered a gnarled hand to Blade.
“Kurov wishes you good health…”
He faced Rebel. His skin felt dry and paper-thin against hers.
“…and he thanks you for your interest in the Amber Room,” Gorsky intoned.
The whisper was so low she would have missed it if she hadn’t read it on Kurov’s lips.
A street, a number, a time.
She didn’t blink, didn’t alter her politely disappointed expression by so much as a muscle twitch. “Please thank him for us, too,” she instructed.
“So,” Gorsky pronounced when he’d summoned their driver and squeezed into the front seat again. “You wish to go to the hotel and rest, yes? Then I will take you to my favorite restaurant. We have a little vodka, a little borscht and the finest pirozhki in all of St. Petersburg.”
The mere thought of savory, deep fried dumplings stuffed with onions, mushrooms and ground beef made Rebel’s stomach leap for joy. If not for Kurov’s whisper and the cool watchfulness in Blade’s eyes, she would have taken Gorsky up on his offer instantly.
“Sorry,” she said with real regret. “I have to pass. I didn’t sleep on the plane. I’m starting to feel it.”
“But you must eat.”
“I’ll get something at the hotel.”
“So it will be just us men, then.” Gorsky slewed his massive shoulders around to face Blade. “I know another place,” he said with a wink. “Good vodka, good borscht, and the best… How do you say? The best endowed waitresses in all St. Petersburg.”
“Hooters on the Neva. Sounds like my kind of place.”
“Surprise, surprise,” Rebel drawled.
“But I’ll take a pass, too,” he finished, his hawk’s eyes on her.
“How cruel you are.” Gorsky heaved an exaggerated sigh. “You leave me no choice but to go home to my wife.”
Their hotel was a modern tower of concrete and glass that catered primarily to business execs and foreign officials. Blade assumed as a matter of course the rooms were bugged. The KGB might have gone out of business in 1991, but its successor, the FSB, was alive and well.
He and Rebel were silent in the elevator taking them to the third floor and didn’t speak until they were at the doors of their adjoining rooms.
“You’ve got five minutes,” he told her.
“Then?”
“Then we walk.”
And talk, he vowed grimly when she shut her door in his face. Keying his own room, he dropped his carryall on the bed before flicking open the heavy drapes. The windows gave a sweeping view of the Neva River spanned by its elaborately decorated bridges. Across the river, the green-and-white facade of the Winter Palace took up almost an entire block. Flanking it were the mansions and palaces Peter the Great’s courtiers had built when the tsar moved his royal court from Moscow to his new city on the Neva.
Blade studied the view for another moment or two before sliding his phone from his pocket. He couldn’t risk a voice transmission given the probability of bugs, but Lightning’s wife, Mac, had built so many levels of encryption into the phone that he had no qualms about sending a coded text. Still, his thumbs hovered over the keys for several moments more before tapping out a message.
Urgent—need info on covert ops Rebel engaged in while Asst Air Attache in Moscow
He hesitated, feeling something wrench inside him, then added a critical caveat: if any.
Jaw tight, he snapped the phone shut. This was the first time, the only time, in all his years with OMEGA that he’d harbored so much as a shred of doubt about one of his fellow operatives. The fact that it was Rebel who’d spawned the question had acid churning in his stomach. He couldn’t ignore the silent signal he’d intercepted, though. One brief flicker, one shared glance between her and Gorsky. If Blade had been looking out the window, he would have missed it.
He jammed the phone into his pocket, his mind shouting denials. Victoria Talbot had graduated from the Air Force Academy, for God’s sake! Spent more than a decade in uniform before Lightning recruited her. She and Blade had worked several ops together, and she’d always given two hundred percent to the mission.
Okay, the woman’s ripe mouth and long legs had triggered more than one erotic fantasy inside his head. And yes, he had yet to erase the lingering memory of her body ensnared with his during that idiotic kiss on the sidewalk outside NYU. He wasn’t making excuses for himself or her. Wasn’t questioning his own instincts. But…
Christ! Who the hell was he kidding? Everything in him wanted OMEGA Control to come back with incontrovertible evidence that Victoria Talbot was exactly who she claimed to be.
Striding to the bathroom, he wrenched the faucets with barely controlled savagery and doused his face with ice-cold water. Three minutes later, he rapped on her door.
She’d used the brief interval to change into jeans, a short-sleeved tank with a mock turtleneck and a pair of silver spangled ballet flats more comfortable for walking. Blade chose a small, crowded restaurant some three blocks from their hotel. It sat well down a side street, away from the tourist traffic. The heavy scent of fried potatoes and sausage permeated the clouds of cigarette smoke rising from scarred wooden tables and booths. The glass shelves behind the bar displayed an astonishing variety of vodkas and local beers. The menu was chalked on a green slate hung next to the bar.
The patrons hunched over their drinks wore mostly jeans, with a scattering of leather. Rebel might have fit right in if not for her height, her hip-swinging stride and her air of cool self-confidence as she wove through the tables. Heads turned, glances sharpened, and more than one male tracked her progress to a booth.
The waitress who came to t
ake their order raked her with a keen eye, too, before turning to Blade. Her cheeks creased in a smile. He returned it and shook his head in response to her query.
“Ah!” She switched to thick, guttural English. “I bring you Western menu.”
Blade glanced from the waitress to the woman seated across from him. “Why don’t you order for us?”
Rebel’s eyes locked with his. Then her mouth took a sardonic twist and she reeled off a spate of Russian. The waitress nodded and went back to the bar.
A taut stillness encased the booth, shutting out the chink of bottles and the other patrons’ conversations. Rebel was the first to break it.
“I took Russian at the Air Force Academy, which is one of the reasons I was selected for the attaché job. The air force also sent me to the Defense Language Institute at Monterey for a brush-up before I left for the assignment in Moscow. As I’m sure you’ll ask Tank to verify,” she taunted, “if you haven’t already.”
Blade wasn’t buying it. She’d had plenty of opportunity to display this particular language skill during the dangerous op they’d worked just months ago involving Dodge Hamilton and the icily beautiful Russian missile officer he’d subsequently married.
“You never spoke to Larissa Petrovna in her own language,” he countered slowly. “Not in my hearing, anyway.”
The unspoken implication in that last phrase sparked a hot retort.
“I didn’t speak to Lara in Russian because she is Russian. If you’d ever pulled attaché duty, you would know we’re trained to listen and observe, not showboat our linguistic ability to the other side.”
She sat back, blew out a breath and made an obvious effort to rein in her temper.
“Look, I like Lara. If I’d needed to communicate with her in her own language while we were tracking the bastard who’d kidnapped and tried to kill her, I would have. In a heartbeat! But I didn’t.”
He wanted to accept her tart explanation. Wanted to be convinced. Blade couldn’t believe how much. He said nothing, however, while the waitress approached. Smiling, the woman deposited a cloudy glass and a cup of thick, sludgy coffee on the table.
“Is best vodka,” she informed Blade, nudging the glass in his direction. “From Samara.”
“Thanks.”
“Pozhaluystra.”
When she sauntered away, he looked over to find Rebel shaking her head.
“Do you even know you do that?” she asked acidly.
“Do what?”
“Advertise your availability to every female who might be even remotely interested.”
Frowning, he cupped the glass. He would be the first to admit he wasn’t the most sensitive guy in the world when it came to social nuances. Still, he was pretty sure he hadn’t been coming on to the waitress. Irked, he turned the question back on the questioner.
“Is this a subtle attempt to change the subject, Talbot, or are you trying to tell me you might be interested?”
“No, and God, no! For the record, though, I didn’t order the vodka. That was a gift from your friend at the bar. I would take it in small doses if I were you.”
He did, but even a cautious swallow ripped down his throat. “Good Lord!”
Smirking, she waited for the explosion in his belly to subside before picking up where she’d left off. “And the reason I didn’t order vodka is that we have an appointment later.”
“With?” he got out on a hoarse croak.
“Petr Kurov. One a.m. At number seventeen Nevsky Prospect.”
Ignoring the aftershocks in his gut, Blade narrowed his eyes. “Did Gorsky set this up?”
“No, Kurov did, when he whispered to me at Catherine Palace.”
He swallowed that with a nasty dose of suspicion. “Why 1:00 a.m?”
“I’m guessing because the sun won’t set until close to midnight and he doesn’t want his friends and neighbors seeing him meet with two Americans.” Her smile was a cool, mocking challenge. “Now you just have to decide whether you believe me.”
Chapter 5
Tank skimmed the message on the screen for the second time.
It was early evening St. Petersburg’s time, mid-morning in D.C. He’d been at the Control Center all night but had grabbed a quick shower, a shave, and breakfast around 8:00 a.m. Dodge had waited for him to come back recharged before zipping home to do the same himself. He was only a phone call away and could return to the Control Center within minutes if necessary.
Lightning wasn’t on-site, either. He’d flown to New York for a meeting with some UN delegates who couldn’t be rescheduled. That left Tank, two communications techs, an intelligence analyst and the frizzy haired genius who headed OMEGA’s Field Dress unit within shouting distance of each other.
He was tempted to give one of them a yell. The request on the screen was labeled “urgent.” Blade wanted info on any covert ops Rebel might have engaged in while assigned to Moscow as an assistant air attaché, like now.
Tank had served in the military as a JAG. Despite the TV show of the same name, most Marine Corps legal types didn’t get up close and personal with covert ops or international intrigue. He knew, however, that military attachés were trained to observe and collect sensitive information. Obviously, Blade thought Rebel may have done just that.
So why didn’t he ask her for verification? Why send an urgent back-channel request?
Tank might be OMEGA’s newest recruit, but he’d spent his entire life in the agency’s shadow. He didn’t need to be told that an operative’s first rule of survival in the field was to trust his or her instincts. For some reason, Blade’s instincts were telling him he needed more information about his partner on this op.
Dragging his gaze from the screen, Tank scribbled a name and office symbol and walked over to one of the comm techs.
“Can you can get this guy on a secure line for me, Jane?”
“That’s what we do.” The cheerful mother of three glanced at the note. “Robert DeLeon, Senior Analyst, Defense Intelligence Agency, coming right up.”
Having so many Washington connections helped. As did having a knock-out for a sister. Bob DeLeon had dated Samantha while she was in med school. They’d gone their separate ways since then, but the former Princeton hoop star hadn’t given up hope of resuming relations. A fact he reiterated when he came on the line.
“Hey, Tank. How’s that gorgeous sister of yours?”
“Busy treating earthquake survivors in Mali right now.”
“Damn! Tell her I need treating when she gets home.”
“You’re beyond hope of any cure, DeLeon.”
“That’s what Samantha said,” he admitted. “Several times. So what can I do for you?”
“You can tell me who to talk to about a former air force officer’s covert activities while serving as an assistant air attaché in Moscow.”
DeLeon didn’t reply for several seconds. When he did, he was obviously choosing his words with care. “I see you called in on a secure line. I’ve pinpointed your location, but I’ll need a flash code before I act on your request for information.”
“Hang on.” Tank glanced across his console to Jane O’Conner. “He needs a flash code.”
Nodding, she hit two keys. “He’s got it.”
Tank hadn’t earned his nickname by backing away from a challenge. It took several calls and some dogged persistence, but he finally penetrated the maze of secrecy surrounding the world of covert intelligence collection. Propping back his chair, he studied the notes he’d made to himself over the course of several conversations.
Who knew Rebel was fluent in Russian? Or that she’d trained as a spook after several years in the cockpit? Lightning, obviously, since he’d specifically chosen her for this op. Interesting. He thumped his chair down and had started to draft a response to Blade’s message when another thought hit him.
Tank’s mother was a linguist. Had written several books on universal phonetics, in fact. She always claimed people with an ear for the nuances o
f speech made the best spies. His older sister had that same ear. Gillian picked up a working knowledge of Mandarin during her State Department assignment to Beijing. The facility had proved invaluable when Jilly jumped feetfirst into an OMEGA op in Hong Kong. As she frequently pointed out, like mother, like daughter.
So maybe…
It was just a hunch. A way-out-there thought. But it got Tank digging further into the background of a WWII infantry grunt with the German-sounding name of Thomas Bauer, the late grandfather of the late Vivian Bauer.
His first hit came from a check of census data and immigration records. The second, after another round of calls to the archives of what was then the U.S. Army’s Office of Special Operations. Absorbed in the notes he was furiously compiling, he didn’t notice Dodge had returned until the operative dropped into the seat beside him.
“You look pretty intent,” the lanky Wyoming native commented. “What’s happening?”
“A couple of things. First, Blade wanted to know if Rebel did any spook work during her air force days.”
“Did she?”
“She did.”
Dodge took a moment to absorb that. “Guess that doesn’t surprise me. She sure transitioned from the military to OMEGA smoothly. What else have you got?”
“I rooted around a little more into Thomas Bauer’s background. Turns out his parents emigrated to the States from Germany in 1926. When the U.S. entered WWII, the Office of Special Operations searched for German-speaking recruits and found out Bauer spoke it at home while growing up. The OSS yanked him from his infantry unit, trained him as a saboteur and dropped him behind enemy lines in the last years of the war.”
He paused for effect, his eyes glinting.
“Bauer’s target was the East Prussian stronghold where his parents, his grandparents and several generations of Bauers before them lived.”
Dodge got it in one. “Königsberg?”
“Königsberg. The last known repository of the Amber Room.”
Double Deception Page 5
