Of course it was only a guess. She’d only known the man for four hours. But after conducting home studies and interviewing prospective adoptive parents for the past five years, she measured herself a pretty good judge of character. The fact that he’d also stopped his taxi and marched back into baggage claim to rescue her suitcase only confirmed the fact the man resembled a bona fide angel.
“Yes, I’m doing much better, thanks to you,” she answered. She tightened her ankles around her suitcase, wishing she’d packed as light as the other travelers around her. She already felt like some sort of pampered movie star, attracting attention as she wrestled the bag onto the train. “Why did you intervene?”
Professor Taynov gave her a look of surprise. “Because you looked like you needed rescuing. Besides, I know that a woman with such a beautiful smile can’t be a danger to Mother Russia.” He winked, and Kat’s eyes widened.
“Thank you,” she stammered, wondering suddenly about his motives. Was the man really traveling to Pskov on happenstance, or had she suddenly found an admirer expecting more gratitude repayment than she would produce? She rubbed her arms and stared out the window, wishing again her grandfather had consented to travel with her. Of course this joint-jarring rhythm would play havoc on his eighty-year-old bones
She curled her hands around the backpack on her lap and instinctively checked for the brass key in the front pocket. Her heartbeat still jumped every time she glimpsed someone in black entering her airspace—a painful regularity in Russia. She kept conjuring up a posse of the FSB regulars like the ones she had encountered at the airport. She hoped the man who’d freed her had also talked the passport officials into a full pardon. Who did they think she was, anyway? James Bond’s latest hottie?
The fact that she’d purchased her ticket and made it onto the train without incident only confirmed the hope that she’d been cleared. The Militia regular—the one with the bone-piercing blue eyes who had nabbed her and dragged her back to the bowels of customs—must have been some sort of renegade with a vendetta against naïve Americans. A travesty one of his superiors quickly rectified.
Only, she wasn’t quite so naïve anymore, thank you very much.
The agony of the eight-hour ride loomed out into eternity, and the fact that her body was still ticking on New York time made the clack of the train beat inside her head like a gong. With God’s providence, she would arrive in time to grab a cab and trek out to the monastery, inconveniently located some thirty kilometers from Pskov according to her now well-creased map. If it weren’t for curiosity pressing her on like an overseer, she’d make a beeline for the Intourist hotel where, given they showed record of her Internet reservation, she would collapse. She felt like a kid Christmas morning, sleep-deprived but wide-eyed at the pile of presents, hoping one was for her.
She rubbed her eyes until she saw stars, hoping to dissolve a film of fatigue. She would pay about a million rubles for a shot of hot cocoa and a bag of M&M’s to put a kick into her adrenaline. Her energy level had taken a nose-dive, jet lag crashing over her after the initial high she’d gotten from being yanked free of the militia’s clutches.
It didn’t help her altered brain cells that she been sucked back in time. The passenger train looked like something from her childhood history book. The wooden seat under her couldn’t be more than a century new. And the smell. . .what was that?
She craned her head around and spied a woman wrapped in a wool headscarf as if it were January in Iceland and holding a mangy brown poodle. The dog’s hair was parted around his eyes and he blinked at Kat as if dazed by his own odor.
Across the aisle, a weary looking blonde holding a child in a snowsuit leaned her head against the grimy window. Her eyes were closed. Kat’s heart turned in pity at the fist-sized hole in the woman’s tights, just below her knees, and the string that bound her shoe heels to her shapeless loafer.
“So, why are you heading to Pskov?” Professor Taynov’s grin seemed genuine. Kat scrambled through a haze of fatigue to sound coherent.
“I’m trying to find some relatives.” Her dream sounded simpler when she put words to it. “I’m trying to find out who I am” seemed so. . .desperate.
He raised his black eyebrows. “You’re Russian?”
“Partly. My Grandmother was from Russia.”
“So you’ve come back to the Motherland to find your roots.” He shook his head. “Good luck. Russia’s such a mess right now, you’d be lucky to find the sun in the sky on a cloudless day.”
“I have some clues.” Kat tried not to let his words dent her enthusiasm. “I got a letter, from a monastery outside Pskov. From a monk”
“Really?” Professor Taynov reached out his hand. “Can I see it?”
Kat blushed. “Actually, there was no note, just the key.”
“The one that set off the siren?”
She nodded, unzipped the backpack pocket and handed it over. Professor Taynov examined it like an archeologist. “Looks old. Maybe a hundred years. Look at the cut—hand done. No lathe formed this key.”
“What do you think it opens?”
He handed it back. “A door, perhaps, or maybe a chest?”
She shrugged. “I’m hoping the monastery has some answers.” She went to slip it into her bag, then stopped. This and the picture were the only clues she had. Digging into her backpack, she unearthed a pack of shoestrings and pulled out a single lace.
“What are you doing?” The Professor’s brow furrowed. The look sent a chill up her spine.
“This key is the bridge to my past. I can’t afford to lose it.” She slipped the lace through the small hole in the key, then tied it around her neck. She dropped the key under her shirt, and the metal sent a jolt of cold through her as it touched her skin.
Professor Taynov nodded, his gaze resting on Kat’s neck for a long moment. Then he turned around and said nothing more.
-
Kat rolled her brochure into a tube and tapped it on her leg as she listened to the tour guide explain the three-hundred-year-old icon of St. John, the Winged Precursor, painted by somebody named Filatyev. Her Russian couldn’t keep up and she tuned out the drone of the leggy guide and moved to the back of the group. She was lucky to hook up with the last tour of the day. A brown robed man, presumably a monk, had been less than helpful when she’d inquired after Brother Timofea Petrov and instead pointed to the “No entrance without a tour,” sign. She took the hint, and bought the last ticket. She could only hope God’s intervention would hold out and she’d somehow find where they kept the active monks.
“Move this way and you’ll find another chamber, dedicated to St. George.”
Kat shuffled with the group into a small room, painted orange, red, and green, with an intricate mosaic of a young man slaying what looked like a dragon. While the rest of the group moved as close as the chains would allow to the painted walls, Kat slipped out of the room, quick-walked through the three prayer chambers of the monastery chapel and out into the sunshine.
The sweet redolence of a white lilac drifted on the breeze and the low sun hid behind a scattering of pine trees to the west. Kat followed a cobblestone path past the chapel, deeper into the grounds. The chapel had obviously been one of the first buildings renovated since the Russian government began sinking money back into the church. She found the building in the brochure then read about the library and the school. The grounds were set on a hill, the fresh aroma of the Velikaya River drifting up from beyond the sandstone cliffs. The path wound around three other buildings, perhaps housing, then disappeared into the whitewashed wooden fence that surrounded the grounds. She stopped at a statue, a bust of some monk who had obviously given his life for the monastery. She read the inscription, tracing the date, c. 1007, and marveled that the monastery could be nearly a millennium old.
Kat heard the cheery carol of a robin, and a gentle breeze lifted the hair from her forehead. The early evening sun sprayed off the golden cupolas of a community of green-roofed bui
ldings and swept a kaleidoscope of color throughout the compound, reflecting a magnificent light display off the red and gold buildings and illuminating the centuries-old icons painted on the high gables. Kat closed her eyes. She felt light years removed from her morning battle with the Russian militia and easily believed God could be found in this place.
Now, if she could only find Brother Timofea.
Maybe he lived in the back buildings, not listed on the map. The brochure did boast an “active” monastery. Curiosity and hope pressed her up the path toward the buildings. For the first time, she wished Professor Taynov hadn’t left her with a “good luck” at the train station. He’d shaken her hand, and pointed her toward a taxi and hoofed off in the opposite direction.
So maybe he wasn’t trying to start something she wouldn’t finish. She blushed, even thinking it. She might be traveling alone, but she didn’t need to suspect every person she met. A souvenir from living six years under Matthew’s hover. Or perhaps simply a scar of her painful reception by Russian customs. Shame pressed down on her chest, and it didn’t help that she’d now found the door to the first building and stood with her hand on the latch.
She sucked a deep breath.
“Zhenshina! Stop! Where you going?”
Her knees nearly gave out. She yanked her hand off the door and whirled, her heart in her throat.
“Are you lost?” She’d been nabbed by a monk, obvious from the brown robe he wore, but instead of softness, his dark eyes peeled layers off her deceitful intentions, leaving only the naked truth. She gulped, scraping up anything, even a grunt would do. Giving up on words, Kat shook her head.
He gave her a shriveling look. “Can I help you?”
“Maybe,” she squeaked. She scrambled for Russian, which had abandoned her, again. “I’m looking for. . .” What was that brother’s name?
“Come with me.” He reached out and grabbed her by her shaking arm.
Okay, God could make an appearance right about now. The Second Coming. Anything. She’d accept acts of nature, a finger-of-God tornado perhaps. She stumbled along, wondering how she’d managed to be apprehended twice in one day. Thankfully, the key was safely thumping against her chest instead of locked along with her bag and camera in the monastery coat-and-camera check.
She wondered if they had good food in prison. Her stomach was starting to clench.
The monk marched her into another unnamed building, down a hall, and into a wide, barren office. Two squeaky clean, tall windows peered out across a graveyard. Beyond that, dark gray limestone rose like a wall surrounding the spiritual conclave.
“Yes?” An elderly monk sat behind a simple wooden desk, clad in the standard garb. The wrinkles on his face and his wide, shiny head betrayed his age as somewhere near Ivan the Terrible. He clasped his hands on his desk, and raised his eyebrows, obviously accustomed to respect. Still, despite the reasonable tone of his low, aged voice, and his slow demeanor, Kat came up empty when she searched his face for patience.
“I found this woman wandering around the grounds.”
Kat rubbed her arm where the monk had held on and wondered how a man of God could have such a cruel grip.
“Are you lost?” The head monk frowned and a chill ran through Kat’s veins.
Looking heavenward, she shook her head.
Her own thundering heartbeat filled the silence in the room.
“What do you want?” The gravel in his voice rattled Kat’s bones.
She found her voice, hidden right behind her cowering curiosity. It emerged as feeble as her courage. “I’m looking for one of your brothers. . .”
The two monks exchanged glances. Kat took the opportunity to dig into her pocket and pull out the scrap of envelope which bore the return address. Like forensic evidence, it felt like the hand of justice, clearing her of her crime. “Someone from this monastery sent me something. Brother Timofea Petrov. I need to talk to him.”
She held out the paper to the elder monk. He took it and one busy eyebrow tightened, angled down. “What did Brother Timofea send you?”
Kat hauled in a deep breath. The key did belong to her, right? Head Monk and Thug Monk weren’t going to wrestle it from her, were they? “A key, Sir.”
“Call me Father, if you please. Do you have it?”
Kat scanned a look between the two monks, who seemed now less sinister than curious. She nodded.
“Can we see it?” Father Monk stood, and his voice softened.
“If you tell me where I can find Brother Timofea.” Kat crossed her arms over her chest and pushed against a betraying tremble. She lifted her chin and tried to stare down the father. A second later, she was examining the polished wooden floor, her pulse nearly too loud to hear the monk’s quiet acquiescence. The sadness in his voice, however, rang volumes.
She watched his eyes as she tugged the key from beneath her shirt. They widened, and his expression changed. “So that’s where it went.”
Kat held the key in her palm, ready to white fist it should they even sniff suspiciously. “Where is Brother Timofea?”
The Father sent a small nod to the monk beside her.
“Follow me,” he said.
-
Vadeem watched Ekaterina Moore trudge out of the monastery gates, the low sun turning her hair rich amber. She’d obviously had a doozy of day, and rightly deserved, the little escape artist. Still, her shoulders shook, and the fact she was crying made Vadeem want to step out from under the full lilac and yank that awful rolling suitcase out of her grip as he muscled her into HQ. The bag rolled like a rummy behind her as she dodged ruts in the sidewalk. She stopped now and again to wipe her eyes, and once she turned and stared back at the monastery as if she’d left behind her soul and contemplated a dash back to retrieve it.
He’d have to dodge the effect of those amber brown eyes brimming with tears if he hoped to keep his eye on the prize. Namely, Grazovich. And, after watching the smuggler scoop her up like a prize, Vadeem would lay odds the two were in cahoots.
She wouldn’t shake him again.
Vadeem followed her as she plodded down the street, thankful he had both Grazovich and Moore now in pocket. Grazovich, true to form, had headed straight for the Intourist hotel, found a room on the second floor, and ordered a bottle of Absolut. A couple of purple five-hundred ruble notes in the clerk’s pocket and Vadeem would know if Grazovich did anything but drink himself into a stupor.
Miss Moore stopped, set her backpack down on her suitcase, and stared up the street. No, no taxis. He could read the realization on her face and in her drooping shoulders. She worked a small book out of a side pocket; a traveler’s guide no doubt. A slight wind pulled her hair back from her face as she frowned, flipping pages, worrying her bottom lip as she read. She looked up, as if to gather her bearings, and he turned and memorized the contents of a nearby bread kiosk. A moment later, she was again trolleying her baggage down the street, in the direction of the Avtovoxhal. He gave her begrudging points for her on-her-feet thinking.
Then again, anyone with the slightest travel savvy—and especially an international fence for combat accessories—would know that taxis loved to pick up fares at the local bus station.
Vadeem zipped back to his Zhiguli, a loaner from the local FSB set-up, and followed her, just to keep her in his sights, as she adeptly scored a cab at the depot. He stayed on her taillights all the way back to Pskov and hung out at the ATM machine, fighting his awakened suspicions while she checked in at the local Intourist Hotel. Lodging options were few in Pskov, but it slammed a few more nails in her coffin that she chose Grazovich’s hotel.
She finally loaded her gear into a rickety elevator and headed upstairs.
He approached his newly acquainted desk clerk informant. “Which one is she in?” “302.” The desk clerk offered a conspiratorial smile, as if she’d joined the police force.
“Thank you.” Vadeem took a seat across the lobby, behind a full hibiscus, and crossed his arms over his chest, w
ondering if his little tourist was staying put for the night.
She appeared thirty minutes later, face scrubbed, and looking sharp in a pair of khakis and a pink wide collar blouse. She’d obviously emptied half her backpack. It sagged like a deflated ball off her shoulder. He fell in thirty paces behind her when she stepped out onto the street.
The wind reaped her perfume and sent it streaming back at him. Oh my, did she smell good. Floral, maybe roses, or lavender. Something simple. He paused on the steps, watching her go, debating the wisdom of leaving Grazovich unguarded.
Except, what was she doing wandering around Pskov?
He stuck his hands in his jacket pockets and followed her trail.
He found her just around the corner, sitting in an outside bistro, backpack at her heels and nibbling at a fingernail while studying a menu. One leg was crossed over the other and her tennis shoe moved to the pop rock they were piping over the boom box on the cashier’s table. At first glance, no one would guess she had just spent the day on the lam and wading knee deep into a terrorist’s agenda.
A half block past the bistro, he bought an ice cream from a vendor and ate it while he watched her pick at a potato salad.
She had her cover down to an art form. Presently, she looked about as forlorn as he felt every Saturday night in the bleak months of winter—restless, frustrated. But he suspected the brain behind those woeful eyes held a knowledge of the inner workings of a howitzer or a scud missile. Vadeem threw his cone into the trash, tired of this charade.
He skidded to a halt, stunned, as Ivan Grazovich approached the café like a man on a mission. He wore a smile. Vadeem bristled. Somehow the fact that his gut instincts had played true felt like a knife in his chest.
Ekaterina (Heirs of Anton) Page 3
