Tingling beneath his regard, determined to hide her nerves, she swept tendrils of hair behind her ear.
“You haven’t taken your eyes off me once in the past forty minutes, Mr. Markov. I hope I’m not causing you any inconvenience?”
“So far, you’ve been a model guest.” Neatly he crushed his cigarette in the ashtray, then strolled to the armchair facing her. Uneasy before those opaque black eyes that seemed to register her every twitch, she hunted for a distraction.
“Do you mind if I check my messages before you lock up my telephone?” Expecting a struggle, she forced a polite smile. “My staff will be waiting to hear from me.”
“Go ahead.” Graceful as a racehorse, all power and long-limbed grace, he slid her smart phone onto the coffee table between them. Well within hearing range of any call she’d make, alert for her first wrong move, he projected the coiled energy of a stallion at the starting gate.
Skylar wondered what it would take to rattle him, to breach that veneer of reserved sophistication. Even when he’d been dodging gunfire, she bet his heartbeat hadn’t risen above sixty BPM.
“I’d like to file a police report on the incident,” she stated, careful not to ask for permission. “Then I’ll contact the Embassy. They’ll inform the Ministry of Foreign Affairs—”
“Phone the Foreign Minister himself if you like.” His dark head tilted, as though he found her eminently reasonable plan to be an oddity. “The militsia will tell you it was an attempted auto theft.”
Over her phone’s lighted console, she stared at him. Those impenetrable eyes gazed calmly back.
“Are the local carjackers so inept, Mr. Markov, that they routinely perforate the vehicles they’re planning to lift? Don’t the bullet holes damage the resale value?”
“Given the current economic difficulties and this town’s remote location, the militsia will inform you, such incidents have regrettably become commonplace.” He paused. “If you’d prefer to spend your only day in Khimgorod buried in paperwork at the police station, by all means that’s your prerogative. I’ll accompany you, of course.”
“So you don’t believe those bullets had my name on them?” Skylar arched a skeptical brow. He certainly hadn’t seemed to feel that way at the time of the incident.
“Not at all.” He made a minute adjustment to the perfect crease of his slacks. Her gaze lingered on his hands—slender and long-fingered, like a musician or a master artist.
No wedding band on his ring finger. But it wasn’t as though that meant anything.
Still, Nikolai Markov didn’t seem the type to have a loving wife tucked away at home. He struck her more as a no-attachments kind of guy. But then, he looked and acted nothing like any security goon she’d ever encountered. The man was an enigma. She had no clue what went on behind that stylish façade.
Yet her life was in his hands.
“I said that’s what the police will tell you, Dr. Rossi,” he replied patiently. “What I’m telling you is that those gunmen were after me.”
Did he think she was terrified enough to grasp at any straw, no matter how absurd, any flimsy fragment of reassurance?
She kept her voice controlled.
“I don’t doubt you’ve made your share of enemies, Mr. Markov. It must come with the territory in your business. But if you truly work for the security office, that means you’re God in this company town. Who would cross you?”
“Perhaps I’ve neglected to bribe someone.” Delicately he removed a microscopic bit of lint from his sleeve. “There are so many krishas running protection rackets in Russia these days that it’s easy to overlook one. They have any number of colorful methods to remind the offending party when an account is, shall we say, past due?”
“Sounds like it could be a problem for you.” She made her tone noncommittal.
If that attack had been a hit on the man across from her, a classic case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time on her part, she wasn’t buying it. The pattern of disasters that dogged her was all too apparent: her interpreter’s sudden illness, the theft of her purse, Anton Belov’s unspecified “accident,” and now this so-called carjacking.
What she really wanted was to cower in her hotel room with the door locked and the covers over her head until the next train arrived. If the Khimgorod Chemical Combine weren’t such an obvious front for illicit work, if she didn’t already know that someone was selling artillery shells and warheads loaded with VX nerve agent to rogue states, she’d have cancelled the trip before she’d even left Moscow, when everything first started to fall apart.
Let’s take things one step at a time.
She speed-dialed her voice mail and thanked God for good satellite coverage.
You’re trapped in this city until eleven tonight, as your “security escort” has so carefully specified. And if you can’t get the police to take this seriously, you’d better take that meeting with the mayor.
The unpalatable alternative was to huddle in this icebox of a hotel, probably under electronic surveillance as well as Nikolai Markov’s ironic gaze, and count the hours until her train arrived. The problem was, she didn’t feel any safer here.
As she listened to her messages with her mind elsewhere, Skylar scribbled a few distracted notes. One call from an old friend—God knew, she had few enough of those. Alexis Castle Kostenko had worked for the U.S. Embassy before she went AWOL and married a renegade Russian submarine skipper, which pretty much torpedoed her career.
She’d called Skylar from Thailand, where she was lying on a beach with her sexy new husband.
Clearly I’m in the wrong line of work. Hastily Skylar made a note to call her friend back from Moscow.
One call from Alain Devereux, her deputy at ICSI, who reassured her in his cultured French voice that everything was under control. But he missed her—wanted to take her someplace nice when she returned to Moscow. Sighing, she deleted the message without responding.
Cavolo! I should never have slept with him.
She should never have given in, even after six months of determined seduction on his part culminated in that candlelit suite in a five-star Parisian hotel. She supposed the sex had been decent. But she knew how it always ended.
Never mind the constant ache of loneliness in her chest, the pain of isolation an only child learned to manage after a lifetime of constant migration from one elite boarding school to another. Never daring to make friends because she knew she’d lose them, because her father always warned her not to let anyone close, that his work was too sensitive and too important to jeopardize by personal ties that put the family at risk.
Like the sheltered child she was, she’d believed Dane Rossi worked for the Pentagon. Until a hundred little clues coalesced, and she’d realized who was really buying his weapons—
“Everything all right?” Nikolai Markov asked.
Startled, Skylar blinked up at him, and found those unsettling, sin-dark eyes piercing straight through her.
_____________________________________
Nikolai watched the mark hide her anxiety behind a strained smile. “Everything’s perfect.”
Oh, I don’t think so, Dr. Rossi. Clearly she hadn’t bought his little fiction about the hit, though he hadn’t been entirely lying. He knew at least a dozen men scattered around Europe and the former Soviet Union who’d love to see him dead, though none of them would order the hit in a closed city.
At least the mark wasn’t stupid. On the contrary, her colleagues on the bench at the chemistry lab thought her brilliant. Her transcripts from the University of Michigan had confirmed that to be true.
It pleased him, actually, that she was showing some grit. That she’d stayed in the fight, gamely taking on the chin the one-two punches he’d engineered so carefully. Kept him from thinking too much about things he preferred to forget.
As she fiddled with the lighted display on her smart phone, the device chimed in her hand—the sonorous thunder of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. Murmu
ring a polite apology, she picked up.
Nikolai made no attempt to stop her. He’d bugged her phone while she was checking in. He’d review the recording later.
Subtly, as she listened, her face changed. A line appeared between her slim black brows and her shoulders stiffened. She darted a swift glance around the foyer, as if looking for rescue.
Yet her voice stayed brightly professional.
“Thanks so much for returning my call, Alain. I know it’s early in Moscow.”
Alain. That would be Devereux. The name was in her file, the Skylar Rossi scrapbook he kept for old times’ sake, whose every detail he’d memorized. Devereux was a professional diplomat and her deputy at ICSI. Fancied himself a ladies’ man—and showed every sign of resenting the upstart American who’d stolen the plum position to which he felt entitled. Had she guessed how much her Number Two hated her?
Now, with interest, he watched the color deepen beneath Skylar Rossi’s tawny skin. Cher Alain must be slathering it on a bit thick. The mark was all but squirming in her seat.
“Oh, that’s…kind of you.” Shooting him a wary glance, she unfolded her model-slim body and paced toward the bar, phone tucked against her ear.
He strolled after her, idly appreciating the graceful sway of her hips. She moved like a dancer, like pure seduction, and tossed her ivory wool coat over a barstool with effortless grace. He’d pay real money to see those long legs showcased in a skirt.
Walking temptation. Not hard to see, actually, why Kirill had been infatuated. But Nikolai never mixed business with pleasure. That was one lesson his cocky little brother had taught him.
His current persona was a compulsive smoker seeking distraction from a failed marriage, so Nikolai lit up another Gauloise while the mark described her situation to Devereux. Interesting to hear her downplay the shooting—which meant she didn’t trust Devereux. More to the point, she said nothing about cancelling her itinerary.
Perhaps more drastic measures would be necessary.
With a raised finger he summoned the barista, sullenly leafing through a fashion magazine, to attend Skylar Rossi. From a discreet distance, he listened as the mark juggled a few business-related items for Devereux with an order in her hesitant Russian for Turkish coffee. She took it black and viscous as motor oil, just like he did, tongue sweeping over the lush pink curve of her upper lip as she sipped from the tiny cup.
Sensual. That was the word for Skylar Rossi. Was she trying to distract him?
Nikolai realized he’d lost the thread of her discussion. Now the mark started fiddling with her hair, smoothing tendrils behind her ear—which he’d already noted was one of her “tells.”
“Um, Alain.” She lowered her voice, so he could barely hear. “I’m, ah, glad you had a good time. It was a—nice evening. But I can’t talk about that right now.”
Ah, that would explain her discomfort. The arrogant Frenchman was pursuing a sexual liaison with her. The man must think he could broach that wall of permanent reserve the Mafioso’s daughter kept between herself and the world. Clearly Devereux didn’t know her romantic history…or, rather, her lack of one. Nikolai wondered whether she knew the man was married. As he recalled, the wife owned an art gallery in Munich.
Skylar closed with a few stilted courtesies and ended her call in a hurry.
“It appears your room is ready, Dr. Rossi.” Nikolai glanced toward the reception counter, where her room key had finally materialized. Lingering near the lift, Ilya responded to his raised eyebrow with a curt nod.
Good. The camera was working, the listening device installed. Now that he’d arranged the chessboard to his liking, Skylar Rossi was isolated, deep in enemy territory.
He was positively going to enjoy watching her sweat.
CHAPTER THREE
Control of the Center: Command of the central squares allows pieces to be moved anywhere on the board and has a cramping effect on the opponent.
“You remember, please, Ambassador.” Beaming, the mayor patted her arm as they strolled from his office. “One telephone call from me, you see? And all confusion is resolved. They are waiting for you at the chemical combine.”
Despite the edgy nerves that kept her jittery, half-expecting a burst of gunfire to erupt at any moment, Skylar couldn’t help beaming back at the old bear. She’d instantly liked the jovial mayor—a dynamo several inches shorter than she. She wanted to trust the bright blue eyes that sparkled in his rosy face.
Like many local officials at the remote sites she visited, the mayor was an ally. He desperately wanted the lifeline of ICSI money for peaceful research and development projects pumped into his crumbling city.
“Thank you for making that call. It certainly seems to have cleared up the misunderstanding.” Guarded, she glanced around as they strode through the echoing corridors, past the gilded portraits of academicians and politicians—good Communists all—who’d run Khimgorod like a serfdom in Soviet times.
Now, of course, the Khrushchev-era building was all but empty, too cold and drafty for the city’s inefficient central heating to make a dent. The population of this closed city had shrunk by two thirds since the Soviet Union collapsed.
“You go there now, to the combine, yes? Don’t let our local hooligans drive you away.” The mayor cast her a look of entreaty as they passed the rickety lift—not working, according to the hand-lettered notice taped beside it. Judging by the faded ink, the malfunction was not a recent development.
Yet another indication that the city was strapped for cash.
Beneath the bureaucrat’s worried gaze, Skylar hesitated. She cast an uneasy glance behind her, where her silent security escort glided in their wake.
“I’ll go to the combine now,” she said, “as long as Mr. Markov has no concerns?”
“As the necessary approvals now appear to be in place, Mr. Markov has no concerns,” Mr. Markov murmured. “I don’t make the decisions, Dr. Rossi. I merely enforce them.”
Of course he’d said nothing in the meeting—a perfect cipher, as he blended into the background and watched her. In fact, his presence had been a real distraction. Sometimes, while his night-black eyes studied her over the gritty espresso they both seemed to favor, that cool façade of courteous indifference seemed to crack, revealing a glimpse of hidden secrets, a look of dark intensity—a focused, brooding purpose.
Cavolo, bella! Don’t be so melodramatic.
Escorting her was only a job for him. So long as she followed his encyclopedic book of rules, why should he care what she did?
At the moment, he seemed truly unconcerned to hear her itinerary at the chemical combine resurrected. He flicked an indifferent glance toward the mayor. “If Yuri Ivanovich authorizes it, we’ll depart for the combine at once.”
Vigorously the mayor nodded. “Any problems at all, Ambassador, you come to me. Not my deputy, not the regional governor, not those apparatchiks in Moscow. I help you solve all problems, yes?”
“Yes.” Skylar didn’t have to feign her smile. “You’ve been incredibly helpful. I’m looking forward to our scientific collaboration, and to funding some worthwhile projects in Khimgorod.”
She’d established a good rapport between herself and this Papa Bear of a mayor with his red-veined alcoholic’s nose. She was a fair judge of people—had to be, in her job. He’d been genuinely distressed to hear about Anton Belov. Genuinely horrified by the highway shooting when she told him.
Most important, the mayor had promised the chemical combine would receive her at their research and production site. If he’d received other orders from Moscow, surely he wouldn’t have dared to contravene them.
Maybe I did the right thing after all by sticking to my guns, refusing to be herded back on the train. Maybe those hooligans were after Markov instead of me, just as he claimed.
If so, she’d better keep her head down, and stay out of the line of fire.
With a cordial handshake, the mayor left her at the stately staircase that spiraled down
to the foyer with its scuffed marble floors. Gripping her attaché case, Skylar descended, careful not to slip on the slick stairs.
When her foot skidded on a patch of slush someone had trampled in, Nikolai Markov slipped forward from his silent rear-guard position to grip her arm. Again that silent, charged awareness hummed between them.
Another whiff of his beguiling fragrance wrapped around her: amber and cedar and the sharp spice of citrus. A definite distraction, like the man himself. He hadn’t said a word in the mayor’s presence beyond a muttered introduction. Since the mayor hadn’t seemed to know him, Markov must be a recent arrival in this isolated little world.
“I must concede,” Nikolai Markov murmured, “you were impressive in that meeting. Clearly you know how to stroke an old man’s ego.”
“I’m a professional diplomat as well as a scientist. Relationship building is what they pay me for.”
Always uncomfortable with personal compliments, she shrugged the praise away. Besides, it had been an ambiguous compliment at best.
“It’s certainly true,” she finished, “that the post-Soviet system is a male-dominated structure, but a woman can use that to her advantage. I call it the charm offensive.”
“It seems to work alarmingly well.” As they reached the foyer, his light touch guided her toward the exit. “I’m going to have to keep a closer eye on you, Dr. Rossi.”
I think you’re close enough.
Her entire body pulsed and tingled with that strange awareness. No reason on earth why his touch should make her jumpy. He’d done or said nothing remotely personal. In fact, she’d bet this was a man who specialized in keeping his distance, erecting impermeable barriers between himself and the outside world.
It was a defense mechanism, according to her trauma therapist. Skylar ought to know, because she specialized in the same behavior.
The Russian Temptation (Book Two) (Foreign Affairs 2) Page 4
