She cleared her throat. “You’re right about me, of course. I’m hardly the poster child for a balanced, well-adjusted life.”
The confidence slipped out, a window into eighteen years of misery she hadn’t planned to open. Feeling his acute gaze, she bit her lip and glanced away, a thick fringe of hair swinging forward to conceal her.
After a pause, he spoke casually, as though that heightened awareness weren’t still humming between them.
“You’ve led a highly successful life by anyone’s reckoning. Not many men and fewer women are given ambassadorships and appointed to head a diplomatic mission at the age of thirty-five. They respect your abilities at the MFA.”
“That’s good to hear.” She stared blindly out the window.
“Not to mention your scientific achievements. Your resume contains a rather impressive list of academic publications in your field’s most prominent journals.”
“I’m a scientist.” She shrugged. “We’re expected to publish regularly, and it’s helpful for ICSI.”
“Then there’s the matter of your charitable contributions. The Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders, Amnesty International, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Not to mention your rather generous patronage of the arts. It’s generally believed you’ve given most of your father’s fortune to charity.”
She shifted in her seat, uncomfortable as always at any discussion of her charitable largesse. “I was my father’s only child. His assets when he…passed…were far beyond what I needed.”
“You’ve lived simply, almost abstemiously, denying yourself every luxury—even meat, isn’t that right? Your love of the performing arts appears to be your sole indulgence.” He paused. “Some might say you’re overcompensating for a guilty conscience.”
“That’s ridiculous,” she said sharply. “What do I have to feel guilty about?”
Papà’s death…and Kirill’s. My entire life since the age of seventeen has been one long act of penance.
The silence between them was pregnant with the words he didn’t say. And his skillful probes were penetrating uncomfortably close to the truth.
Time to go on the offensive.
“How do you know all this anyway?” she fired back. “My charitable contributions are always anonymous. Am I supposed to believe an exhaustive catalogue of every dollar I’ve ever donated is in my diplomatic file at MFA?”
“Not the MFA.” He shrugged. “It’s in my file. I don’t care for surprises, Skylar. I always investigate the individuals I’m hired to work with.”
Her nerves tingled, an instinctive reaction she’d begun to recognize as the suspicion he was lying to her. She wasn’t quite certain when she’d acquired that skill. The problem was that she might sense he was lying, but she hadn’t a clue where the truth resided.
In the dim glow of the dashboard, his fine-edged profile was smooth and untroubled, giving nothing away. Silken hair spilled over his brow, the only indication of the night’s adventures.
Carefully she probed, trying for a flippant tone.
“Evidently my life is an open book to you.”
“To the contrary, I find you’re full of surprises.” His voice deepened. He shot her a look that simmered with sudden heat, and she knew they were both remembering that electrifying moment at the dacha.
Why on earth had she kissed him? She would have been safer kissing a Siberian tiger.
Yet her body still ached at the memory, the slow pulse of passion beating between her thighs. Again she shifted, crossing her legs as though to smother the dangerous warmth that shimmered between them, rising like steam to fog the windows.
Her own voice turned throaty.
“At least I don’t bore you.”
“No.” His gaze hooded, sliding down her body like a liquid caress. “I’m beginning to suspect you’ll never do that. You’d make a rather interesting…chess partner. Do you play?”
“Not seriously.” She moistened her lips, but couldn’t seem to look away. “You’d polish the floor with me.”
“I’d teach you.” His tone was husky, gaze lingering on her parted lips. “You’re an intelligent woman, capable and committed, and highly skilled at deception. You could play my game.”
Are we still talking about chess? Suddenly she was afraid to ask.
Playing chess or anything else with Nikolai Markov would be a hazardous hobby for any woman, and doubly so for her. What would happen to her work at ICSI, the vocation she’d made her entire life—her personal atonement—if she threw herself headlong into a steamy affair with a Russian hit man?
He must live like a fugitive when he wasn’t doing his “wet work.” The women who dated him probably ended up dead. Or else they ended up like the mysterious Irina, his so-called friend, alone and terrified and utterly dependent upon him to make her life-or-death decisions.
He was a risk she couldn’t afford to take.
She smoothed back a tendril of raven hair.
“Chess is too deep a game for me, I’m afraid. How far are we from the airfield?”
His face shuttered, that moment of intimacy vanished as though she’d imagined it. She stifled an inappropriate stab of disappointment as his gaze returned to the road.
“Not far at all,” he murmured. “We’ve arrived—and so has a local security team. For both our sakes, I hope you’re prepared for whatever you intend to happen here.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Backward pawn: A trapped pawn that can’t advance without a sacrifice.
As the Niva tunneled through unplowed snow toward the gate, harshly lit by a glaring white streetlamp, headlights flared in the MVD police car parked lengthwise across the road. Beyond the island of light and the chain-link fence, Nikolai glimpsed the dark concrete block of the terminal and a single runway beyond.
A snowplow trundled along the runway and labored to scrape two feet of blizzard from the tarmac. This suggested that Skylar Rossi’s mysterious ally—whoever he was—had come through for her. Beyond gleamed the sleek white cone of a private jet.
Skylar leaned forward, her breath hitching audibly. She didn’t know it, but Nikolai had no intention of letting her board that plane. Not until he got his marching orders from Moscow. His fee—Irina’s salvation—was too close to let the mark simply fly away.
Not if his client wanted something else done with her.
An unfamiliar tightness gripped his chest. For nearly two decades, he’d fantasized about wreaking vengeance on Skylar Rossi for his brother’s death. Now that the long-awaited moment was upon him, he felt an unfathomable reluctance to proceed.
You’ve gotten too involved with the mark. Christ, you even kissed her.
In the white glare of the streetlight, two burly figures in khaki climbed out of the police car. One slung a Kalashnikov casually across his back.
The familiar tingle of adrenaline ratcheted his senses to high alert.
“Into the back seat, on the floor,” he ordered. “Get under the blanket and don’t move.”
He needed to keep her alive until he got Ludmilla on the phone. Beyond that point, he refused to think.
For once, Skylar didn’t argue. She shimmied deftly into the back seat, giving him a searing glimpse of her taut dancer’s ass and mile-long legs. Damn, the woman was a walking wet dream.
The back seat was littered with sacks of supplies for the dacha, but the floor was clear Crouching behind the passenger seat, she shook the dark blanket over her body.
“What if they—?”
“This is your gambit, Skylar,” he said tersely, in the familiar language of chess. “We need an optimal play to get out of this.”
They were out of time for strategy. He couldn’t get her onto the airfield unless the police car moved, and its two occupants were standing squarely in his path. Nikolai eased his Walther from its holster and laid it on the seat beside him, under his cashmere coat.
As the Niva rolled to a halt, he cracked the window, opening a conservative three-in
ch gap in the opaque glass. A heavily muffled face peered in.
“Good evening, comrades,” Nikolai said crisply. A little Soviet-era camaraderie never went amiss with these MVD types. “I believe that’s my jet on the tarmac.”
The bright beam of a flashlight blazed suddenly in his face, an inferno of light that blinded him.
“All alone?” The light skimmed past Nikolai to play over the vacant passenger seat. Outside, the guy with the Kalashnikov was circling the Niva, squinting to peer through the tinted glass at the clutter in the back.
Nikolai could sense Skylar’s grimly contained panic, though she hadn’t made a sound. He hoped her asthma wouldn’t pick this moment to kick in. The sight of her panicked face in the nightclub, as she fumbled with her inhaler, floated in his mind.
She might be the mark—but he hadn’t enjoyed seeing her suffer.
“All alone, I asked you?”
“Da,” he said. I’m always alone. “Cold night to be on duty, isn’t it?”
The idiot grunted. “We’re looking for a foreign agent. They want her for questioning. Every route out of Khimgorod is closed tonight. Where are your documents?”
Calmly Nikolai slipped a hand beneath his lapel and produced the fake passport he’d procured for precisely this purpose.
“Aleksander Rostov, FSB. Didn’t they tell you to expect me?”
The combination of his FSB credentials and a coolly raised eyebrow was his theoretical novelty—a new move in the game. As planned, it set the adversary off his stride.
The guard stared. “FSB? No one’s said a thing.”
“Those bureaucrats in Moscow can’t get anything right.” Nikolai shrugged. “Call it in if you like. It’s after midnight, but I’m certain my superior will understand.”
He rattled off the name of a senior FSB apparatchik, a real agent who’d been a contemporary of his father’s. Even if the name didn’t scare off the MVD, a ten-kopeck thug from a rural outpost would never be able to reach a man like that directly. He’d have to wade through multiple layers of obstructionist Soviet-era bureaucracy—exactly as Nikolai wanted.
All he needed to buy was five minutes to reach Ludmilla at MFA. After that, it was check and mate for Skylar Rossi.
A second flashlight exploded to life. Frustrated by his inability to see through the tinted glass, the guard with the machine gun trained his beam through the gap. It played over Nikolai’s empty hands, loose and relaxed on the wheel, before sweeping supplies piled in the back.
In the rear view mirror, Nikolai watched the beam play over his backpack, which Skylar had dragged over her blanket-swathed form. Against the dark interior, in the pool of shadows behind the passenger seat, she was reasonably well camouflaged. But her makeshift camouflage would crumble if they searched the vehicle.
“Get out of the car,” the second man grunted. “We need to search the vehicle. Standard procedure.”
I don’t think so.
That would blow their cover sky-high. His heartbeat quickened, preparing his body for combat. He slipped a casual hand beneath his coat and gripped the Walther. He could drill both men between the eyes in less than five seconds.
But he’d glimpsed the bulk of an armored jeep parked near the terminal. If he opened fire, that jeep would churn into action, and any militsia within a mile of the airfield would come running. It would be a pawn storm, and his defenses were stretched too thin to counter it.
Nikolai edged his voice with Arctic chill.
“This is an FSB vehicle. I assure you, I’m not smuggling a foreign agent. However, if you wish to conduct a personal search before I board my plane, be my guest. You’ll simply have to obtain permission from my superior.”
The first man shifted uneasily and glanced toward his comrade. “I doubt that’s necessary, Sergei. He has the proper I.D.”
Sergei’s flashlight crawled over the back seat and lingered on Nikolai’s pack. Beneath it, Skylar Rossi must be having a silent meltdown. Yet she remained utterly still, with an iron nerve he no longer found surprising.
Perhaps she simply trusted him to protect her. The thought sent a shaft of unfamiliar emotion through his chest—a response he had no time or interest to examine.
He kept his voice unyielding, gaze pinned to their suspicious faces.
“Call it in to Moscow, I’m telling you. When you’re finished, you can find me in the terminal. I’ve been driving for two hours and I need the toilet and a cup of coffee.”
“They don’t staff the terminal at night. There’s nothing but a vending machine in there.” The first guard looked dubious. “The coffee tastes like diesel fuel.”
Nikolai spared him a wintry smile. “Until you give me the all-clear to board my aircraft, I’ll take it.”
He had the first man convinced, he knew, but his machine gun-wielding comrade was still suspicious. Casually Nikolai extracted his billfold and peeled off a pair of rust-colored five thousand ruble notes. He folded them over once and held the stash between two fingers, hand resting on the leather-wrapped wheel.
That did the trick. Sergei grunted and collected the bribe, though he didn’t relinquish Aleksander Rostov’s fake passport. That meant the two really would call it in.
The clock was ticking. Nikolai had minutes to make contact with MFA. For that, he needed to get away from Skylar.
Impatience simmered in his blood while the two trudged to their vehicle and clambered back in. At glacial speed, the police car inched aside. Nikolai hit the gas and pulled smoothly onto the airfield.
The terminal was located midway between the gate and the waiting jet. As they approached, a gap appeared in the sleek white cone and disgorged a narrow ramp.
At least there was someone inside the damn thing, which was good news for Skylar Rossi.
It could be bad news for him.
He parked beside the terminal, as far as he could manage from the armored jeep, the red star of the Russian Army blazoned on its door. The vehicle’s windows were fogged, he observed. Meaning someone was likely inside.
In the rear, his pack shifted. Cautiously Skylar’s head emerged. Pale but composed, she slicked a hand over her black hair.
“Now what?” she asked. “Can you rush the jet?”
“Not without knowing who’s inside,” he said dryly. “Or whether that jeep is filled with armed militsia carrying shoulder-launched missiles. If not, we’re merely dealing with the machine gun on its roof. Why don’t you tell me about your mysterious benefactor?”
Her sky-blue gaze grew guarded.
“He’s a Russian citizen with ties to the military and diplomatic circles—and access to a considerable fortune. You can trust him.”
Not bloody likely.
Who the devil was this? Had she taken up with some new lover who hadn’t yet appeared on his radar screen? An unpleasant emotion gnawed at his gut that he recognized, incredulously, as jealousy. He had no damn business getting tangled up with Skylar Rossi, emotionally or sexually.
And no damn time to deal with it.
Briskly he collected his Walther and swung the door open.
“Stay here and stay down. I’ll do a quick reconnaissance.”
Leaving her no chance to protest, he emerged into the frigid blast of the Arctic wind and closed the door firmly behind him. Leaving the vehicle idling so she wouldn’t freeze, he strode into the concrete icebox of the terminal. Typical Brezhnev-era construction, dark and unheated, scuffed doors swinging open into blackness.
Somewhere inside, he’d find a noisome toilet and the aforementioned coffee machine, but he had no need for either.
Swiftly he cased the echoing atrium of the deserted terminal. Then he stationed himself near the door where he could keep an eye on the Niva and broke out his mobile phone.
Ludmilla Dyakova’s number was programmed on his speed dial.
Despite the late hour, the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs picked up on the second ring, her familiar whiskey voice raspy with sleep.
“Whoever you are, this had better be good.”
“Trust me, Milla. This is one telephone call you’re going to be glad you didn’t miss.”
“Nikolai?” With impressive speed, the senior diplomat’s voice cleared. He heard the smile in her words. “You’re one man whose late night phone calls I never minded.”
They’d attended university together at the tail end of the Gorbachev era. Once upon a time, they’d even been lovers. But his KGB affiliations had always been a barrier between them. By the time he was twenty, an ambitious ex-girlfriend in training for the GRU—the military intelligence organ of the old USSR—had tried to slit his throat.
Nikolai had lost what little capacity he’d possessed to trust a woman with whom he’d been intimate. He’d ended his casual liaison with Ludmilla Dyakova, but a professional camaraderie based on mutual respect had survived.
When Ludmilla needed to prevent a nosy American diplomat from sniffing out any inconvenient secrets at the Khimgorod Chemical Combine, Nikolai was the first man she’d called.
“Listen, Milla.” This was no time for friendly banter. “I’m at a private airfield outside Khimgorod with Skylar Rossi. She’s ready to leave, just as you wanted—but there are a few things you should know.”
Quickly he sketched in the highlights, starting with the measures he’d undertaken to dissuade her from arriving at all: the interpreter he’d bullied into staying home in Moscow, the snatched purse in Novosibirsk, Anton Belov’s little accident—all arranged by Ilya at his command, though he privately felt his associate had used more force than necessary to get the old scientist out of Khimgorod.
He outlined the incidents in Skylar’s twelve-hour visit where she’d barely dodged death thanks to his intervention. Ludmilla cut him short.
“Your orders were to pressure her into giving up the chase. Instead you tell me she was nearly perforated and burned to a crisp. I don’t need a dead American diplomat on Russian soil six days before the G-8 summit when our presidents meet. That’s one set of talking points I don’t intend to write.”
“Understood,” he said curtly, slicing a glance through the clouded glass doorplate. Skylar remained tucked out of sight in the idling Niva, and the police car near the gate hadn’t moved. Inside, the militsia would be on the horn, working their way through the FSB bureaucracy.
The Russian Temptation (Book Two) (Foreign Affairs 2) Page 15
