On the tarmac, the jet was still waiting. He’d pay real money to know who was inside.
Keenly aware of the ticking clock, he swiftly wrapped up the day’s adventures, but left out the bit about his turncoat colleague. No reason his client needed to know about his team’s in-house squabbles or Sasha Pistunov’s bloody end.
When he finished his précis of the situation, Ludmilla cut quickly to the chase.
“What does she know, Nikolai? Did she learn anything?”
He hesitated.
“I’ve kept her under surveillance all day. But she may have picked up something at the chemical plant. I’m not a scientist, Ludmilla—and she’s highly intelligent and damned committed. After the chemical plant, something changed. She became strangely determined to go out this evening. Her visit to the nightclub was out of character.”
Indeed, he’d sensed a controlled excitement about her at the club, a focused intensity that set him on instant alert. He supposed it was his familiarity with the mark—informed by years of surveillance that strayed perilously close to personal obsession—which made him so hyperaware of her every move.
He didn’t care to ponder what else might account for his fixation on Skylar Rossi. The fact that he’d started to fantasize about getting her out of that snug cashmere sweater and tailored trousers, that he’d begun to feel protective about a woman he might well have to kill—these were inconvenient truths he wasn’t prepared to acknowledge.
Ludmilla’s voice dragged him back to the present.
“You think she’s found something?”
Better for him—and Skylar—if he lied. All he had to do was get her out of Khimgorod, declare she’d found nothing, and the money would be in his offshore account by morning. But lying to clients was bad business—particularly when his client was Moscow. If Skylar had learned something and talked about it, he could well become the mark himself.
“I can’t rule it out, Milla,” he said flatly. “What do you want me to do?”
The diplomat paused. An unfamiliar anxiety knotted his gut. Frowning, he scanned the scene. Apparently the militsia in the police car hadn’t yet broken his cover, or all hell would be breaking loose.
When he glanced toward the armored jeep, a shaft of alarm sliced through him.
A guard in camouflage was climbing down.
Adrenaline snaking through him, Nikolai broke out the Walther.
But the guard only patted at his pockets, fumbled out a cigarette and lit up.
Nikolai exhaled. “I don’t have much time here, Ludmilla.”
“All right,” she said curtly. “I don’t really see an option. I want you to get on that plane with her, get her away from Khimgorod, find out what she knows. Question her, search her, make sure she hasn’t picked up any documents or—God forbid—chemical samples that will come back to bite us in the ass.”
“Are you authorizing an interrogation?” he said carefully. “Torturing women for information is hardly my specialty.”
No, but it was Ilya’s. His associate would be the perfect man for that job. He’d probably rape her first, to soften her up. Later, after the knives and the blowtorch, he’d want to do it again.
Not happening.
Nikolai realized he’d clenched his fists. In fact, his entire damn body had clenched.
Absolutely. Not. Happening.
Whatever she’d done to Kirill, whatever his grudge against her, a woman with Skylar Rossi’s courage and conviction didn’t deserve that.
“I don’t want you carving up a senior American diplomat,” Ludmilla said irritably. “You’ve saved her aerobicized ass three times. She ought to trust you by now.”
Except that she didn’t, as he knew damn well.
Faced with his silence, Ludmilla snorted.
“For God’s sake, Nikolai. Can’t you think of any other way to get her out of her clothes? You used to be good at that.”
Was the client actually telling him to seduce Skylar Rossi? His blood heated and his groin hardened at the mouthwatering prospect. That was one job function he wasn’t going to have any problem performing.
She’d killed Kirill—even if she’d acted with adolescent stupidity rather than malicious intent. Yet he still wanted to get inside her pants. Wanted it so bad he ached for it, in fact.
“Nikolai?” Ludmilla sounded impatient. “She’s a beautiful woman. Classy and kulturniy Hell, she’s just your type.”
Christ, yes, she was his type. Classy and cultured. That was precisely the problem. He scowled toward the Niva where Skylar was waiting—
Just in time to see the vehicle shift into motion and turn smoothly toward the jet. Apparently Skylar had grown tired of waiting. Perhaps she suspected he was up to no good, which was certainly the case.
Or perhaps she’d been spooked by the police care, which had lurched into motion and was now churning toward the terminal at a brisk clip.
“Damn,” he said softly.
“Now what?” His client had clearly reached the limit of her patience.
Near the jeep, the smoking guard flung his cigarette to the ground. Inside the vehicle, someone else switched on the headlamps.
“Damn it to hell,” Nikolai said precisely.
The Niva, with Skylar at the wheel, swung tightly around the armored vehicle and rolled onto the tarmac. Behind her, the jeep rumbled to life and ground forward in pursuit.
CHAPTER NINE
Kotov Syndrome: After thinking long and hard, a sudden and terrible move.
A lifetime ago, Dane Rossi’s Sicilian bodyguard had taught fifteen-year-old Skylar how to drive a stick. She silently blessed the man now as she accelerated through the gears, careful not to give the vehicle too much gas too quickly. The last thing she needed was to get stuck in a snowdrift.
Rewarding her caution, the treads of the Niva’s tires bit deep and held. She swerved past the menacing bulk of the armored jeep and rolled onto the tarmac.
To her left, the glaring headlamps of the police car speared through the blowing snow as the car altered course to intercept her.
“Cavolo!” she cursed softly.
When the militsia vehicle first lurched into motion, she’d hoped the MVD guards might simply be heading back toward the terminal for coffee. Yet she hadn’t cared to bet her life on it. Now it appeared she’d been right to be wary.
“Farewell, Nikolai Markov,” she murmured, foot steady on the gas, and quashed the queer pang of regret that slashed through her. She’d thought she could trust him—she’d needed to trust him.
But Victor Kostenko’s newsflash about the legendary hit man called the Maestro had brought her crashing back to reality.
She kept her eyes on the prize—the private jet waiting with lights blazing and ramp lowered across the runway. Car chases weren’t her specialty, but even she could triangulate the police car’s angle of approach and realize it was going to intercept her before she reached the plane. Cursing, she gave the Niva more gas.
As the boxy, black-and-white sedan raced to intercept her, the passenger window cranked down. A Kalashnikov’s ugly butt protruded into the night.
“Madonna mia,” she moaned. Her chest tightened—the ominous precursor to an asthma attack. But this was no time to start patting about for her inhaler.
Light flashed as the Kalashnikov stuttered. Snow sprayed up in a line before the Niva. She swerved hard and lost control as the vehicle fishtailed. Cursing, she tapped the brakes and turned into the skid.
Thank God for those Michigan winters. When she hadn’t been studying her organic chemistry, she’d acquired a credible competence at driving in snow.
She was outclassed and outgunned. But there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it—
The staccato bark of machine gun fire chewed up the air behind her as the armored jeep joined the fun. Beside her, the side mirror exploded in a shower of flying glass. Crouching low, she twisted the wheel hard away and gunned for the jet with all she was worth.
She�
��d feel one hell of a lot better if she knew whom Kostenko had bribed to pilot it.
The deep-throated roar of an engine filled the night. She risked a glance in the rearview mirror to see a snowmobile slicing across her wake. Snow sprayed in a wide arc as the vehicle dug into a tight turn. A slender shadow clung to the seat like a cat, one arm extended as he took aim.
Her chest squeezed tighter as she recognized the rider’s lean, deadly grace.
Add snowmobile pilot to the dossier of Nikolai Markov’s impressive skills.
If he went for her tires, she knew grimly, it was all over.
Two quick barks from his pistol, and she cursed like a sailor. But it was the police cruiser closing from the left that paid the piper. The sedan’s front tire exploded and the vehicle slid into its own fishtail, snow flying as it veered wildly across the tarmac. Inevitably its uncontrolled momentum pulled it into a tumble, end over end.
Nikolai had taken it out.
Somehow, all evidence to the contrary, the Maestro was on her side.
In the midst of this life-and-death car chase, her heart lightened. In the rearview mirror she caught a fractured glimpse of her face, grinning from ear to ear.
“Idiota!” she murmured. Her life was on the line here. But she still couldn’t stop smiling.
A fiery explosion lit the Siberian night as the sedan burst into flames. Behind her, the snowmobile swept into a wide turn, circling back toward the jeep still on her tail and closing fast.
With difficulty, Skylar kept her eye on the prize—the waiting jet—instead of the dogfight behind her. Another burst of gunfire sprayed from jeep’s roof-mounted machine gun. She swerved wildly, but her rear window exploded in a hail of shattered glass. Bullets chewed through the passenger seat beside her and smashed the glove box into splinters.
Bunched low behind the wheel, she screamed. A wall of icy air flowed through the Niva.
The jet loomed before her, and she pumped the brakes—too hard, given the adrenaline spiking through her system. The Niva slewed into a spin that tore another scream from her throat. Her headlights sliced across mounds of soft-piled snow and the dark cab of the vacant snowplow as the Niva skidded to a halt.
For a few precious seconds, she could only grip the wheel and pant. Through the passenger window, headlights blazed as the jeep bore down on her.
Somehow she forced her trembling limbs into motion. She scooped up Nikolai’s pack—all those rubles her only source of ready cash—pushed the driver’s door open, and tumbled out into the snow.
The world was spinning around her, a tunnel of darkness encroaching on her vision. Crouched beside the open door in the dubious shelter of the battered Niva, she dug out her inhaler and took a welcome hit.
The plastic canister felt dangerously light—running on empty, given how heavily she’d been using it. And the refill was with her suitcase in the Khimgorod hotel. But that was the last of her current problems. Her lungs were opening up, her chest unclenching, the tingling flood of icy air rushing into her airway a blessed relief.
Gunfire barked and the snowmobile roared. Rising to a crouch, she risked a cautious look over the Niva’s protective bulk. Before the oncoming jeep, intermittently lit as he sliced across its headlights, Nikolai’s snowmobile weaved dangerously back and forth—a maneuver that struck her as criminally reckless. Snow exploded around him as the roof-mounted machine gun swung clumsily to follow.
It didn’t take her long to figure things out. He wasn’t going to bring down an armored vehicle with a handgun. There was little more he could do except try to distract them and buy her a few precious seconds to escape.
Gasping, she spun toward the jet and exploded into a hard sprint. Her low-heeled boots weren’t built for this, and her trousers were already soaked and freezing from the knee down. But she had long legs, excellent physical conditioning, and a healthy instinct for self-preservation in her favor.
She’d nearly reached the ramp when she skidded on a hidden patch of ice. Arms windmilling, she managed to stay upright. But a familiar pain shot up the back of her calf.
Her bum Achilles tendon, an old dancing injury, had just decided to join the party.
“Diavolo!” The moment she put weight on the strained limb, her heel and calf screamed in protest. Hissing with pain, she limped onto the ramp and hobbled toward the plane’s dark interior.
A uniformed figure emerged from the darkness, a heavy-duty battlefield rifle leveled in his grip.
Skylar froze, heart plummeting to her sodden boots. She’d been so certain Kostenko could be trusted to help her. She’d gambled everything on Alexis’s new husband—
“Take it easy, Doc,” the soldier said calmly in English, with a distinct Boston accent. Which sounded rather odd coming from an officer in the dark blue uniform of the Russian Air Force. “I’m your ride out of this joint. I’m guessing the guy on the Sherpa’s a friend of yours?”
Relief flooded through her. Victor Kostenko had come through for her after all.
And the Sherpa was an Italian snowmobile. Dane Rossi had owned several.
“Yes!” she panted. “Please help him.”
“No problem,” Boston said easily. “Get your butt in here.”
Under the circumstances, she took no offense, but hobbled swiftly into the darkened cabin. She’d barely ducked out of sight when the rifle barked.
Outside, an engine squealed. She limped to a porthole window and peered out to see the jeep on its side, skidding across the snow, its windshield shattered and splattered with crimson. A cold shudder swept through her.
The Sherpa roared up to the ramp and Nikolai leaped off. Graceful as a gazelle on the snow-slick stairs, he raced upward. The two men dove into the cabin together. Their Boston pilot punched a button to retract the ramp, swung the door closed and ducked into the cockpit.
“Find a seat and strap in,” he called back to them—this time in fluid Russian. “We’re flying blackout. One of your buddies out there could have a MANPAD.”
The acronym might defeat most women, but not one whose father had been an international arms dealer. Their rescuer was worried that someone still alive in the disabled jeep was carrying a man-portable, shoulder-launched surface-to-air missile. The very real possibility tied her intestines in knots.
In the darkness, she caught a whiff of amber and cedar an instant before lean hands closed around her waist and lifted her to her feet.
“Everything all right?” Nikolai murmured.
As her damned Achilles throbbed in protest, she clutched his shoulders for support and fought to keep from collapsing into a shivering mess in his arms. Somehow she managed a shaky laugh.
“Everything’s perfect. Although that sprint through the snow didn’t do my Achilles tendon any favors.”
An unruly tangle of emotions snarled her thoughts. As for her feelings, she couldn’t even begin to decipher them. Since hearing Kostenko’s unsettling revelations, she’d been terrified of Nikolai Markov. If she had any sense, she’d still be terrified.
A bloody hit man! Mio Dio.
But she wasn’t terrified of him any longer. Instead, a debilitating sense of gratitude swept through her—relief for his lethality, his clever brain, his careful precision and utter lack of nerves. She felt grateful for his chessboard strategies and cool thinking under fire, for the toolbox of unconventional talents that had kept her alive.
Better be careful, Skylar. Don’t be a cliché and fall for him.
She couldn’t see a thing in the stygian darkness, yet somehow he lowered her into a plush leather seat—rich as doeskin under her seeking hands. Apparently their pilot, whoever he was, hadn’t skimped on the economy model.
With trembling hands, she felt for the seatbelt and strapped herself in.
The jet’s engines, already humming softly, climbed in pitch. Through the open cockpit door, she glimpsed their pilot’s broad-shouldered bulk limned against rows of glowing displays and dials. A slender silhouette slid into view—Niko
lai, checking out the cockpit.
“Can you fly without a copilot?” he asked calmly.
“Buddy, I can fly anything.”
“That’s reassuring, under the circumstances.” A pause. “I fear we haven’t been introduced. I’m Nikolai—Dr. Rossi’s bodyguard.”
Bodyguard, was he now? Still tingling from that moment of searing contact, she realized she was smiling and swiftly dialed that back. She should be thinking about surface-to-air missiles, about the clandestine document pressed against her tummy, about whether she dared return to Moscow and the Embassy’s protection or whether she should make a beeline for neutral airspace.
Undoubtedly she’d be safer beyond reach of the Chemical Munitions Agency. But if they guessed what she’d gotten her hands on, was anyplace on the planet truly beyond their reach?
“Yeah, you’re the Maestro,” their pilot drawled—so softly she doubted she was meant to hear. “Only the best for our Mafia princess, hey?”
Her heart pounded in sudden anxiety. In the doorframe, Nikolai’s silhouette went dangerously still.
“Take it easy there, buddy,” the pilot said, at normal volume. “I’m your ticket out of this place. Maxim Vasylko’s the name. You can call me Max.”
A Ukrainian surname, which shouldn’t surprise her if he was a friend of Kostenko’s. The two shared a common ethnicity.
“Go on back and strap in,” Max told him. Despite his casual tone, it wasn’t a request. “Things could get dicey up here.”
“Very well…Max,” Nikolai said softly. “If that’s what you prefer.”
Maxim Vasylko eased the jet into motion. “Hang tight back there, Doc.”
Skylar tightened her seat belt and filed away her niggling worries—at least until they were airborne. Once they were out of the soup, she had a few more questions for Nikolai Markov.
_____________________________________
Thirty nail-biting minutes later—the longest thirty minutes of her life—the cabin lights switched on. Immediate relief flooded through her. They must have passed beyond MANPAD range, or their pilot would never have lifted the lights-out.
The Russian Temptation (Book Two) (Foreign Affairs 2) Page 16
