A sliver of ice skated down his spine—a sensation he’d nearly forgotten. That sensation was fear. Not for himself, but for her.
Skylar.
“Our nosy American diplomat isn’t your problem anymore, Nikolai. The Kremlin’s made that perfectly clear. So take your money and get the hell out.”
Clearly, that was what he should do. But what did Skylar think she was doing?
Not your problem anymore, he reminded himself. But his edgy tension was slow to dissipate. He tossed back the last of his cooling espresso. The acrid jolt of caffeine hit the back of his throat like buckshot.
“I understand you,” he said tersely. “Just make the bloody payment.”
His client said nothing. He scowled into the phone. Skylar was in danger, and the clock was ticking. That combination was enough to make him downright dangerous.
“It’s done.” Ludmilla sighed. “I’ve hit the button. Check your balance and get the hell off that island. It’s better if we don’t do business for a while—”
Grimly he terminated the call and opened a web browser on his mobile. He wasn’t planning to do business with anyone after this. Just let the money be there, the lifeline that would save his ailing sister, and he was out of business for good.
Swiftly he tapped the access codes he needed to open the offshore account he’d set up for this job.
And there it was—the row of tiny black digits that would save his sister’s life and change the course of his own.
Mission accomplished. He bared his teeth in a savage grin.
Swiftly he called up a dropdown menu and initiated the series of transfers that would shift the impressive balance through a series of intermediaries to the escrow account. There, Irina’s off-grid neurosurgeon could claim his stash as soon as he’d finished her procedure.
He ought to call his sister, let her know their worries were behind them. But it was early morning in Bethesda, Maryland, and she needed her sleep.
He texted her instead, a quick line to reassure her that payment had been made and he would phone her later. A profound sense of satisfaction, laced with real relief, hummed through him as he closed the connection and pocketed the phone.
But Skylar’s problems were just beginning. The least he could do—surely—was warn the little fool Krasnov was on to her. In fact, there was no reason they couldn’t both climb back aboard their rented powerboat and be long gone from Capri before the General arrived. They’d head north to Sorrento or the little port of Positano. With its trendy boutiques and trattorias, its steeply climbing, cobblestone streets wrapped around a sheltered cove of shimmering aquamarine sea, Positano was the perfect locale for an intimate getaway.
Not that he was planning one.
Straightening from the bar, he headed across the piazza to collect Skylar.
She was nowhere to be found.
Her spot at the tourist counter had been taken by a ruddy-faced American wearing shorts and a big Nikon and a girl in pigtails spooning up a cup of gelato.
His jaw knotting, Nikolai scanned the counter and the surrounding square. Skylar’s tall, stylish frame was unmistakable in any setting. But he wasn’t seeing her.
Pace quickening, he pushed into the tourist office and checked every corner—even thrust his head into the ladies’ toilet. That maneuver earned him a shrill scolding from the middle-aged German hausfrau planted at the sink.
Cursing, he strode from the tourist office. He performed a quick sweep of the perimeter, looked into shop windows and down the narrow streets that burrowed into the hilly heart of the harbor town.
Somehow, while he’d been tied up with his anxious client, Skylar Rossi had given him the slip.
Wasn’t that for the best, really?
From an operational perspective, he ought to be putting distance between himself and his former mark—who’d just become someone else’s mark—as efficiently as possible. That was the smart thing, the only thing for him to do, unless he wanted to become the mark himself.
He had the money, and that was all he’d ever wanted. Wasn’t it?
A brisk walk to the jetty and he’d be cruising away, Capri falling behind in his rearview mirror.
Instead, Nikolai pivoted on his heel and made a beeline for the tourist office and the hapless booking agent.
_____________________________________
“You’re off the reservation, Skylar.” When he was annoyed, Oxford-educated Chargé d’Affaires Geoffrey Chase sounded like a Brit rather than the number two diplomat at the U.S. Embassy. “As you well know, I have no jurisdiction over anything that happens in Italy, and neither do you.”
“Are you suggesting I should have phoned the Embassy in Rome instead?” Impatience simmered through Skylar as she uncrossed her bare legs and rose from the teakwood chaise. Restlessly she paced from the panoramic hotel swimming pool to the cliff that plunged hundreds of meters to the boulder-strewn cove below.
“You shouldn’t be in Rome at all,” Geoffrey Chase said irritably.
“Madonna mia! Don’t be so damned territorial.”
With the U.S. Ambassador delayed abroad, Alain Devereux had gotten no further up the Embassy food chain than Chase, the outcome being this telephone call.
Even if it had taken Chase a full day to do it, while she cooled her heels at this famous hotel.
“This deal may be going down on Italian soil,” she went on. “But the equities involved are clearly Russian.”
“If your source can be trusted,” he clipped out. “There’s nothing on CMA smuggling in the cable traffic and nothing in the intel. I’d advise you to take the next boat back to the mainland and enjoy a long holiday.”
He paused. “I seem to recall you have family in the region.”
Bastardo! His oily tone set her fuming. If he wanted to drag her disreputable uncles into this, she’d deal out a low blow of her own.
“You know Alexis would be all over this,” she said silkily. At his muffled curse, an arch smile curved her lips.
Former diplomat Alexis Castle had married and divorced Geoffrey Chase before she met the renegade Russian submarine captain who would become her next husband. Geoff had always envied his ex-wife’s diplomatic moxie. For precisely that reason, Skylar wasn’t about to cite Victor Kostenko as her anonymous source. Geoff Chase would discount any intelligence, no matter how credible, that originated from a man he despised.
While he sputtered in her ear about jurisdiction and other niceties, Skylar paced beside the swimming pool’s shimmering turquoise expanse, steaming with artificial warmth to counter the spring chill. In the off-season, she saw few fellow travelers scattered among the potted trees, landscaped hedges and private niches that surrounded the pool.
At the moment, she had the place largely to herself.
Not a bad choice of venue to spend the next few hours until General Krasnov arrived on Capri. Unfortunately, her initial plan to invoke U.S. government intervention and send the polizia to stake out Krasnov’s hotel seemed to be a non-starter.
“I’m not backing down, Geoff,” she said curtly. “I’ve studied and prepared half my life for a chance like this, to bring down a major supplier of chemical weapons to rogue states and terrorists. I’m certainly not going to back down over something as petty and bureaucratic as jurisdiction.”
“You’re insubordinate, Dr. Rossi,” he fired back. “In the Ambassador’s absence, you seem to have forgotten I’m the senior diplomat at this Embassy.”
“You seem to have forgotten I’m employed by ICSI, not the State Department. I’m not a career diplomat. I’m a scientist, and my diplomatic rank derives solely from my position at ICSI. If Washington wants to approach the other nine governments that fund our work about having me relieved of duty, you can try your hand at that any time you like.”
She was calling his bluff, and he had to know it. A move like that, six months into her tenure with high marks for her performance to date, would send shock waves through the diplomatic community.
No way would Uncle Sam want to trigger a crisis like that, no matter how annoyed Geoffrey Chase might be.
Of course, if she screwed this up and wound up dead, they’d find someone to replace her in a heartbeat. If Moscow didn’t seize this excuse to throw ICSI out of Russia altogether. The stakes, both for the organization and for her personally, could hardly be higher. She hoped she wasn’t making a terrible mistake.
It might be the last mistake she ever made.
“Look, I’m not going to negotiate with you, Skylar. If you want to play 007 and muck about on that island, out of jurisdiction and without backup, risking your career and your life, there’s nothing I can do to stop you. I’m washing my hands of the entire affair.”
Frustration boiled through her. She gripped the slender balustrade that guarded the sheer drop to the cobalt expanse of the Bay of Naples and fought back the impulse to pitch her phone into it.
“Are you really going to turn your back on a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to bring down a chemical weapons smuggling ring? Who knows where those weapons could end up? We could be saving thousands of lives, Geoff—”
The hum of a dial tone filled the air. The bastard had actually hung up on her.
“Merda!” She gripped the useless phone and blinked back angry tears. “Figlio di puttana.”
As she gazed blindly over the stunning panorama of sea, sky and rocks, the thought of Nikolai Markov crept in below her radar. She hadn’t seen him since her great escape from the piazza yesterday. He must have gotten his money and disappeared as promised.
He’d probably left Italy entirely by now, well on his way to crafting his next persona and planning his next hit. If she’d fallen for a man like that, she was ten kinds of idiot.
Troubled, she gazed at the phone. Then, on impulse, she dialed Alexis.
_____________________________________
Through the manicured hedge, Nikolai watched Skylar pace beside the pool. Above the piped-in strains of classical music, a liquid torrent of Italian curses flowed from her lips. Despite the sense of urgency humming through his nerves, a wry smile tugged at his mouth.
Clearly her telephone call with that Embassy official had not gone as planned.
But he was having a difficult time concentrating on her words. Somewhere she’d picked up a microscopic white bikini that showcased her golden Mediterranean skin, the sleek length of her legs and the tight pecan curve of her ass. The twin triangles barely covered her mouthwatering breasts, her nipples taut against the fabric. If she took off her top to sunbathe, as women often did here—unless they were stout German hausfraus—he was going to lose his mind.
Uncharacteristically, he hadn’t decided how to deal with the problem of General Krasnov’s imminent arrival. Skylar was in too deep, too committed to that bloody job of hers, too bent on her crusader’s quest to save the world.
Too determined to atone for the lives she hadn’t been able to save when Dane Rossi’s warehouse went up in sarin-laced flames.
At some point, as he interrogated the tourist agent to ferret out Skylar’s hotel, he’d made a decision. He was going to save her stubborn, utterly delectable little ass from the General and his hit man, whether she wanted him involved or not.
Now Skylar stood near the balustrade, her back to the pool, overlooking the Bay of Naples as she dialed up someone else on her infernal phone. Nikolai was debating whether to move closer when a footfall scuffed on the gravel path.
There weren’t many tourists around the pool today, given the crisp air and the early season. But something about the stealthy sound of that single footfall, cut short and not repeated, roused his instincts to prickling alert.
Crouching against the concealing hedge, Nikolai slid out his Walther.
Through the leaves, he had a partial view of Skylar’s abandoned chaise, her shoulder bag unattended on the flagstones. A poolside table held a tiny glass of bright yellow limoncello and her plastic inhaler.
As he peered through the hedge, a heavy hand covered with coarse black hair closed around the inhaler.
Nikolai shifted position for a better view. But the subject was practicing his own concealment. He couldn’t see the man’s face. But he glimpsed a short, squat body in a muscle shirt and pool shorts, pale legs furred with dark hair.
Something about that frame struck him as vaguely familiar. For some reason, the subject seemed to be fiddling with Skylar’s inhaler.
Something knotted in Nikolai’s gut. As he watched, the man dug something from his pocket. From this angle, Nikolai couldn’t get a clear view. But the object looked remarkably like the finger-length cylinder of albuterol he’d watched Skylar snap into her inhaler.
Silently Nikolai wrapped his finger around the trigger. Let that prick make a move toward Skylar—let him even twitch—and Nikolai would drill three rounds into the back of his skull and damn the consequences.
His back to Nikolai, the subject hunched over the object cupped in his hands. Then he replaced the inhaler on the little table, precisely where he’d found it, and headed rapidly down the path toward the parking lot.
Briefly Nikolai debated whether to follow. But that would mean leaving Skylar unprotected, with Krasnov scheduled to make port and at least one of his henchmen already here.
Not happening.
When the rapid crunch of footsteps faded, he slid the pistol back in his holster.
Frowning, he eyed the inhaler, lying innocently on its side. Whatever he’d witnessed, it could only mean one thing.
Trouble.
_____________________________________
“Thank God, Skylar! I’ve been trying to reach you for hours.”
The relief that infused Alexis Kostenko’s voice made Skylar squirm with guilt. She ought to have tried harder to reach her friend, presumably still vacationing on a beach in Phuket. But, like a child hiding her head under the covers, she hadn’t wanted to hear any more about Nikolai.
And she definitely didn’t want to explore her feelings for him.
She’d had to fight all her instincts when she gave him the slip. But the tangled, illogical mess of her feelings for Nikolai Markov didn’t seem to be going away anytime soon. For the moment, she needed to focus elsewhere in her current laundry list of problems.
“I couldn’t call you back on Markov’s line,” Alexis continued, “or he’d know you pinched his phone to call us from the dacha. Victor forgot to remind you to delete the record from his call log. Did you?”
“Yes.” Skylar cradled the phone against her ear and glanced around the pool deck. Near the bar, a white-clad waiter was opening a tall green bottle of Pellegrino for an elderly man with skin tanned to rawhide, drowsing shirtless in the sun.
No sign of Nikolai anywhere—not that she’d been expecting him, even if she couldn’t stop thinking about him. The MFA must have paid his grocer’s bill. She should count herself fortunate that she’d never hear from him again.
Instead, a painful pang of loss stabbed through her.
“I’m on Capri. I’ve given him the slip,” she said huskily. “There’s no need to worry anymore about Nikolai Markov.”
“The hell there isn’t! Skylar, where exactly are you? Tell me it’s someplace safe.”
“I’m standing next to a five-star hotel swimming pool in broad daylight, Alexis. I’m fine—”
“The hell you are. You need to get to a police station and stay there until the Embassy sends a security officer to collect you.”
“The Embassy isn’t sending anyone. Your ex-husband wasn’t prepared to be that obliging,” Skylar said wryly. “It was Victor’s friend Vasylko who flew me in—and for excellent reasons given what’s about to go down here. Aside from an unsettling lack of backup, the complete absence of a plan, and the niggling worry that I’m about to get my head blown off, what’s the problem?”
“The problem?” Alexis drew a long breath. “Skylar, Nikolai Markov is the problem. After you gave us his name, Victor called in a few fa
vors from a contact in the security services. It took a while, but he was finally able to get a dossier on your so-called bodyguard.”
For no logical reason, Skylar’s heart was hammering. Surely there was nothing Alexis could possibly tell her about Nikolai that was worse than what she already knew. He was a professional killer. He’d protected her with such frightening competence, such deadly precision, such unfaltering vigilance, merely because he’d been paid to do it.
Not because he cared about her, liked her, respected her or shared her commitment to her work.
Certainly not because he loved her.
Even if she was beginning to fear she felt that way about him.
Somehow she managed to make her voice work.
“Nikolai’s dossier? Do tell.”
“Skylar, for God’s sake, don’t sound so detached. This is your life we’re talking about here!” Alexis paused. “You’ve spent an awful lot of time in his company the past few days. Didn’t he seem at all—familiar?”
“Familiar? I’d never met the man before in my life. I assure you, I would have remembered.”
The notion that she might have met him and forgotten him was almost laughable. Nothing about Nikolai was at all forgettable.
There had been that moment, that odd flash of recognition, while she lay naked in his arms, enveloped by the strongest sense of safety—and, weirdly, homecoming—that her nomadic life had ever allowed.
Fleeting, of course, and probably illusory.
More strongly, she repeated, “I’ve never met him before.”
“Not him, Skylar.” She sensed her friend struggling for words. “His brother.”
“Do you mean some random Markov? I live in Russia, Alexis, just like you did before you changed careers and ran off with Victor. I’ve probably met twenty Markovs.”
But none like this one.
“Markov is just an alias. Nikolai Markov’s entire identity is a legend, a cover, carefully constructed to allow him to pose as an MVD grunt, a member of the local security service in Khimgorod.”
She’d known that, of course. She’d seen him adopt and discard identities like cards at a blackjack table, from FSB agent Aleksander Rostov to millionaire playboy Philippe Fabray, without missing a beat.
The Russian Temptation (Book Two) (Foreign Affairs 2) Page 23
