The policeman who’d ordered Reinhardt and Liam out opened the back door. Reinhardt stepped forward and, after handing over Nicole’s ID, delivered a description of the malady she was supposed to be suffering from. The cop gave a sharp retort. His attitude seemed to be that even a sick old woman wouldn’t be allowed past without getting out of the car and presenting her own ID.
Turning away from Reinhardt, the officer stuck his head in and shined a flashlight in Nicole’s face. It didn’t take much to bring on a coughing fit, and she was now in the middle of one. When she stopped and caught her breath, she moaned. She must have looked truly dreadful, for the man stepped away and quietly closed the door. When he spoke to Reinhardt again, his voice had lost the hostile tone, and he threw in the word “babushka” several times.
The policeman waved Liam and Reinhardt back in the car and directed them to park on the opposite side of the road, which was empty of traffic. Once they’d reparked, Reinhardt said, “We’re OK. Nicole, you were brilliant! They’re sending for a car to escort us to our plane.” When it arrived, two officers got out and Liam and Reinhardt had to show their IDs again, as well as Nicole’s.
At last the cops got back in their car and beckoned Liam to follow. They drove around the perimeter of the airfield where a small plane was waiting. “They’ve rented you a Cessna Citation.” Liam’s voice was filled with admiration. “They’ll be bringing something to carry Nicole onto the plane, a stretcher or a collapsible wheelchair.”
It turned out to be a wheelchair. A couple of tough-looking workmen rolled it onto the tarmac. Nicole moaned and went limp as the pair, obviously inexperienced at this particular task, lifted her out of the car and onto the wheelchair. They gently carried it up the stairs and into the plane, placing Nicole and the chair in the middle of the cabin before securing the brakes. Nicole slouched and drooped her head forward, as if it was difficult for her to hold herself upright.
As they left, one of the men said something to her that ended with matushka, a word she knew meant mother. She regarded this with some amusement since they were at least twenty years her senior. She had to assume these men had mothers they cared about and were wishing her good luck. She gave a slight smile of acknowledgement along with a nod before drooping her head again, as if the effort had been too much.
The plane’s engine had begun to warm up when the pilot’s voice came on the loudspeaker. “The control tower has ordered us to stop. Some higher-up has told the police to board the plane and make sure we aren’t hiding a fugitive. Buckle up! We’re lifting off.”
Nicole dashed from the wheelchair into the seat next to Reinhardt. She’d just fastened her seatbelt when the plane went aloft and began gaining altitude with incredible speed. Below, four police cars drove onto the runway, too late to catch up with the plane. Cops piled out, each holding an automatic weapon, but the plane was safely out of range. Just then another vehicle came around the nearest building. It was a heavy truck with a large metal compartment on top.
“Bloody hell,” Reinhardt breathed when he saw it. “They’ve brought in a rocket launcher. That thing can blow us out of the sky.”
The men on the ground were shrinking as the plane tilted steeply upward. The wheelchair, its brakes still locked, slid to the back of the plane and crashed against the bathroom door. From below, they heard a boom. Looking past Reinhardt who was in the window seat, Nicole could see a puff of smoke. After a moment, a projectile was heading toward them. The plane suddenly swerved from its path, making Nicole and the others tilt sharply to one side.
The missile sailed by, several hundred feet from their window. As they watched, it blew up in midair. The force of the explosion made the plane jerk sideways, then suddenly drop before resuming its ascent.
Nicole closed her eyes and buried her face in Reinhardt’s shoulder. He put his arms around her and held her. When the plane had steadied itself, he said, “We’re safe. We’re well out of their range now.”
There was a long silence as the plane climbed ever higher. The pilot came back on the speaker. “You folks may not realize how lucky you are to be flying in this model Cessna. It’s the fastest climbing aircraft in the world. In any other plane, our chances of getting out of Yaroslavl alive would have been nil. I’m leveling off now at forty-one thousand feet. You can release your seatbelts and move around the cabin. We’ll be in Helsinki in about an hour and forty minutes.”
Nicole undid her seatbelt and went into the bathroom to remove the wig and wash off the rubber cement holding the wrinkles in place. She pulled her hair into a ponytail. She didn’t look too bad. Her face was mottled with red in places, but at least she could recognize herself.
The steward brought out drinks, then a substantial meal of prime rib and Yorkshire pudding. Feeling sleepy after the big meal, Nicole cuddled up to Reinhardt. She felt safe and comforted by his closeness, the faint smell of aftershave that clung to him, and his own unique scent, which was part of the reason she found him so irresistible.
Once again, she wondered what the future held for them. Would he be satisfied with his new life in L.A. as a settled family man? Or would the siren call of MI6 be too much for him to resist if—no, when—they reached out to him again? She wondered, too, how much time would have to pass before she could stop worrying about it.
He leaned toward her and whispered, “Are you asleep?”
“No. I’m just trying to relax after our narrow escape. Talk to me. Tell me something about yourself I don’t know.”
“You already know everything.”
“Not really. You’ve never talked about your life before we met. I know you were a DCI with the London police. But what about your family, your upbringing? You’ve never said anything about your life growing up. Who were your parents? What were they like? How and why did you ever become a spy? Is that what you always wanted to do?”
“Whoa,” he said. “Too many questions. It will take me the rest of the trip to answer them.”
“I don’t have anything better to do,” she said.
He smiled. “All right, but stop me when I start to bore you.”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“My parents divorced when I was five,” he said. “I have little memory of my father. You see, he was a spy for the British intelligence services. My mother left him for the same reason you’d leave me if I ever went back to MI6. She couldn’t stand the sudden, unexplained absences, the risks she knew he was taking. He came to see me a few times between assignments, but I was too young to form any real memory of him. We had a few photos around the house, and I used to study them. They didn’t reveal anything about what kind of man he was or what it would have been like to spend time with him.
“My mother was a wonderful woman. I adored her. But, in accord with family tradition, I was sent off to boarding school when I was seven. Shortly after that, my father was killed on an assignment. I never did learn the details. Just that he was regarded as some kind of hero by the branch of British intelligence that later became MI6. His picture is on the wall at headquarters with other operatives who died in the line of duty. After that, my mother remarried. I never got on with my stepfather, and they travelled a lot. So I usually spent holidays with the families of my mates from school.”
She’d been leaning against his shoulder. Now she pulled away and looked at him. He was gazing out the window, but he didn’t appear sad revisiting these old memories. “How terrible for you,” she said.
“Not really. I didn’t know what it was like to have a close family. And there were other boys in similar situations. I accepted this as the norm. The ones with happy families were the exception. How am I doing? Bored yet?”
“No, go on. Tell me about how you became a spy—even after your father’s profession brought about your parent’s divorce and his death.” She leaned against him again, and he put his arm around her.
“I joined the police force first, as you know. I was always attracted to law enforcement, perhaps
because of my father. Then, a couple of years ago, MI6 recruited me after I was involved in several well-publicized cases. I think they were interested once they realized I was the son of one of their heroes. I didn’t give the decision much thought. The work was exciting, and there wasn’t time for self-reflection. That is, until we broke up, and I thought I’d lost you to Jonah—”
“Josh,” she interrupted. She wondered if he always got Josh’s name wrong to tease her or if he was jealous because she’d almost married Josh after she and Reinhardt broke up.
“Josh,” he corrected himself. “That’s when I realized how much I wanted to marry you and for the two of us to build the family I never had.” He gave a laugh. “Now I’m sounding like one of those modern love stories from the newspaper.”
He pointed out the window. “Look.” They’d just emerged from the cloud cover into a different world, where the sky was blue and the sun shining.
“We did it,” he said. “We got away. Shall we have the steward bring us a bottle of brandy?”
“Brandy? Hell, no,” Nicole said. “This calls for a real celebration! We’re on our way home.” She turned to call out to the steward, “Can you please bring us a bottle of champagne?”
Acknowledgements
My first thanks go to my husband, Bill, who (as always) read every draft of this book and helped me shape the plot and characters. A special thanks to fellow author Dave Edlund for reading an early draft and providing great suggestions on how to approach an international thriller. Thanks also to my early readers, my sister Susan Scott and Cathy Watkins, who gave me ideas and caught plot glitches. And, of course, thanks to my family, Jennifer, John, Anabelle, and Lila, who looked after us and kept us sane during the terrible year of the pandemic.
About the Author
Nancy Boyarsky is the award-winning author of the Nicole Graves Mysteries. Her books have been compared to the work of Mary Higgins Clark and Sue Grafton. They’ve also been praised for contributing to the “women-driven mystery field with panache” (Foreword Reviews) and their “hold-onto-the-bar roller coaster” plots (RT Book Reviews).
Nancy coauthored Backroom Politics, a New York Times notable book, with her husband Bill Boyarsky. She has contributed to several political anthologies and written for publications such as the Los Angeles Times, The California Journal, and Forbes. She was communications director for political affairs for ARCO. Her debut novel, The Swap—book one of the Nicole Graves Mysteries—won the prestigious Eric Hoffer Award for Best Micro Press Book of the Year. In addition to writing mysteries, Nancy is producer and director of the podcast Inside California Politics.
The Nicole Graves Series
by Nancy Boyarsky
“Nicole Graves is the best fictional sleuth
to come down the pike since Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone.”
–Laura Levine, author of the popular Jaine Austen Mysteries
“Nicole Graves is a charming and straight-shooting heroine”
–Foreword Reviews
“Boyarsky’s weightless complications expertly combine menace with bling, making the heroine’s adventures both nightmarish and dreamy.”
–Kirkus Reviews
“Liar Liar creates exquisite tension…”–Midwest Book Review
The Swap
The Bequest
Liar Liar
The Ransom
The Entitled
The Moscow Affair Page 21
