Heart Strike (Project Kobra Book 3)

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  “Desniansky station of the—” and he said something in Ukraine, and added, “The Main Department of Internal Affairs of the City of Kiev.”

  “The police,” Fabian interpreted.

  “Yes,” he admitted with a grin. “This way.” He walked through the waiting area to an internal door without a handle and glanced at the uniformed officer on the other side of the grille, right beside the door. “Bohdan Ivanov?”

  The officer swiveled and called out softly to someone behind him.

  Silence. Then, a soft call back.

  The officer turned back to the desk. The door clicked unlocked and Mischa pushed it open and held it for her.

  Fabian moved through. The officer who had unlocked the door stared at her frankly. She turned back to Mischa.

  He looked at the officer, who grunted something.

  Mischa thanked him. “Through the corridor, there,” he murmured to Fabian.

  It wasn’t really a corridor, but a narrow space made by the walls of offices on either side. Most of the office walls were made of plate glass from the waist up. In one, Fabian saw a raggedly dressed man chained to a table.

  An interview room.

  “Darnytskyi, where I live, is supposed to be a high-crime area,” Mischa murmured. “I’ve been living there for years and years and I’ve never seen anything worse than crossing the road against the lights. Desniansky, though…”

  He didn’t have to finish the thought.

  “Puts your suburb to shame, then?” Fabian asked.

  He laughed softly. “Count your fingers before you leave,” he added. “Here.” He tapped on the glass door of the office they came to. Through the glass and the blinds lining them, Fabian could see a thin man with dark hair shorn short. The sides were silver and his narrow face was lined—with age or care, she wasn’t certain.

  He spotted Mischa and threw down his pen and moved over to the door and opened it. “Mischa Sokolov!” He spoke quickly and even though Fabian didn’t understand a word, she got the impression that Bohdan Ivanov was both pleased and surprised by Mischa’s visit.

  They hugged, which European men made seem as though it was the most natural and friendly gesture.

  “My American friend, Bohdan,” Mischa added in English. “Piá Blanca.”

  Bohdan thrust out his hand. “Miss Blanca. You forgive. My English very…stucky.” He smiled disarmingly.

  “Sucky,” she corrected.

  “See?” He shrugged and rattled off more Ukrainian to Mischa and waved them both into the office and shut the door. Mischa moved over to the steel-framed plastic visitor chair in front of Bohdan’s desk, pulled it out and held it for Fabian, all while talking to Bohdan. He kept his hands on the back of the chair as Fabian settled in it.

  Bohdan sank into his worn office chair, listening hard. His gaze flickered toward Fabian and back to Mischa. He nodded a few times and asked some fast questions.

  Then he blew out his breath, thinking.

  Mischa bent to speak close to her ear. “Bohdan is an unofficial expert on gangs and the mobs, here. I have asked him if he knows anyone who would have been at a middle-level in the mob in the late eighties and early nineties, who isn’t in prison, who we could chat to about your uncle.”

  “Good thinking,” Fabian murmured back.

  Bohdan asked something, looking at her. She glanced up at Mischa.

  “Was your uncle ever arrested?”

  “I don’t know,” Fabian admitted. “I know he was a favorite of one of the really high ups in the organization. The man got him out of Ukraine and over to England.”

  “Hmm…” Mischa said thoughtfully. He repeated that to Bohdan, who scratched under his chin, his eyes narrowed.

  He rapid-fired another stream of Ukrainian at Mischa, who nodded. Bohdan smiled at Fabian. “I think. Ask questions. Make…telephones. Tell you name. Two,” and he held up his hand, with three fingers extended.

  “Two or three days?” she hazarded.

  He nodded.

  “Really, you don’t have to go to such trouble—”

  “Let him,” Mischa said quietly. “He will enjoy himself.”

  “Yes, yes,” Bohdan said, nodding his head. “Criminals this day…pah!” He wrinkled his nose.

  “They’re shamed, too, huh?” Fabian murmured.

  Mischa laughed.

  Once they were back in the car, Mischa tapped the clock on the dashboard. “Nearly two. I have nothing to eat in the apartment and I don’t want to eat out—I’ve been doing it for a week. How would you feel about heading to the market and picking up something to make at home?”

  “I am an abysmal cook,” Fabian warned him. “I know a couple of potluck meals and they’re average, at best.”

  “I happen to be a good cook, though,” he replied. “And I’m not misogynistic enough to expect my guest to do the cooking because she is delightfully female.”

  “Oh.” She grimaced, feeling foolish all over again.

  “You’re flustered again.” He leaned over the console between the seats and touched his lips to hers. He paused, his mouth hovering. “Even more so, now.”

  She sighed. “You keep doing that to me.”

  “Yes,” he agreed heartily and started the car.

  The journey this time did not take as long as the previous one. They didn’t cross any rivers and didn’t use any major routes.

  He parked the car in a tree-lined street, the golden leaves smothering the tarmac of the road and the bare branches reaching overhead.

  “This is a market?” Fabian asked, studying the houses on either side.

  “I came to the market from the back end. There’s a secondary entrance around the corner, which few people know about, so there is always parking on this street.” He got out and went around to the trunk and pulled out a shopping bag full of other bags. Then he stepped onto the narrow sidewalk and waited for her.

  The market was just around the corner, for which Fabian was grateful. Her knee was throbbing now. She had been on it too long. Yesterday’s near fall and the late night was not helping.

  She gritted her teeth and kept walking.

  Darynok market was an indoor one, beneath a cavernous roof with lots of windows to let in the sunlight. Take away the roof and it might have been any produce market in a large city in north America. There were stalls with fruit and veggies in one section and long alleyways with stalls and stores selling clothing and jewelry, accessories, bags and luggage, household items. Just like at home, cheap knockoffs were everywhere, and some fine local hand-crafted items which Fabian would have stopped to examine and perhaps buy if she wasn’t with Mischa.

  He was here to grocery shop. He set a brisk pace through the stalls with the non-food products. He waved to one or two of the stall owners as they called out a friendly sounding something or other.

  Then their gaze would turn to Fabian speculatively.

  This was clearly Mischa’s local market. He was well known. He didn’t seem bothered by the extra attention she was drawing. Did he bring lady friends here often?

  Fabian didn’t spare time wondering about it. Her attention was taken by the simple act of keeping up with him. She worked to avoid wrenching her knee when she stepped around people who stopped to look at something in a stall. She had to make her leg work for a few minutes longer.

  It was heated and aching. Soon, it would swell and refuse to cooperate. If she didn’t ice it and take some ibuprofen tonight, she wouldn’t be able to walk tomorrow.

  By the time they reached the stalls with the fresh produce, she was almost breathless. For the first time, Mischa seemed to notice her state. He gave a soft sound that despite being wordless she could tell was him kicking himself.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s usually so busy when I get here after work that I power through as quickly as possible…” He glanced at her leg. “Can you last a little while longer? Then I will leave you to wait at the back door and I will pull the car around for you.”
<
br />   “That would be heavenly,” she confessed. She rubbed her temple, instead of her thigh, for it would draw attention to her brace.

  He took her hand. “As slowly as you need to,” he assured her. “That big stall over there. They always have the best tomatoes.”

  They moved over to the stall and he matched her pathetic pace. The stall was in the middle of a big space, with produce on all four sides. The stall owner stood in the middle and moved around to speak to anyone browsing his produce. There were four people in the little space in the middle, all of them swiftly picking and weighing produce for customers.

  The oldest man of the four, who wore a green apron, nodded at Mischa. Mischa and he spoke quickly, then he took one of Mischa’s bags and moved to the other side of the stall.

  Mischa considered her. “You’re white. God, I am a lout. I didn’t think…”

  “No, I’m fine now we’ve stopped,” she assured him.

  “I want to move around the corner. They have artichokes there.”

  “Let’s move around the corner, then.” She made her leg swing so she could shuffle around the corner. When she reached this point, it always hurt to walk once she had stopped. If she kept going, anyway, the ache would subside a little…until she stopped again.

  Mischa watched her move, a furrow between his brows. Silently, he stepped around the corner of the stall and examined the artichokes laid out upon the sloping display stand. “How long ago did it happen?” He glanced at her and away.

  “Last November,” she said. Her heart thudded.

  His glance this time was startled. “You’re still a convalescent!” he breathed.

  Fabian managed a smile. “I’m still supposed to be in rehab, although I checked myself out against the doctor’s wishes in August. I did what he said; I’ve been taking it easy. A month of work, then a week off. I couldn’t stand the hospital a moment longer. I had to leave.”

  “Not a wasted moment. I remember,” he murmured, turning over the avocados on the next shelf. “Was your leg…was that your only injury? I mean…forgive me for prying, but if you were close enough to a bomb to nearly lose your leg, I would imagine there would be other injuries, too. Yet you seem flawless to me.”

  She should have smiled or thanked him for the compliment, only her racing heart and the pulse thudding in her temples wouldn’t let her. Her throat closed over. She reached blindly for something, to pretend she was shopping without a care in the world.

  “Piá?” he breathed.

  She barely noticed the false name. It was the concern and gentleness in his voice which made her look at him. “I lost…they had to…I can’t have children, now.” It emerged in a series of tight hard words which made her feel as though her brain was shredding a layer with each of them.

  Mischa stared at her, an artichoke forgotten in his hand, the blue of his eyes stormy with…something.

  Fabian’s eyes ached. She blinked. Crying here in this public place would be too humiliating. She swallowed hard. “I’ve never said that aloud before,” she whispered.

  Mischa wrenched his gaze away from her and stared at the artichoke in his hand, to give her privacy. His throat worked to. “Artichokes…” he murmured, weighing the green globe. “My wife, ten years ago, visited St. Petersburg. Her family were there. She phoned the day she was flying back to Kiev and asked me to buy artichokes on the way home, for dinner that night.”

  Fabian drew in a startled breath, her misery forgotten and a thousand new questions peppering her mind. She didn’t need to ask any of them, for Mischa continued.

  “I am…I was always busy. My work consumed every hour I let it. Yana knew that. Asking me to buy artichokes was a joke. I’d never remember to pick them up. It was later, long afterwards, that I realized she asked me so I would remember she was making dinner that night and expected me to be home for it.” His gaze met Fabian’s. “I forgot to buy artichokes, of course. But not because of work. Not that time.” His mouth worked. “Yana and Anton and Inna…they never came home, you see. There was an explosion and their plane fell out of the sky.”

  “Oh, Mischa…” Fabian’s eyes were aching again. “We’re both remnants,” she added brokenly.

  He hefted the artichoke, his jaw flexing. “The stupid thing is, I hate artichokes. Yet I keep buying them and bringing them home.” The agony in his voice and the pain in his eyes was unbearable to look at. Fabian’s vision swam. Blindly, she reached out for the artichoke and took it from him. She replaced it with the object she was holding—an apple, she realized.

  Mischa drew in a harsh, audible breath, staring at the apple.

  Fabian’s heart raced so hard it hurt.

  With a soft groan, he dropped the apple, the bags he held, everything. He turned and pulled her up against him and kissed her.

  Yes, she breathed in her mind. She wound her arms around his neck and kissed him back with as much fever and urgency as he was kissing her. She forgot where they were standing, she forgot everything but the unexpected joy of being in his arms.

  Even time jolted out of its tracks and lost its way.

  When at last they had to draw breath, Mischa loosened his hold on her only enough to look into her eyes.

  “Let’s go home,” Fabian whispered. “Now.”

  He nodded, his thumb sliding over her cheekbone. “Yes.” The heat in that single word made her shiver. He let her go and picked up her hand. He made no move to retrieve the bags.

  Fabian took one step and her knee buckled. She sucked in a gasp, trying to smother it.

  Mischa whirled, alerted. He didn’t apologize. Instead, he bent and swept her up into his arms and carried her through the market.

  [8]

  Eminönü Pier, Eminönü, Istanbul, Turkey. A few days later.

  The water of the Bosphorus was usually a deep sea green. Today, it could not compete with the chilly gray sky overhead. The sea reflected the silvered clouds.

  Seagulls squawked, competing with the cry from the minarets nearby, for it was time for afternoon prayers.

  Dima gave thanks to Allah in her mind, while she remained at her table and sipped the strong Turkish coffee. It had been years since she had enjoyed the real thing. Even the gritty grounds in her mouth were a pleasure. This was her first time visiting the Eminönü waterfront, too.

  Agata settled on the chair on the other side of the long table and two seats down from Dima. She studied her phone. “Nothing,” she breathed. “No hotels in the city or the airport have her registered.”

  Dima didn’t react. She gazed across the wide waterfront, watching the tourists trying to figure out the Turkish signposts and sort out which ferry they should board. Agata was the last to report in, although she had traveled the farthest. All of them had said the same thing. There was no trace of Fabian anywhere.

  Agata frowned down at her cellphone. “We should consider it likely she acquired a second passport. Somehow.” She shook her head. “Big feat for a civilian.”

  “She’s her father’s daughter and I’m pretty sure there’s a mountain-sized chip on her shoulder, driving her to inventiveness,” Dima murmured. “If she found a second passport, it wasn’t through normal channels. She could have flinched a stolen passport from a stash…” She considered, then reached for her phone. “I’ll put her photo on the blackboard. Concentrate on the ferries, now. Show the picture to everyone. She’s a striking woman. Someone will remember her.”

  Agata instantly got to her feet and moved away. She thumbed her phone for a few steps, then shoved it into her back pocket—the typical, innocent young adult tourist, complete with backpack and sneakers.

  Dima pulled up the “blackboard”—the new bulletin board Lochan had installed on the dark net. She found a photo of Fabian from the last time she’d had dinner at Benny’s house, cropped Benny and the others out of the photo, enlarged it and posted it to the blackboard, along with her new instructions.

  Then she adjusted her hijab to sit closer against her cheeks and adju
sted the fold under her chin. She picked up her bag and strolled along the waterfront, building up phrases in her mind in her barely adequate Turkish about her missing daughter, and had they seen her…?

  “We’ll turn into vampires, or something,” Fabian protested, as Mischa trailed his fingers along her calf, making her flesh ripple. “We haven’t been out of the house for two days.” She laid on her belly, a pillow beneath her, propping her up.

  “You haven’t been out of the house,” Mischa murmured. He nuzzled her calf. “I’ve been to the delicatessen every day.”

  The remains of the meals and food he had brought back sat on trays on the floor beside the bed, beside the rumpled sheet and blankets…and their clothes.

  “We need fresh air or something,” Fabian added. “It can’t be good to stay inside for too long.”

  “I don’t see why,” Mischa replied. “I’ve never felt—mmm, your knee isn’t swollen anymore, slava bogu.”

  Thank god, she translated. She was picking up odd words here and there, most of them anatomically oriented and probably not for polite company. “That’s because I haven’t used it for two days—ooh!” She sucked in a breath. “Mischa, really, stop for a second.”

  “Why?” His lips moved on.

  She drew in an unsteady breath. “I’m…no, really, stop…I’m…” She flipped onto her back.

  Mischa smiled in appreciation, his eyes dancing and drew her farther beneath him.

  Fabian pushed against his shoulder. “I feel good, too,” she said. “Too good. I’m jumping out of my skin with it. I have to walk, Mischa.”

  “Your knee only now looks like the other one,” he pointed out.

  “That’s why I have to walk. Just a short walk. I have to keep it mobile.”

  “You don’t want to eat, perhaps? Something which isn’t served in a cardboard box?”

  Fabian’s belly rumbled and panged.

  Mischa laughed. “Both, then,” he decided and slid off her and sat up. “I will cook. You walk so your skin isn’t jumping.”

  “Can I…is it safe to walk around here alone?”

  “I’ve never had trouble.”