Heart Strike (Project Kobra Book 3)

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  “You’re a man, Mischa. It’s totally different.”

  He considered, then pulled his mouth into a grimace. “True,” he admitted. “I only have to look at you and I want to get my hands on you. Everywhere, at once.”

  She rolled her eyes.

  “Women walk to the park all the time,” he added, his leer evaporating. “It’s three in the afternoon. You’re fine. Take your walk. I will make dinner.” He reached for his trousers.

  “With what?” Fabian asked. “You dropped all the food on the floor at the market, remember?”

  “Grigory sent it over,” Mischa replied. “I found the bags beside the door when I went out for lunch yesterday.”

  “He knows where you live?”

  “Everyone knows where I live.” Mischa leaned across the mattress and kissed her soundly. “Go. Walk.”

  He picked up his shirt and moved to the stairs down to the main floor.

  Fabian leaned over and picked up her brace and strapped it into place. Her knee really had returned to normal. Only the thick red fishbone scars on either side and up her thigh made it look different from the other.

  She flexed her leg experimentally, then stood up. No pain. No throbbing.

  Encouraged, she dressed quickly, threw on her peacoat and walked carefully down the stairs.

  Mischa was already pulling items out of the fridge and placing them on the chopping block island. He closed the fridge door when she came down, came over to her and kissed her.

  The kiss extended. He pushed her up against the wall beside the apartment door, taking his time with it. He touched her forehead with his. “Stay for a while.”

  “Yes.”

  “Or forever,” he breathed.

  Her breath caught. She gripped his sweater, her heart running away on her, the sound of it drowning out her thoughts.

  “Or not,” he added quickly. He pulled back. “I shouldn’t have said—”

  “No, no,” Fabian said just as quickly, reaching for him again. “I couldn’t think what to say for a second, because in here—” and she touched her chest, “this part of me is going ‘well, d’uh, of course.’ It feels as if that’s the way it is supposed to be.” She met his gaze. “Only, it can’t be…can it?”

  Mischa didn’t dismiss her fear. He didn’t ignore it. “We need to let the sensible side catch up to what we already know,” he said softly.

  “Yes, I think that is it.”

  “A step at a time, then.” He reached behind her, unhooked a heavy scarf from the pegs on the wall and dropped it around her neck and tied it. “Go for your walk.”

  “That’s the first step.”

  “Then dinner…and you might feel completely different about me once you’ve tasted my cooking.” His eyes danced.

  “Not possible,” Fabian breathed, her heart strumming.

  He reached over her shoulder once more, picked up her palm and dropped a split ring with two keys threaded on it onto her hand. He opened the door. “Turn right from the door, walk three blocks, then left. The park is two more blocks after that.”

  She doubted she would make it that far and back, and not just because her knee shouldn’t be overtaxed.

  Mischa kissed her and propelled her gently out the door.

  Fabian took the elevator down to the ground floor and realized she was smiling to herself.

  Mischa enjoyed cooking, only he didn’t often cook for himself. It felt like a waste of time and ingredients if he was the only one to eat it. If he cooked, he didn’t bother with plates. He ate from the cooking pot. And while he ate from the pot, he wondered why he bothered cooking the ingredients at all. Why not just eat them cold from the pantry?

  Come to that, why buy them at all?

  Which was why he most often found himself in the deli on the corner, buying another meal in a box.

  Knowing Piá would share the meal made all the difference in the world. He didn’t even mind that he was rusty and might screw up the cooking times or miss some vital step—even that would be part of the adventure.

  The intercom for the foyer buzzed barely two minutes after Piá had left. Mischa picked up the phone, irritated at the interruption. He rarely had visitors or callers, so this one came at the worst time.

  “Mischa, it’s Ilari,” the old man said, his voice scratchy over the intercom.

  “What are you doing here?” Mischa breathed. It took a few words to remember to use Russian, too. He had been using English for three days straight.

  “Yes, yes, the mountain. Mohammed. Let me in so I can explain.”

  Mischa’s irritation didn’t go away even with this unexpected visitor. Just because it was Ilari didn’t remove the bad timing. Mischa hung up the phone and buzzed Ilari in.

  He went back to the chopping block and picked up the expensive Japanese chef’s knife he seldom got to use, only he’d lost interest in chopping vegetables. Once Ilari was gone, he could return to the happy anticipation of cooking.

  When Ilari tapped, Mischa let him in. Only, Ilari was not alone. The tall man with pitch black, short hair and eyes nearly as blue as Mischa’s nodded over Ilari’s shoulder.

  “Karl,” Mischa acknowledged.

  Karl Pasternak glanced around the apartment, missing nothing. He was good at his job.

  “Spit it out, then,” Mischa said, “so I can get back to my holiday.”

  “That’s why we’re here,” Karl said.

  Ilari moved over to the stool beside the chopping black and lowered himself onto it, breathing hard. “You missed our game, Mischa.”

  “I phoned.”

  Karl spread his feet and crossed his arms, the black leather coat straining around his shoulders. “It’s about the woman, Mischa.”

  For a moment, Mischa didn’t know what he was talking about. All the cases and situations and projects on his desk at the office had slipped to the back of his mind. Normally, the details of every matter on his desk stayed firmly at the front of his mind. He had to strain to recall them, now. “Woman?” he repeated.

  “The American,” Ilari said.

  Mischa put it together. Coldness gripped his middle. They were talking about Piá.

  “What about her?” he breathed.

  Fabian had guessed correctly she wouldn’t be able to make it all the way to the park. A block, here, was much longer than in Washington. She walked slowly, to give her leg time to adjust to movement again. When she reached the last turn, she paused at the corner, assessing herself.

  Her heart was beating smoothly. Her body was warm with the exercise and her knee was silent. She had loosened up muscles which had done nothing for two days, and now she was eager to return.

  She was hungry, too.

  The houses on this street were all painted in colorful contrasts, which gave the street a pleasant, cared-for aspect. She remembered what Mischa had said about this being a high-crime area yet seeing no crime himself. It seemed extraordinary, given this lovely street.

  It even felt warm here, despite it being October. The trees were already without leaves. Only, she had come from Iceland, where winter had settled in and it was especially cold on the higher elevations like Katla’s main slope.

  The days here were nearly as short as Iceland’s, too. By the time she reached Mischa’s apartment building, her shadow was long and dusk was setting in.

  Grateful once more for the elevator, she rode up to Mischa’s floor, her heart already galloping at the prospect of seeing him once more. She was a fool. An idiot. Yet she couldn’t stop smiling.

  She unlocked the apartment door with the second key and even that small, domestic chore made her want to laugh at the simple pleasure it gave her. She pushed the door open.

  The apartment was dim, now the sun had set. Mischa sat on the stool by the chopping block, with a chef’s knife swinging in his hand.

  A glass with a half inch of wine at the bottom stood on the block beside a pile of tomatoes and greens.

  Fabian blinked. “Wow. You don’t wa
nt to turn the lights on? Did you not realize how dark it had got?”

  “No, I didn’t notice,” Mischa said. His voice was remote. Erie.

  The back of Fabian’s neck prickled, making her shudder. “What’s wrong? What has happened?”

  “Perhaps you should tell me what is happening…Fabian Santiago.”

  The shock slammed into her like a fist to her belly. Her breath jerked out of her and Fabian staggered at the impact. She reached out for something, anything, which could prop her up until her balance returned. Nothing was there. She pushed herself backward until the apartment door was at her back.

  Her breath came in bellows.

  She had forgotten about the charade. For the last two days, she had forgotten the false name and why she was here in Ukraine. It had all slid down a metaphorical drain, discarded and unwanted.

  “It’s not what you think,” she said at last, as the sickness swooped through her.

  Mischa slapped the knife upon the wooden block. “Then you are not the daughter of Beneficio Santiago? The man who publicly works for the State Department, but is actually a CIA director?”

  Horror filled her. Coppery tasting spit flooded her mouth as she stared at Mischa. He was speaking about her father. About things he couldn’t possibly know. That put this into a completely different realm.

  “How do you know that?” she whispered.

  He snapped to his feet, like a sprinter coming up from the blocks. “I work for the Russian Embassy! What did you think it meant?”

  Her lips were numb. “I thought…you were a clerk.”

  Mischa gripped the corner of the chopping block, his fingers flexing and curling. “How can I even know this isn’t an act? Did they target me? Why are you here?”

  She slid down the door until her ass was against the floor. She had no strength to hold herself up. She wanted to protest, to say her father had nothing to do with this, only it wasn’t true.

  “The passport…Piá Blanca…that was so my father couldn’t find me,” she breathed. “I didn’t want him to know what I was doing here.”

  “What are you doing here?” Mischa ground out. “And if you tell me you are looking for your uncle, so help me…”

  She put her face in her hands. God, how had everything gone so…so wrong? “I am looking for Eli Aslan,” she said into her hands. “Only, he wasn’t my uncle.”

  Mischa didn’t move. “Congratulations, then. You completely fooled me, with all your talk about not knowing him and wanting to. If you really are a volcanologist, you’re in the wrong profession.” Bitterness warped his voice.

  “I am a volcanologist,” she said tiredly and put her head against the door. “Everything I have told you is true, more or less. Only, it was my grandfather I didn’t know. My step-grandfather. He was Welsh, from Carmarthen…and that’s all I know about him.”

  “Then why are you looking for Aslan?” Mischa shot back.

  “Because of the bomb!” she cried and hammered at the hinge of her brace, so it made a muffled rapping noise. “Because he’s my one lead to the man who did this to me!”

  “Then why didn’t you tell me that?”

  Fabian blinked. It was growing darker. Mischa was just a shape which moved, now. “I didn’t tell anyone,” she said. “The information wasn’t mine to share.”

  “What does that even mean?”

  “I stole the information from my father’s files. They’re state secrets. Do you understand? What my father is working on is the reason the hotel was bombed. I was targeted!”

  That made Mischa pause. She could tell from how still he became. He spoke in a low voice. “If that is true, your father would be the one to follow up—”

  “He was doing nothing!” she spat. “Nearly a year and not a goddam thing was done about any of it!”

  Again, the wary stillness emanated from him. “So you decided to follow up yourself…” he breathed.

  She sighed and put her head back against the door. “It’s all gone wrong, though. Nothing happened the way I thought it would.”

  “That is what happens when you meddle in affairs you don’t understand,” he said dryly. Weary wisdom thickened his voice.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  Mischa stirred, as if her apology jolted him. “You have no idea what you have done.”

  “Done?” she asked, startled.

  “My life…such as it is. There are layers and secrets and closed off rooms. Whole wings of separation and discretion and lies. With you, I felt as though all that was gone, that it was just me and you.” The pain in his voice was raw and made her heart ache.

  Two broken remnants.

  Her eyes prickled with the sharp pain of tears. She blinked them away. He would think she was pretending, reaching for sympathy, if she let them fall.

  “They want me to recruit you,” he added.

  The words, so quietly spoken, made her jerk. Her head rapped against the door. She straightened, cold fear spreading through her. “R-recruit? I’m…I’m just a volcanologist! A geek! I don’t know anything about your world—”

  “Yet you stepped into it anyway,” he said grimly. “They have been watching the apartment for two days, waiting for you to leave so they could slide in here and tell me who you were. I’m supposed to pretend I still think you’re Piá and wonderful and talk you into a long-term relationship, until I can get access to your father’s files.” He paused. “My director is beside himself with excitement over the possibilities.”

  Fabian scrambled to her feet, in an awkward, inelegant mangle of limbs. “Should you be even telling me this?”

  “Of course I shouldn’t!” he shot back. “Only, what does one more level of lies matter? There are so many of them, now.”

  Her heart hurt. “What…what are you going to do?” she whispered.

  “Nothing,” he said heavily.

  She swallowed.

  Mischa stirred. He moved over to the sink and turned on the light over it. The orange light seemed far too bright. She blinked, wincing, until her vision adjusted.

  He looked drawn. Remote. His face was grim, the jaw held tightly. His mouth was a straight line, held just as firmly. His eyes were strained. “Did you for one moment stop to consider how I might feel about this, when I found out?”

  Fabian sighed. “I forgot about all of it—all the reasons I was here, even that I was supposed to be Piá Blanca. I…I’m not good at this.”

  He pushed his hand through his hair, ruffling it. “It might shock you to know that I love my country,” he said heavily. “Americans always think they have the corner on patriotism, but it isn’t true. I won’t betray Russia, Piá. Fabian.”

  Her jaw dropped. “I’m not asking you to!”

  “No? Tell me it has not occurred to you in the last few minutes to ask me to find out what I know about this Aslan and his connections, to dig into the official files for you.”

  Fabian stared at him, genuine astonishment tearing at her. “God, you think I would really do that? To you?”

  “I don’t know what to think, anymore,” he whispered. The line between his brows deepened. “You should go,” he added. “I’ll tell them we argued, or you have to go back to Iceland in a hurry…and you should do that. Return, I mean. Get out of Ukraine, Fabian. It isn’t safe for you here, anymore.”

  Her breath shuddered in and out. “Will they believe you?” she whispered.

  His smile was without humor. “I am good at this.” His expression was alien. It made him seem like a stranger to her.

  Fabian shivered, despite her coat and scarf.

  Mischa told her to pack as she would normally. He called for a cab while she did.

  By the time she came back down the stairs, letting her bag slap against each step, he stood by the front door, waiting.

  “Find a hotel with your cellphone and show it to the driver,” he told her, his voice without expression. “Don’t tell me where you’re going,” he added as she opened her mouth.
<
br />   She wiped her cheeks. “Will you…will you be safe?”

  “Don’t worry about me,” he said harshly. “Don’t think of me again.”

  Her tears dripped faster. “I don’t know if I can do that.”

  He opened the door and held it. “You must,” he said bleakly and waited.

  Fabian made herself move. Each step jarred her heart and tightened the band around her chest.

  When the door to the apartment closed behind her, she clapped a hand over her mouth to smother the agony which wanted to tear out her throat.

  It wasn’t until she had fumbled her way through a half dozen conversations with taxi drivers and concierges and hotel clerks, not until she reached the small, plain hotel room and could finally release the handle of her case, that she realized she was still wearing Mischa’s scarf.

  She bunched it in her hands and pressed her face against it to muffle her sobs.

  [9]

  Private Jet Terminal, Atatürk Airport, Istanbul.

  Leander wasn’t a licensed pilot. He was a good listener and had fast reactions. He co-piloted for Noah. Leander read the checklist, while Noah ran through the controls, instead of the other way around.

  While they went through their final check, everyone buckled up in the cabin. It was a six-man jet, which was the other reason Leander sat in the co-pilot seat—there wasn’t a spare seat in the cabin for him.

  “Ready to roll?” Noah asked, bending around the bulkhead to peer back into the cabin.

  “When you are,” Dima assured him, then turned back to Ren. “Go on.”

  Ren thumbed through her cellphone. It was a new one. The old one had been taken into evidence along with her laptop. “After he confirmed it was her, I talked the ticketing agent into checking the passenger manifest for the ferry she took. He thought she was Italian or maybe Indian, only there wasn’t an Italian woman’s name on the manifest. Or an obviously Indian one. There is this one…” She paused and scaled up the screen. “Piá Blanca.”

  Dima glanced at Agata.

  “She did get a second passport,” Agata murmured.

  “So, Odesa, then Kiev,” Scott added. “She can’t get to Chernobyl directly and all the civil records for Chernobyl would be kept in Kiev.”