by Tim Tigner
Collins looked at the black muzzle before her, then back at the text. “Let me call you back, Mr. President. Ibex just walked in the door.”
Chapter 50
The Call
San Francisco, California
ACHILLES FELT Zoya begin to tremble beside him as their cab neared Senator Collins’ San Francisco home. Zoya had kept it together for the first 2,400 miles, but like most marathons, the last stretch was proving to be the toughest.
Achilles found it ironic that the Russians escape pack had made it possible for him to whisk Zoya back to the continental U.S. undetected. The airline had readily accepted their cash in exchange for first-class tickets once presented with driver’s licenses for Frank and Barbara Murphy. And of course once he had Zoya on the plane, things got easier. There wasn’t anywhere she could go, or anyone she could talk to.
Once the other passengers became absorbed in their books and movies, and the flight attendants were busy prepping in the galley, he hit her with the question he’d been dying to ask. “How did I end up on Hawaii?”
Zoya looked over with miserable eyes, and spoke without inflection. “They ambushed you at the top of a climb. Drugged you and flew you out on a medical helicopter.”
Achilles nodded. “Lover’s Leap.”
“What?”
“That was where they did it.”
“That doesn’t sound right. It was a place with a funny name. A different funny name. Some fruit.”
“Strawberry?” Achilles suggested, naming the two-horse town south of Lake Tahoe that housed Lover’s Leap.
“Yes, Strawberry. The drugs kept your memory of the capture from forming and caused your headache.”
He bought that.
While they were on a roll, Achilles pulled the wedding photo out of his bag. “What about this?”
“Staged on the beach near Sochi. That’s me with a model standing in for you. They added your face using Photoshop.”
Achilles shook his head. “But the picture feels familiar.”
“They used the face from a press photo taken when you made the Olympic team. That’s why you look so happy — and why it has a familiar feel.”
Zoya returned her gaze to the window.
Her introspective mood suited Achilles just fine. He too had options to weigh and scenarios to game out in his mind.
He tossed her a grenade during dinner. It slipped out when he was reflecting on his relationship with Katya. “What does Max think of your latest role?”
She looked surprised at the mention of her boyfriend’s name. Then resigned. Then sad. “The tabloid press. We love them and we hate them.”
“You keep telling the reporters it’s not serious, but they keep taking pictures of you with him. Makes me wonder if you’re staying single just to keep the headlines coming.”
“It’s a rough business.”
“You still haven’t answered my question.”
She turned to meet his eyes full-on for the first time since the boat.
Achilles saw a world of misery looking back at him. Was it real or part of an act? That was the problem. He had no way to know. He wouldn’t be played again. Fool-me-once and all that.
“He’s not happy with it,” she said, sounding sincere.
“But he didn’t stop it.”
“How could he have?”
“He probably couldn’t have. But did he try?”
Zoya didn’t answer, which was answer enough.
Achilles didn’t press. He had his own relationship issues to sort out.
But that sorting would come later. First he had to make it through San Francisco arrivals. If the Russians were quick and resourceful enough, they would have men waiting at the airport. Big, hard men who took no chances and showed no mercy.
Without letting go of Zoya’s hand, Achilles hit a gift shop across from their gate. He paid cash for black 49ers hooded sweat suits, and then pulled Zoya into a family restroom. After a quick change of clothes, Achilles used the Russian’s disguise kits against them. Satisfied with what he didn’t see while looking at Zoya and in the mirror, he led his captive out through another terminal’s baggage claim and straight into a waiting cab.
As the cab left SFO behind, heading north for the city, he turned toward Zoya and spoke in Russian. “Time to remove your stage makeup. For this next scene, you’ll be playing yourself.”
“Who are we visiting, exactly?”
Achilles peeled the slim mustache from his face before answering. “She’s a senator — the tough, wise kind. Not a pretty-boy blowhard. Under normal circumstances you’d like her. During her last election she set a record for the most popular votes in senate history.”
“What will she do with me?”
Achilles told it to her straight. “That will depend on the larger context as she sees it. And how much she likes you. And my recommendation.”
“Is there any chance she’ll let me go?” Zoya’s voice cracked as she spoke, and Achilles caught the cabbie checking on them in the mirror.
“There is. Your celebrity will help to diminish her fears that if released you’ll become a threat. But her first inclination as a guardian of national security will be to make you vanish without a trace and then let the professionals take their time pumping you for information in a dark basement.”
“I don’t have any information.”
“You have plenty. If you actually tell her everything, she may decide there’s nothing more to gain. But if she senses you withholding, then she’ll go with that first inclination.”
Zoya hugged her own chest a little tighter. “You say her, but it’s really you. The two of you. Isn’t it?”
She was right. Achilles had a tough call to make.
Chapter 51
Pacific Heights
San Francisco, California
ACHILLES DIDN’T ANSWER Zoya’s question about his inclinations. The truth was, he was conflicted about her. On the one hand, she’d only been doing the job her president had asked of her. On the other, she’d been cruelly manipulating him as a prelude to execution. He decided to see how she played it with Collins.
The cab pulled to the curb in Pacific Heights. “Fifty-two dollars.”
The driver didn’t seem to notice the transformation his passengers had undergone. Like the people beside you on a crowded bus or plane, they’d been accommodated, but ignored. If questioned, he might recall that he’d been asked to drive by a hardware store en route, but that too would quickly fade. Achilles handed over three twenties from the Russian’s stash, and pulled Zoya behind him into the misty night. “Keep the change.”
Achilles had given the driver an address a block from the senator’s, on the assumption that her home was under enemy surveillance. For appearance sake, he began walking up the drive of the house before them with his left arm locked through Zoya’s right. Only once the cab had turned the corner did he reverse their course.
Using the maps app on Foxley’s phone — which now had a new SIM card, making it untraceable — Achilles found the Tudor style home that was directly below Collins’ on the steep hillside. All the houses in the prestigious neighborhood faced north, out toward Angel Island and the Golden Gate Bridge. The higher homes on each block, like Collins’, had their main entrance on the back of the house, whereas the ones down below had entrances at the front.
He paused once the angle was right to study Collins’ house. The hill was so steep that her ground floor was on the same plane as the roof of the home below. From what Achilles could see, only the third floor had lights on.
He glanced over at Zoya. Once they’d started moving, she’d stopped trembling and reengaged. Just like a soldier.
Zoya caught him looking at her. “Which one is hers?”
“The white one up above with the Beaux Arts façade.”
She studied it with a faraway look in her eye. “What’s the plan?”
Achilles waited for a woman being towed by a Dalmatian to pass before answering. �
�You have no money, no identification, and no cell phone. I’m stronger, faster, and more familiar with the neighborhood.”
“I get it. I’d be a fool to run.”
“It would be a big mistake. If you think we don’t have informants within your consulate, or that we don’t monitor their incoming calls, think again.”
Rather than come back at him, Zoya nodded toward the bag in his hand. A purchase he’d picked up on the way from the airport. “Why did you buy enough rope to moor a yacht? Surely you could incapacitate me with a few zip ties or three feet of clothesline.”
Achilles ignored the query as he compared the homes before him to Google’s satellite image. The fronts appeared the same live as in the picture, so hopefully the backs were as well. According to Zillow, ownership hadn’t changed for over a decade either. While far from conclusive, that was a sign that their security systems would be dated.
Despite their seven and eight-figure prices, Pacific Heights homes had negligible side yards. Enough for the trash cans and a source of natural light, if you were lucky. Achilles led Zoya up to a metal gate on the left side of his target address.
A security light protested their approach.
He ignored it.
The gate rose eight feet in height, and occupied the entire width of space between the house and the wall that separated it from the neighbor’s lot. An earlier misting of rain left it glistening beneath the floodlight. Achilles interlocked his fingers to create a stirrup, and said, “You’re going over first.”
Zoya shrugged, gave him her foot, and used his boost to spring over the gate like a rabbit hopping a hedge.
Achilles followed on her heels by swinging his legs up and around until he was practically inverted, and then dropping to her side. They’d landed in a cobblestoned alley devoid of ornamentation or vegetation. The path before them was lined with bicycles, both adult and child sizes. “Follow me.”
Sticking as close as possible to the house wall, Achilles led his prisoner through the side yard toward the backyard. He stopped just shy of the corner. Pointing to a position about fifteen feet off the ground, he said, “See the security light?”
“Sure.”
“I’m hoping you can unscrew the lightbulbs if I give you a lift.”
“It’s awfully high.”
He knelt down like Atlas. “Climb up onto my shoulders, and brace your hands on the wall so they can walk up it while I stand.”
She complied without question, catching the attention of the motion detector in the process. The security lights blazed to life, illuminating the entire backyard, which boasted a covered Jacuzzi and built-in barbecue.
“Ignore the lights,” he said, clamping his hands over her feet and rising to full height.
“I still can’t reach it.”
Achilles scooched his open palms under her sneakers and shoulder-pressed her three feet higher.
Zoya extinguished one bulb, then the other, plunging them back into the quasi darkness of a cloudy city night.
Achilles reversed the lifting procedure and lowered her back to the ground. “Good job. Warm-up’s over.” She followed his gaze to the senator’s terrace, three stories above.
Chapter 52
The View
San Francisco, California
ZOYA WINCED as Achilles secured the knot that tethered her like a vicious dog. It wasn’t that long ago that she’d been on top of the world, with a best-supporting-actress nomination on her résumé and a wonderful man by her side. Then her vacation had been commandeered by none other than the president of Russia, and now she was being led to trial on a leash.
She kept hoping she’d wake up to find Max by her side. She’d regale him with tales of her amazing nightmare over a breakfast of fresh berries and hot peppermint tea. But no matter how hard she pinched, she was still stuck in the surreal world of spies.
Now Achilles expected her to climb a three-story building. At night.
“When I give the signal, you hold the rope out in front of you with both hands while you lean back into the harness as though it was a chair. Then just walk up the wall.”
Zoya looked down at her bindings in a new light. The rope construction looping around her waist and thighs did remind her of the seat on a toddler’s swing. Fancy that. “Okay.”
Achilles had tied the other end of the rope to his backpack, while dropping the coil itself to the ground between them. They were standing at the back left corner of Senator Collins’ house, preparing to ascend fifty feet into the dark. Apparently with American spies, hopping a gate, disabling security lights, and scaling the fences between yards was considered a warm-up.
Zoya thought she knew a better way to reach Senator Collins’ terrace. She grabbed Achilles’ elbow to get his attention. “Wouldn’t it be easier to break in here at ground level and climb the stairs?”
He looked down at her hand. “The senator has a zoned security system, allowing her to arm the ground floors while walking about freely upstairs. Besides, this will be plenty easy.”
Plenty easy for whom? “You’ve been here before?”
Achilles nodded. “Once.”
With that he turned around and began climbing the senator’s back wall faster than she could scale a ladder. He used windowsills and ornamental fixtures and other handholds as well as footholds she couldn’t discern. She found him staring back over the ledge of the third-floor terrace before she’d exhaled.
He gestured for her to grab the rope with both hands.
She did.
The rope went tight, and then Achilles disappeared from sight. A moment later, Zoya felt herself being drawn skyward.
She lost her balance and banged into the wall, bruising her shoulder. Achilles seemed to sense this and paused. What had he said to do? Use the rope like a chair and walk up the wall? She maneuvered her legs out in front of her until both were perpendicular to the wall.
The rope cut into the crease between her buttocks and thighs like a misplaced thong two sizes too small. It was uncomfortable, but bearable.
The lifting resumed.
She found herself picturing Achilles pulling hand-over-hand in concert with the rhythm of the rope’s movements. She grabbed hold like she was choking a chicken, while doing her best to lean back into the rope harness. Step-by-step, she walked up the wall. The sensation reminded her of the ascent at the beginning of a rollercoaster ride, except there was no ominous clicking sound, just her ragged breath and the city soundscape. No doubt the view behind her was beautiful, but she wasn’t about to turn and look.
As she neared the top, Zoya saw the soles of Achilles’ feet braced against the railing on either side of the rope, but no other part of him. He must be leaning backward in a pose similar to her own, heaving ho.
“Just like a pro,” Achilles said, as she scrambled over the rail.
Zoya took in Senator Collins’ million-dollar vista as Achilles went to work releasing her harness. About a dozen blocks of houses stretched out below them, with the dark waters of San Francisco Bay beyond and a few concentrations of light visible far in the distance on the other side. Off to their left, the Golden Gate Bridge framed the scene.
Achilles must have used some special tying technique, because he got the harness off her quicker than she could untangle knotted shoe laces. He let the rope drop to the terrace floor.
She rubbed the chafed areas, “What now?”
Achilles pointed toward a sliding glass door set in a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows. “I believe that’s her bedroom, although I’ve never been.”
The drapes were drawn, but Zoya saw a warm glow emanating around the edges. “So we just knock?”
“That would be the polite thing to do, but the consequences would be unpredictable. It’s not the front door. Let’s see if it’s unlocked.”
Chapter 53
Red, White, & Blue
San Francisco, California
ZOYA IMAGINED how she’d react in Senator Collins’ shoes, if a couple of
spies appeared in her bedroom after dark. First she’d scream, then she’d run. If Collins was more like Max, she’d grab the Beretta she kept between the mattress and the headboard and shoot them both in the legs. Nothing fatal, but enough to assess their intentions from a position of power. That scenario raised a question. “Is Collins married?”
“Only to her job.”
“Boyfriend?”
“I’m not sure, but she’s in her seventies, so I doubt we’ll be interrupting anything too wild.”
“I was thinking more Wild West.”
“Quickdraw Collins? I don’t think we have to worry about that.” Achilles gave the terrace door a gentle tug.
It yielded.
He slid the glass aside just enough to part the curtains and peep through. After a few silent seconds of observation, he slid the door open another foot and ushered her inside with one hand to his lips and the other on her hand.
Zoya smelled the sweet combination of magnolia and mandarin she knew to be J’adore perfume, as well as something more metallic. She heard nothing. Perhaps the lights were on a timer, and the senator wasn’t home. What would Achilles do then? Would they have to hide out until her return — a day, a week, or a month from now? Didn’t senators have two homes? One in their district, the other in Washington?
Achilles closed the door behind them before pulling aside the curtains.
She felt him go tense.
He ushered her two steps forward across the carpeting, then halted, stone still.