He scrubbed his face with two hands. No, she was smart, and Ryslan didn’t know her like Vadeem did. Ryslan would probably cuff her to keep Kat from ditching him. . .and Vadeem couldn’t do that to her. He’d already felt like a snake. Being shackled to Ryslan until she got to the airport would mortify her.
His gaze traveled down to the desk clerk. New shift, obviously. He’d missed the shift change. A blonde sat at the desk. Pushing fifty, with ample presence, she looked about as friendly as the ward nurses at Orphanage Number Two-Thirteen. He watched her as two well-suited gentlemen approached the desk. She pinched her face, shook her head. They pulled out their passports.
No, not passports. Identification, judging by the way the woman’s eyes widened and her fake smile that appeared. Vadeem stiffened.
They turned and walked down the hall with the bearing of. . .Americans. Pressed black suits, dark ties, faces stern, confident. Two peas in a pod. CIA. Vadeem grimaced. What now? He sucked a breath and took a step toward Kat’s door. Certainly, they weren’t here for. . .
They were reading room numbers, but they paused when their gaze settled on him. Up close, Mr. Rough and Mr. Tough were cut from the same cloth. Tall, with wide shoulders and dark thorny eyes. He hadn’t forgotten the few times he’d trained with, or against, American military. They’d earned his respect, even if their arrogance ate at him. He offered a diplomatic smile.
“We’re looking for Ekaterina Moore.”
His smile dimmed. What had she done? He looked pointedly at her door, and as if by psychic energy, it opened.
She stood in the doorway, looking every bit like the dream he’d had only moments earlier. Her eyes glowed with anticipation. A smile played on her lips. Dressed crisp and clean in a pair of black jeans and an orange cotton sweater, she’d slicked her hair back in a ponytail and wore just enough make-up for his heart to hurt. She flicked a gaze toward him, and his heart sank.
“Good morning,” he said. “These men are here for you?” He said it like a question, hoping it was some sort of mistake. Please Kat, don’t run to your embassy. Take my advice. Get out of Russia.
She nodded. He felt slapped. He backed away, resisting the urge to hold up his hands in surrender. Instead, he locked his jaw and held out his hand. “Good luck, Kat.”
She took it and held it a moment, saying nothing. But he felt in her grasp everything that had passed between them—from the moment he’d tackled her, protecting her from the bullets in Pskov, to his mortifying reaction in the chapel, to the compassion in her eyes as she held his bleeding head on the dark street. He tightened his grip, and couldn’t stop himself. “Please, don’t do this. I don’t want to see you hurt.”
She yanked her hand away. “My visa says I am here as a tourist. To my understanding, I haven’t broken any laws.” Her eyes glittered. Bold. Hard. She stepped away from him and turned to the black-suited soldiers. “Thank you for coming for me.”
Rough and Tough didn’t even glance at him as they turned and bracketed her with their protection. They walked down the hall, away from the FSB. Away from him.
Vadeem felt freshly punched when she didn’t even turn and look back.
-
Ilyitch stood on the street corner waiting for the Canadian Bagel Company to fill his order. Ah, capitalism. It brings out the best in a man, he thought as he dangled a key from his thick index finger.
Well, most men. The key’s metal winked gold as it caught the morning sunlight. He swung the shoestring fast and it spiraled around his finger. “I got it.” Ilyitch muttered into the cell phone he held propped to his ear with his shoulder. “And, she’s got a secret.”
Grazovich coughed, his voice harsh and filled with gravel this morning, the after- effects of a full night. “I’ve always told you that your position would be an asset to our situation.”
Ilyitch fought the urge to throw the phone against the wall. Grazovich leapt on every chance to bury his face in the past. Ilyitch ground out his voice. “Her grandfather was a spook. Control agent.”
“CIA?” Now he’d gotten Grazovich’s attention.
“Ran a ring of operatives in the sixties. KGB burned him and his entire ring in 1968. He got away, but we unearthed his assets here. They were executed.”
He enjoyed the long pause on the other end. “The thing is. . .he came back. In 1970, he showed up in Pskov. KGB picked him up, had him against the ropes when a couple of sleepers, undercover agents, came to life and whisked him out of the country.”
“They get anything out of him?”
“Name and rank. The basics.”
“Hmm.” Grazovich’s antenna had gone up. Ilyitch pictured the general smoothing back his graying hair, pacing the floor as he held the cell phone to his ear.
“There’s more,” and this is going to cost you. “He was OSS. Ran a partisan op out of Pskov during the Patriotic War.”
“Well, isn’t that coincidental?” Grazovich paused long enough to light a cigarette on the other side. Ilyitch heard the scrape as the lighter flared to life. “What would bring an agent back to a country where his cover’s been blown?”
The answer buzzed in the silence between them as Ilyitch smiled. “I think your cousin is right on the money, General.” Big money. Four-million dollars of big money. Ilyitch’s finger began to turn purple from the pressure of the key’s string. “I should have taken the girl. She knows something. Maybe even went into the family business.”
“Find the book. It’s got our answers.”
Ilyitch spat on the ground, and earned a glare from a woman sashaying by in a short black leather skirt and skimpy vest. He ignored her. “What if there isn’t a book? Pumping the girl for her information would be faster.”
“And messier. The FSB is all over her, like a hound to a fox. The last thing we need to do is raise a few heads.”
“Tell your little monk that I’m starting to lose patience.”
“He says he doesn’t know.”
“I told you he was an idiot. Let’s get the girl, and pry it out of her.”
“Okay, calm down. Follow her. See if she’s got the book. If not, bring her to me.” The line clicked off.
Ilyitch snapped the cell phone shut. Morning rush hour in Moscow had traffic snarled, horns on high, motors spitting out exhaust. Pedestrians pushed past him on their trek to the subway. Ilyitch leaned against the building, suddenly feeling old. Five years of running this game his nerves were starting to raze. No, his nerves had been annihilated ten years ago in a renegade prison camp on the Georgian/Abkhazian border. He’d barely slept a night through since. If it weren’t for the filthy General Grazovich and his brother, he’d be rotting in a 3-meter community cell.
Two-million dollars was a good retirement sum for a man who had bartered his soul for a solid meal and a ratty cot. He turned and walked into the Bagel Company. Capitalism had its perks, in more ways than one.
-
Kat had just taken a giant leap back to reality. A reality, at least, that didn’t knock her to her knees. The smell of brewed coffee, a plate of doughnuts in the middle of an oak coffee table, CNN on the television in the corner, and a fresh copy of People magazine on the end table all told her she was back in the land of the living. Someone with taste had decorated the reception area in the normal colors of navy blue and cranberry. Not a hint of orange or lime green in the entire building. Kat sat back in the navy corduroy armchair, tucked her feet up, and blew on the cup of instant hot cocoa she’d been grateful to find in the well-stocked embassy cafeteria. Across from her, on the plaid sofa, a young couple sat clasping hands, looking infinitely distressed. She knew how they felt.
She didn’t even want to ponder her grandfather’s powerful connections, but the events of this morning crushed any doubts she entertained about his previous profession. Ten minutes on the phone last night with Grandfather Neumann, a man who spent his days beating old Bart Gunderson at chess, and the next morning the CIA—working on the other side of the world—show up at
her hotel.
She never thought she’d be so happy to see the US Embassy. Forty-eight hours outside America seemed like a century here in the former Soviet Union.
Kat, what have you discovered? Kat watched the television screen, saw the female reporter’s lips move, but she heard last night’s conversation in her head.
“Oh, Grandfather!” Kat had fought the tremor in her voice. “The key was stolen.”
“Stolen. How?” The connection crackled. Kat kept it short, not wanting to frighten the man. Regardless of what he’d seen in the past, she was his granddaughter, the granddaughter he’d given it all up for, and she knew he’d race to conclusions that might strain his grandfatherly heart.
“I’m okay. It was. . .stolen. I went to the Pechory monastery.” She opted not to tell him about the shooting in Pskov, or her near miss at the airport. More important wasn’t what had happened to her since arrival in Russia, but what would happen twelve hours from now if Mr. Russian Cop still sat outside her door.
“I met the monk who took care of Timofea. He said the old monk had a picture of me.”
Silence.
“And of mom.”
She’d heard him breathe in and out, heavily.
“Please, Grandfather. There is a Russian FSB agent here who wants to kick me out of Russia. He thinks some sort of international smuggler is after me.”
“Are you okay?” He’d sounded more calm, more cold than she’d ever remembered.
“Yes, I’m fine. There’s been some sort of mistaken identity here. I’ll be fine, but. . .” Her voice turned plaintive. If anything, her stoic Grandfather, raised from tough farm stock, would respond to her need for the truth. “. . .I need to know who Magda was. I want more. I feel as if half of me lays buried in Russia, and I don’t know why. Can’t you do this for me?” She paused, and threw in her last card. “For Magda?”
He groaned, and she imagined him scrubbing a hand down his face, his green eyes filled with sadness as he conjured up the image of his deceased wife. Her heart twisted. Maybe it was too much for him. Guilt stabbed at her. Maybe she should just return home and savor her memories with the only family she had left.
“I met Timofea during the war.”
She’d waited, her heart in her throat.
“He was my contact. We worked together for a while.”
“You were in Russia helping the Partisans.”
“Yes.”
It teetered on the edge of her tongue to ask him. Were you with the CIA? Were you a spy?
No, some secrets were too deep. Instead—“Do you know anything about a promise someone made Timofea?”
“No, my lapichka. I have no idea why Timofea sent you that key.”
She believed him. It was the same voice that read her the Bible, told her the truth about boys, and whispered promises to care for her as she stood out in the rain sobbing over her mother’s newly dug grave. Her heart sank.
“Do you want to stay in Russia?” The sorrow in his voice felt like a leaden weight on her heart. “I suppose it is time you discovered your ancestry. I don’t know, truly, if you will find what you are looking for. It was such a long time ago.” He voice fell, became old. “I tried. . .once. . .”
She tensed. Grandfather returned to Russia? When?
“Where are you?”
“I’m staying at the Hotel Rossia, Room 312.”
“The one off Red Square?”
She was struck dumb.
“You promise to come home to me?” She could almost see him pacing, see the worry lurking in his wrinkled face.
She made a squeaky sound that she hoped sounded affirmative. Her throat closed.
“Sit tight. And I’d say a prayer if I were you.”
Say a prayer. Unfortunately, it felt like her prayers didn’t travel past the cracked white plaster ceiling. Please Lord, help me find the answers. Help me find my past. Despite her pleading, she couldn’t escape the feeling that the doors of heaven had slammed shut over the past two days.
Yet, she refused to forsake the joy that could be hers. The words of David reverberated through her head. “You, O Lord, have never forsaken those who seek you.” There were plenty of times David felt abandoned by God. The prophets, Elijah, Jeremiah, even Jonah grieved the loss of God.
Why couldn’t she?
He was out there, and a drowning person has only one choice—grab the lifeline or go under.
She dug through her backpack and found her Bible, opened it to Psalms 9, and continued reading David’s song. “Sing praises to the Lord. . .he does not ignore the cry of the afflicted.”
Faith wasn’t only about clinging to the unseen God. It was about praising Him while she did it, while she waited for rescue.
She spent the night praising Him for the salvation yet to come.
“Miss Moore?” The door to the reception room opened, and a small woman with black hair down to her waist, dressed in navy pants and a sleeveless sweater, motioned her out into the hall. Kat set the cocoa down next to the doughnuts and stood to meet her.
“I’m Alicia Renquist,” the woman said, as she motioned her into the hall. “I’ve been requested to help you in any way we can.”
“Thank you.” Kat followed her down the carpeted, paneled hallway to a conference room. A large oak table filled the room. A spray of freesia with lilies in the center sent out a rich fragrance. Miss Renquist pulled out a padded leather rolling chair for Kat, then settled herself in the next one, turning it to face her.
“I came to Russia to find my past,” Kat said, not sure what this woman knew. “I’m part Russian, and I think I have family here. My grandmother was from here. I was thinking we could start there?”
“What was her name?”
“Magda Neumann. I think her maiden name was Klassen.” She dug into her backpack, pulled out the Bible, and produced the picture. “I was given this picture. It’s the only clue I have.” She handed it over to Miss Renquist.
The woman stared at it, turned it over, and read the back. “It says Klassen on the tombstone. Do you think it was a relative?”
Kat nodded. “Perhaps one of these two women was Magda Klassen.”
Miss Renquist handed her back the picture. “I’ll request a search from the FSB database, and see if they’d be willing to help.”
Kat forced a smile, but her hope tripped. Sure, the FSB would be begging to help after she’d snubbed Captain Spasonov this morning.
He’d looked rough, standing there in the hall next to the two crisply attired American CIA agents, his brown curly hair mussed and sticking straight up on one side, gray bags hanging under his eyes. The guy needed a decent night’s sleep and most likely medical attention. Instead, he’d spent the night crouched outside her door.
Obviously, he knew her better than she wanted to admit. She’d had every intention of bolting the second he settled her in the hotel room, and he must have read it in her eyes, or the way she too easily acquiesced to his plans to drive her to the airport the next morning.
He’d abandoned a good night’s sleep to keep her safe. He might be stomping on her dreams, but he did it with good intentions.
There’d been hurt in his eyes when he said good-bye at the hotel. Hurt, a touch of anger, and plenty of worry. She pushed away the feel of his hand, warm in hers, sending tingles racing up her arm. She’d never forget the fear etched in his tired eyes when he took her hand. He‘d meant his words, “I don’t want you to get hurt.”
Then she had to smart off to him.
She winced. Two days with the guy, and she felt as though she’d betrayed her best friend. Ragged emotions and adrenaline had her clinging to Vadeem Spasonov like a buoy.
She’d certainly cut the ties of friendship with her in-your-face exit this morning. She swallowed the bitter taste of regret.
“Thank you,” she said to Alice Renquist. “I appreciate all the help the embassy could give me in locating my family.”
Miss Renquist patted her hand. “It may
take a few days. We were wondering, actually, if you might be able to help us.”
“Help whom?”
“Your country.”
After the save by the black suits this morning, she was Uncle Sam’s best friend. “How?”
Miss Renquist had long, red, manicured nails, and she tapped them on the table. “We have a situation.”
Kat knew all about “situations.” She’d had a few herself over the past forty-eight hours. “I’m not sure I follow you. How can I help?”
“You’re an international adoption specialist?”
Kat sat back, and frowned. “Yes.”
Miss Renquist stood and pushed in her chair. Kat watched her walk over to the window and stare out, rubbing her hands on thin arms. She wondered how long this American had lived in Moscow.
“The couple you saw in the other room. He’s the son of Senator Watson from Ohio. He and his wife are here to adopt a baby.” She turned, and rubbed her forehead. “They’ve run into a snag.”
“Do they have their paperwork from the States?”
“Yes, translated and in triplicate.”
“Well, what is the problem then?”
“The agency representative they were working with in Russia just landed in the hospital with appendicitis.”
Kat made face. “Here, in Moscow? Ouch.” No wonder Miss Renquist looked wrung out. “It can’t be that hard to find another agent.”
“You’d be surprised. Russia isn’t entirely pro-adoption, and very few regions are even consenting to international adoptions. Thankfully, the orphanage in which the Watson’s child lives has been a forerunner and, because of your agency’s reputation, I believe they would agree to work with you. It takes a special touch to work with these orphanage directors. It wasn’t so long ago that Russia believed we abducted their children and did medical experiments on them.”
Kat flinched. But she, too, had heard the tales of propaganda designed to keep Russia’s orphans safely inside the Motherland.
Ekaterina (Heirs of Anton) Page 10