by Rebecca York
The wry thought was in his mind as he quietly descended the steps toward the front of the balcony. The ticket the general had given him was for a seat a row back and five over from the ones in question. He didn’t glance in that direction until he’d sat down and thumbed through his program for a minute. But even before he looked, he had a strange, sick feeling that there was somebody there. The intuition proved correct. When he lifted his eyes, he found himself staring at the back of a long, thick fall of rich coffee-colored hair secured at the crown by a set of silver combs.
Chapter Three
In the few seconds before the lights dimmed, the woman turned toward the empty seat next to her and set down a dark coat. Aleksei allowed himself no more than a casual look in her direction, but his powers of observation were acute. In that instant, it was as though his clear blue eyes had snapped her picture. As the room darkened he brought her face up in his mind like a color slide projected on a screen.
With her thick curly hair and olive skin she might well be Spanish. But the wide-set eyes and high brows spoke of a more hybrid heritage. In any case he doubted that Eisenberg would have risked involving a Spanish national in the all too deadly intrigue that had cost him his life.
Who was she, he wondered—Eisenberg’s mistress? The man would have been fortunate to have someone so striking warming his bed. For a moment his mind followed that line of thought. She wasn’t classically beautiful. Yet the contours of her face and her aristocratic posture added up to a very attractive woman.
He glanced in her direction again. In the dim light he could see little more than her outline. But that, coupled with his quick first impression, was enough to convince him that she wasn’t a kept woman. He could still see the confident set of her shoulders and almost sense the quiet air of refinement she projected so naturally. Of course, he reminded himself, he’d only seen her for a few seconds. Was he really able to draw an accurate character profile from just one look? Or was he weaving a fantasy about the mystery woman who had claimed one of a pair of seats he had been sure no one would occupy this evening?
The curtain had risen on the interior of a farmhouse, and a bent old man had started to speak. Aleksei shifted his attention to the play. There was nothing more he could do until intermission besides sharpen his Spanish.
When the lights came on again at the end of the second act and the applause had died down, the woman rose and set her program on the chair. She also left the coat as she stood and began making her way toward the back of the balcony. That meant she must be going downstairs for some refreshments. As she climbed the stairs, her gaze, which was lightly skimming the audience, passed Aleksei by and then jerked back like a snapped rubber band. For just an instant a look of shocked recognition flickered in her eyes. Then she quickly hurried toward the exit.
Julie’s heart was pounding, and it wasn’t just from the rapid climb to the back of the balcony. She knew where she’d seen the tall dark man sitting behind her. In Cal’s rogue’s gallery of KGB agents. She even remembered his name—Aleksei Rozonov. Officially he was the cultural attaché, which meant he could conceivably be here as part of his cover job. Or maybe he was into classic Spanish drama. It could even be a coincidence that his seat just happened to give him an excellent view of the one she’d been occupying. But the carefully constructed explanations somehow failed to give her any comfort.
Without conscious thought, Julie followed the rest of the well-dressed crowd down to the lobby. Around her, men and women were discussing the first and second acts. She wished she had nothing more pressing to think about than Maria Lopez’s interpretation of the madre. As she waited in a short line at the bar, she considered simply leaving her coat upstairs and walking out of the theater. Vanishing now might be a way of steering clear of whatever mess Dan had gotten himself involved in. On the other hand, she’d already plopped herself right in the middle by sitting down in that seat.
She wondered what she had stumbled into. Was this KGB agent expecting some information from Dan? Or was he here to monitor a meeting between whoever showed up in her seat and the one next to it? It now seemed less likely that the seat beside her was empty by chance. Dan must have intended to meet someone here, and his death had canceled the rendezvous. The possibilities made her thoughts swirl. She was playing out of her league trying to resolve the mystery of the ticket by herself.
After paying for her white wine, she began to make a circuit of the room, focusing on the framed posters of plays previously produced at the theater. Most were Spanish classics. But she noticed that some were translations of American and English works.
As she sipped the mellow wine and studied the bright placards, her mind began to slip back into a mode that had helped her handle fears as a child. Then she’d been afraid of a large black dog whose huge fenced yard she had to pass on the way home from school. The animal had once leaped the chain-link barrier and attacked a teenager who’d been teasing him, so the fear was not without foundation. She’d gotten past that yard every day by telling herself that if the dog didn’t jump the fence before she counted to a hundred, she was home safe.
Now she resorted to the same technique. If she made it all the way around the room and Aleksei Rozonov didn’t come downstairs, his being here had nothing to do with Dan or the theater ticket.
Five minutes later she let out a deep breath. She’d been under a lot of stress during the past forty-eight hours, and her imagination was working overtime. As soon as she finished her wine she’d go back upstairs.
She was about to set the almost empty glass on a tray when a prickly feeling at the back of her neck made her want to whirl around. Instead she turned slowly. Ten feet away, through the crowd of strangers, she saw the Russian. His lean hand wrapped around a highball glass, he wasn’t talking to anyone or pretending to admire the wall decorations. As in the candid photograph she’d seen in Cal’s office, his light eyes were alert. He appeared to be studying her with the unabashed frankness of a man taken with a particular woman. She couldn’t mistake the sexual element of the appraisal, and she knew the Spaniards around them would understand that. But there were more disturbing undercurrents that reached out toward her from his sharp eyes.
Her legs felt shaky. To compensate, her fingers tightened on the tapered base of the wineglass. She wanted to look away, but avoiding his gaze wouldn’t change the situation: she and this man were already linked together in a way she didn’t understand. For one reckless moment she thought about marching across the room and demanding to know exactly what was going on. She dismissed the impulse almost as quickly as it occurred. As the thought crossed her mind, her chin lifted defiantly. Rozonov’s eyebrows raised ever so slightly in answer.
He wasn’t a man you could ignore, she acknowledged. He was dressed impeccably in a dark pinstripe suit set off by a white shirt and a burgundy tie. That alone wouldn’t have distinguished him from the other male theatergoers. But Spanish men tended to be short, and the Russian was almost a head taller than most of the men in the lobby. In a sea of animated conversations, punctuated with expressive hand gestures, he was standing perfectly still. His eyes met hers, and from this distance she couldn’t see the color. But she did register an impression—icy, cold and calculating. She shivered from the chill, but continued her appraisal.
The lashes that framed those arresting eyes were thick and black, matching the dark brows and the straight midnight black hair. They did nothing to soften the bold planes of the face, she thought, noting the deep creases that cut from the corners of the well-shaped lips upward toward the straight nose. The man had the alertness of a wolf who’d picked up the scent of a quarry.
A wave of trepidation washed over her. She told herself it was a reaction to danger. But what kind of danger, precisely? Did it come from the political repercussions of the situation or from the man himself and her response to him? The laughing, talking people in the room might as well be stage props. With one penetrating look, Rozonov had let her know that she alone
was his prey.
As she watched, he put down the half-full glass he was holding and began to weave his way through the crowd toward her. Her survival instinct told her to turn and run. Yet some primitive reaction to the man kept her rooted to the spot. He stopped a few feet from her, a half smile flickering at the corners of his lips. Even with that small compromise, the change in his face was remarkable. In an instant it went from harsh to almost engaging. Unaccountably, she found herself sensing gentler qualities below the threatening surface. His eyes were no longer ice. They had melted into the silvery blue of a lake shimmering in the sun.
“Are you enjoying the performance?” he asked in a voice as rich and smooth as a dark sable pelt.
“It’s quite good,” she replied, and then realized in horror that he’d asked in English and she’d automatically answered in the same language. So much for pretending to be just another señorita enjoying an early show.
“Yes, but I have the feeling Casona is setting us up for a tragedy.”
Julie met his gaze, hoping that he couldn’t read the fear in her own eyes. Did his casual comment hold a hidden threat or warning? Up close the man’s dark fascination was even more compelling. But she was determined to hide the impact he was having on her. “As I remember, the daughter isn’t really dead. But she comes back and drowns herself when she finds out she’s been replaced in her family’s affections,” she informed him.
“Well, I won’t be waiting in suspense for the fourth act,” he replied dryly. The Russian accent and speech pattern were more pronounced now.
“Oh, I didn’t mean to...”
“It is not important.”
It certainly wouldn’t be if he hadn’t come here to watch the play in the first place. Chimes sounded, signaling the end of intermission. With relief, Julie turned toward the stairs. But the Russian put a detaining hand on her arm. “Surely you’re not going to leave without telling me where we’ve seen each other before. Could it have been at the British Embassy garden party last month?”
Julie had collected her wits by now. “I don’t believe so,” she murmured as the crowd thinned around them. “I think we’d better go back to our seats.”
“If you insist,” he said with a slight bow. “But perhaps we’ll be meeting again.”
All the way back up to the balcony she could feel the Russian’s eyes drilling into her back. She had ample time to reflect that his parting words weren’t exactly reassuring.
As the curtain rose, Aleksei settled back and focused his eyes on the stage. However, his mind was far from the pastoral setting of the farmhouse depicted below him. He still didn’t know the identity of the woman to whom he’d just been talking, and he didn’t know what she was doing in that seat. But she was almost certainly an American. An associate of Eisenberg? An innocent bystander? Or someone deeply embedded in the intrigue that swirled around the seat she occupied?
Talking to her had only confirmed his first impressions. She was a damn attractive woman. And despite the reason that he was here, his interest was more personal than he would have liked. Slowly he replayed the whole encounter from the moment she’d registered dismay at seeing him behind her in the balcony. Was it the mere fact of his nationality? Or did she know something more that made her wary? He strongly suspected the latter. But how much did she know? And where had she gotten her information? From the CIA? From the late Dan Eisenberg? There was no way of knowing—yet.
Downstairs, he’d admired the way she’d held her ground. Bozhe! He’d simply admired her. It was amazing how many details had registered, he mused, as he remembered the lines of her green dress and the way the silky fabric had emphasized the curves of her slender figure. The color had been a perfect foil for her olive skin.
When he crossed the room to speak to her, more intimate details had come into focus. Her expressive eyes were coffee brown and flecked with warm gold. And that luxurious hair was a barely tamed cascade of natural curls. Standing close to her, he’d been able to detect the warm fragrance of her skin. The observation gave him pause. This was the second time tonight he’d been thinking about her in blatantly sexual terms, even though there’d been nothing overtly sensual in either her manner or her words. In fact, she’d been unable to completely hide her fear of him. Yet fear hadn’t been her only response. A man knew when a woman was reacting to him on a sexual level.
He had a sudden desire to get up and walk out of the theater, to go back to his office and write up a false report of the evening—a report that made no mention of the woman. He was almost certain she was not a trained espionage operative. That meant either some resourceful agent was using her as bait, or she had stumbled into a situation where she didn’t belong at all.
Of course there was another possibility. She might be a very good actress, as good as the young woman now reciting her lines so convincingly down there on the stage. Suppose the mystery woman’s ingenuousness was just a pose? Suppose she had come here to deliberately trap him into some false step? He’d always laughed off the security lectures about beautiful spies working their wiles on unsuspecting diplomats. But in this case maybe the warnings weren’t so funny. He could imagine a confidential report in a file folder somewhere speculating on how long he’d been without female companionship. There might be someone who was hoping that he’d be susceptible to just the right approach.
All right, Aleksei Iliyanovich, he reminded himself, that is one more thing you are going to have to guard against.
There was one final reason why he had to report the evening’s encounter. He didn’t trust Bogolubov, and the feeling was certainly mutual. Chances were the comrade general had dispatched someone to shadow him. No, the best policy was to get up and make the phone call the duty officer back at the embassy had just been told to expect.
* * *
IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE for Julie to concentrate on the last two acts of the play. The men and women emoting on the brightly lit stage below her were mere shadows. She was much more aware of the man she couldn’t see, Aleksei Rozonov. Now that she knew he was sitting just a row behind her, it took a considerable amount of discipline to keep from turning and glancing back anxiously in his direction. She simply couldn’t suppress the feeling that his assessing blue gaze was still burning into the back of her head. The knowledge made shivers crawl up her spine and play with the wisps of hair at her nape.
She had been a fool not to turn the theater ticket over to Cal Dixon. First thing Monday morning she was going to have to tell him what had happened this evening, and then she was going to have to explain why she hadn’t confided in him. The prospect wasn’t pleasant.
When the actors had finally taken their curtain calls, Julie gathered up her coat and turned to leave. Unable to keep her eyes from flicking to Rozonov’s seat, she was surprised to see that it was empty. When had he left? She looked for him in the lobby and in the crowd lingering on the wide sidewalk in front of the theater. But he was gone. For the moment she was safe, and she breathed a sigh of relief.
She was heading for one of the taxis pulled up at the curb when she caught sight of one of Madrid’s more incongruous sights. Down on the next block was a McDonald’s. The well-known golden arches were a reminder that she’d skipped dinner in order to make the early performance. Unexpectedly they also brought forth a wave of longing for something familiar in this foreign city. She had always scorned Americans who traveled halfway around the world to eat Yankee junk food. Now, after her disturbing encounter with the Russian, she craved the comfort of a Big Mac with fries and a Coke. Turning from the line of cabs, she started off down the street toward the brightly lit windows.
She wasn’t the only one heading toward the American restaurant. Surrounded by a crowd of men and women, she didn’t notice a shadow detach itself from the shelter of a store entrance and follow several paces behind her.
A number of conversations around her still focused on the play and the death at the end. Julie didn’t want to think about death or anything else u
npleasant tonight, so she quickened her steps. The steps of the man who was following also quickened, but she was oblivious. A short gray-haired viejo held the door open for her, and she nodded her thanks before stopping to look around.
The foot-high menu over the counter was a delightful mixture of Spanish and English. When the food arrived, she looked around for a table. Most of the seats were occupied, since Madrilenos usually didn’t even think of having dinner until after nine.
Seeing that a spot near the door had just been vacated, she made a beeline for it. At the next table a young couple with Boston accents were discussing their afternoon’s shopping expedition to the plush mall at Madrid Dos. The sense of familiarity about this place and its occupants was just the kind of reassurance she needed after her earlier encounter with Rozonov. She felt insulated and safe—almost as though she were back home already.
As she bit into a french fry, she closed her eyes and sighed. It was almost as good as she’d anticipated. Before she realized it, she’d eaten half the bag. She was just reaching for the Coke when the woman at the next table stood up and grabbed her arm. Julie looked up in alarm.
“What?”
“That man.” The woman gestured excitedly. “It happened so fast. He just cut your purse off the back of your chair.”
Automatically Julie turned and felt the strap. It was no longer taut from the weight of the bag, but dangling loosely. In the next moment she looked with a feeling of sick dismay toward the door of the restaurant. It had just slammed closed.
The husband of the blond woman was already out of his seat. He reached the door, pulled it open, and vanished. People at other tables had become aware of the incident. “El hombre huerto su monedro,” she heard a large woman explaining excitedly in the corner. The news buzzed from table to table, now in Spanish, now in English. Everyone was looking curiously in her direction. Other women who had casually hung shoulder bags on the backs of their chairs transferred them to their laps or jammed them between their feet on the floor.