Yet they had slipped out of the station without being seen. It was vexing and puzzling. Until he read the note, Zima had wondered if the police had been wrong and the pair had not got on the train at all, which would explain why they had missed them.
The Kobra ended his message with updated information which made Zima much happier. He went out to the other room, a smile forming.
The woman stood at the window, peering down at the street, below.
“What is it?” he demanded, for her proclivities made her an excellent human radar. She naturally monitored anyone who came within reach of her senses.
“Banditos,” she breathed, sounding happy.
“Bikers,” he said, disgusted. The Banditos had proliferated across Europe in the last few years, rivaling the Hell’s Angels for their creeds and criminal enterprises.
“One of them looks just like Cain Warren,” she added, her voice dreamy. Her hand stroked her shoulder in little circles.
Zima glanced at Reno. The man would be useless until morning, even though Zima had limited him to a tiny dose. Just enough to keep him topped up, so he didn’t twitch and scratch like a dog.
“Why don’t you go and enjoy yourself?” he told the woman, his tone magnanimous.
She looked pleased. “Really?”
Zima thought of the information in the note. Grenoble, in two days. “There’s time. Cool your ardor.”
Her smile was brilliant. She hurried to the door, and bent to peer in the mirror as she passed it, and pat her hair into place.
Zima went back to the bedroom. He must rotate the codes to match the next set the Kobra would use, then destroy the old ones. Most of the people the Kobra used—like Marie Cadoux and Reno—were ignorant of who they were taking their orders from. Zima, though, had been privileged to discover the truth many years ago.
He’d never met the Kobra, although the man had changed Zima’s life. He understood Zima’s needs and catered to them. For that, Zima was happy to devote the rest of his life to meeting the Kobra’s needs, which were as unique as Zima’s.
Zima’s responsibilities included maintaining the security of the channel which stretched from Zima to the Kobra. No one must ever compromise that channel. Not ever. It had been impressed upon Zima from the beginning, and he would willingly die to abide by his promise.
It was too late to rent a car, which was the first idea Agata had. “There are no buses running right now, either,” she added irritably, as they walked along Avenue de Verdun, heading northeast. Cars swished by, making the slush hiss. Their breath billowed on the now freezing air.
“We need sleep, Kelsey. Look, the tracker hasn’t moved for more than an hour,” Warren said.
She held the burner phone in her hand and glanced at it one more time. “Hotels require ID,” she pointed out.
“You’ve got passports on you. I can come up later.” Warren ruffled his hair. “I have to get somewhere silent for a while, Kelsey. My skin is crawling.”
Agata considered him. He was irritable and fidgety. As much as she wanted to push on, to get as far ahead of the white-haired man as possible, it wouldn’t do to drive Warren into a stress binge. She needed more information, too.
“Here, find a hotel.” She shoved the phone at him.
“What are you doing, then?” Warren asked.
“That. See?” She nodded toward the golden arches glowing in the dark, at the next corner. “I’m starving.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. You know what they put in those things, don’t you?”
“Don’t care,” she said firmly.
“You’ll get fat, eating that stuff.” He swiped at the phone.
“Maybe you’ll stop looking at me, if I do,” she shot back. Her mouth was watering. She could taste the burger. Fries! Gravy!
He lifted his chin and studied her. “I shouldn’t look at you?”
“You know what I mean.”
He let the phone hang from his hand. “No,” he said flatly. “What do you mean?”
Agata tucked her braid back inside her sweater and pulled her cap down around her ears, so it skimmed her brows. “You do know. I don’t like it.”
“You don’t like that you can be manipulated and dazzled by a simple compliment,” Warren said, his voice low. “But you do like that I like how you look, Kelsey. You’ve liked it since day one.”
Her cheeks burned. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
His smile was wise. “I’m guessing your brains scare most men away. If they’re not that insecure, your cheese grater personality does the job instead. Only, I didn’t get to see either of those until after I noticed that your legs go on forever, and that your cheekbones could cut ice. It’s too late, Kelsey. I’ve seen you now. You’re just going to have to live with it.”
Agata couldn’t find a single sane response.
Then Warren lifted the phone. “A quarter mile from here. Hôtel de parangon,” he pronounced.
“We’re getting separate rooms,” she declared.
“No passport, remember?”
“Fuck!” She took her irritation out upon the pavement beneath her heels. They were well past the golden arches before she remembered she had been hungry. By then she had lost her appetite.
“Relax, Kelsey,” Warren told her, as he easily kept up with her fierce pacing. “I only said I noticed how you look. I should have said that everything else about you guarantees I wouldn’t touch you with a barge pole.”
She rounded on him. “You’re not my type, either, Warren. You’re a crude brute, and your history is way too much to handle—”
He held up his hand. “Stop right there.”
She sucked back everything on the tip of her tongue—and there was plenty of it.
Warren resettled the duffle bag. “We’re both tired. And hungry. Let’s agree we could wage verbal war and inflict global damage upon each other and leave it at that. You can let yourself sleep soundly, Kelsey. I’ve got far too much on my mind to flirt with you. The return just isn’t worth it.”
“Well, we agree on something.”
She didn’t say another thing to him, not even after she had rented the hotel room and brought him up the back way. She was tired. She made the mistake of laying on the second bed just for moment and woke to cloudless sun streaming through the window, ten hours later.
Warren hadn’t moved during the night, either.
By noon, they were on the road to Saint-Marcellin in a rented Renault Clio. By then, Agata had matched her memory of the white-haired man to the profile in her hard drive database, and had a name and tentative affiliations and known associates.
Gavriil Zima’s red dot remained behind them, in Valence. They’d got clean away.
Piazza del Duomo, Florence, Tuscany, Italy.
“He’s coming this way,” Quinn said, her voice rising despite trying to keep it low. She couldn’t stop the excitement seeping into her tone. Her heart leapt the moment she spotted Noah’s tall figure and dark features.
“Go to work, then,” Dima said, not lifting her gaze from the newspaper spread beneath her cornetti con panna. They had snagged one of the tiny tables on the last row the café placed upon the ancient cobbled stones of the square. They had been watching the tourists pass. It was shortly after five, when Embassy staff finished for the day. Some would commute via light rail and buses. Others walked.
“He’ll walk through the square to go home,” Dima had explained before they settled at the table. “Even if it takes him out of his way, he’ll use it, because it sets up a pattern.”
“Just for us to use?”
“For any friendlies to use,” Dima replied.
“Doesn’t a pattern also mean enemies could anticipate him, too?”
“Yes, which draws them out. He’ll have every sense on high alert as he moves through, and the public location also reduces the chance they’ll try something overt.”
“Didn’t the Russians execute Georgi Markov right out in the mi
ddle of a crowd, with an umbrella?” Quinn asked, her heart thudding.
Dima nodded. “I’m counting on the Kobra not being aware of Noah’s true affiliations. Or yours.”
They had drunk two espressos, the first decent caffeine Quinn had consumed in thirty-six hours, while they monitored everyone who walked straight through the piazza. In particular, they examined those who didn’t mill about with their necks craned, taking photos of the Santa Maria del Fiore Cathedral and the Baptistery of St. John, with its unique black and white architecture.
Noah appeared at the edge of the square, walking fast, but not so fast it would draw attention. He wove between clumps of tourists, his eyes ahead. As a local, he wouldn’t turn to stare at the scenery.
Quinn got to her feet, hitched the smart shoulder bag into place and bent and hugged Dima in the Italian way, as if she was saying goodbye to a dear friend. She moved in amongst the throngs, making her way in the opposite direction to Noah. She angled and circled around tourists, aiming for the entrance to the piazza which Noah had used.
Twelve feet.
Noah’s gaze touched on her face and moved away. His expression didn’t change.
Six feet. Quinn adjusted her gait, so the timing would be right.
Two feet, then they almost brushed shoulders as Quinn stepped around a Japanese couple peering up at the bell tower, phones in hand.
Then she was beyond the couple and Noah had passed.
Quinn moved her bag back to her right shoulder, where it felt more natural, and moved steadily to the end of the square. She fished out the burner phone she was currently using and pulled up Google Maps, so she could navigate back to the pensione.
Dima was already sitting behind the laptop when Quinn got back to their room in the Villino il Magnifico, with its cream walls and heavy antique furniture. Dima could move directly to the pensione, while Quinn had been forced to walk a big loop back, so she didn’t reappear in the square.
“No problems,” Quinn told her.
“I watched the pass off. I didn’t see a thing,” Dima replied. “Ren has ducked out, heading east.”
“She took Peter with her?”
“For safety, yes.”
“And Agata?”
“She has people breathing down her neck. We won’t get updates.”
“You’re not worried?”
Dima gave Quinn a calm smile. “Worry won’t help her. We’ll get there as fast as we can. That’s all we can do.”
“And Leander?”
“Somewhere in Algeria and off the grid.” Dima shrugged. “I’m not worried about Lea. He knows how to disappear.” She finished twisting her hair up on the back of her head and let it fall once more.
“You keep doing that,” Quinn observed.
“What? My hair?” Dima grimaced. “I lost my hairclip.”
“Buy another one.”
“It was dear to me,” Dima said, sounding vexed. “It was a gift from a friend.”
“You still need to put your hair up out of the way.”
“True.” Dima gave a self-conscious laugh. “We are creatures of habit, are we not?”
“Which makes the enemy easier to predict, you said.” Quinn settled in the armchair in the corner, facing Dima. “Leela and Lochan are okay, too?”
“They’re somewhere they aren’t expected to be, which is as good as Leela could manage for now.” Dima rubbed her temple.
“And Scott?”
“I don’t know about Scott,” Dima said primly. “He hasn’t reported in.”
“Is he supposed to?” Quinn asked.
Dima raised her brow. “Why do you say that?”
“He was in Washington. You didn’t bring him with you. Does that mean…” Quinn hesitated. “You had a mole in the unit. That’s why you wanted me and Noah.”
Dima laughed. “No, the mole is not Scott.”
“You’re sure of that? I mean…the Kobra had Mitchell Peterson on his side, and that guy was so American apple pie it made my teeth ache.”
“And now you’ve learned to look beyond appearances and wonder about everyone.”
“It’s exhausting,” Quinn admitted. “I feel like I did when I was in Austria, living in a house full of enemies and pretending, day after day.”
“I know Scott is not the mole. He would not hesitate to put a bullet in his brain, if Russia tried to recruit him and he couldn’t get out of it. They couldn’t extort him. He wouldn’t let them have the satisfaction.” Dima’s voice was firm.
Quinn considered. “What did Russia do to him?”
Dima turned her attention back to the laptop. Her eyes narrowed. “Oh, they tried to recruit him.”
Quinn jumped. “They’ve tried before?” she breathed. “How did he get out of it? What happened?”
Dima shrugged, as she tapped her way through screens and ran her finger over the mouse pad. “He was working in Berlin, using his German legend, which was deep and thorough. The Russians figured out who he was, though. They grabbed his lover, Adele, and sent a man to talk to Scott. The conversation was intended to make him start dancing to their tune. Only, the man didn’t make it.” Dima shrugged again. “People die in car accidents all the time. Only, the Russians figured Scott had dealt with him. So they killed Adele.” Dima’s voice grew harsh. “They couldn’t have anyone thinking they might be bluffing when they use extortion in the future, so she had to die when Scott didn’t cooperate.”
“God…!” Quinn breathed, her heart hurting.
“The first Scott knew about any of this was when Adele’s body was delivered to his apartment.”
Quinn pressed her fingertips to her heart. “The Kobra did it?” Her voice was weak.
“Scott has spent every day for the last five years trying to establish that it was the Kobra. He has only managed to confirm that the operation was not directed by anyone else we know of in the Russian intelligence community.”
“Process of elimination,” Quinn murmured. “He must hate the Kobra. I see why you’re sure he’s not the mole.” She paused. “You hate the Kobra as much as Scott, don’t you?”
Dima didn’t look at her. “I do.”
Quinn hesitated again. Dima was being extraordinarily frank, because Quinn was also in the clear and needed to know everything Dima did about the Seven Seas people. Only, hatred was a personal thing, usually driven by pain. While Dima was happy to share Scott’s history, she might not be as willing to talk about her own past. Quinn was still getting to know Dima properly, and didn’t know if she could probe.
Dima didn’t need prompting. She spoke, her voice calm, her gaze on the laptop screen. “I was stationed in Kabul in 2009. I was a minor cog back then, and it was a long-term assignment.” She grimaced. “As I am Muslim and look local, I could blend in better than white men with crew cuts. And women gossip. Especially Muslim women in the suppressed nations. It is how they stay on top of important news their husbands think they have no need to know. I didn’t have my family with me, because they would have to live in the compound for safety’s sake, and it would destroy the legend. They did arrange for them to come out for a visit and I sneaked into the Embassy grounds to see them.” She paused. “I was seen.”
Quinn let out an unsteady breath.
Dima looked at her. The older woman’s gaze was steady. “Everyone died, but me and Harry. I moved from Homeland to the CIA after that. It took me another year to confirm that the Russian officer controlling Afghanistan at the time was most likely the operative called the Kobra.” Her gaze moved back to the laptop. “When 7C was formed, five years later, I cashed in every political favor I was holding to get myself appointed as the 2IC. Benny Santiago figured I’d be more motived than anyone to find the bastard…and he’s right.”
A quick staccato of taps sounded on the door, making Quinn jump.
Da-d-da-daa.
“Beethoven,” she breathed. “It’s Noah!” She hurried to the door, her heart lifting.
[13]
Saint-Do
nat-sur-l’Herbasse, Drôme, France.
The fastest route to Saint Marcellin was via the A49, so of course Kelsey refused to take it. Saint Marcellin was less than an hour north-east of Valence. Instead, she set out in a northerly direction, using the D1092, which looped in a big, almost square arc through Saint-Donat-sur-l’Herbasse, to cross the A49, then take another shallow arc south of the A49 up to Saint Marcellin.
Cain found it amusing that she presumed without question that she would drive. After a few minutes of watching her behind the wheel, he relaxed. She was a competent driver. No over-steering, but not timid about using inertia and speed to get her around curves…and there were many curves in the secondary road, as it wound its way through the pre-Alps countryside.
“Saint Marcellin is a bottleneck,” Cain observed, as he studied the map on the burner phone. “No matter what route we take, it passes through there.”
“Just keep your eye on the tracker tile,” Kelsey replied. “As long as Zima stays in Valence, it doesn’t matter.”
Cain switched apps. “He’s still there,” he confirmed. He put the phone in the cup holder and settled back. “Maybe trying to figure out his next move?”
“As far as he knows, we didn’t make it to Valence. He’ll be thinking hard and consulting whatever sources he has. The tile will tell us if he’s found anything.”
The journey to Saint Marcellin was without incidence and they arrived in the small town shortly after three. Zima was still in Valence and Kelsey relaxed when Cain showed her the tracker app.
“I’m starving,” she declared, as she wheeled the Renault into the parking lot beside a restaurant featuring Swiss cuisine and Alpine décor.
The place was a tourist trap. He had zero hope they would have anything healthy on the menu. “When are you not hungry?” Her capacity for junk food astonished him.
She scowled. “I need to check in, anyway.”
Inside Man Page 12