The Russian Seduction
Page 28
No one else appeared to be disembarking, and she struggled to subdue her unease. Still, she couldn’t help feeling a bit intimidated by the welcome committee that patrolled the platform: half a dozen stern-faced guards in combat fatigues, scowling beneath fur hats, the two-headed Russian eagle glittering against the sable. Clearly, these watchdogs ensured the other passengers stayed on the train, and no curious tourist snapped a photo through the windows. If anyone felt tempted, those Kalashnikov machine guns, gripped in casual menace, sent a fairly clear message.
Directly before her, electric light blazed against the black Cyrillic letters that spelled out the official lie: CHERNOV.
The exotic lettering seemed to scowl at her. Despite all her dogged efforts to become fluent, she was still learning the language. Therein loomed another problem that gnawed at her.
Behind her, the train doors whooshed together, the metallic clatter sharp as broken glass.
“Ambassador Rossi?”
The quiet murmur sent her spinning to the left. Beside her, close enough to touch, loomed a phalanx of three dark-suited figures. And she’d had so little warning of their arrival that they might have beamed down from the Enterprise, for all she knew. Anxious, she searched the shuttered faces, inscrutable behind upturned collars and pulled-low hats, and looked hopefully for Anton Belov’s kindly round face. Unfortunately, her host was not among them.
“I’m Ambassador Rossi.” Thankfully, her asthma was subsiding, and she offered a pleasant smile. “You must be the welcome committee.”
Silently a man stepped forward, graceful as a cat on the treacherous ice. The blaze of floodlights behind him shadowed his face to silhouette, made her strain to make out his features. A tall knife-slim figure, impeccably clad in a black wool coat, dark cashmere scarf knotted neatly around his throat. Unmoved by the shocking cold, he stood hatless, artificial light glistening over silky dark hair.
“Welcome to Chernov.” The syllables unfurled in a cultured tenor—rapid Russian she could barely follow. “Or Khimgorod, if you’d prefer. Unfortunately, I fear your visit with us must be a short one.”
Skylar understood enough to frame a reply, thinking of the interpreter she’d left behind—the associate whose unexpected, last-minute illness had forced her to leave Moscow without him. Just one of the many disasters that sprouted like mushrooms around this visit.
“It’s a pleasure to be here,” she said in her best Russian, and hoisted her attaché case. “You’ll see that I have all the necessary approvals from your government: authorization from the Russian Munitions Agency and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and a valid Russian visa in my diplomatic passport. I also have an official invitation from Anton Belov, as Director of the Khimgorod Chemical Complex. I’m scheduled for a two-day visit—and my meetings begin in three hours.”
“We understood you would be accompanied,” the man said coolly, “by your interpreter. Where is this man, Your Excellency?”
As a rule, Skylar disliked the formal address that was her due as Ambassador and Chief of Mission at the International Chemical Science Institute. But this wasn’t the moment to indulge her personal preferences. She had a feeling she’d need all the intimidation factor she could muster to deal with this situation.
Though the statement had been phrased as a question, she suspected her interrogator already knew the answer. Flanking him on either side, just a step behind, his sidekicks loomed in voiceless threat: two rough-looking men, solid as refrigerators, anonymous under bulky winter garb that could have hidden an AK-47—and probably did. The pair kept one eye nailed to the leader who was clearly in command of this little welcome party—and one eye on the American woman who stood alone on the platform before them, trying not to shiver.
Skylar mustered the Russian phrases she’d worked out to explain her unusual situation. “When we arranged this meeting, Dr. Belov volunteered to provide an interpreter with expertise in chemical munitions. Unfortunately, that person fell ill, just before my departure. I wasn’t able to find a replacement on such short notice, but my Russian is sufficient for—”
“And your bodyguard?” Her interrogator kept the light behind him, so she still couldn’t see his face.
Arching her brows, she paused to convey surprise at the interruption. It took guts—or hubris—to interrupt someone of her rank. If she wanted this Russian’s respect, she couldn’t afford to let any discourtesy pass unchallenged.
“I don’t require a bodyguard, since I only travel where invited,” she said pointedly, reminding him that his government had approved her visit. “Anton Belov assured me—”
“I’m afraid there’s been a change of plans.” Without warning, the man glided forward to grip her elbow. Although she stood at 5’11” in her low-heeled leather boots, this inscrutable stranger still towered over her. “Your meetings in Khimgorod have been cancelled.”
A surge of alarm spiked through her. They couldn’t cancel her meetings, not when she’d worked so hard to secure them, and the welfare of so many rode on the outcome. Damn it, they’d had three security breaches at the VX production site in the last six months, if that defector was telling the truth. She needed to see the place, find out how porous it really was. And she might never get another chance.
Skylar pinned on her game face, courteous but resolved, and started dropping names. “I spoke with Deputy Foreign Minister Velikov earlier this week at the French Ambassador’s residence. He reaffirmed the Ministry’s support for my visit.”
Of course, this would all be much easier if her interpreter were present. But she couldn’t postpone her trip. Her access to this site was authorized for the next two days only, they hovered on the brink of global crisis, and she was in this to her eyebrows.
“You must discuss the situation with the Deputy Minister when you return to Moscow,” her interrogator said, with equal politeness. Making it clear he didn’t give a damn whose name she dropped—although he might be bluffing.
Buying time while she thought, Skylar slipped away from his deft touch on her arm, and drew him into the light. The harsh light spilled across his features, clean and spare: Slavic cheekbones and an elegant nose, an aristocrat’s high brow beneath the sweep of chocolate hair, fine lines etched around his eyes—mid-forties, probably, if she had to hazard a guess. No scars or other distinguishing features to draw attention. The type of face you passed on the street a hundred times a day, and never remembered.
But his eyes swallowed her—opaque and unreadable, a flat black stare that observed and catalogued her every reaction. A stare that took what it wanted, and gave nothing back. A shiver rippled down her spine, raising a fresh crop of goosebumps on her back. The man was a predator, pure and simple, and being so close to him was enough to stand her hair on end.
“My meetings can’t be cancelled,” she said firmly. “Six capitals are waiting for my debrief on this visit when I return to ICSI.” She pronounced her institute’s acronym as “icksy”—a gambit to find out what he knew, maybe throw him a little curve ball. But the strange word didn’t seem to perturb him. “I’d like to speak with Anton Belov immediately.”
“Unfortunately, that won’t be possible.” Her interrogator paused. “I’m afraid Dr. Belov suffered an accident last night. He’s had to be airlifted by emergency helicopter to the hospital in Novosibirsk.”
“My God.” Worry and concern for the big-hearted scientist knotted her belly, and threatened to distract her from her strategy—which was to play pretty and polite until she learned what she’d come here to discover. Still, she’d really liked Anton when they met at that chemical weapons conference in Paris; he’d been her chief ally among the Russians to get this historic visit approved. Had Moscow changed its mind? She’d felt pretty certain of the Foreign Ministry’s support, but the hard-line general who headed the Munitions Agency had been pretty reluctant to unzip Khimgorod’s fly…
“I see.” Swiftly, she collected her thoughts. “I trust Dr. Belov will soon recover?”
“Just a minute, please.” She’d been around the diplomatic block enough times to know when she was being railroaded.
Time to put on the brakes, since she had no intention of getting back on that train without accomplishing the job she’d come to do. Either there’d been a security breach at Khimgorod, and someone had walked away with enough VX to make the Tokyo sarin attacks look like amateur hour. Or else the Munitions Agency was using the break-ins as a cover-up for a little back door business with terrorists or rogue states—which the leadership in Moscow might or might not have sanctioned. In either event, no local Russian bureaucrat with a pole up his derriere was going to keep her out.
“I’m sorry to say I didn’t catch your name, gospadin?” Though she used the Russian honorific, she switched to English to see if he’d follow. She was developing a hunch about this man, and when his eyes narrowed, she knew she’d been right.
His thugs loomed behind him, their ruddy faces blank. Clearly no clue what she’d just said, and no interest in talking either. Well, she didn’t suppose their employer—whoever he was—kept them around for their dazzling wit.
Silently the stranger studied her with those frightening eyes, slender brows raised, as though perhaps she’d surprised him. But he replied in perfect English, his accent undetectable. Far more fluent in English than she was in Russian, and he had to have known that when he’d addressed her in Russian. A bit of a bastard, but he was also clever, and therefore dangerous.
“Unfortunately, we have very little time for social niceties, Your Excellency—”
This time, she managed to interrupt him. “There’s no need to be so formal. Most of my colleagues simply call me Dr. Rossi. You’re welcome to do the same.”
Awareness flickered in his gaze at this unsubtle reminder of her credentials: PhD in organic chemistry, her research on chemical defense with the U.S. Army at Edgewood Arsenal, then her high-profile post at the Organization for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. Not to mention her current assignment.
“I’m sorry, but I seem to have missed your name?” she prompted.
Her interrogator was still studying her with narrowed eyes, trying to figure her out. At last, he inclined his head, mouth twitching with the hint of a smile. “I’m Nikolai Ivanovich Markov, from the security office. I was dispatched by Dr. Belov to convey his profound apologies for your cancelled visit.”
The security office. No more than a thin cover for his real affiliation, then. The man had just told her, without saying so directly, that he worked for the Federal Security Bureau, the Russian successor agency to the KGB. And, in her experience, there was no unpleasant or unethical trick those spooks wouldn’t stoop to.
Reflexively, she stepped back. Then, tamping down her qualms, she extended her gloved hand for a courteous shake. After a pause so brief it was barely noticeable, his grip encased her fingers, his hand sheathed in sleek black leather. Despite the layers between them, a flare of heat—survival instinct—made her tingle. Shivering, she buried her hand in her coat pocket.
“Ilya,” Nikolai Markov said calmly, still watching her. “Take Dr. Rossi’s suitcase and attaché case to the train.”
Swiftly, she slipped in front of the hired muscle, and blocked their path to her suitcase. She tightened her grip on her attaché case, not about to let it vanish the way her purse had. They’d have to be one hell of a lot more forceful to separate her from the official documents she carried, but she hoped to avoid that outcome.
Donning a professional smile, she extended her free hand. “I’m pleased to meet you, gospadin…?”
“Just Ilya, Dr. Rossi,” said Nikolai Markov. “He’s a man of few words.”
Of course, without a surname, she wouldn’t be able to look him up, using her contacts, when she returned to Moscow. No doubt any name they gave her would be false, but sometimes an alias turned up back at Langley.
Meanwhile, Ilya-with-no-last-name hulked over her, features buried under his muffler, gray eyes like dirty ice staring through her with a chilling lack of interest. This thug could break her in two with his bare hands. Thankfully, his orders were simply to assist with her luggage.
When he didn’t accept her hand, Skylar kept smiling, and pivoted toward his partner. A scar snaked through the rough terrain of this one’s pitted face, but he gave his name gruffly as Artur—again with no surname, of course.
“Dr. Rossi,” Nikolai Markov said gently, “your train departs in one minute thirty seconds. Go aboard now, please.”
Sucking down another lungful of icy oxygen, she gripped her attaché case with both hands, in case they tried to wrest it from her by brute force.
“According to the schedule Anton Belov provided, Mr. Markov, my first meeting is with the mayor of Khimgorod at eight a.m., which is less than three hours from now. Even if Dr. Belov is unavailable, I’m sure the mayor can resolve any logistical questions that may arise.”
For a heartbeat, Nikolai Markov stared at her with those opaque black eyes. Perhaps she’d succeeded at last in surprising him, though his demeanor gave nothing away.
“I am afraid Dr. Belov’s…indisposition has resulted in the cancellation of your entire itinerary—from your meetings to your hotel reservation. Go aboard now, please, Dr. Rossi. This is no place for diplomatic negotiation.”
Without engaging in a physical scuffle, she couldn’t prevent Artur from hoisting her suitcase, as though it weighed nothing. Well, she could work without a change of clothing if necessary, and pick up local toiletries in town. What mattered was that she still had her documents.
“I’m not leaving, Mr. Markov.” Skylar looked him straight in the eye. “These discussions are a top priority for my government, and I’m operating under official instructions from the highest level. I’ve seen no documentation to indicate your own government has withdrawn its approval for my visit. Moreover, my tickets were purchased with U.S. taxpayer dollars, and funds for my lodging were already wired to the hotel. I’m committed to these meetings, even if it means sleeping on a couch in the lobby. I’d like to go to the hotel now, please, so I can freshen up before the mayor.”
As if to underscore her words, the train jerked forward, its carriages clanking and rattling as the locomotive did its work. Too late now to send me back. Another indication that Markov, whatever his agenda, wasn’t acting under official orders—or else the train would have waited.
Still, a sense of mounting apprehension made her scalp crawl. All too clearly, someone didn’t want her here. Maybe the FSB had decided her presence was a liability. Wouldn’t be the first time the Russian spooks and the Foreign Ministry had disagreed.
“This is unfortunate, Dr. Rossi,” Nikolai Markov murmured.
His dark eyes shifted to Ilya. Jerking a nod as some unspoken message flashed between them, the goon trudged forward. Violating her diplomatic immunity from seizure, his hard hand closed on her shoulder. A coil of anxiety tightened her lungs. People had disappeared in Siberia before—millions of them, in fact. Officially, Khimgorod itself didn’t even exist. She’d called her office from Novosibirsk, but the Russians could claim she’d never even arrived here…
She did her best to conceal her qualms. The secret to negotiating with Russians was embedded in the old deodorant commercial. Never let ‘em see you sweat.
“Artur,” Nikolai Markov said, “take our American guest’s suitcase to the car.”
Pivoting, Markov glided toward the only break in the top-security barricade, where a concrete guard shanty, bathed in harsh light, guarded the station exit. The silver gleam of a cell phone flashed as he tucked the device against his ear and muttered into it.<
br />
Skin prickling with apprehension, she followed, her shoulder still gripped by Ilya as he quick-marched her from behind. Ahead, Nikolai Markov crossed the treacherous platform with balletic grace, stepping lightly as a deer across the black ice—almost mesmerizing, in a way. The man looked and moved like no security watchdog she’d ever encountered. And, thanks to her father, she’d encountered the best.
At least he’d agreed to bring her into town, which moved her one step closer to her goal. The chemical complex was a thirty-mile drive past the city itself, according to the satellite imagery. As they approached the station exit, Markov snapped the phone shut and dropped back beside her.
“I’ve modified your travel arrangements, Dr. Rossi. Although your stay will, of necessity, last no longer than 2313 hours this evening when the next train arrives, all guests are required to adhere to the laws and regulations that govern this closed city.”
“I’d expect nothing else.” Discreetly, she tried to slip free of Ilya. But the hired muscle only tightened his grip. Despite the insulating layers between them, her shoulder began to ache.
Markov’s gaze flickered toward her, only for a heartbeat.
“Ilya,” he said quietly. Just like that, his trained watchdog released her.
Skylar resisted the impulse to rub her aching shoulder, and returned to the business at hand. “I’ve been thoroughly briefed on the laws that govern the closed cities—”
“Given the possible consequences of any deviation, allow me to refresh your memory, Dr. Rossi.” As they approached the barbed-wire fence, his gaze swept the perimeter. “No photographs are allowed anywhere in the city or its environs. If you disregard this rule, your camera will be confiscated and destroyed, and you may be subject to legal penalties, possibly including detainment.”