Even better, Skylar knew her number. She’d seen it flashing in her queue of calls when she checked from the hotel that morning.
Steadying her hands and her breathing, she hastily punched in the long string of digits, a process that seemed to take forever. Then listened to the ring.
Ring.
Ring…
Please be there, Alexis, lying on the beach in Thailand, fumbling through your stylish tote bag for the phone. Please—
She’d nearly given up on reaching her, was scrambling to organize her thoughts for the thirty-second message she hoped would save her life, when the line clicked open.
A gruff voice with a Russian accent muttered, “What is it?”
Her heart nearly stopped before her brain switched back on.
“Ah…may I speak with Alexis?”
“She’s in the shower.” The hint of smugness in that brusque military voice would have made her smile under other circumstances. It didn’t take much imagination to conclude that a moment ago, he’d been in there with her. “Is it the airline about our flight to Singapore?”
“Um, no.” She hunched over the phone and whispered. “This is Ambassador Skylar Rossi from ICSI. I’m a friend of hers, and I’m in a bit of trouble. Is this Captain Kostenko?”
The word “trouble” clearly kicked his military instincts into gear.
“Yes. What sort of trouble?”
“I’m in the closed city of Khimgorod and—this will sound crazy, but—half the city seems to be trying to kill me.” Her voice shook, and she fought to steady it. “I’ve been shot at, nearly run over, arrested, trapped in a burning building—”
“All right.” His cool control steadied her, like a bracing hand on rocky ground. “What’s your status right now?”
“I’m in a dacha, a safe house, trying to figure out how to get out of here. I’ve booked a ticket on the train—”
“Don’t take the train. Christ, you’ll be a sitting duck.”
Which was pretty much what Nikolai had said. And what she’d concluded herself, right down to the same analogy.
She blinked back the sudden blur of tears, frustration and fear nibbling away at her fragile poise. “The thing is, we’re having the blizzard of the century, and the roads are closed. Can you put Alexis on the phone?”
“If you’re trapped in a closed city with men firing at you, Skylar, you’re better off talking to me,” he said dryly.
She heard the hiss of the aforementioned shower, heard him fire off a quick précis of her situation, then Alexis’s familiar voice sharp with alarm. Skylar relaxed infinitesimally.
At least Kostenko was who he said he was. She assumed a renegade Russian submarine captain who’d spent the past fifteen years stalking enemy subs was a good guy to have on her side.
He came back on the line.
“Skylar? Are you alone?”
She fought to stay calm.
“I’m alone in the house, hiding in the dark behind the kitchen counter. But Nikolai is outside somewhere. A car arrived, someone he knows, but he went out ten minutes ago and hasn’t returned. I’m getting really worried about him. What if he—?”
She was starting to babble, and he cut her off with brisk efficiency.
“Who’s Nikolai?”
“Actually, I was hoping you could tell me.” She crouched for another quick sweep of the darkened room. No change. The narrow white beam of the headlights still slanted through the filmy curtain.
“At first he told me he was from the security office, but now he says he isn’t. Then he told me he was hired muscle, some kind of freelance mercenary, paid by the MFA to keep me alive and out of trouble. But he’s been lying to me since we met, so I’d be a fool to trust him. His name is Nikolai Markov.”
“Nikolai Markov?” The sizzle of alertness in Kostenko’s voice sent tension spiking through her. Clearly this ex-FSB, ex-military operative knew the name, and the association wasn’t giving him a warm fuzzy. “You’re sure about that? Describe him.”
Beautiful. Deadly. Terrifying. And a wickedly good kisser.
Skylar cleared her throat. “Um, he’s about forty, dark hair and eyes, knows how to handle himself in a fight. He’s always armed, a good shot. I may have seen him kill a man with jujitsu or something. He dresses exquisitely, has high-end tastes, and I just found twenty thousand dollars’ worth of rubles in his coat pocket. Very meticulous with the details, very precise—”
“Is he a chess player?”
The unusual question made her pause. “He did mention in passing that he’s a chess enthusiast. Do you know him?”
“I know of him. We all did, though he’s changed his name more than once.” Kostenko’s voice was grim enough to make her heart pound. “Christ. I think it’s the Maestro.”
Recognition flashed through her.
“Yes! One of his men called him that, though I don’t think I was meant to hear it. What does it mean?”
“Skylar, I don’t want you to panic, but I do want you to listen to me very carefully. You need to get away from him.”
“But why?” Alarm spiraled through her, tinged with bitter disappointment.
She’d known Nikolai couldn’t be trusted, hadn’t she? Known she was alone in this terrifying crisis, just as she’d been alone that day in her father’s warehouse when his Mafia muscle had blown off her boyfriend’s head.
The way she’d been alone, crouched and cowering behind a shipping container during the gunfight that followed, when the explosion shattered a canister of contraband nerve agent and contaminated ten city blocks of downtown Bangkok.
She’d never been more alone, hyperventilating behind the gas mask she’d snatched up and fumbled into, than she was when Dane Rossi and his muscle men went into convulsions, foaming at the mouth, heels drumming the floor in agonized convulsions.
They’d been dead within two minutes, which was standard for sarin. Her own obsession with chemical weapons sprang from that moment.
Get a grip, Skylar.
“Why?” She swallowed. “Nikolai. Who is he?”
The captain hesitated for a heartbeat. In the background, Alexis said something to prod him along.
“He’s well known in certain circles of the Russian intel community,” Kostenko said shortly. “Pretty damn close to legendary, in fact. Or notorious. They call him the Maestro—for the artistry and precision of his kills. To put it plainly, he’s a wet boy.”
“A wet boy?”
Not everyone would have known the term, but Dane Rossi’s daughter knew it very well. Rising panic twisted her gut and squeezed her chest. Somehow she managed to speak.
“Captain, what are you saying to me?”
“I’m saying he’s an assassin. One of the best in the business. In the FSB we called it wet work, for obvious reasons. Moscow brings him in when they want something special—a clean, elegant kill that sends a nuanced message with plausible deniability.”
A clean, elegant kill. She thought of Nikolai’s deadly aim, his lethal grace in hand-to-hand combat, his evasiveness about anything personal, his keen perception and tripwire control.
Mio Dio, it all fit perfectly.
Fear spiraled through her and squeezed her lungs like a fist. Gasping, she fumbled for her inhaler. The medicine opened her airway but did nothing to quell the cold terror spinning through her head or the painful burn of betrayal.
“He told me he would protect me,” she said numbly, aware even as she spoke how pathetically naïve she sounded.
And he kissed me like a man who meant it.
“Whatever he’s told you, he’s not a man they’d use for personal protection.”
Kostenko paused. “Skylar, I don’t want you to panic. If he’s kept you alive this long, he may not plan to act immediately. Don’t force his hand. Don’t tip him off that you know. Pretend that you trust him.
“But as soon as you possibly can, you need to get away from him.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Rule of thum
b: The player who controls more space has a powerful advantage. But a smart opponent may accept less space to set up a counterattack.
Nikolai crouched knee deep in the snow, icy drifts soaking through his Italian leather shoes as he riffled the dead man’s pockets. Sasha Pistunov had been no more than an acquaintance, a temporary associate on a few occasions when he needed heavy muscle, not overly gifted in the intellect department. Ilya had vouched for him, and Nikolai had trusted his judgment.
But this was hardly the first acquaintance who’d tried to kill him. One grew accustomed to it in his line of work. From time to time, one became the mark himself.
Now Sasha sprawled face down behind the Volga, black blood pooling in the snow beneath his shattered skull. Though the snowfall was definitely slowing, a thin white crust already covered his bulky shoulders and back.
An unfortunate business. Pistunov was just a kid, really, barely out of his teens. But betrayal and assassination were a man’s work.
He’d been lying in wait for Nikolai with a double-action Stechkin APS automatic pistol, which was serious business, deadly accurate even with the silencer engaged. Nikolai had disarmed him and squeezed off a muffled two-round burst when the kid went for the .22 caliber strapped to his ankle. Both rounds had found their target.
Regrettably, this meant his former associate died before Nikolai could question him.
A thorough search of the car and his pockets revealed little of interest, though he pocketed the red Russian passport and the cash. If the kid had been a bit more seasoned, he would have demanded a bigger payoff for a hit on the Maestro.
Perhaps he had, and someone else had taken a cut.
Robbing a messy corpse gave him no personal pleasure, though he’d certainly seen them messier. But at the rate this job was going, Nikolai needed all the spare change he could get.
Irina’s surgical procedure was scheduled to occur in five days. Her off-the-grid neurosurgeon demanded payment in advance to undertake the highly experimental and indeed illegal—but very promising—procedure. Then came the bribes for the rest of the medical team, the anesthesiologist and surgical nurse moonlighting from their day jobs, the after-hours access to a major medical facility, the cocktail of premium drugs and post-surgical care for an illegal alien whose condition the American health care system refused to insure.
The list of figures scrolled through his brain like a cash register receipt, pushing him forward to finish the job, despite his growing ambivalence about the mission.
He had to finish the job.
A frown creased his brow. He tucked the thought into a rear compartment in his brain and locked the door.
He broke down the Stechkin, stashed it under his driver’s seat with its silencer and spare rounds, and was siphoning fuel from the bullet-riddled Volga into the durable Niva when the dacha door swung open.
The sound was barely perceptible because he’d oiled the hinges yesterday when he did his walkthrough. Yet the soft scrape of wood against snow sent him spinning into a crouch behind the Volga’s open door.
The Stechkin was out of commission, but his Walther nestled against the small of his back. He palmed it and targeted the open door, glowing a dim red from the gas fireplace.
“Don’t shoot. It’s only me,” Skylar called, tucked safely out of sight. She’d evidently taken cover when she pushed the door open.
Smart girl.
She must have seen him from the window, but she couldn’t see Sasha—or what was left of Sasha. Otherwise she’d probably have crawled through the bathroom window and run screaming into the night.
She’d run from him right now if she knew what was good for her. Except that he’d very carefully left her nowhere to run.
Why the thought left him so uneasy, almost guilty—an emotion that rarely troubled him—Nikolai Markov could hardly fathom.
Tucking these distractions away, he lowered his arm. “You can come out if you like. You’re safe.”
For the moment.
She hesitated before stepping into view, enveloped to the chin in her ivory coat. She’d been wearing those clothes for hours—had nearly died in them, in fact. Yet somehow she still managed to look effortlessly stylish in her trousers and low-heeled boots, tall and pencil-slim as a runway model, sleek raven hair swinging against her determined jaw.
The harsh light of the headlamps washed over her sculpted features, sky-blue eyes wide with trepidation, golden skin drawn tight over chiseled cheekbones. Finally, the night’s brutal events had shattered the diplomat’s cool composure she wore like a Kevlar vest. She clutched his overcoat and pack in a white-knuckled grip and seemed reluctant to leave the porch’s dubious shelter.
Then her lush mouth firmed. “I’ve collected everything that’s ours. Which car do you think handles best in the snow?”
“Personally, I’d prefer the one that isn’t bullet-riddled,” he said dryly. “Skylar, we’ve discussed the train—”
“We’re not taking the train.” Resolute, she waded into the knee-deep snow, graceful as a gazelle struggling through the drifts. “Obviously, they know we’re here—the FSB or the MVD or whoever—if they’re sending people after us. I think you’ll agree we need to get moving. At the moment, where we go seems less important than when. As in right now.”
“That’s correct.” He stepped forward to intercept her, blocking her view of the corpse sprawled under the rear bumper in the blood-spattered snow.
When he reached for her, she flinched, her entire body tightening as though she meant to swing the heavy pack at him. Stark terror flashed across her face, gone so swiftly most men wouldn’t have noticed it.
But he wasn’t most men, and never would be.
Frowning, he collected the pack and overcoat and deflected her toward the SUV. She tramped through the snow with Nikolai right behind her.
Her reaction, so quickly contained, niggled at him. Something wasn’t right. She’d been nervous, certainly—and rightly so—since his power play on the train platform. In the language of chess, he’d launched a pawn storm to decimate the opponent’s defense.
Yet nothing he’d done all day had inspired the flash of sheer terror that had just widened her gorgeous eyes.
She hadn’t been frightened of him when he saved her life in the nightclub, when he launched into combat like Kevin Costner protecting Whitney Houston in that detestable American film.
And then—inexplicably—he’d kissed her. The Maestro never mixed business with pleasure. That perfect, impermeable discipline was what kept him alive to kill again.
He’d been angry, and that too was uncharacteristic. She’d taunted him about her flamboyant French diplomat with his manicured hands and the pampered wife in Munich he’d never actually left. All style and no substance, Alain Devereux didn’t deserve a woman like Skylar Rossi.
She’d taunted him about Kirill, the little brother whose passion for a Mafia princess had made him stupid and gotten him killed.
She’d taunted him with the passion that sparked between them like a live electrical wire. With the supple, sinuous length of her dancer’s body. With the full curve of her parted lips, glistening with moisture when her tongue swept across them.
He hadn’t been able to keep his hands off her. He’d been watching her all day, touching her, breathing in her elusive floral fragrance. At first she was just the mark, though Kirill’s death had made it personal—too personal, as he’d known quite well.
Gradually she became a worthy adversary whose cool determination and courage he’d grown to respect.
Now she was Skylar, the woman whose hungry kisses left him hard and aching, all his predatory instincts thoroughly diverted from the critical business of staying alive to the driving urge to master her sexually. He’d been blind and deaf to danger as a rutting bull, all his senses focused on the way she rocked against him, the way her hips moved with his, hands burrowing into his hair as though she couldn’t get enough of him.
The way she’d moaned in
to his mouth…
Before him, Skylar swung open the Niva’s door and bent cautiously to check the darkened interior. The movement outlined the luscious curve of her ass, taut and taunting under her gray wool trousers. Inevitably, his cock hardened.
As though she could read his thoughts, she glanced over her shoulder.
“I presume whoever was driving the Volga won’t be joining us?”
“No.” Snapped back to the business at hand, he stowed the pack neatly behind the driver’s seat and slid into the coat’s welcome warmth.
She was still watching him. “Do I want to know what happened to him?”
“No.”
That silenced her, but he didn’t like the hidden fear that flashed in her sidelong gaze as she circled the vehicle and folded herself into the passenger’s seat. Fear had its uses, of course, but somehow he didn’t like knowing she was afraid of him. She hadn’t been afraid when he kissed her.
Perhaps I should kiss her again, just to settle her nerves.
“You’re smiling, Mr. Markov,” she murmured, her gaze locked with his. “Which seems a bit curious, considering the trouble we’re in.”
“Do you want to know why?” he said huskily.
All he needed to do was reach for her, wrap a hand around her head to hold her where he wanted her, lean into another searing kiss.
She looked away, her profile guarded. “I want you to drive the car.”
Disappointment stabbed through him, but he tamped it down and started the engine. He refrained from switching on the headlights until they’d gotten well past Pistunov’s stiffening corpse, but she must have known it was there somewhere.
“Perhaps you’d care to inform me,” he said, “where precisely you’d like to go?”
“There’s a private airfield twenty kilometers south of the city,” she said calmly. “Let’s keep to the back roads. We don’t want to get pulled over by your friends in the militsia.”
And how exactly does she know about that airport?
He glanced sharply toward her, black hair swinging against her Mediterranean profile, tactics locked tight behind a diplomat’s composure. Still, she must have sensed his silent question.
The Russian Temptation (Book Two) (Foreign Affairs 2) Page 13