Ekaterina (12 page)

Ignoring a whisper of reason inside, she pounced to her feet. The jacket fell to the floor. “Someone’s already taken the one thing that will give me any answers. What could you
possibly
have to protect me from now?”

Vadeem’s eyes turned dark.

“Just let me go,” she ground out, fury gathering steam. “I’ll walk out of here and you’ll never see me again.”

He clenched his jaw. “I’ll see you again. You seem to have a knack for ending up in police custody.”

She just barely restrained the urge to slap him. So, he thought she went hunting for trouble. Did she put out an ad, requesting Russia’s most wanted to track her down? Her eyes filled. She balled her fists at her sides, furious that he made her feel so helpless, as he controlled all her options. She made a hideous whimpering sound and wanted to die on the spot.

His anger dropped from his face like glacial ice. “Please, don’t cry.” His voice was low, but wretched enough for her to know he meant it. She clenched her jaw, furious that tears crested and coursed down her checks, furious that he’d won. He reached for her, as if to comfort her, but she jerked away, trying to exorcise every tender feeling she’d cultivated toward him.

He’d protected her from bullets, and she had his blood smeared all over her hands. She’d told him everything. . .he knew what this little jaunt to Russia meant to her. Didn’t that bond them into some sort of uncanny relationship?

Kat swiped the tears and, conjuring up bravery, lifted her chin. It would help if he would wipe that guilty, concerned expression off his face, the one that told her yes, he remembered every second of their relationship. It did nothing but fertilize all her budding emotions. “Don’t make me leave. Not yet. I need to know more.” Her voice betrayed her, and made her want to wince.

He moved closer, his gaze holding hers, his hand moving up to trace the scrape on her chin. He flicked a glance at his partner, then back. He was so close she could smell the day’s lingering cologne. “And what will you do, Kat? The key’s gone. Timofea is dead. You’ve run out of leads.”

“I still have you.” Where did that idiotic statement come from? She cringed, shocked that it escaped from her mouth. But she was thinking it. The minute she saw herself in his eyes, she’d begun to wonder.
Vadeem could help her
. Didn’t the KGB keep a file on every citizen in the country? Yes, Captain Vadeem Spasonov of the FSB could help her. He could dig around for her, find out who Timofea was, maybe even find her grandmother, Magda’s, history. She had family in Russia. She knew it deep in her bones. And Vadeem held the key to unlock that past. “God sent me you,” she repeated, and tightened her gaze on him. She didn’t want to think about the way she’d just opened up her chest for him to rip out her heart, along with her dreams.
Please, Vadeem, don’t betray me!
“You can help me.”

His eyes widened and something desperate filled his eyes. She’d hit a soft spot and, as she watched, his past roared up and consumed him whole. In his gaze, she saw fear, a painful, vulnerable, childlike fear that made her lips part and her mouth go dry. Then he blinked, and it was gone. In its place, the cold glitter of resolve. She felt as if a door had slammed on her face.

“No,” he said quietly. “I can’t.”

-

Vadeem paced the hotel corridor, feeling dead on his feet. But he’d seen Kat’s intentions in her eyes, and he couldn’t let her run.

She’d slammed the door in his face when he told her he’d be watching her. All night. Camped outside in the hallway. He didn’t like what that information did to her beautiful face, how it crumbled as her hopes shattered.

He steeled his heart to it. He had to. He had a job to do and right now Grazovich could be lurking down the hall, waiting to finish her off.

Of course, the thief would have to be a phantom to do it, because, according to Vadeem’s last phone call, Grazovich had spent the day exploring Pskov like a tourist, and was, at this moment, passed out in his bed, cradling a liter of Absolut in one arm and a café waitress in the other.

So, who had mugged them?

Vadeem rubbed his head. He probably needed a stitch or two, but head wounds always bled worse than they were. He’d sucked down the two aspirins Kat had fished out of that backpack of hers, which seemed to contain everything.

Everything but answers.

She’d nearly wrung him out with her heart-wrenching plea.
“I have you.”
Oh, did he wish that. Over the past twelve hours, Kat’s smile had awakened a part of him he’d thought dead. Or, perhaps, he’d only wished dead. Why did she have to cradle him in her arms, drown him with a look of authentic concern? It resurrected all the dangerous emotions he thought he’d successfully executed so long ago.

He’d do well to veer a wide course around the enticing Kat Moore package. Twenty-four hours in her presence had him contemplating a career change. Personal Bodyguard. Escorting her through Russia like a tour guide and helping her dig up answers didn’t sound like such a terrible job choice. It didn’t help that she’d struck truth with her plea. He did have the resources to unlock her past. A few keystrokes and he could access files that still rang fear in the hearts of the general population.

“God sent me you.”
He didn’t even want to think about that statement. God. Back in his life. Fiddling with his circumstances. Sending him a beautiful, kind woman—like some sort of taunt? No, thank you. God had mixed up a potent brew in Kat Moore, and Vadeem had been sucked right in by her beautiful eyes, thick with need, her hand gripping his jacket, the same hand that had felt his heart beat. She even smelled good after her harrowing encounter. Her perfume now lingered on his jacket and jumbled his concentration. Her ragged plea nearly forced a husky
Yes
out of his mouth.

But he had dredged up a negative reply, and felt like a snake for doing it.

She needed him. How long had it been since he’d heard that from someone? He didn’t want to dare guess. She. Needed. Him.

No, she needed his position. His connections. Somehow, he hung onto that reality until the cop in him caught up. God hadn’t sent him to Kat, or vice versa. Kat simply knew how to go straight for a man’s jugular.

That thought had given him the strength to lock her in her hotel room, despite her tears.

That thought had him camped out in the hallway, his eyes glued to her door, hoping she was feeling as rotten as he was, wishing they could instead be enjoying their last night dividing the spoils of a bag of M&M’s.

Vadeem leaned his head against the wall, slid down onto his heels, and stared at the ceiling. Paint, nearly an inch thick, ran in cracks up the Stalin-era hotel walls. A mud brown carpet tunneled the length of the hall, and on the far end, he could just make out the night clerk sitting at her desk, her head braced on her hand, tapping her pen against the notebook she kept to record the guests’ activities. She’d be writing a big fat nothing for Kat Moore tonight.

Not that an impulse to take Kat out on the town and show her a taste of midnight Moscow didn’t tug at him while he escorted her to the
Rossia
Hotel. St. Basil’s Cathedral sparkled like a Christmas tree; gold, red, and green cupolas brilliant as they pushed against the magenta backdrop of the heavens. Beyond that flowed the Volga, her dimples sparkling as she rippled south under the stars. They could walk along the Kremlin wall, ponder a moment at the eternal flame, where the fire would flicker in Kat’s eyes and turn her hair bronze. Maybe she’d tell him about her life in America, and how she happened to have Russian ancestry and speak his language. Perhaps he’d shed a few of his own stories, tame them down, of course, and omit most of the last twelve years, but he’d had some scrapes in the orphanage that might push laughter through those expressive, sometimes pouty, lips.

Then, they’d cross the street to the new underground mall, where he could treat her to some rigatoni at Sergio’s or sit and listen to the streams of Chopin as they rolled off the grand piano in the mezzanine. Better yet, maybe the Bolshoi would have a performance of Swan Lake in season. . .

There he went, thinking like a tour guide again.

The only tour he was going to give her was a very non-scenic drive to Sheremetova 2 Airport.

And he could bet there’d be no laughter on
that
excursion.

Sometimes he hated his job. He rubbed a finger and thumb into his eyes, seeing stars but hoping the pain might keep him awake long enough to detect if Kat Moore had any more escape attempts on her evening agenda.

-

Oh, this was perfect. Why hadn’t he thought of it sooner? Ilyitch sat down at his computer, punched in two passwords, and, in an instant, he was in. What was her full name? Ekaterina Hope Moore. He typed it in carefully, mouthing the letters.

A copy of her passport popped up on the screen. He read through it, and her visa, as well as the visa application notes, grimacing. This girl had the life of a librarian. Adoption coordinator? Ah, the selling of children. Sure, everyone’s a capitalist. Why hadn’t he thought of that?

He typed in the name of her mother, listed on the birth certificate. Hope Moore. Nothing in the state computers. A big blank. Hope Neumann Moore. Again, zero. He backed up to the younger Moore’s passport information. Contact: Edward Neumann, grandfather.

He typed in the name.

Score
. Edward Neumann’s file loaded for three minutes. Ilyitch considered getting a cup of tea while he read the file, obviously scanned into the system not long ago from some extremely ancient and secure vault. He was shocked it had been so easy to access.

They probably thought the spy was dead.

And they certainly didn’t count on his granddaughter returning to the scene of the crime.

But how was the girl linked to Anton Klassen?

He scrolled down, too absorbed to cut away for a cup of tea, not needing the caffeine rush anyway. This treasure hunt just got interesting.

He tapped the screen over the name of the Pskov monastery where it appeared in Neumann’s file. “So that’s how Timofea knew the girl.” He’d have to see what Grazovich’s monk had dug up.

Hopefully it matched this ancient KGB file.

Then, there it was, the answer, written in digital black and white. He ran a thumb under the name. Marina Antonova Shubina, maiden name, Klassen.

He moved the file into the recycle basket, sat back and wove his fingers together, cupped his hands behind his head. He couldn’t let Kat Moore leave Russia. She’d just become their link to a tidy, more than he could count, fortune.

-

Kat paced the room. Devious leech that he was, Captain Vadeem Spasonov was out there. She knew it. He had a heart of stone in his chest. He was kicking her out of Russia in the morning, despite her pleas. Despite their bond. Despite the fact that he knew she would never find out who she was or what family she might have in Russia.

She’d seen the icy glaze in his eyes. He cared about nothing except tracking down this Grazovich fellow, something she just
knew
, deep in her bones, had nothing to do with her, or that incredibly kind and helpful angel-man, Professor Taynov. But steel-hearted Vadeem had closed off her pleas with an in-your-face
nyet.

She’d have to find a way around the pit bull out in the hall.

She buried her face in her hands. “Oh Lord, now what?” Perhaps the Almighty had forgotten she was floundering down here like a dazed tuna, but she needed Him now, more than air. She had the strangest feeling, however, that when she felt the farthest from God, He was closest. “Please Lord. What do I do now? This can’t be the end, can it? You didn’t tell Timofea to send me that key just so that it could end up in the hands of a thief, did you?”

Fulfill the promise.

Brother Papov’s solemn voice pulsed in her thoughts.

What promise?

Grandfather would know about Timofea. Didn’t the father-monk say that the monastery had once been a partisan headquarters? She rubbed her face with her hands. And Grandfather had worked with partisans. A distant memory flooded back. Crystallized. It was right after her parents’ accident.

“I have to write a report, Grandfather, on the war.” Kat had approached him, on the porch, where he sat, staring at the sunset. Grandfather always loved the sunset and, for a long moment, he didn’t acknowledge her presence. Just stood there, hands tucked into his pockets, watching the sun bleed out over the western sky.

The expression on his face told her now was not the time. It was Magda’s time, perhaps. The woman Grandfather loved. The grandmother who wasn’t buried in the family plot.

Kat remembered how she’d made to move away, back inside the farmhouse.

“What war, Kat?”

“Why, World War II, Grandfather. Your war.”

He’d turned, and she’d seen something of the past flicker in his eyes. “It wasn’t my war. I simply assisted the partisans as they fought for their freedom.”

“Partisans?” He’d pique her interest. She’d read about the resistance in France, Belgium, and Denmark. “Were you in the French Resistance?” Later, the thought consumed her and she spent hours at the Schenectady library, digging up history.