“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.”