“Yes,” Kat breathed, caught like a deer by the woman’s stare. “I think my grandfather was one of those. He said he worked with the partisans.”
“Well, isn’t that interesting.” Larissa sat down next to Baba Rina, whose eyes never left Kat’s face, and put an arm on the older woman. “Babushka Rina was a partisan for a while.”
Silence filled the room as Kat’s heart thumped hard. “Did you ever meet any Americans?” Here it was—the possibility this woman might have met, even worked with Grandfather. Kat held her breath.
“No.” The abrupt response crushed Kat’s hopes. Baba Rina glanced away. “I don’t remember that much about the partisans. It was a horrible, dark time. War is awful. It simply tears out your heart and there’s no way to survive but to forget it all. Erase it.” Her voice dropped, to a harsh whisper. “I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
The silence felt so sharp, it brought tears to Kat’s eyes. She bit the inside of her mouth to fight them back. “I’m sorry,” she said in a mustered voice.
No one moved. Then, thankfully, Larissa reached across the table and touched Kat’s hand. “Why don’t you ask your grandmother about your grandfather’s activities?”
Kat’s grief seemed to clog her chest. “I never met her. She died when my mother was a baby.”
The tightness in the room dissolved in a moment. “I’m so sorry,” Larissa said. Babushka Rina gave her a pitying smile. “What a shame. What was her name?”
“Magda. He called her Magda.”
The old woman’s smile froze, and in a blink, she aged to her eighty-some years, perhaps beyond. “Magda?” she repeated, and an unmistakable tremor strummed her voice.
Kat nodded, a strange feeling gripping her heart.
“That’s not a Russian name.”
Kat’s mouth dried. “It’s not?”
Babushka Rina shook her head slowly. “That’s a Hebrew name. It means ‘Tower of strength’.”
“Are you sure your grandmother was Russian?” Pyotr asked Kat as he reached for a peroshke, obviously unaware that his mother’s face had drained of all life.
Kat nodded, eyes glued on the old woman. Baba Rina broke Kat’s stare and sipped her tea. Her sleek, aged hands trembled.
“Could I… could I show you something?” Kat asked. Her heart pulsed in her throat as she dragged her backpack into her lap and pulled out her Bible. She took out the ancient picture her grandfather had given her, stared for moment at the two women in front of the grave, then she handed it to Rina.
Larissa took it, because Babushka Rina refused. “Who is this?”
Kat kept her eyes on the old woman, her emotions wanting to leap from her skin. “I don’t know. That’s why I came to Russia. To find who these women are and why my grandfather has this picture.”
Larissa showed the picture to Rina. “Klassen,” she said softly.
Babushka Rina stared at it, blinking. Then her eyes filled and she looked down, at her tea.
Kat felt her soul burn in panic as she watched the old woman shake her head.
“I’m sorry. I can’t help you.”
Ilyitch yanked his carry-on from the overhead compartment, cursing the cramped seats, the stuffy, smoke-filled air that wanted to close his throat, and especially the low-hanging thunderheads that made their landing as close to suicide as he’d like to experience.
He slung the bag over his shoulder, and nearly flattened the doddering Dadushka. The old man shuffled at the speed of molasses from the cramped cabin. Ilyitch sucked in a calming breath. Keeping tabs on Ekaterina Moore suddenly felt like taking candy from a child. He smiled, despite his frustration.
Yes, things were clicking into place, but before he spent the next ten hours on his feet, chasing down a blonde with a gift for evasion, he had to know the truth. He had skimmed too close to detection this time. Ilyitch ducked out of the cabin, into the fresh, moist air. Twilight slung enough shadow across the tarmac to keep him safely disguised, for now. He lolled at a snail’s pace as the rest of the passengers filed through the locked gates into the terminal. The air smelled of diesel fuel and rippled with the ear-piercing whine of an AN-2 motoring down in post-flight. A slight wind kicked up dust and sent grit into his eyes. Ilyitch muttered an oath as they watered. He wiped them, and fought a wave of frustration. Grazovich had better be right. He didn’t like to waste time, not with interest rates on his investments plunging in the States. He should thank his dumb luck that the FSB had the answers buried in their files, and that he’d found it before Captain Spasonov had the brains to follow Ekaterina Moore’s suggestion. Now, he just needed to exert a little influence and confirm his suspicions. If Ekaterina Moore had his answers he’d get them, one way or another.
Chapter 11
Kat stared at the ceiling in her dark hotel room, running over the night’s events, believing in her gut that Babushka Rina was lying. The old woman had all but declared it with her eyes—she never again looked Kat straight-on the rest of the stilted evening.
The old woman knew something. But what? Had she met Kat’s grandfather or someone who knew him during the war? Did Baba Rina recognize someone in Kat’s faded photograph?
Her skin prickled remembering the way Larissa read the name, Klassen.
It was familiar to her. Kat knew it in her bones.
Her chest felt heavy, thick, and her eyes burned. “I feel as if I’m teetering on the edge of discovery, Lord, but something keeps yanking me back!” She slammed her fist into the ancient bed.
The Watsons were in the next room, probably staring at their own whitewashed ceilings, anticipation pushing sleep into the realm of impossible. Kat sat up and trudged to the window. A lonely streetlight swept back the darkness in a puddle of light. In a nearby doorway, a man slouched in the shadows, probably a drunk dozing off his latest liquid meal.
While she watched, the bum staggered to his feet and walked to the edge of the sidewalk—fairly gracefully, she thought, for a man soused enough to sleep on the street. He stood dimly illuminated by the envelope of lamplight, and stared boldly at the hotel.
At her window.
At her.
Kat’s heart stopped in her throat.
No, it couldn’t be.
In a second, she whirled, ran for the door. She slammed it open and dashed down the hall. Her heart raced her down the stairs, into the lobby…
…where she skidded to a halt and blinked.
“Privyet, Kat.”
“Let me get one thing perfectly straight with you right now.” Kat’s eyes sparked in fury. “I am not going back with you.” With her hands clamping her hips, her face flushed, dressed casually in a pair of black leggings and a baggy tee shirt, he’d never seen her look more enchanting.
He gulped back a smile. “I missed you too.”
Her mouth gaped. He saw her working up a response, and held up a hand to save her the trouble. “It’s okay, Kat. I’m not here to drag you back to Moscow.” Although the thought had crossed his mind more than a thousand times as he winged his way to Yfa, having totally discarded his common sense. Well, perhaps not completely. After what he’d finally dug up in the FSB computer, Kat had landed herself smack in the middle of a century-old mystery, and her connection with Grazovich had suddenly taken on an entirely new meaning.
Vadeem was here to protect her. At least that’s what he told himself as he turned to butter before her blazing eyes. He sucked a deep, calming breath. “I’m here to help you.”