Deeper Than Red (Red Returning Trilogy) (30 page)

There you are
, he thought, looking down at the ID on the encrypted phone. “Good evening to you, Arkady.”

“Yes, it is a good evening here in Russia. It would be better if I could reach the others, though. Curt does not answer. Maxum does not answer.”

“But here am I. I hope you are well, your defenses in place. It will be soon now.”

“We are prepared for the full onslaught of American outrage. Their seat of government is about to become a very unhealthy place to be.”

“Coupled with what our friends in the desert have planned for Israel, Mr. Noland won’t know who or where to strike first. “Yes, Arkady, this is indeed a fine evening for us both. Now tell me about my young ones moving into position.”

Even before Gorev’s assassination, Arkady Glinka had quietly moved Ivan’s people, like players on a chessboard, into positions of power and influence. As interim president, Glinka had further solidified the ranks with the youth he and Ivan both knew to be the future of the new Russia. They were ready and eager to snatch their country from its lethargy and run with it like Olympian torchbearers to the summit. By the time Glinka took the polls as official president of Russia, he and Ivan calculated, Israel and Washington would be reeling from attack, especially from the legion of saboteurs still inside its own borders. And Russia and its allies would command the summit.

For the next few minutes, Glinka reported two new cabinet appointments he had made, replacements for those whom he was convinced were of no further service to their country. He outlined plans to introduce new amendments to the constitution, once he was permanently installed, that would accommodate the territorial expansion of a new Russia. A new energy consortium was underfoot with China and allies in the Middle East. There were issues, though, on the domestic front. The demands and demonstrations of the lower classes had become a nuisance.

But something of more import needled Glinka just now. “Why isn’t Curt returning my calls?”

Ivan smiled toward the eastern horizon, now a bright azure. “You forget what took place in the camp last night, Arkady. Our friend is sleeping off the strain of his all-night decadence.” Ivan laughed.

“Decadence? Have you fallen away from us, Ivan?”

“You mean from yours and Curt’s netherworld? Those who lie beyond the thin membrane that surrounds us all?” He laughed in a low, condescending tone.

But Glinka didn’t pursue this. Instead, he asked abruptly, “How are you feeling, Ivan?”

Ivan was ready for the question, knowing that Glinka would secretly welcome a bad report. Why would he want to share his upcoming throne with anyone else?

“I am robust and have decided to live forever, Arkady.”

The conversation had ended amiably enough, though Ivan was certain he’d never had a dead reckoning on the soul of Arkady Glinka.

Again, the phone vibrated in his hand and he answered immediately. “What is your news?”

“It is afternoon here, comrade,” Maxum Morozov began, “and they remain under guard in their safe house. Do you know why?”

Ivan didn’t, but he immediately thought of Felix and hoped he hadn’t shown himself to the wrong people. But Felix Shevcik was known to only one operative in Berlin—Evgeny Kozlov, whom Felix also hunted. Could Evgeny have spotted him first and ordered his coveted Liesl under lock and key? Ivan bitterly recalled the Russian traitor’s daring rescue of the woman from Ivan’s assassin, right at the front door of her old Charleston home.

“Tell me more,” Ivan said.

“I have uncovered nothing. Nor has my source, other than what they’re calling a heightened alert. It falls suspiciously close to the transport of our package to Washington, wouldn’t you say?”

Ivan agreed, but saw no possible connection. “Coincidence,” he concluded. And then he remembered his last message to Noland. That was it. The man had panicked enough to order Liesl Bower out of the path of his living, fire-breathing half brother. Ivan laughed with abandon, until his breath caught and he suddenly fought for air.

“Sir?” Maxum’s concerned voice sounded in the phone, now dropped in Ivan’s lap. An aide rushing to his side picked up the phone and wordlessly ended the call.

E
rica had to get out of the apartment. Maxum would be waiting. She opened her bedroom door enough to see the others gathered in the living room, the tension in the room palpable. Max and Ben had been holed up most of the day behind doors, their phones and computers red-hot. Something was going on and no one was talking about it. But Max’s father would know.

Maxum Morozov was her employer. She’d profited handsomely from their liaison so far, though the money didn’t matter as much now. She’d been hired to watch Max the son from as close as she could get, to report his comings and goings, his contacts, his phone and e-mail messages. She hadn’t counted on falling in love with him, or him with her, if that’s what it was. He’d certainly grilled her hard enough about the computer she’d carelessly left in the wrong position under his bed. She’d confessed her use of it immediately, but only to shop online for photographic supplies. Because she hadn’t brought her own computer, she’d told him, she didn’t think he’d mind her borrowing his. Of course, she’d found it locked. It’d taken a few hours for Max to regain his good spirits with her.

Now, he’d been walled away in another room with nothing forthcoming about what had snared his and Ben’s full attention for most of the day.

With an affected breeziness, she bounded into the living room and announced, “I’m going out to take photos and get some groceries. I think we’re all tired of cold cuts.”

“Not a good idea,” Max responded instantly. He and Ben had momentarily returned to the fold.

“No one out there is interested in me,” she insisted. “It’s you gifted ones everyone is protecting.” She offered a brief smile. “I’ll come right back, I promise.”

Max looked oddly toward Ben, then picked up his phone. As he punched in a number, he told Erica, “I’m sorry, but only with an escort. I’m calling one now. Hold on.” He talked briefly with someone and hung up. “He’ll meet you in front of the building and bring you back. You stay with him, please. I’m sorry, Erica. I can’t take chances with any of us.”

She tried to conceal her irritation, her options flying through her mind. “Okay, but how long will it take him to get down there?”

“He’s already there.”

She tried to mask her disappointment.

When Max cleared it with the guards to let her leave, Erica took the elevator just to the second floor, then switched to the stairs, in case anyone had their eye on the elevator doors in the lobby. When she reached the ground floor, instead of following orders to exit through the front and meet the escort, whoever it was, she slipped out the back door and raced from the building, anxiously looking over her shoulder until she’d cleared the area.

She was now on the main boulevard of Friedrichstrasse, but not for long. She turned quickly into a small hostel with a back entrance emptying into an alley, which she navigated for several blocks before finding Maxum’s car parked behind a small bank. She quickly climbed inside.

“Well?” she asked. “Why are we under lock and key?”

He shook his head. “My contact isn’t worried about the alert. In fact, he laughed at the notion that they felt the need for greater protection. Why that amuses him, I don’t know. Regardless, stay on your job and take this.” He handed her another large envelope. “Add these to the other documents and guard them with your last breath.”

She frowned at him. “That’s not amusing.”

“It wasn’t meant to be.”

When she left the car, the envelope inside her bag, she hurried away to snap a few pictures, should anyone wish to see what she’d been doing, and to find a grocery store along the commercial glut of Friedrichstrasse. Before she reached the boulevard, though, a man caught up with her on the sidewalk and called her name. She stopped and whirled around. He was short and squared with a nose of like dimensions, and she was certain she’d never seen him before. Though all her instincts told her to run, he moved swiftly in front of her to block what he must have sensed coming. “I think you should follow me inside here for just a moment,” he said with no expression. “I only want to talk with you.” He gestured toward a little deli whose window was covered with a handwritten listing of its meats and cheeses. With his hand firmly at her back, she found herself herded into the restaurant and toward a small table near the rear.

Her thoughts racing, her practiced eyes sizing up her surroundings, she slowly lowered herself to the table.

“Don’t be afraid of me. I’m here to offer my help.”

“Who are you?” she demanded bluntly.

“The name is unimportant. It is our jobs we should discuss.” He winked in a way that seemed almost comical.

“Don’t try to hide what you are,” he told her. “Or who. Because I know.”

“You know what?”

“That you’ve been meeting with Maxum Morozov. I checked my sources and discovered you and I work for the same people, for the same objectives. Though your skills are far less impressive than mine.” He chuckled. “But I will teach you if you let me.” His gaze moved over her body, resting in places it shouldn’t.

She was certain she could outrun this idiot, though not his weaponry. But she had her own. Beneath the table, she slipped her hand toward her thigh and the slim holster strapped to it. It was time to go.

“As you say, we both have our jobs,” she said icily. “If you’ll excuse me now, I’d like to return to mine.” She rose steadily and never looked at him again as she strode confidently from the deli, furious with herself for not detecting this man, for letting him follow her to Maxum.

Maxum. Who was he really? She hadn’t cared so much when he unrolled the wad of bills and placed them in her hand. She’d never heard of him or his son. The father had preferred it that way, reading her for what she was. An independent spy with no allegiances. Until the last few months with Max.

She never looked back as she left the deli, dismissing the arrogant boor as extraneous, just another cog in whatever elaborate network it was that Maxum was involved in. She only knew the Russian government was at the center of it. That the recent assassination of its president somehow figured into it. It was high stakes and very lucrative. She didn’t need to know much more than her immediate assignment—to watch Max. So far, she’d detected nothing threatening to his person, certainly not from his own father. She knew they were estranged and that Max rarely spoke of him. But despite the overlay of Russian espionage, she’d believed her assignment was only of personal interest to Max’s father.

Before returning to the apartment, she stopped for a bag of groceries. She couldn’t return without her cover for leaving. But as she now approached the apartment, she saw another man who made her pause, staring hotly at her from the front entrance to the building. This one was tall with a thin face and slick hair. He, too, knew her name.

“Erica, where have you been?”

The escort
, she guessed. “Where have
you
been?” she snapped, feigning irritation with him. “You were supposed to meet me in back.”

He looked oddly at her. “It seems there has been unfortunate miscommunication.” He kept staring at her. “I regret that. You’d better hurry upstairs.” His face remained rigid, unsmiling. She turned once before entering the building to find him still watching her.

“The president just left the White House on some sudden and undisclosed mission, leaving the VP on standby should Noland fail to return,” Ben announced quietly, dropping his phone into his pocket.

“He did what?” Max struggled to cut the volume on his shock. They were closed up in their makeshift command center down the hall. Erica had returned with food for dinner and, for now, the others were all distracted with cooking. But Max knew the level of restlessness was rising, and not just in Erica.

“That’s all we’re being told for now,” Ben replied, opening his laptop. “But there’s also this.” He flipped to a reconnaissance file and turned it toward Max. “Looks like that Urals mine is heating up again.”

Max studied the photos. “But maybe now we’ve identified the pipeline they’re using to deliver those things.”

Ben mulled that over awhile. “Think there’ll be a concert on Friday?” he asked, abruptly shifting focus.

Max shrugged and looked toward the closed door. “You know her as well as I do. An executive order might hold her here a couple of days. But it would take Hitler’s army to keep Liesl Bower off that stage.”

“No doubt there are mystics at the Anhinga Bay Spiritualist Camp who might warn you that the ghosts of that army won’t be far from where the two of you are headed.

“Hitler’s rallying grounds,” Max mused. “I remember watching the old newsreels of him standing on that high platform, booming his ferocious rhetoric to thousands of cheering Jew haters.”

“Are you ready to stand there and play your violin in front of his ghost?”

Max smiled and looked Ben straight in the eye. “I’m not afraid of ghosts.”