Limbo Man (33 page)

As Vee, Leonov, and his three bodyguards walked the long corridor that led to the courtyard in the center of the complex, she caught the varying inflections of Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kiev, and Siberia. Wary gazes flashed toward them, then quickly away. Everyone recognized Leonov. Every last person would be careful to mind his or her own business.

Their small group paused for a moment in the outside doorway, inspecting the wide expanse of green grass, punctuated by a fenced pool, tasteful shrubs and trees, numerous benches, and a small, white-columned pavilion. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Though too chilly for swimming, there were a couple of sunbathers stretched out on wooden lounge chairs. Several mothers were watching their children play.

All quiet on Brighton Beach. No one waited in the pavilion, but how many of Leonov’s men lined the windows overlooking the courtyard, Vee wondered. Easy enough for Leonov, a man on his own turf, to be prepared in half an hour. But for Seryozha? Was this his home turf as well? Had he called Homeland Security? Or was he using Uncle Arkadi as backup? Surely Cade had phoned Home. We who are about to die are making jokes.

How could she even
think
a joke at a time like this?
Without humor I would go mad
. Yeah, right. She’d have to discuss that with Seryozha if they ever got out of this mess.

The three guards formed a cordon around them. Leonov tightened his grip on her arm, and they moved together into the open, striding toward the pavilion. Short of taking them all out with the sweep of an AK-47, there was little an adversary could do. And the pavilion’s roof protected Leonov from a sniper
from above
. So not a bad choice for the exchange.

Seryozha had to have a plan, Vee thought. He wouldn’t actually go through with the exchange.

Yes, he would. If it meant bluffing his way to the bombs. She was fortunate his obsession happened to coincide with getting her away from Leonov while inserting himself back into the center of the vortex.

By offering himself as the sacrifice.

No! He had a plan, of course he had a plan.

Still huddled in a tight bunch, they climbed the two steps up to the raised floor of the open-sided building, coming to a halt in the center, well sheltered from sniper fire. The guards, turning their backs to Leonov and Vee, surveyed the courtyard. Waiting. Vee shifted her head, stood on tiptoes, trying to see around the men’s linebacker shoulders.

The lobby door of the red brick building on the far side of the courtyard opened. A man stepped out. Alone. Leonov’s men went on alert, guns out, covering the newcomers’ approach.
Damn you, Seryozha, I hope you know what you’re doing.

Hands out to his sides, Sergei climbed the steps. He heaved an elaborate sigh, raking her with a look of supreme disgust. “Valentina, my love, you are a great deal of trouble. Now get going, straight through the door I came out of. And, no, we will not discuss it. Go!”

He was such a good actor, she truly couldn’t tell how much of that delightful speech was for Leonov’s benefit and how much was the heartfelt truth. Unfortunately, it was probably both. Leonov dropped her arm, shoved her forward. Vee paused long enough to memorize Sergei’s grim, rough-hewn face, the unfathomable message in his green eyes. Was this the last view she would ever have of her personal Russian enigma?

“Now!” he barked. Vee went, feeling a host of eyes on her back, far more than the five men standing in the middle of the
pavilion
. Yet surely no one was about to stage a firefight in
a c
ondominium courtyard.

“Get in here!” Cade hissed as she turned at the condo door to look behind her. He pulled her inside. Vee blinked at the sight of Misha Zhukov. And then, while the world outside disintegrated into chaos, Cade held Vee tight, preventing her from charging back out. Fifteen seconds of gunfire, ten more for the reverberations to die away. Vee pounded her way off Cade’s chest and looked out.

Not a man standing. Not one. Not. One.

Vee’s short struggle with Cade ended with her knee in his groin. Doubling over in agony, he let her go. Misha, standing just outside the door, gun in hand, reached for her and missed.

Crying children, terrified mothers, stunned sunbathers. Vee passed them all, falling to the ground beside the body with almost no hair. The one with the scar on the back of his head. The one all in black, making Leonov’s charcoal look like a Tokarev wannabe. Leonov—whose blood was pouring onto the green grass from a shot through the head.

“Seryozha?” He couldn’t be dead.
Dumb, stupid, self-sacrificing idiot!
She wouldn’t allow it. “Seryozha!” She took him by the shoulder, tried to turn him over.
No!
There was blood. Blood everywhere. Clothing, grass, sidewalk.
They were dead, all dead
.

Hands pulled her away. Misha felt for a pulse behind his brother’s ear. “Not dead,” he pronounced.

Vee didn’t even attempt to figure out why an ambulance was already pulling up, sirens wailing, on the street between the condos and the boardwalk. She was too busy holding Sergei’s hand and praying.

Stepping back from a window on the condominium’s first floor, Vanya Gronski told his men to stand down. He did not add a “Well done.” If one of them had accidentally killed Seryozha, he was a dead man walking.

Unless he’d had private orders . . .

Nyet
. Petrovski did not give orders behind Vanya’s back. He packed away his sniper rifle in a fitted container that resembled an upscale briefcase and prepared to return to his boss. Mission accomplished. Leonov was gone, and good riddance.

But what idiot shot Sergei?

For the first time in twenty-two years Vanya Gronski was unsure whether his boss would deliver a pat on the back, a kick to the groin, or a bullet through the head.

Chapter 24

Vee bulldozed her way through the layers of security at Bellvue’s Psych Ward with the confidence of previous experience. And staff who remembered her well. After all it was—Vee paused her charge toward Seryozha long enough to do a quick count—less than two weeks since they’d sneaked out the hospital’s back door to the hum of giant air conditioners and the foul scent of the Dumpsters.

Less than two weeks
. Absurd. Her previous life hovered in the mist, seen through a glass, darkly. Another time. Another person.

Same damn place.

The door to Seryozha’s room was distinguished by the rigid blue-clad stance of one of New York City’s finest, with a couple of Homeland Security types sitting in chairs angled so they could view the corridor in either direction. Silently, Vee held out her credentials. This is what happened when a girl associated with a man marked Super Secret. A man who nearly got himself killed saving her life.

Or maybe, as Cade had been all too ready to point out, Sergei was only alive because one of his uncle’s snipers missed. For a moment Vee closed her eyes, shutting out futile speculation. Sergei might have been playing a role, but his words in the
pavilion
still rankled. Compared to his determination to eliminate old nukes, Vee Frost didn’t count for much. Schooling her face into what she hoped was nothing more than
concerned colleague
, she pushed open the door.

Well, damn . . . he looked like a wounded war hero, lying so still, eyes closed, his head wound round with bandages, as if he’d just dropped out of a Minuteman re-creation. Machines hummed, the IV dripped. The sounds and smells assaulted her like a dream she longed to forget. He was going to be fine, they’d told her. The bullet had only caught him a glancing blow. Just one more knock on the head for Sergei Tokarev.

Vee pulled up a chair, took his hand. Seryozha’s eyes popped open. Instantly aware. No disorientation, no questions. He gave her a lecherous Tokarev once-over. “Well, darling, aren’t you a beauty? Where in this Godforsaken hellhole did they find you?”

Vee gaped, snapped her mouth shut. Thought fast. “Uh, sorry, wrong room,” she muttered and dashed out, pushing the heavy door to within an inch of closing. Ignoring the three pairs of eyes regarding her with surprise, she put her ear to the crack.

“Valentina? Valentina, I am sorry. Was joke. Tokarev’s an idiot. Valentina . . . do I have to be Nick the Wimp to get you back?” A long pause. Vee gulped in a breath, but didn’t move. “Hey, Vee. It’s me. Seryozha. Ivan Zhukov’s younger son. The guy who never knows what to say to women. Open the damn door or I’m coming out!”

Blast it!
No matter what role Sergei was playing, he always found a way to outmaneuver her attempts to seize control. This wasn’t the moment for him to be chasing anything but a good night’s rest. Vee expended her anger over Sergei’s little joke on a gargoyle scowl at the heavy wooden door. Then, pasting on a look which she hoped signified her complete indifference to whether he lived or died, she walked back into the room.

Silently, they studied each other. Vee pulled up an ugly vinyl chair, exactly like the one in Nick’s old room, and sat down. “There were powder burns,” he said into the air above her head.

“Wha-at?”

“Doucette mentioned my suspicions about Petrovski?”

“Yes.”

“In the end the old man came through.”

“You missed death by a hair’s breadth,” Vee shot back. “That’s hardly looking out for your welfare. And maybe his assassins missed you by accident.”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you!” Sergei groaned, grabbed at his bandage. Vee thrust a container of water with a straw into his hand. He drank. “Sorry. I’m really fine, just a bitch of a headache.” Vee placed the water jug back on his rolling tray table. “There were powder burns on my forehead, Vee. That means one of Leonov’s men got off a shot before he went down. The bullet creased me on the way by.”

“I still don’t trust Petrovski,” Vee muttered.

“Ah,
da
. I have to agree. To all but Heydar the Horrible
,
Sergei Tokarev died today. The
Organizatsiya
has lost a good man,” he added mournfully.

“Then I suggest you bury him deep. And forever. I will not miss him.”

Seryozha’s face assumed an expression that could almost be called a pout. “But he is a better lover than me.”

“You’ll do,” Vee returned shortly. She sucked in a sharp breath, clamping a hand over her mouth. “Oh, shit,” she breathed past her fingers.

“What?”

She leaned in, whispering, “Wanna bet this room is bugged?”

“Everywhere Big Brother watches,” Seryozha returned calmly. “I have spent my life finding ways to hide. It’s not easy.”

Vee reached for the television remote next to the water jug, found a sportscast with continuous jabber and turned up the volume. Elbows on the bedcover, she rested her chin on her hands. “Bug or no bug,” she said, “I’ve been waiting a long time to catch you in a weak moment. You can’t run, you can’t hide. You need my help to get out of here. So it’s time to tell me a few things. Like how you speak the idiomatic English of a born American. Hey, lover,” she added with a soft smile, “this comes under
need to know
.”

His attention seemed fixed on the touchdown and endless instant replays that filled the television screen. Vee felt a strong urge to poke him in the ribs. Finally, Sergei turned directly toward her, his voice pitched beneath the high volume blaring from the TV. “I was brought up to consider it classified information
,
as well as a private family matter, but”—he offered an apologetic smile that stabbed straight to her heart—“you’re right, it’s time you know.” He wiggled his fingers, urging her closer.

“Any more and I’ll be in bed with you,” Vee protested, only inches from his mouth.

He winked. “Is good. Sergei like. Uh—sorry, I’ll behave.”

Vee ran a finger over his lips, followed by the soft flutter of a butterfly kiss. “So tell me,” she breathed. “What makes you sound more American than some of our native-born?”

He gazed at the ceiling, as if gathering his thoughts, or was he simply hoping she’d give up and disappear?”

“Many years ago,” he told her, “the old Soviet Union trained people to be long-term spies in the United States. ‘Sleepers’, they were called. People who might live ten or twenty years as ordinary citizens before being called upon to serve Mother Russia. Some lived out their lives without ever getting the call.”

“Your family lived here?” That would certainly explain his expertise.

“Later,” Sergei responded cryptically, “but not as planned.” He plunged back into his tale. “My mother was singled out for her skill in English when she was in college and drafted as a ‘volunteer
.
’ She excelled, living with other trainees in a town designed so authentically that you could set it down in Kansas and no one would know the difference from your classic American suburb.” Sergei broke off, offering a fond smile, a gentle caress on his cheek, as if making amends for his churlish reluctance to talk about his family history. A transformation Vee sucked in, like sunlight after a cold rain. She had never seen him so mellow. Maybe he should get creased by a bullet more often.