Limbo Man (34 page)

“But love struck,” he continued softly. “My mother’s training was complete. A mate had been chosen for her. She was on leave before being posted to the American heartland, and on the shore of the Black Sea she met an up and coming Russian Army colonel, named Ivan Zhukov. I’ve wondered sometimes what life might have been like if either one of them were ordinary people, but they weren’t. Both were strong, intelligent, courageous, dedicated to their country.”

“Your mother didn’t go to America,” Vee said. “Never used all that training.”

Sergei shook his head. “Not then. Even the dedicated can suffer from passion, and Nataliya Andropova discovered her dedication was not quite as strong as she thought. She married her colonel and ended up inflicting all that training on her children instead. To use your own idiom, it was ‘Learn to speak American, or bust.’”

Vee, grinning, popped a quick kiss to Sergei’s scarred right cheek. “When I was eight,” he continued, “and my father was occupied with our war in Afghanistan, my mother was posted to our Embassy in Washington. To say the Zhukov children integrated well into their American school would be putting it mildly.”

“You were stars.” Vee smiled, thinking of the three young Russian children polishing their idiomatic American with proud relish.

Her smile faded as Seryozha’s green eyes darkened. “All in all, we had a good life, the best of everything. My mother rose in rank through the GRU, my father became a general, adding one star after another. A very important man was General Ivan Zhukov.

“And then we discovered what your people are now learning. Afghanistan can be tamed by no one. It was the beginning of the fall. Brezhnev stood on a tank in Red Square. The Soviet Union trembled, toppled, its center forced to a new kind of government, its extremities nibbled away by countries longing for independence. The classic death of an empire—like Alexander the Great, the Romans, Napoleon, and the Brits.”

Seryozha’s spate of words stopped abruptly. Vee broke the silence by asking the obvious. “Did your father adjust to the new regime?”

“I am tired, Valentina. Go now and arrange for me to be out of here tomorrow morning. There’s work to be done.”

“You can’t!”

“I can and will. Go now and do as I say. I am well aware I cannot walk out of a Psych Ward. That’s why they put me here. You will fix this.”

Okay, so he’d hit a memory that made him like a cat with his tail under a rocking chair. And he was right. Only she could spring him from this place. She was, after all, his official keeper.

“I’ll see what the doctor says,” Vee promised, well aware her tone was more cajolery than promise.

“Unless you wish to see your lovely American cities melt into the ground, you will make sure the doctor signs me out!”

Vee stood, snapped off a mock salute. “Hail, oh mighty Caesar, I’ll see what I can do.
Dasveedanya
.” At the door she turned a sickly sweet smile in his direction. “And kindly remember what happened to Julius.” A finger wiggle in Sergei’s direction, and she pushed the door open. This time
sh
e didn’t look back.

Spring Sergei from the hospital
. Whatever made her think she had an option? The bombs were on the move. Heydar was waiting. Only a call from Sergei Tokarev telling them the
Organizatsiya
’s internal problems had been solved would initiate the final sequence—the revelation of the locations where U-236 and Kiril Mikoyan were needed to activate the nukes.

The stark truth was, she owed Seryozha. If not for Vee Frost, Petrovski could have eliminated Leonov without any risk to his nephew. Undoubtedly, dear Uncle Arkadi had proposed exactly that. Yet Seryozha had come for her. Risked everything.
Everything
. And she’d just quarreled with him. Stalked out in classic high dudgeon over
nothing
.

She’d even smuggled his satellite phone into the hospital and forgotten to give it to him. And it wasn’t as if Heydar, Lion of Iran, would welcome a phone call from Valentina Zhukova.

Vee paused just outside the hospital’s front entrance. Cade had spotted her, was pulling away from the curb, moving slowly toward her. She cocked an index finger at him—
oops, give me another minute
—and dashed back inside.

When Vee returned to the condo, two stone-faced security guards flanked the door to her hotel room.
Oh-oh
. No surprise, then, to find Jack Frost seated at a table in front of the closed living room draperies, a drink that appeared to be mostly ice at his fingertips. “Sit down before you fall.” He waved a hand toward the chair across from him. “Don’t wince, Vee. You’ve had a rough day. No one expects you to look like Miss FBI, poster girl of always ready, willing, and able.”

“Gee, thanks.” Somehow she made it to the chair before her legs noodled.

Her father poured her a drink, shoved it toward her. As Vee downed a healthy swallow of scotch, a mirror image of her own blue eyes regarded her with what looked remarkably like sympathy. “I wouldn’t have tagged you for this job, Valentina, if I hadn’t known you could do it. Though I admit I didn’t expect some of the–ah–complications.” He tossed her a rueful smile. “But you’ve come through it with flying colors—”

“Because Sergei saved my neck.”

“Granted.” An admission that obviously pained him.

“No thanks to Homeland Security.”

The Deputy Chief heaved a sigh. “That’s partly why I’m here. To apologize.”

“You found the leak.” Not a question.

Jack Frost drummed his fingers on the table, took a sip from his drink. “Our people are vetted so thoroughly before they’re hired that we’ve been careless about follow-up. Particularly at the top, where our staff is considered the brightest and best, above reproach. They couldn’t possibly, etcetera, etcetera.”

Vee had never before seen her father look ashamed. He’d never had reason. “Who?” she asked softly.

“Classic case,” Frost said. “Our computer expert, the one who handled communications. All brains, lousy packaging. Went all female ga-ga when some guy paid attention to her. One of Leonov’s Russian charmers.”

Vee kept her eyes fixed on her drink. It wasn’t just ugly, neglected girls who had their heads turned by a handsome face. Maybe even by a gargoyle face.

“It wasn’t intentional,” her father continued. “Just pillow talk. Something exciting to share, tidbits to make her more interesting, hold his attention. Poor kid’s been bawling her eyes out for the last two days.”

“But you’ll send her to jail?”

“Of course.”

Of course. It was called treason. And at the moment Vee wasn’t sure where she was on the treason scale. Every time she helped Seryozha get closer to his goal, she was enabling annihilation. Every time she failed to report something vital like Sergei hiding the U-236, his connections to the GRU, his relationship to Arkadi Petrovski, she flirted with treason. She was guilty of choosing Sergei and his quest over the dictates of her job.

At the moment the two were one and the same, she had to believe that. Yet she’d set herself up as sole judge and jury of Sergei’s actions. No one else was invited to weigh in with an opinion, not even Daddy. What made her any different than the plain—ugly? fat? inarticulate?—computer nerd in Homeland Security’s main office?

Here she was, reporting to the Deputy Chief of Homeland Security, omitting great chunks of her story, emphasizing Sergei’s risk of death on her behalf, his conviction he could control what happened when the bombs surfaced. The necessity of once again cutting him loose to fulfill his destiny.

When she finished, Jack Frost leaned back in his chair, his face reflecting a remarkable mix of doubt and admiration. “My God, girl, but you’re a chip off the old block. Both blocks,” he amended. “Wouldn’t want your mother to feel left out. Has to lie like a bitch to keep her criminal bastards out of jail. Some of that seems to have rubbed off on you.”

“Sir?” Vee got out around the lump in her throat. “Every word was true.”

“What there was of them,” the Deputy Chief grumbled. He tapped a thumbnail against his upper lip. “So you want to keep Tokarev in play, going it alone like some knight hellbent on slaying a dragon?”

“You don’t have a choice. Nothing’s changed. He’s still the best chance you’ve got.”

“We’ve launched some highly sophisticated new security equipment, at sea and at our ports.”

“We have a hell of a lot of ports.”

“Ah, but I’m trusting your intuition, Valentina. We’re concentrating our efforts on the East Coast, primarily Baltimore, Tampa, and Miami.”

Vee shut her eyes, a shiver shook her. “My info’s thin, sir. So very thin.”

“You said Tokarev thinks you’re on the right track.”

“Zhukov,” Vee corrected. “And, yes, he agrees with me, but it’s still pretty thin. The only sure thing—exactly as we’ve said since the beginning—is using Sergei as bait.”

“And his talk of isotopes and an old man? Does your Russian actually have any idea where either of them are? Or is he planning to bluff his way out of Armageddon?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Of course he knows,” Vee asserted. And maybe she wasn’t lying. Maybe Sergei had remembered what he did with the U-236.

“Ah, by the way . . . congratulate Major Zhukov on his marksmanship. I’m told not all the bullets in Leonov came from a sniper rifle.”

Vee’s chin firmed. “We’re keeping him,” she announced. “And Cade.”

“No problem,” Frost drawled. “The demands of National Security sometimes create strange bedfellows.”

Not caring to examine that remark too closely, Vee reached for her scotch.

“Look at me, Valentina.”

She raised her chin, swallowed, her gaze steady on her father’s stern face.

“You’ve had the upper hand since you talked your way out of Wyoming. So far, your instincts have paid off. Toka–Zhukov has led us a merry chase, but he’s produced results. I’d be a fool to change the rules now. So he’s free to go whenever he can stand on his feet. And you with him. So go save the world. And, Valentina,” he added softly, “I would be extremely unhappy if you got yourself vaporized in the process.”

Chapter 25

Silence enveloped the multi-million dollar condo overlooking Central Park. Sergei was stretched out on the couch, head resting on a mound of pillows, eyes closed. Across the room, Misha, having consigned Kiril Mikoyan to the care of others, paced in front of the broad panel of windows like an agitated tiger. Cade sprawled in an armchair next to the couch, supposedly absorbed in
New York Times
. He hadn’t turned a page in ten minutes, Vee noted.

As for herself . . . Vee made a wry face as she looked down at the stack of neatly folded laundry she was carrying. After two weeks of non-stop chaos, she had been downgraded by aggravating male assumptions to cooking, cleaning and doing laundry. Well, hell, someone had to do it, and the concept of mundane necessities hadn’t so much as crossed the male horizon. Vee let them get away with it. Chores kept her busy while they wai
ted for Sergei’s phone to ring.

For the call to the final act. Or an “all clear” from DHS.

Fat chance.

Maybe Sergei had it wrong. He was out of the deal. Heydar and Moussad had found another bomb tech, another source for the isotope. Manhattan, Washington, Chicago, Las Vegas, San Francisco or Hometown, USA, could go up in a mushroom cloud at any moment. End of story.

Vee laid the folded laundry on the coffee table in front of the couch. “You’ll have to claim your own,” she announced to the room in general.

Cade lowered the newspaper. “What,
chère
,” he purred, “you don’t recognize my briefs?”

Sergei’s eyes snapped open. Misha stopped pacing.

A flush stained Vee’s cheeks, hotter and redder than any she’d experienced, even as a teen. She gulped, opened her mouth . . .

“
Mon Dieu
, I’m sorry!” Cade erupted from his chair, hands stretched out to his sides. His amber eyes locked onto Vee’s blue, pleading for forgiveness. “It’s this waiting, I swear. It’s driving me crazy.”

“You may return to New Orleans, Florida, or whatever realm of hell you sprang from,” Sergei pronounced grandly, as he levered himself up to a sitting position. “We will manage. Go now, before I kill you.”

With slow, deliberate care, Cade stepped away from Vee. A glance at Misha, poised for action, his fingers ready to go for his gun. Back to Sergei, who had produced his Sig-Sauer f
rom under the mound of pillows.

“I’ll go down on my knees, if that’s what it takes,” Cade replied steadily, not moving so much as a muscle. “I let the strain get to me. I was way out of line. Trying for a bit of humor to lighten the gloom and jumping straight into the fire instead.” Sergei’s glower stayed stubbornly in place.

“I know I sometimes don’t sound like it,” Cade continued doggedly, “but I’m a professional. This is the biggest case of my career, probably the biggest case I’ll ever work. I want to stay on it. I apologize, profusely, to both—”

Vee’s phone rang. As she listened, the flush drained from her cheeks. Staggering slightly, she dropped down on the couch next to Sergei, knocking over the stack of laundry as she passed the coffee table. “Thank you,” she breathed, and ended the call. She sat very still, eyes closed.