Jo Leigh – Not-So-Secret Baby (страница 7)

The only thing he could think of was to have Jenny insist that he go. It wasn’t a solution he cared for. He couldn’t tell her what he was doing, that would put her in too much danger. So he’d have to be a schmuck.

Damn. As if things for her weren’t terrible enough. But what was his alternative? Things were coming to a head here and he couldn’t afford to have it all blow up in his face. That would be very, very bad.

Todd’s door opened and Nick pushed off the wall, straightening his cuffs as he watched Jenny walk into the hall. She held her son tight and he watched her soothe the boy, touch him, hug him. He wondered who was more comforted.

Jenny had a kid. A son who looked just like her. Would Patrick grow more like Todd as he got older?

Nick still had a hell of a lot to think about, to work out. That he hadn’t known about Patrick or Jenny returning bothered him almost as much as Jenny’s return itself. At least he understood why she hadn’t rushed to tell him about her boy when he’d put her in the limo. She’d known he’d figure out the dates. That she had to have been pregnant when they’d gotten together.

Would it have stopped him from helping her? No. Would it have stopped him from making love to her? He had no idea. And he couldn’t afford to think about it now. His personal life was so far away from a priority, it had its own zip code. He’d given all that up when he’d taken the job with Todd. Nothing mattered but the gig. Not even Jenny.

What did matter was that his place in the organization was still safe. That Todd still trusted him. Henry Sweet didn’t, but then, he never had. Sweet didn’t trust anyone except Todd. Period. It had taken too long, at too great a cost, for Nick to get this far. He couldn’t blow it now.

“There’s my boy,” Mrs. Norris said, stepping out to meet Jenny.

Nick held himself back as Jenny and the nanny met, sized each other up. Jenny held on to Patrick as long as she could, but in the end, she had to let him go. Patrick, of course, didn’t care for that at all, and he let out a wail that was at once piercing and pathetic. Which wasn’t nearly as bad as the sudden silence that descended when the nanny closed the door.

Jenny looked inconsolable. Damn it to hell, he couldn’t have consoled her if he’d wanted to.

“So you’re back to being my watchdog, eh, Nick?”

She’d turned to him slowly, walked away from her son, her ponytail swaying behind her as if her pale green eyes weren’t half-dead with sorrow.

“Looks like it.” He accompanied her back up the long hallway, past Todd’s suite, to the room they both knew well. He opened the door to her suite, pocketing the key before he let her inside. She brushed by him quickly, but he still caught a whiff of her perfume. His body reacted quickly, but he ignored it.

“My God,” she said as she gazed around the room. It was half the size of Todd’s, but that still meant it was enormous. He’d redecorated since she’d gone, taken the once vaguely Persian decor and run with it. Pillows on the floor, silk curtain swathes hanging from the ceiling, great overstuffed chaise longues and ornate tables festooned with antique hookahs and cast-iron figurines. It was beautiful in a way, but so unlike Jenny’s character as to be laughable.

“It looks like something out of Scheherazade’s nightmares.”

Nick smirked. “You managed to come up with enough tales to keep your head on.”

Jenny whirled around, took a step toward him, her eyes fierce, her hands fisted. “What is it with you?” she said in a whisper that carried just to his ears and not the microphones studded throughout the suite. “Why are you being so horrible? It’s not enough I have to put up with him? You used to be human. What happened?”

He froze his expression. “I wised up.”

“You mean, you sold out.”

“I’d sold out long before I met you,” he said in that same strange whisper.

“So why did you help me? Huh? What was in it for you?”

He gave her a smile he’d perfected under Todd’s tutelage, then leaned in so his lips nearly touched the perfect shell of her ear. “I got you in the sack, didn’t I?”

When he leaned back, the fire had left her eyes to be replaced by nothing so much as utter defeat. He hoped… God, he hoped, the fire wasn’t gone forever.

EDWARD POTEREIKO SWORE and stamped his feet to keep his circulation flowing. He glanced at the stainless-steel watch he’d gotten as a retirement gift after twenty-five years in the GRU, and saw that it was two-fifteen.

Late. His contact was late. The breakup of the Soviet Union had, in the former colonel’s opinion, also broken much of the vigor and discipline of the Ukrainian army. Now they were just so many ragtag costumed clowns playing at being soldiers. In his day, Edward would have had a number of them shot. The remainder would damn well have been on time.

He peered across the frozen moonlit fields toward the lights of Kharkiv, trying to ignore the condensation of breath on his glasses. He willed himself to see a figure struggling across the tundra in the rising fog. Still nothing moved.

Cursing again, he considered sitting in his four-door Volga sedan with the engine running and the heater blasting, but decided the risk was not worth the comfort. He turned his back to the lights and stuffed a Bogatyri cigarette between his lips, his American lighter shrouded by his greatcoat.

He’d barely puffed the hot ash to incandescent redness when he heard the crunch of boots approaching. He cautiously moved to place the sedan between himself and the sound. A dark silhouette stumbled into view, visible breath rasping in the misty silence, the telltale peak of the Russian army cap obvious against the distant twinkling lights.

As the figure moved closer, Potereiko could see the reason for the shadow’s stumbling gait; the man was carrying a large metal suitcase that hit his leg with every step. “Colonel?” he whispered. “Colonel?”

Potereiko stepped from behind the sedan and puffed on his cigarette before speaking, blowing smoke in a thick cloud that drifted sinuously over his shoulder. “You’re late, Vanko.”

Vanko dropped the suitcase at the rear of the Volga sedan with a sharp crunch that made the other man start involuntarily, although he knew it would take more than that for the case to begin its deadly work. Vanko pulled his gloves off and blew on his bare hands to warm them. “The security guard at the factory demanded extra money, just as I was leaving. He thinks I’m stealing computers.” He laughed, then sniffed at the smoke from Potereiko’s cigarette. “Hey, let me have one of those.”

“You were supposed to be here twenty minutes ago,” Potereiko said. “I’ve got to be back at the border before the shift changes at three.” He fished out one of the unfiltered Bogatyris and handed it to Vanko, then lit it for him.

“The guard—”

“Forget the guard.” Potereiko waved his arm dismissively and opened the trunk of the Volga. As the lid opened, a light came on inside. “Let’s see it.”

“Ah, Colonel.”

“I want to make sure it’s what you say, Vanko.”

“Would I try to cheat you?”

“You’re already trying to get a few extra rubles for the greedy guard. Open the case.” Potereiko stood back, hands in his pockets, cigarette dangling from between his lips.

Vanko flipped a pair of latches, not unlike a briefcase, and carefully raised the lid, exposing a neatly machined panel containing an array of readouts and switches, barely visible in the dim trunk light. “You can set a code to open it. Here.” Vanko indicated a spot near one of the latches on the inside of the case.

Edward moved closer and peered in. “Ah, yes. I remember when we were designing these.” He reached out a hand and caressed the panel, almost fondly. “We were going to destroy the Americans.” He closed the case, then the trunk.

“Those were the days, eh, comrade?” Vanko said.

Potereiko puffed on his cigarette, regarded the hot ember, then dropped the butt and ground it out with the sole of his shoe. “There’s much more opportunity now,” he said.

“Speaking of opportunity…” Vanko puffed his own cigarette, hands in his coat pockets, gloves tucked beneath an armpit.

“Of course. The money.”

“I had to give the guard an extra fifty rubles.”

“Let’s see,” Potereiko said as he reached inside his coat. He pulled out a pistol.

Vanko’s eyes widened and he backed up a step, pulling his arms from his pockets, gloves falling to the ground. “What is this?”

“This is a Smith & Wesson .38-caliber Police Special,” Potereiko said calmly. “Made in America. New Jersey, I believe. Nice, is it not?”

“Edward… Colonel… Please.”

“You are a symbol of all that’s gone wrong with the Soviet Union, Vanko. And a petty thinker, to boot.” In one smooth motion former Colonel Edward Potereiko raised the weapon and fired, striking Vanko in the forehead. As the roar of the gun died, his face, only slightly marred by the entry wound, took on a startled look. The cigarette fell from his lips, lodging on his heavy coat before he fell backward.

Potereiko put the gun back inside his coat and checked his watch. He still had fifteen minutes to get back to the border, and it was only six or seven miles. He was, in fact, far more concerned with the nearly six thousand miles he’d have to drive in the next week. He stepped over Vanko’s body.