The man sauntered up to where the blonde and her girlfriend sat. The blonde was swinging her left leg as if in time to unheard music. Jack could see her smiling, but the smile seemed wicked, deadly even. The man, cocksure and armed to the teeth, appeared oblivious to the bloodlust in her heart, or possibly he felt invulnerable meeting with her in this public space. After all, what would she dare do to him that he—or his 9mm—couldn’t handle?
He was about to say something to her when, with an upswing, she buried the toe of her high-heeled shoe in his groin. He grimaced, making a face not that different from his leer, and bent over almost double. Because he was on the man’s left side, Jack could see what the blonde couldn’t: Her lover reached for the 9mm.
Jack was out of the banquette. He took two long strides to the bar and brought the edge of one hand down on the man’s hairy wrist. The gun clattered to the floor, the waiter jumped back, and the bartender signaled for security.
The blonde’s lover lunged clumsily past Jack, the fingers of his right hand grabbing the woman’s throat, throttling her. She gave a soft gurgle, like an infant at the breast. Jack punched the man in the throat, and that was the end of him or, more accurately, the fight in him. By that time, two of the hotel’s security team had arrived. One of them dragged the ex-lover away while the other picked up the 9mm with his bare hand. He seemed unconcerned with leaving his fingerprints. Obviously, they did things differently in Moscow, Jack thought, wondering fleetingly what the Russian crime scene unit was called. This thought took his mind off the murderous look the blonde’s ex- lover shot him as he was dragged away.
“Are you all right?” Jack said to the blonde, whose hands tentatively fingered her throat.
“Yes, thank you.”
He nodded, about to move away, when she added: “My name is Annika, and this is Jelena. We were about to go clubbing. Why don’t you join us?”
“It’s been a long day and I was just on my way up to my room.”
“Please. I’d like to repay your kindness.” She gestured at the empty stool beside her. “The least I can offer is a drink.”
Jack really wanted to get back to his room and prepare for the assignment he’d been given, but it would be rude to refuse. “One drink.”
She nodded. “One drink only. Then, if you like, I myself will escort you to the elevators. I’m staying here, too.”
“Yeah, I couldn’t help hearing the shouting match earlier this evening.”
She made a face. “Jelena said that everyone in the hotel must’ve heard Ivan and me.”
He sat on the indicated stool and nodded after the departing figures. “I guess we’ll need to give statements to the police.”
At this, both women laughed. “I see you haven’t been in Moscow long,” Jelena said. “The police are too busy shaking down businesses and taking American dollars from people like Annika’s boyfriend—”
“Ex-boyfriend,” Annika interjected. “
“Whatever.” Jelena shrugged. She spoke English with no foreign intonation at all, unlike Annika, whose English was freighted with a heavy Russian accent.
“I see you have no trouble talking to strangers.”
“If I did, I’d be out of a job,” Jelena said. “I handle the hotel’s overseas bookings.”
Annika signaled the bartender. “What will you have . . .”
“Jack,” he said. “Jack McClure.”
Annika nodded. “What’s your poison, Jack McClure?”
“Single malt,” Jack said to the bartender. “Oban, please.”
“Right away, sir.” The bartender went to retrieve the bottle of scotch.
“I hope you have a strong constitution, Mr. McClure.”
“Shut up, Jelena.” Annika shot her friend a daggered look before turning back to Jack. “Ignore her. She’s developed a lurid imagination from reading too many American thrillers.”
“I have no idea what the two of you are talking about.”
The bartender set his drink in front of him, then backed away as if they were all radiating plutonium.
“You might as well tell him, Annika.”
“That seems like a good idea,” he said, taking a sip of his Oban.
Annika sighed. “My ex—his name is Ivan Gurov—is a minor—and I stress
Jack did. “He’s part of the Moscow mafia.”
“He’s a fucking criminal,” Jelena said with more emotion than she’d shown up until now.
“As you can see, Jack, Jelena didn’t approve of my involvement with Ivan.”
“He’s a bloodsucker,” Jelena said, clearly warming to the topic. “He’s trash washed up in the gutter, who’d as soon slit your throat as look twice at you. He gets more pleasure out of blood than vodka, that’s for sure.”
“My friend needs to learn to have an opinion,” Annika said with a good-natured laugh.
“And you need to watch out behind you,” Jelena said soberly. “You, too, Mr. McClure. I saw the look Ivan gave you.”
“I take it that means he won’t be thrown in jail.”
“His friends would see he got out in a heartbeat,” Annika said, “which is why the police won’t bother pursuing the matter.”
“More likely they don’t want to wind up in an alley with a bullet in the back of the head,” Jelena said. “They have a serious aversion to being taken out with the garbage.”
Jack took another sip of his scotch. “Count me in on that group.”
“Don’t worry,” Annika said. “Jelena tends to overstate the case when it comes to Ivan. He’s pretty far down the
Jelena made a derisive sound. “That doesn’t stop him from killing people.”
“You don’t know that for a fact.”
“I hear things, Annika, same as you.” She shook her head. “You’re so naive sometimes.”
Jack had had about enough Halloween stories for one evening. He had zero interest in seeing Ivan Gurov again, but he didn’t have any expectation that he would, especially since by tomorrow morning he’d be in the air, on his way to Ukraine.
He finished his drink and stood up. “Ladies, it’s been interesting, but all things considered it’s time for me to leave.”
“You see what you did, Jelena,” Annika pouted, “you’ve driven away another man.” She rose and threw some money on the bar. “I promised to make sure you got to your room.”
“That’s right,” Jelena said with a sardonic edge. “That disgusting pig of yours might be hiding in the elevator.”
Jack held up his hands. “Ladies, I like women fighting over me as much as the next guy, but, really, I can find my way upstairs by myself.”
ALONE IN the elevator, he still felt Annika’s cat’s eyes following him, and he wondered whether she or Jelena had been seriously coming on to him. Maybe that was just male ego talking. Then again, it could be that both of them had been flirting with him, which had long been a fantasy of his, one he shared with about a billion other men. One thing was for certain, his brain and theirs had been vibrating on two distinct frequencies. Between the assignment in Ukraine, secret from even the president’s staff, and the escalating friction with Sharon, his mind had no room for flirtatious Russian women, especially when one had a mobster for a boyfriend, ex- or otherwise.
He got off at the top floor, nodded to the Secret Service personnel on duty, and entered his room. Something about his talk with Carson in the stairwell bothered him. Why had he dismissed his bodyguards before he brought up the subject of Jack’s assignment? When Jack had queried him, the president had said: “
Did Dennis Paull suspect a mole inside Edward’s staff—in the president’s own Secret Service detail? If true, it would be a devastating blow to Edward’s work guiding the administration. What if his political enemies—who, as he said, were still powerful—knew his every move before he made it? Carson hadn’t spoken their names, but Paull had: Miles Benson, the former director of the CIA, a hardheaded, take-no-prisoners war veteran; and Morgan Thomson, the former national security advisor, the last of the credible neocons, bellicose, nervy, with recently revealed ties to
