'Besides, Eugenia thrives on pressure…'
Yes.' Eugenia's voice was uncharacteristically subdued as she answered the phone.
'What's wrong?' Kirov said. 'Are you all right?'
She hesitated before replying. 'Yes. You know, just very busy these days. What do you need?'
'I need some information on Dane Niler.'
'Last I heard, he was working out of Florida somewhere. What do you want with him?'
'He might be working with Pavski now. I need you to find out.'
'My usual sources have been compromised, Kirov. Pavski obviously knows they've been working on your behalf.' She paused. 'I also have excellent reason to believe he knows I've been helping you.'
'I know, Eugenia. I never meant this to happen.' He paused. 'I'm sorry, but you'll need to find a way to insulate yourself from this. Petrenko was murdered yesterday, so Pavski might be taking extra pains to cover his tracks.'
'I understand. I'll call you when I hear something.'
'Be very careful, Eugenia.'
'I always am, Kirov. I always am.'
Eugenia cut the connection and dropped down on the stairs leading up from her office ground floor. Christ, she felt limp. She was actually shaking.
She stared into the foyer at the dead man lying gazing blindly up at the ceiling. Blood drained from the four tightly clustered bullet wounds in his torso. His twitching right hand still clutched the.38 handgun he'd pulled on her after she'd opened the door for his supposed delivery. She hadn't expected to be this shaken at killing a man. The years of being away from the KGB must have taken their toll. She was softer now. And she liked being softer, dammit. She liked her life, and she liked not having to put down pigs like that man in foyer.
But you couldn't ignore what you are, any more than what you were. There was always someone knocking on your door to remind you.
She leaned against the railing and closed her eyes. She'd have to move soon. That body had to disappear if she was to keep this good life intact. No problem. She had contacts who could take care of it.
Not yet. She would give herself a few more minutes.
Be careful, Kirov had said.
'Yes, my friend,' she whispered wearily as she put her Walther P99 semiautomatic on the stair next to the cordless telephone. 'I'm always a very careful girl.'
FOURTEEN
KORIAZHMA, RUSSIA
7:25 A.M.
CIA Agent Bruce Fahey climbed the snowy hill overlooking greater Koriazhma, an industrial town that boasted one of Russia's largest paper mills. He'd been warned that the mill's odors could be over-powering, but the subzero temperature now dampened most of the smells. Biting winds roared down the hillside.
'It's somewhere around here, isn't it?' The CIA trainee, Cal Wilkes, who was struggling behind him, was short of breath, and his nose was cherry red from the cold.
'It's on the other side of the hill,' Fahey said impatiently. 'Didn't you read the packet?'
'Uh, yeah,' Wilkes said. 'I guess I just got turned around.'
The kid was never going to develop the stuff to become a field agent, Fahey thought. At least, he was also accompanied by two Russian operatives who might be of some help.
Maybe.
The Russians were ostensibly there to provide assistance, but he knew their primary purpose was similar to his own: to find out if Dimitri Ivanov, the man Kirov claimed to be, was actually dead. If Bradworth's source was correct, the answer was less than a hundred yards away.
Fahey had worked in Russia for the past two decades, long enough to see the end of the Cold War era. As far as he knew, the Russians now 'assisting' him had tried to uncover his identity and kill him several times during his many undercover assignments. He wasn't naive enough to believe that they still wouldn't eliminate him if the political winds shifted only slightly.
'It's pretty cold, isn't it?' the kid asked. 'You don't seem to feel it.'
'I feel it.'
The kid had been alternating between making inane comments and pumping him for stories about the good old days, Fahey thought, like so many other WASPy recruits who found themselves increasingly irrelevant in an agency that now prized brown skin and knowledge of Middle Eastern dialects. Poor bastard. He'd be lucky if he wound up with an agency research job in an archive basement somewhere.
They reached the hill's summit and walked down the other side, stepping carefully to avoid the slick patches of ice. Fahey pointed to the remains of a wooden gazebo. 'Okay, it should be ten yards west of there.'
One of the Russians turned on a metal detector and passed the disc-shaped sensor over the designated area. The small speaker buzzed, indicating the presence of metal at the site. Fahey kicked the area, and his heel made a hollow thumping sound on the earth.
'This is it. There used to be a house over there, and this was the vegetable cellar. Let's go.'
The Russians handed Fahey and Wilkes a pair of shovels, and the four men uncovered a four-inch layer of dirt and snow that obscured the varnished wooden doors. The metal hinges and latch were almost rusted through.
'Help me with this,' Fahey said.
The four men pulled on the right door, and the wood and metalwork crumbled as they tossed it aside.
Fahey pulled out his flashlight and shined it downward.
The kid's eyes narrowed as squinted down into the cellar. 'Holy shit,' he whispered.
Florida is a big state,' Hannah said, as their rental car entered the ramp that would take them onto I-85 South. 'Shouldn't we have some idea where we're headed?'
'I have the utmost faith in Eugenia.'
'And that means?'
'By the time we hit the state line, we should have all the information we need.'
'A jet would get us there a lot faster.' They had taken a jet only as far as Atlanta and picked up the rental car at the airport.
'But not as safely. I took the risk of the flight out of Boston, but I didn't have time to get you ID that would keep your name off the transportation grid. An airport visual recognition scanner could still bring our trip to an abrupt halt.'
Hannah nodded. 'I guess you're right. I wouldn't put it past Bradworth to transmit our photos to every law enforcement database in the country.'
'I can guarantee it, but we should be safe here on the road. It's a long drive, but if we take turns, we'll be there in less than a day. The highways are this country's last bastion of anonymity, and the driver's license and credit card I used shouldn't raise any red flags with the rental car company.'
'You have all the bases covered.'
He shrugged. 'I've been doing this for a long time.'
Hannah watched him for a long moment. 'Have you ever thought of giving up?'
'Never.'
'When will it be enough?'
'When Pavski is dead, and not a moment before. When will it be enough for you?'
'I don't know. Sometimes I think it would be worse for him to just rot in prison for the rest of his life. Sometimes I just want to blow his head off. At the moment, I'm leaning toward decapitating the bastard.'
'That's good, because Pavski wouldn't rot in prison no matter what Bradworth promises you. Pavski is too
