away from where I was standing. The crowd in front of the Twin Peaks bar spread out to give them room to fight and began cheering for one or the other.
Shiva ripped the scarf off Jeremy’s head and he grabbed it right back, clutching it to his chest as though it were a precious treasure. Shiva pushed herself up to a standing position. Then, turning to shield her actions from the police, she pulled a small gun out of her pocket and pointed it at Jeremy.
“Shiva, no!” Rajiv shouted.
“Mother!” Robin cried.
At the shouting, Shiva’s gaze darted toward the stage, and Jeremy kicked her in the knee. She fell and the gun went skittering down the sidewalk. She scurried back, popped Jeremy in his bloody arm, and grabbed the scarf.
“Shiva!” Rajiv pushed Robin away and went running toward the stairs. Derek jumped onto the platform and raced after him.
I waited at the bottom of the stairs, and as soon as Rajiv reached the ground, I whipped around and kicked him in the groin, just like my brothers had taught me. I’d never had a chance to use the move, but it worked really well. The guy dropped like a rock and groaned like he was dying. His gun flew into the crowd and more people screamed. The police came forward then and grabbed him.
Derek stood on the stairs, shaking his head at me as I grinned proudly. Every muscle in my body was screaming in pain, but right at that moment I was pretty pleased with myself.
“Mother!” Robin shouted.
I whipped around in time to see Shiva running toward Market Street holding the scarf. Robin jumped off the platform and raced after her. She caught up with her quickly, grabbed her blouse, and spun her to the ground.
Derek helped me hobble over to assist Robin. Shiva’s shoulder was still bleeding, but Robin wasn’t showing her much sympathy.
“What did you think you were doing, Mother?” Robin demanded.
Shiva sighed. “This really isn’t a good time, Robin.”
“Mother, did you kill Alex?”
“Don’t be silly.”
“Oh, I’m the silly one? I don’t think so.”
“Dear, please get off me. You’re wrinkling my blouse.”
“Oh, screw your damn blouse. The blood has ruined it anyway, thanks to your buddy Rajiv. And in case you didn’t notice, he’s the one who was holding me at gunpoint a few minutes ago. You really hang with a classy crowd.”
Shiva grabbed Robin’s hand. “Whatever happens, just know that I’m sorry, honey.”
“Sorry isn’t cutting it right now, Mom.”
“Fine,” Shiva snapped. “But when you get to be my age, you might have a little more sympathy. A woman has to take care of herself in this world, and that’s all I was doing.”
“By threatening to kill my friend? Nice try, Mom.”
That was when I realized Robin was crying. I couldn’t blame her, since I was tearing up a little, too. I still wasn’t one hundred percent clear on Shiva’s role in this nightmare, but it was obvious that she’d pulled a gun on Jeremy. Was she willing to kill him for that flash drive?
I stared across the street at the man still writhing on the ground, the one I’d successfully kicked in the groin. So that was Rajiv, Shiva’s so-called buddy? Had he gone insane? What in the world was going on here?
Two more police cars and two ambulances screeched to a stop a few feet away. I watched a crowd of handsome men in everything from leather chaps to suspenders and Speedos take off running in the opposite direction. There was chaos all the way up Castro.
Then two black SUVs pulled up and four men in suits stepped out. These had to be the feds. Homeland Security? FBI? I guess we’d find out soon enough.
A few yards away, Derek had helped Jeremy over to a bench and held a cloth to his bleeding arm. I had an absurd thought that, for assassins, everyone’s shots today were way off the mark. I said a little prayer to Buddha, Yahweh, Allah, and all the saints in heaven to thank them for that small mercy.
Jeremy was whisked away to the hospital. The bullet was removed safely from his shoulder. I heard from Sergio five hours later that Jeremy had been allowed to go home and sleep in his own bed. I assured him we would visit later.
“He’s wide-awake and surrounded by our friends,” Sergio told me, and I could hear the relief in his voice. “He can’t wait to read the reviews of his performance in tomorrow’s papers.”
“Send him our love,” I said, and was laughing when I hung up. But the good humor faded fast.
Robin, Derek, and I had been stuck at FBI headquarters for the last five hours, answering a battery of questions, first from the local police, then the FBI, and then a few shadowy government characters Derek seemed to know pretty well.
The local police gave us the most grief. Inspector Lee seemed to take it personally that we hadn’t told her about the flash drive and the book.
“Here I was carrying on about a stupid turf war,” she griped, “and you all were playing
“I’m sorry,” I said, mostly meaning it. “I barely knew what was going on.”
“Yeah, I’ll believe that when pigs fly out my ass.”
So I guess this meant she wouldn’t be coming over for wine anytime soon. But I liked her and refused to give up on her now. I’d allow her a few weeks to sulk, then invite her again.
Shiva, meanwhile, had already made a deal with the feds to reveal everything she knew in exchange for immunity. Given her special status with the United Nations, the authorities agreed rather than risk international embarrassment. Now she was singing like a birdie.
Thanks to Derek’s spooky contacts, more of the story was emerging. All those years when Shiva was traveling for so-called humanitarian causes, she had been a spy for the U.S. government. For the most part, anyway. Once in a while, her loose scruples allowed her to play for the other team.
When Robin heard that, she whispered, “No,” and I felt her shudder at the news. It wasn’t every day that you found out your mother was a scumbag double agent playing fast and loose with your own life.
“It’s all right, sweetie,” I said, hugging her as she began to cry. I watched Derek get up and find a box of tissues for her to use. My hero. I grabbed a few myself.
When Derek sat down again, he took the chair next to Robin. Both of us held her hands as his Interpol buddies spilled the rest of the background they’d collected on her mother.
Recently, Shiva had come into possession of information so inflammatory that its disclosure could embarrass and topple the Russian government. She’d worked with Galina, the Ukrainian agent, before, so she devised a scheme to sell the volatile information to Galina and rake in millions.
Knowing the Ukrainians were positioning themselves to barter a new oil deal with Russia, Shiva knew Galina’s people would want to get their hands on the information. Shiva figured she’d make enough money to retire to an island off the coast of India and live in splendor for the rest of her life.
She placed all the particulars-racy phone call transcripts between high-level married diplomats, incriminating e-mail, texts, and a number of documents-onto a tiny flash drive that she stuck inside a miniature brass elephant, and then she sewed the brass doodad into the old scarf. She called Galina and asked for four million dollars in exchange for details of when the flash drive would be carried into the United States via her daughter, Robin.
The money was deposited into her account while Robin was visiting her. Talk about convenient timing. Robin shuddered when she heard that.
But once Robin got back to San Francisco, things went very wrong. It seemed to Galina that either the Russians or the Americans were thwarting the Ukrainians at every turn. Alex, who’d been Galina’s superior as well as her part-time lover, was dead now. Galina had managed to track down the big Russian man, and when he admitted to killing Alex, she shot him. Then she dropped him off in front of Brooklyn’s apartment, where she knew Robin was staying. She hoped the police would accuse Robin of killing the man, but didn’t realize that Robin was already out of the city.
Shiva had admitted that Galina wasn’t the brightest crayon in the box, but the young operative had her uses.
