she been able to pull the trigger. Chase could have - but he wasn’t here. All she could do was paste on a smile to cover her fear.
Vaskovich responded to her companion with polite feigned interest, nodding before looking at Nina. He took in her sultry makeup, her fetishistic outfit, her bare legs and high heels - then turned back to the woman, uninterested.
Nina felt oddly offended, before realising that Vaskovich wasn’t dismissing her specifically; he would have responded the same way to any of Prikovsky’s girls. It was a seen-it-all-before look, the boredom of a billionaire who had long since indulged all his wildest fantasies. Despite being the host of the party, he seemed unenthusiastic about being there.
He spoke to the woman; she replied, then smiled at Nina. ‘You said you wanted to meet Leonid Vaskovich? Here he is!’
‘Vaskovich?’ Chase said through the earpiece. ‘Jesus, he’s right there? Can you stab him with anything?’
Vaskovich regarded Nina again. ‘Rozalina says you do not speak much Russian,’ he said. His English, in contrast, was excellent. ‘That is a shame. I hope you learn quickly . . .’ He looked at her questioningly, waiting for her name.
‘Don’t tell him your real—’ Chase began.
‘Nina,’ she replied automatically.
‘D’oh!’
‘Good to meet you . . . Nina,’ Vaskovich said. He gave her a slightly puzzled look, as if struggling to remember a previous encounter.
‘Likewise, Mr Vaskovich.’ There was an awkward pause.
To Nina’s surprise, Vaskovich then smiled, a flicker of genuine amusement twitching up one corner of his goatee beard. ‘Well, I can tell you are not like most of the other young women I meet.’
‘Really?’ Nina asked, unsure where he was leading.
‘Yes. By now they would be trying to get into my bed - or my wallet. But there is something different about you, I can tell. You are not a shark. It is a nice change.’ For a brief moment, he seemed almost melancholy. ‘Beautiful women always want me, but only for what I have, never who I am. And that long ago stopped being fun.’ He sighed, then shrugged. ‘Still. I hope you enjoy the evening. ’ He said something else to Rozalina before spotting somebody behind Nina. For the first time, his face actually revealed some enthusiasm. ‘Ah, Felix Mishkin!’
Nina looked round - only to hurriedly turn away again as she saw Kruglov returning. With him was a man in his mid-thirties, hair slicked back, clad in a dark blue Italian suit. She remembered the name - he was the man who had arrived in the military helicopter.
Apparently Rozalina knew him too, as she kissed him on both cheeks. Nina was left to stand there, feeling exposed and isolated. But just as it struck her this could be her chance to slip away, she realised she was a topic of conversation, ‘American’ leaping out from Vaskovich’s words.
‘American?’ said Mishkin. He looked at Nina, then said in a heavily accented mock whisper, ‘Perhaps she is a spy, here to sleep with me to learn all my secrets!’ He laughed at his own joke, Rozalina joining in.
Vaskovich managed a polite chuckle. ‘Somehow, I don’t think that is why she is here.’ He continued in Russian, now almost excited about his subject.
‘Nina,’ Mitchell unexpectedly said via the earpiece, his voice even more distorted than Chase’s. ‘He’s talking about his new “acquisition”. He’s got to mean Excalibur. I think he’s going to show it to him, which means the sword is definitely in the building. Ditch the bitch and find somewhere we can talk - you’ve got to reach the security system so Eddie can get in.’
‘’Kay,’ Nina said, disguising the word as a cough. Keeping her face averted from Kruglov, she spotted a waiter bearing a tray of champagne glasses through the crowd. ‘Would you like me to get you a drink?’ she asked Rozalina. The older woman seemed caught between staying with her catch and keeping in with her powerful companions, finally deciding on the latter. With relief, Nina moved away, heading for the waiter until she was out of sight and then making a beeline for the relatively empty area to one side of the stairs.
‘How’re you holding up?’ Chase asked.
‘I’m surviving,’ she whispered. ‘Although I nearly had a heart attack when I saw Kruglov. Oh, and I have a handprint on my ass.’
‘Whose? If it’s Vaskovich’s, I’m going to have to revive the bastard after I kill him so I can kill him again.’
‘No, it was that woman.’
‘Really?’ Chase sounded intrigued. ‘A threesome, huh?’
Nina found herself smiling despite the situation. ‘I don’t think she’s your type, Eddie. She definitely wasn’t mine.’
‘Can we stay on mission here?’ Mitchell said impatiently. ‘Nina, where are you now?’
‘By the stairs in the main hall.’ Looking up, she saw guards standing at the bottom of the next flight. She explained what Dmitri had said about the off-limits parts of the mansion. ‘Crap, Vaskovich is coming.’
She crouched, pretending to tighten the strap on one shoe. Vaskovich, Kruglov and Mishkin ascended, the guards moving aside to let them through.
‘If they’re going to the top floor,’ Mitchell said when Nina told him, ‘I’ve got a fairly good idea where he’s keeping Excalibur. Okay, Nina, you need to get to the back of the house. Are there any doors out of the hall that aren’t guarded?’
She checked. ‘In the middle of the west wall. Double doors.’ ‘They’ll do. Go through them.’
Nina picked her way through the hall, trying not to attract any attention - which her outfit made a futile task. She didn’t need to know any Russian to tell she was drawing lecherous comments. But she was almost at the door . . .
A hand suddenly clapped against her butt and squeezed it, sweaty flesh squeaking over latex. Nina choked back an obscenity-laden tirade and turned to see the fat man she had encountered earlier, two champagne glasses clutched clumsily in his free hand and an expectant grin on his florid face.
‘Oh, hi,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘You again.’
‘Hello, Pamela!’ he said drunkenly, before dropping back into Russian as his groping hand slowly clambered round from her backside towards her chest. He tried to push one of the glasses into her hand.
She reluctantly accepted it, realising that if he tipped it any further the contents would end up in her cleavage. ‘Thank you. Hey! Easy, tiger,’ she added, batting his wandering hand back down.
‘What’s going on?’ Chase asked, in a voice that suggested punches would have been thrown by now had he been there in person.
‘Nothing, just a very, very friendly man . . .’ It occurred to her that she might be able to make use of the inebriated oaf. She clinked her glass against his, then indicated the doors. ‘Do you want to go somewhere private?’ He stared blearily at her. ‘Private? God damn it.
The main hall had been standing room only; this was a lounge, guests chilling out on modern leather armchairs around glass tables. Nina saw the remains of a white line of cocaine on one. If anything, the sickly swirl of cigar smoke was even thicker. Trying not to cough, she peered through the haze, seeing a door at the rear of the room. A waiter bearing a tray of empty glasses hurried through. She nudged her companion towards it.
A brightly lit hallway was beyond - as was another tuxedoed guard, who with an expression of forced politeness moved to block their path. The fat man huffed and began what was almost certainly an outburst along the lines of ‘Don’t you know who I am?’
Nina shushed him. ‘Dmitri said okay,’ she told the guard, hoping he would understand two out of the three words. ‘We get champagne?’ She mimed holding a bottle and then flicking off the cork. ‘Pop!’ The guard regarded her dubiously. ‘Dmitri said okay,’ she repeated.
The guard finally stepped aside, saying something to the drunken man, who responded with a dismissive, ‘
The scent of food replaced smoke. They were now in the mansion’s kitchen and service areas, opulence toned down to mere elegance. A side room turned out to be for cold storage, walls lined with glass-fronted
