it at the road beyond. The woman removed her scarf and walked toward Sentinel. She must have been at least seventy-five years old, maybe older.
She smiled and spoke in Russian. “My angel.”
Sentinel lowered his weapon, walked up to the woman, hugged her, and responded in her language, “Polina. I shouldn’t have asked you to come out in this weather.”
Polina shrugged. “I have to unlock the house and get it ready for you.” She rubbed her frail hands against Sentinel’s forearms. “I’ve bought some food for the freezer. Even though I don’t live there anymore, I keep it stocked for your meetings. Would you like me to make you some nice shchi? The hot soup will do you good.”
Sentinel smiled, shaking his head. “You need to be heading home in ten minutes.” He extracted the slim metal case and handed it to the woman. “Oleksandr’s mother made these for you. My Ukrainian friends send you their love.”
Polina took the case, smiling. Then her smile faded. “Please tell them that I’m sorry for their loss. Juriy was a great soldier.” She looked at Will. “Some of us here might live to old age, but in these parts few of us die from it.”
Will saw that the sleeve on one of her arms had risen up to expose an inch of badly scarred skin on the underside of her forearm.
Polina caught his gaze and quickly pulled her sleeve down.
“I didn’t mean to-”
“It’s okay.” She glanced at Sentinel before looking back at Will. “I was nine years old when Majdanek extermination camp was liberated by Soviet soldiers. Some other survivors told me to run away or hide because I had a Nazi tattoo that showed I was a Jew. Instead, I sat in a hut and peeled off the skin with my fingernails until the tattoo was gone. When I finished, I thought everything would be all right.” She smiled, but the look was bitter. “I was a naive child. The Soviets knew that I’d tried to disguise my Jewish identity, and punished me by putting me in Kolyma gulag for fifteen years.” She looked at Sentinel and reached out to him.
Sentinel kissed the old Russian woman’s hand. “Next time I’ll stay longer and make you some soup.”
“I hope so.” She entered the vehicle, turned it around, and drove toward the farmhouse.
Sentinel said, “We need to stay out of the house until he arrives. Then we’ll shoot him and get back into Ukraine.”
Polina stopped the vehicle by the building, paused by the front door as she released the locks, and stepped through the entrance.
As she did so, a massive explosion tore her body and most of the house apart.
Chapter Nine
It had taken them twenty hours to get back to the safe house in Odessa. Sentinel sat on the lounge floor, his head in his hands.
“We’ll get him.”
Sentinel looked up. “When we do, I’m going to be the one who kills him.”
Will nodded and stretched his fatigued back muscles. He hadn’t managed to sleep on the car journey back; all he’d thought about was Polina. He wondered what Sentinel thought of him. It had been Will’s idea to set up the meeting with Razin. “I’m sorry.”
Sentinel shook his head. “Razin’s bomb was meant for us, not Polina.” He bunched his hand into a fist. “We had to try getting him there.”
“Let’s hope he thinks we’re dead.”
“He knows we’re alive.”
Will thought for a moment. “Police records?”
Sentinel rubbed his unshaven face. “He’ll use his FSB status to get access to them.”
Minutes after the explosion, there had been a five-hundred-foot-high column of black smoke rising above the farmhouse. Though the property was remote, it wouldn’t have taken long for emergency services to have been alerted. They’d have conducted a forensic analysis of the scene and ascertained that a conventional bomb had killed one old lady.
“Everything’s different now that he knows we’re after him.” Will studied Sentinel. “What are you going to do?”
For ten seconds Sentinel said nothing. Then, “I’ve thought about every tier-one agent meeting I’ve had since I’ve known Razin-every antisurveillance route I’ve taken to the meetings, every covert communication I’ve made with them, anything that could have compromised their identities.” He shook his head. “ Everything was watertight.”
“That can only mean one thing.”
A breach of security by someone else who had access to their names.
Sentinel clasped his hands together. Now he looked focused. “It’s a long shot, but one of my agents might be able to help. He’s FSB. We need to meet him in Hungary.”
“I can’t join you.”
“Why not?”
“I’ve got to be elsewhere.”
Anger flashed across Sentinel’s face. “What’s more important than this?”
“Nothing.” Will tried to keep his tone placatory. “But I need to set up my own operation to get Razin.”
Sentinel’s eyes narrowed. “Tell me.”
“No. I’m going to work this from another angle, but I can’t tell anyone what I’m doing. Not even Alistair’s privy to the full details.”
“You’re in”-Sentinel’s words were measured and clipped-“my territory. Tell me what you’re planning.”
Will shook his head. “It’s because I’m in your territory that I can’t tell you. For decades the Russians have wanted to get their hands on you. If they lifted you and tortured you, my operation would be dead in the water. We’d never be able to stop Razin.”
“May I remind you that I resisted torture for six years.”
“Techniques have become more… sophisticated.”
Sentinel said nothing.
Will said, “Razin might lay low, not risk killing any more agents.”
“Maybe”-Sentinel was hesitant-“though he’s never been one to back off from danger.”
“How did you recruit him?”
He expected Sentinel to stay silent. Instead, the MI6 officer muttered, “I turned his strength into a weakness.”
“Ambition?”
Sentinel nodded. “You’ve clearly read his file thoroughly.”
Will had.
The dossier had shown that Taras Khmelnytsky had been a brilliant student at Moscow State University and had been given the option of a fast-track career in the Russian diplomatic service or a prestigious commission into the military navy. He had refused both and instead joined the 98th Guards Airborne Division as a junior lieutenant. The people who knew him thought he was crazy to do so, but it turned out he was anything but that. He served with the Division’s 217th Guards Airborne Regiment, based in Ivanovo, for three years before he was handpicked to undergo the grueling selection for Spetsnaz GRU. He had passed with distinction and served with the GRU for six years, stationed in Moscow, eventually attaining the rank of major while operating in deniable overseas operations. Unusually, he had then been asked to join Spetsnaz Vympel, which was under FSB rather than GRU control. The GRU had tried unsuccessfully to block the transfer, but it was clear that Razin had been noticed by Russian high command, which wanted to give him as wide-ranging special operations experience and action as possible. In Vympel he had been given further extensive training in marksmanship, unarmed combat, medicine, languages, and infiltration into and exfiltration out of hostile zones. He had seen covert action in a variety of theaters, including the northern Caucasus, and he was ultimately awarded Russia’s highest honor, Hero of the Russian Federation, for
