Keeping Thyme (Thyme Trilogy) (16 page)

“Keep going
. I’ll watch for who’s around us while you tend to your fans.”

Tatiana looks back up at me with a big grin and starts talking to the little girls again
, and then points to me. The people gathered around us in a semi-circle turn their attention in my direction, and smile.

A lady in a headscarf shakes my hand
. “Welcome to Russia. My daughter wants to be ballerina just like Tatiana Pavlenko. You are ballerina too, she says.”

I smile
. “I was, but not anymore. Nothing like Tatiana though.”

Tatiana stands up straight and wraps her arm around my shoulders
. “You should have seen Miranda. When we were at ballet school together, she was the best ballerina I had ever seen. She would practise really hard, every day.” She looks down at the little girls. “She wanted to be a ballerina and nothing else.”

“Why aren’t you a ballerina anymore?”
a little girl asks in accented English.

“I had a very bad accident
, so I had to stop dancing.”

Tatiana looks to me and
slowly shakes her head. “I’d forgotten all about that.”

I can tell Tatiana feels bad
from her sad eyes. “Come on. Let’s go sit on a bench so you can sign some autographs,” I say.

She nods
. When we get to the bench, she sits and starts scribbling her autograph on anything that’s being held in front of her to sign, and the crowd around us beings to swell. I scan around the park and see the group of university protesters gathering. I count three men who have been following us since we left the hotel, and I’m sure there has to be a couple more around the place. I look down at my watch. Just after twelve o’clock.

I lean my head down towards the necklace
. “Have the car ready to approach the park on the southern side. There aren’t any fences there so I can draw these fans right down to the roadside. We’ll jump in as soon as you approach. Hot extraction Simon.”

I hope Simon is actually listening. I search the
vehicles as they pass the statue to see if I can see Simon and Liz, but I don’t see them in any cars. Beyond the statue I see some cars parked on the water’s edge and I make out Simon and Liz arm in arm, looking towards the harbour.

“I can see you
, Simon. Look over towards me and cover your eyes from the sun if you have a car ready.”

I watch for a moment. He doesn’t move.
Shit!
Finally, he turns around and puts his hand against his forehead to shield his eyes from the sun as he looks in my direction.

“Thank fuck for that
,” I breathe.

Tatiana looks up at me
. “Everything okay?”

“Sure. Hey
, I really want to buy a babushka doll,” I say as I point to the stand near the forming protesters.

Tatiana says something in Russian to the crowd and they pull their pieces to sign away for a moment.

“Get them to meet us near the stall,” I say to her.

She repeats what I said in Russian and the crowd moves around us as we walk towards the stall. A paparazzo jumps in front of us and starts snapping away. Tatiana stops and poses with me before barking orders at the man. He takes a couple more shots and ducks away behind the crowd.

“I told him I won’t pose for anymore pictures today and he has the exclusive.” She winks.

“Good idea.” I smile.

As we approach the babushka doll stall, the protesters pick up their placards and start chanting. There is at least fifty people around us now, and their numbers continue to swell. Tatiana bobs down and signs a couple of little girls’ pieces of paper while I purchase a Russian doll from the stall. It gives me an idea.

“When we move over to the side walk, I want you to bob down and give a little girl your turban.”

Tatiana looks up at me, and frowns. “But it’s Dior?”

I glare at her
. “Even better. Imagine how good you’re about to make a little girl feel.”

She grins and shakes her head as she continues to scribble away at the things being held in front of her. I pull on her arm and we slowly make our way towards the kerb with the swarm of fans around us. The chanting of the protesters and the commotion of the adoring fans is the perfect amount of activity to help us escape. I watch Tench’s guys around the park. Only two of them seem to actually care about what’s going on.

“Prepare for extraction,” I say into the diamond necklace.

I see Simon and Liz get into a dark
-blue Volvo. I wait for it to turn the corner and make its way towards us.

“Okay bob down and put your headwear on her
,” I point to a girl in her teens with brown hair the same as Tatiana’s, “and stay crouching until you’re in the car, okay?”

She nods and takes her turban off and says something to the girl in Russian
, and puts it on her head. The crowd applaud and surround the little girl just as the car pulls up alongside us. The door is wide open so I push Tatiana in first and jump in behind her. The car only slows to a creep, but does not stop. I rip the door shut and watch the crowd of people around the little girl in Tatiana’s turban, and smile to myself.

“Okay, you can sit up now.” I pat Tatiana on the back.

“How fun was that?” she squeals.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

We drive over
a series of canals flanked by intricate bridges, and soon pull up outside an old boarded up building in a deserted street. Simon gets out of the car and we all follow him inside. Liz’s eyes keep shifting across to Tatiana. I’m not sure if she actually realises that Tatiana
and
Simon do have a history together, but I certainly don’t have the heart to tell her.

Tatiana stays silent. I think what we do for a living is finally sinking in with her.

I follow the three of them through a couple of hallways until we make it to a door that looks like it should be shielding a bank vault. My brother enters a code and it bleeps twice back at him,

“Shit.”

“Don’t enter it incorrectly again,” Liz snaps.

Simon enters the code again
. This time the green light comes on and the machine beeps once. The entire door swings open in front of us.

I look to Liz
. “What would’ve happened if Simon entered the code incorrectly again?”

I’m saying this mainly for Tatiana’s benefit
. I’m sure it’s something catastrophic, but I just want her to hear it. Plus, I love that Simon got it wrong. He would be squirming with fury inside.

“The detonators in the bottom of the building would’ve gone off and most of the building would collapse. Except for this vault. This vault would be exposed, and the Russians wouldn’t like us very much at all if that were to happen. They don’t appreciate too many international spies being in their country.”

I feel Tatiana’s eyes burn into me. I look at her and smile. When it comes to the agency, not even the most hardened criminals can beat our tactical response to stopping the world’s organised crime. I want Tatiana to know this so that her decision to stay on our side doesn’t crack.

Simon holds the steel door open and I step through and am greeted by Mei-Mei the moment I
do.

“Hello
, Agent Thyme. It is a pleasure to meet with you again.” Her voice is quiet and respectful.

I still don’t know how I feel about Mei-Mei, but I daren’t show it so I smile politely
. “It’s good to see you too, Mei-Mei, and thank you for your help.”

Her almond eyes flash to me and her stare doesn’t falter for a moment. What did I say wrong then?

The room is fitted out completely in stainless steel, and reminds me of an office from a sci-fi movie. The computer monitors lining the walls show that they are recording the audio feed from the bugs in the hotel room. The adjoining monitors display a feed that instantly translates the conversations in English.

“I thought you could speak Russian?” I direct my question to my brother.

“Yes, but Mei-Mei can’t.”

“Speaking of which,”
she walks over to a desk and grabs some of the transcripts, “we’ve intercepted some of the conversations between the older cousin, Dmitri, when they were searching through your things at the hotel. I find these a little disturbing, but I would like a Russian translated opinion on it before I act.”

My brother takes the paperwork from Mei-Mei. His eyes frantically search the pages of Russian transcript. The moment he’s finished, he stares at Mei-Mei with disbelief. Liz grabs it from a vacant Simon and frantically searches over the words of the conversation before she looks at Simon with almost the same expression.

“What is it?” I snatch the transcript out of Liz’s hand.

I stare at the letters but not a single word looks remotely familiar to the English language. Tatiana steps up beside me and starts reading aloud the words in Russian. She runs her fingers along the words but stops reading before she gets to the end of the last sentence. She doesn’t continue with the last four words.

“He wants you dead.” The colour in Tatiana’s face drains and she looks as if she’s seen a ghost. “Dima wants
you
dead.” She trembles.

“What’s going on
, Simon?” I frown.

“It’s Dima. He’s old school. He doesn’t want Tench marrying someone who isn’t either from another family in the business or from Russia. He doesn’t trust you, so he wants you out of the picture permanently. He doesn’t want you to make it to get your plane home.”

My heart starts to drum wildly. “Is Tench involved in this too?”

My brother shakes his head
. “Tench doesn’t know anything about it. Dima will just have you disappear. It’s Russia.” He shrugs.

Even though
I’m
a total hypocrite, the knot in my heart loosens at the knowledge that Tench doesn’t want me dead.

“It was a really stupid idea to say yes to marrying Tench
, you know?” Simon’s tone is low and full of anger.

“Was I supposed to say no? That would’ve gone down a treat!”

I storm out of the room and try and find a kitchen somewhere to get myself a drink of water. I find an entire luxurious hotel suite on the lower floor of the vault. I take a bottle of water from the coffee table in the lounge area and an orange from the fruit bowl. I pace while I peel the orange. What the fuck am I supposed to do now?

“Are you okay
, Mi?” Liz comes down the stairs into the suite.

“Fine. But what am I supposed to do about this now?”

“Do you want the good news or the bad news?” Liz replies.

I stop pacing and throw another piece of orange into my mouth
. “Is that a joke?”

She shakes her head
. “Sorry. I forget you’re still not used to having death threats. The agency’s usual response to this type of interruption is to have the threat removed immediately, so when our boss calls back in we will find out if we have the clearance to take down Dima Kozar.”

“What? We’re going to assassinate Dmitri Kozar?” I can’t swallow my orange so I spit it out into the sink.

“Well I think
you
will have the orders to assassinate Kozar.”

“And how the fuck do you suggest I do that
, Liz? Kill him with the power of pussy? I don’t even have a gun here.”

Tatiana comes down the stairs next. Her heels click on the stairs as she steps. She smiles sweetly at Liz.

“I’m sorry, I haven’t been properly introduced yet. I’m Tatiana …”

Liz breaks into
what sounds like a well-rehearsed speech. “Pavlenko. Yes I know who you are. I’m agent Liz Donohue. Thank you for your assistance with this information. Your country will thank you properly once it’s all over.”

“Which country? Australia or Russia?”

I walk over to Tatiana and grip around her shoulders. “Tia, if you decided that you wanted to relocate after the operation has been completed the agency will grant you that, won’t they Liz?” I turn to Liz.

Tatiana’s lips purse as she smiles sarcastically
. “What, and leave the ballet? Not after everything I’ve done to get to the top. I would never choose to walk away.”

In that moment I see the greed that runs through Tatiana. She is willing to do anything to stay at the top of her game. Then
, I guess she has always had this in her. When she left for Russia, she did originally land the opportunity through sleeping with the middle-aged talent scout when she was just a young girl. She was never an amazing ballerina.

Can someone like that truly be trusted?

She sits down on the couch and smooths her hair after having it in a turban all morning.

“Do you have a mobile phone
, Tatiana?” Liz asks.

“Yes
, of course. Why?”

“Could I have it please? I need to stop any signals from being sent out from it. In case the Russians are tracking you.”