Limbo Man (24 page)

“You must give me a gun,” Robey hissed, his demeanor suddenly taking on the frenzy of a hunted animal. “I must have a gun.”

“You’re five minutes from the terminal,” Sergei snapped, grabbing the professor’s arm. “Grab your passport and go!”

Robey broke away and dashed into the living room, where he threw himself down in his favorite leather lounge chair. He took a few gasping breaths, then calmed as he looked around, focusing on his treasures. “You carry a gun,” he said quietly, “I know you do. You will give it to me. You owe me.”

Sergei made one last try, pointing out the obvious. “You can’t take a gun on the airplane.”

Sadly, almost mockingly, Weldon Robey shook his head. “You’re an odd one, Tokarev. I look at you and see the man who offered me vast sums of money for U-236. I look again, and you are someone I have never met before. I know only that you are Nemesis. My executioner—”

“No!”
Idiót!
What faint scrap of humanity compelled him to lie just one more time?

“Don’t spoil the moment by denial. You have destroyed me, and it pleases me to make you squirm, if only a little.”

“No one made you do it. You destroyed yourself.”

“Give me the gun and go . . . before I ask you to pull the trigger for me.”

Sergei took Vee’s Glock out of his jacket pocket and handed it over. Another black mark for Sergei Ivanovich Zhukov. “Goodnight,” he murmured.

He was nearly out the door when he heard Robey’s soft reply: “Goodbye.”

Chapter 17

Ominous silence all the way back to Amalfi Garden’s wrought iron gate. Seryozha had gone so cold she could feel the chill in the passenger seat. Was he appalled he’d had the U-236 in his hands, then lost it? Simply disappointed that Robey knew so little? Or . . . was it possible Robey had divulged a vital key during their private conversation?

No, not good news. Vee rejected the thought as quickly as it surfaced. Seryozha had gone grim, thrown up a wall. She could almost see a dark aura pulsing around him as he drove. What had Robey said to plunge him into such gloom?

Her only recourse, a
head-on assault with a blunt instrument. “Well,” Vee said, “what did he want?”

“Men talk. Not important. No more questions. Must think.” To his grim wall of silence Sergei had just added the shield of Tokarev’s broken English. Vee subsided into her seat and didn’t say a word all the way back to their motel.

“Is that it?” Cade asked
as
he pulled into the parking lot directly after them. “I made the long drive to do nothing but sit on my ass?”

“We talk,” Sergei said. “My room, ten minutes.” He motioned Cade and Vee into the elevator ahead of him and simply stood there while the doors slid closed.
What the . . .?
If he tried to slip away, she’d kill him.

Calmly, Cade escorted
Vee
back to her room, wiggled his fingers for her key card, and opened the door. “Sit,” he ordered, waving a hand at the bed. “You haven’t lost him.”

“Something’s happening,” she ground out. “I can feel
him
refocusing, surging toward some new goal. He could be running this very minute and—”

“It’s okay,” Cade said. “It was bound to happen one of these days.”

“Hm-m?” Vee dragged herself back from her dire speculations.

“You and Tokarev.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. He’s a job.”

“Sure,” Cade mocked, giving her a wry smile. “That’s why I can actually hear the air crackling between you two. Don’t kid a kidder. I know the real thing when I see it.”

Slowly, Vee shook her head. “No way, no how. I’ve never seen a situation more likely to come to
a
bad end.”

“Planning to go out in a blaze of glory, are you? Immolated in a sea of hormones?” Cade waggled perfectly sculpted eyebrows. “Not a bad way to go actually.”

“You mixed your metaphors,” Vee grumbled.

Just as she was about to ask Cade to check on Seryozha, he returned, looking so innocent she knew he’d been up to something. He took a sip of the single malt scotch Vee had
mixed
for him. “Our papers include passports, right?” he asked.

“Of course.”

“Good. I have just made reservations for an early morning flight to Moscow.”

“Moscow?” A shiver spiked all the way down to her toes.
Moscow?
He was taking her onto his home turf, half a world away? Or was it his home turf? Was Seryozha a Russian-American imitating a native-born Russian? Or was it the other way round? Were they venturing into dangerous territory, or was he dragging her off to the lair of some growling, teeth-baring Russian bear?

While Vee absorbed the shock, Seryozha turned to Cade. “It is necessary for us to trust someone, and because Vee vouches for you, you’re it. There are times we will need a liaison with
an agent
who can help us without every last person in the FBI or Homeland Security knowing about it. Are you willing to do this?”

“Hey,” Cade said, his amber eyes showing only minimal reserve, “the cause is righteous. And back at you—if Vee vouches for you, I’m in.”

Seryozha gave an infinitesimal nod. “Good. That is why I will tell you where we are going and why. If something should happen . . .” He broke off. “
Nichevo
. I am sorry, but I cannot share the person I seek. I can trust no one with his name. But in case my plan doesn’t work, I will tell you that I expect the terrorists to smuggle the bomb into the country on a container ship, lost among all the other containers exactly like it. About as anonymous as it gets. The bomb may be here already, maybe not. The less time on U. S. soil, the less likely anyone is to pick up on the radiation.”

Cade’s brows almost reached his hairline. “And you’re planning to handle all this
alone
?”

“A big anti-terrorist operation would send all the bad guys scurrying for cover, only to emerge a few months later to do it all over again, when, like 9/11, no one is looking. And, besides,” Seryozha added, “I am not alone. I have Valentina.”

Cade laughed out loud. Vee winced.

“There are three parts to the bomb equation,” Seryozha said, evidently adjusting his hard-line attitude to accommodate his helpers. He ticked each part off on his fingers.  “One, the isotope, which is needed to trigger the bomb. Two, the bomb expert needed to remove the spent U-236 and replace it with the fresh isotope. And three, the bomb itself. We tracked the isotope first, and all we found was a circle which comes back to me. I had it. I have no idea what happened to it. Best case, I hid it somewhere. Worst case, Leonov has it.”

“Then why are they chasing you?” Vee asked.

“They need the name and location of the bomb tech?” Seryozha ventured.

“Maybe you gave them that too,” Cade said. “Maybe they’re just tidying up loose ends. Obviously, this Leonov guy doesn’t like you.”

“Think back to
the last thing you remember before the meeting,
” Vee urged. “What were your plans for the U-236? Were you just going to hand it over to the terrorists?”

Seryozha frowned, fighting his way through the mists of memory. “The U-236 was the bait; the bomb, the goal. So I planned to keep it in my possession until the bomb turned up.”

“Then you hid it before you went to that meeting,” Cade interjected. “That’s what I would have done. Too much of a risk to have it on you.”

Vee frowned. “I can see torturing Sergei for the information, but not beating him to death and dropping him in the river. Makes no sense.”

“Hot heads. Nasty tempers,” Cade suggested. “Do now, think later.”

Seryozha nodded. “Is possible. And in Wyoming the fire might have been to smoke us out, not roast us alive.”

“There was enough gunfire for World War III,” Vee protested.

“
Nichevo
.” Sergei shrugged. “Is no matter. We change directions now. Follow another thread.”

Moscow
, Vee thought. And that was likely just the first leg of their journey through a country vastly larger than the United States, though much of it covered by permafrost. Like Sergei Ivanovich Whatever. And what good was a GPS locator in her bra when she was buried in a country that
stretched over
half the northern hemisphere?

“Vee?” “Vee?” Both men were looking at her, expectantly.

“You will please give Doucette the new cell number,” Seryozha said. For a moment after Cade entered the number in his
cell phone
, their eyes met and held, reaffirming the silent vow of partnership. Then Vee watched as her sane, sensible best friend, walked away.

“A good man,” Seryozha said. “You would be wise to come back to him when this is over.”

“Optimist,” Vee muttered.

“Valentina?” Seryozha paused, waiting for her to look up. “I would be very unhappy if you d
o
not survive this. I will do my best to return you to Daddy and Doucette in one piece.”

“You’ll be dead, and none of it will matter.”

“If the bomb does not go boom, it matters very much.”

Vee acknowledged Seryozha’s remark with a very long sigh.

She was watching the eleven o’clock news when there was a knock on the door. Vee grabbed her revolver, wondering why Seryozha didn’t seem the least bit alarmed. He hadn’t even reached for the Glock. He did, however, peer through the eyehole before opening the door.

Vee stared as he plopped a gift-wrapped package onto his bed.
What on earth . . .?

Fascinated, she watched him open it, revealing three guns. One was a Glock remarkably like her own; one, a Sig-Sauer, and the third, a .38 with an ankle holster. Seryozha was looking remarkably satisfied with himself until Vee made the connection.

“Where’s my Glock?” she demanded.

“I no longer have it.” He waved a hand toward the bed. “Replacement.”

“You acquired three guns at eleven o’clock at night on almost no notice,” Vee declared flatly.

Sergei smirked. “I am arms dealer, no?”

Well . . . hell
. “Seryozha, Vee asked softly, “what happened to my Glock?”

He developed a sudden interest in the local channel’s sports report. “Is not important. I loaned it, I get you new gun.”

“Oh, God, you didn’t,” Vee whispered. “How could you?”

“Did you tell your office about Robey while I was gone from the table, or did you wait for Doucette to do it?” Sergei challenged.

“I wavered,” Vee admitted. “I left it to Cade.”

“Good. Unless Robey doesn’t have the balls to do it, your people will find only a corpse. And many clocks.”

And it stopped short, never to go again, when the old man died . .
. The old song about a venerable grandfather’s clock that died with its master echoed in Vee’s mind.

“That’s why he asked to speak to you alone,” Vee said, her voice hushed. “He wanted a gun?”

“It is done,” Sergei returned firmly. “I told him to run, but he wouldn’t leave his toys. His options, after that, were very few.”

“Sometimes, just for a moment or two,” she said slowly, “I think I understand you. But now
this
.”

Vee stalked into the bathroom, locking the door behind her. Shaking, she dropped onto the toilet seat, hunching her shoulders while hot tears scalded her eyelids. Seryozha,
her
Seryozha, had done this. Played on Robey’s grievance, his isolation. Tempted him into treason. And now . . . enabled his suicide. With Vee’s gun.

For a few weak seconds she felt an urge to call Cade back, to return with him to her relatively golden life in Sarasota County.

Sanity crept back. She had a vital job to do, and she’d see it through. She just didn’t have to allow it to become so . . . personal. Yes, that was it. She was long past having to turn Sergei up sweet. They were locked in an irrevocable partnership. He no longer needed special benefits.

“By the way,” Vee said as they settled into their comfortable first-class seats on a non-stop flight from Atlanta to Moscow, “how did you pay for the tickets?”

“I memorized the Wilsons’ number the last time you let me use the card.”

Of course he had. Vee accepted the hostess’s offer of pre-flight champagne and hoped Daddy winced when he saw the bill. Or was luxury travel customary for DHS agents and spies? After all, there had to be some percs to the job. “Are you going to tell me where we’re going?”

“Sheremetyevo.”

Vee drew a deep breath, scowling at the bubbles in her glass, which had caught the mid-day Georgia sunlight shining through the window beside her. Sheremetyevo was Moscow’s equivalent of Orlando International. Through gritted teeth, she hissed, “I mean after that.”

“Another long flight.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No.” Seryozha moved his long legs out of the aisle and inched closer to Vee as the Economy Class passengers began to board, juggling cases that looked way too large for the storage bins.