He looked at her, then averted his eyes quickly. Sirens sounded close by. Adrenaline rushed through her as she dropped her pastry and ran. Ran away from the sound of the sirens, and toward a residential area. Suddenly a silent police car pulled out of a side street with only its blue light flashing.
Crap. She dodged down an alley and booked it to the next intersection, straight across that one-way street and down another alley running diagonally. She heard squealing brakes, but she didn’t look around. The roads were getting busier now, and it became harder to run past the other pedestrians without banging into them and creating more of a spectacle.
She tried to walk at the same cadence as the fastest walkers, trying to blend in, as David had showed her. She grabbed the light shawl out of her bag and draped it over her shoulders. At least if anyone was looking for a woman in a yellow sundress, they wouldn’t see enough of the top half to recognize the color.
Two police cars swung around a corner and started to sweep either side of the road, driving slowly, looking at everyone’s faces. Shit. Shit. Shit.
A short alleyway loomed ahead, and she took it slowly, not looking around as she so desperately wanted too. Look straight ahead. Look straight ahead.
As she turned the corner onto a new street, she dared look back down the alley. Two police officers were following her on foot, and when they saw her face, they started running.
How long could she be Greece’s most wanted? Where was she supposed to run to? She took off, thankful that she was wearing sneakers and not flip-flops. Sirens came from the right, so she veered left. Suddenly an SUV with tinted windows screeched to a halt in front of her. Her heart sank. Okay, she couldn’t run anymore.
The driver wound down his window. Holy crap. A familiar face at last. A friendly familiar face. “What…?” Molly said.
“Get in. I’m just glad I found you.”
Molly’s heart pounded with relief. “Sure. I’m so happy to see you.”
“Me too. You have no idea. Get in the back so you can hide.”
Molly looked around for police, who seemed to be in the next street along, and opened the door. The Russian was in there with his gun pointed at her face.
“Get in, Ms. Solent, and you might live a short while.” All she could see was the shiny gray gun. She took one step backward and the driver door opened.
Her spine seemed to fold in on itself, as she registered a pinprick. Through her blurry focus she saw hands pushing her uncompliant legs into the car.
Shi…
He was absolutely going to kill her when he found her. David paced the streets, knowing full well that it would take a miracle to find her in this maze of a city. The heat swarmed the streets like thermals in the morning sun, deliberately finding him and making him sweat. Not that Molly’s disappearance couldn’t make him sweat enough anyway. Damn her. What was she planning to do? Turn herself in to the Russians? The Greek police, who were keen to appease the Russian government? The US embassy? David wasn’t entirely sure that they wouldn’t throw her under the bus to avoid a huge diplomatic catastrophe. No, he corrected himself. It was more than just diplomatic now. He suspected that this kind of incident at a G20 meeting, could do nothing less than take them to war if the Russians found any evidence of foul play.
He really only had one play left. And that was far from a sure thing. Damn it all to hell. Damn Molly all to hell. What had she been thinking?
He slipped the battery back into his phone and called the number on Brandon Peterson’s card. It was a long shot, since it must be nearly eleven p.m. in DC. The call was picked up immediately.
“Mr. Peterson’s office,” a soft voice said.
“Can you patch me through to him please? It’s important.”
“Who is this please?” the voice asked with a hint of stress showing.
“I’m in Athens, and I think we both know that he is not sleeping. He has a broken nose, and I suspect he’s been waiting for my call.” That was a total shot in the dark too. But he couldn’t imagine for a moment that this wasn’t already a huge topic of conversation in the State Department.
There was a couple of seconds of silence. “I’ll see if I can connect you.”
David looked at his phone for a second and said a mental goodbye. Did they have the equipment on hand like that to trace his phone? The clock on the display said he’d been waiting twenty seconds. Thirty. How long did it take to dial a phone and transfer his call?
As he waited, he paused by a bus stop slowly crowding with people.
“Who is this?” Peterson’s voice pierced the quiet in the street.
“How’s the nose?”
“You better come in, Church. And bring the girl with you.” He definitely sounded as if he was trying to impress a room full of people.
“That’s the thing, she’s in the wind. If the Russians find her before I do, you know that’s not going to be pretty, and you brought her into whatever fuck-fest you have going on, so you better fucking help me find her.”
There was a pause. Was he pumping his fist, or was he trying to figure a way to screw him? “Okay.” He sounded as if he was walking. “I have limited resources. But let’s meet up and figure the best way to track her down before anyone else does. The police are already out looking for her, and there have been some unconfirmed sightings of her in the Psiri district. Where are you? I can pick you up en route.”
David was not down with that idea, but he had few choices with Molly in the wind. He cursed at her again. He would never let her forget this moronic move if they lived to be one hundred. If they lived. Jesus.
“Okay. Meet me at the corner of Sina and Skoufa,” he said, coming up with the only place he knew the location of.
“Be there in thirty.” Peterson hung up.
David deleted all his contacts, removed the memory card and slipped his phone into the pocket of a man at the bus stop as he walked past. He waited until the bus came and the man got on it before heading back toward the scenes of the crimes. As he rounded the corner, police sirens called out again, and he smiled as they rounded the corner and started following the bus. He hoped Molly had the sense to keep her battery separated from her phone as he’d asked her to.
He got to the restaurant that Victoria had invited them to—what was it, two days ago? Felt like a month ago.
He tried to piece together the pieces of a puzzle that had been worrying him. The inscription on the pen, “BP,” which he was now sure didn’t belong to Brandon Peterson. Having met him, he knew he was what he said he was, a low-level wonk—no way could he have rigged those explosives. The reporter covering the tri-cities. Peterson’s girlfriend getting drunk and spilling the beans on an op. But what if she wasn’t a US agent? What if she was a Russian agent recruited because Peterson was on the Russia desk? It wasn’t that far of a stretch. He’d have to meet a lot of Russian companies and people. David also remembered the second SVR man telling him “Spasibo” in the temple. “Thank you” in Russian. And then he realized—ice shivered through his blood—BP, in the Russian alphabet, stands for VR in roman letters. Victoria Ruskin. She wasn’t an agent, she was a full-blown SVR officer.
And then he hated himself. The last piece to the puzzle. The second shot at the cocktail party. Why shoot again if your target had been killed with your first shot? Unless your real target had crouched down to retrieve a dropped note?
He’d been so fucking stupid.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
When Molly awoke, she was tied to a chair, with something nasty-tasting over her mouth. The side of her neck stung, possibly from the drug Victoria had given her. Victoria.