“Perhaps we should ask the Russians,” Woerner offered. “The FIS might have a file on her.”
Duroc snorted. “Them? Not likely.” His eyes narrowed in thought. “In any case, Michel, running to the FIS could prove a huge mistake. What if this Soloviev’s actions are sanctioned by Kaminov himself? What if that old Russian bastard is playing a double game with us, eh? Bargaining with us and with the British and Americans at the same time?”
“Then should we alert Paris?” Woerner asked.
“No.” Duroc scowled. He tapped the photos. “Not until we have something more conclusive than these.” He doubted that his unimaginative higher-ups would see anything very wrong or suspicious in a Russian colonel meeting publicly with a beautiful woman. If anything, a cable to Paris at this point would probably only earn him another reprimand for straining at the procedural leash they’d looped around his neck.
No, he would need a lot more than unsubstantiated supposition to convince his superiors that something was very wrong in Moscow. He would need hard proof of Soloviev’s treachery — evidence that would either prompt the Russians to move against the colonel themselves or expose Kaminov’s own duplicity.
Duroc stood up straight and shoved the surveillance photos aside. From what he could see, the negotiations with the marshal and his fellow hard-liners were at a critical stage. Ambassador Sauret expected a major breakthrough sometime in the next several hours. And, with time at a premium, there was only one sure and certain way to break Soloviev’s clandestine link and obtain the necessary proof before it was too late. Direct action. Violent action.
Moscow’s citizens were out in full force — enjoying the last few hours of a warm summer day. Couples strolled through the park hand in hand or sat on benches soaking up the welcome sunshine. Stripped to their shirt sleeves in the heat, bureaucrats and businessmen paused on their way home to play chess, to skim the afternoon editions of the government-controlled newspapers, or to down vodka or beer with friends and colleagues at one of Gorky’s cafés. Others stood in groups shouting encouragement to the schoolchildren booting soccer balls up and down the park’s sports grounds. A few madcap youths wearing in-line roller skates imported from the West raced each other down the winding paths, narrowly dodging slower-moving pedestrians. Halfhearted curses and shaken fists trailed after the grinning teens.
Erin McKenna stepped lithely aside from one howling, laughing pack, and paused in the shade of one of Gorky Park’s two giant Ferris wheels. She swore a few times herself, but not at the skaters. Her curses were directed at Kaminov, the French, the Germans, and all the other idiots who were leading the world into another general war.
She’d just come from another hastily arranged meeting with Valentin Soloviev, and none of the news she was carrying back to Alex Banich and the others was good. According to the Russian colonel, his masters were within inches of reaching agreement with the French envoys. Kaminov had already issued preliminary war orders to the army and air force units poised on the Polish border, and even Russia’s remaining ICBMs were on a higher state of alert.
Erin closed her eyes briefly, feeling the beginning of a tension headache knotting her temples. War and the threat of nuclear war between the United States and Russia, for God’s sake! It was like reliving her worst childhood nightmares all over again. So much for the shortsighted, protectionist politicians who had bought votes by appealing to isolationism, raising barriers to foreign trade, and slashing defense and foreign aid, she thought angrily. They and the other opportunists like them around the globe had sown a bitter harvest — one that millions of innocents caught in the fighting were reaping now.
After the last of the long-haired roller skaters swooped past, she stepped back out onto the walking path and headed for the gray delivery van parked near the tall, towered Museum of Paleontology at the park’s southern end. She knew that Banich, Hennessy, and the other CIA field agents covering her would want to report back to the embassy as soon as possible.
The footpath joined the sidewalk paralleling Kaluga Road a hundred meters short of Banich’s van. There were even more people there, flowing into Gorky Park from the offices and high-rise apartments lining the other side of the busy street. Erin brushed past the small crowd watching a street performer juggling three balls and a kitchen knife and lengthened her stride. She was almost safe.
Two plain black sedans veered out of traffic and pulled up right beside her, brakes squealing sharply. Their rear doors popped open before they even stopped moving. Two men jumped out and rushed toward her — hard-faced, expressionless men wearing dark, look-alike suits.
Erin froze, horrified.
Before she could recover, they grabbed her, shoving her toward one of the waiting sedans.
A big, brutal-looking man standing near the second car motioned impatiently.
“Vite! Vite!”
They were French! The realization shook Erin awake. Her diplomatic immunity might offer some small measure of protection against the Russians, but it offered none against kidnapping by French intelligence agents. Instincts honed by years of life in a big city and by the self-defense courses she’d taken came fully alive.
Now! She tore her arms loose from their grip, slammed an elbow into one man’s stomach, then pivoted and drove her heel down hard on the other Frenchman’s instep. They fell away. Momentarily free, she whirled and ran, angling away from the street — heading deeper into the wooded park.
“Merde!”
Major Paul Duroc swore violently. He leaned out the window of the first car, motioning toward the fleeing woman. “Woerner! Foret! Verdier! Chase her down!”
Humiliated by their first failure, the three men nodded abruptly and ran in pursuit.
Duroc pulled his head back inside the sedan, still seething. He’d counted on surprise and their semiofficial appearance to cow the woman long enough to get her inside and out of public view. It should have been both quick and reasonably discreet. Now everything was about to get a whole lot messier. He leaned forward and rapped on the clear partition separating him from the driver in the front seat. “Head south and turn right past the museum. Then take the Pushkin Quay north. She can’t stay in the goddamned trees forever.”
“Yes, Major.” The sedan pulled out into traffic and accelerated.
Intent on their prey, neither man noticed the delivery van pulling out right behind them.
Erin ran blindly onward, dodging people coming the other way or moving too slowly in the direction she was going. She could hear feet pounding after her and startled shouts as the people who’d stopped to stare were shoved out of the way. The French weren’t giving up, but she couldn’t risk glancing behind to see how close they were.
Beneath her mounting terror, she realized she’d made a fundamental mistake by running away from Banich’s security team. Damn it, she thought, I’m supposed to be smarter than that. She’d let panic lead her down the path of least resistance. Now it was too late to try doubling back. She had to keep heading for the Moscow River — looking for a chance to shake her pursuers and reach one of the Agency’s safe houses or find some other kind of help.
She flashed past a group of laughing children skipping rocks across the still waters of a weed-choked pond, hurtled through a cluster of their wide-eyed, astonished mothers, and plunged into the stand of trees beyond them. She heard a splash and shriek as a child went into the water. But nobody made a move to intervene.