Raina watched him, wondering how anyone who looked so much like Theodor Churcher could be so different in temperament. She recalled the time Churcher complained, “The kid’s an eccentric, a cowboy who won’t join the club,” and how she gently suggested he involve Andrew with the Arabians, and how it delighted Churcher when the horses brought them together, as she’d predicted.
Andrew saw the striking woman coming across the piazza. Yes, yes, he could see her on his father’s arm. He had no doubt she was the woman that day in Tersk. And when her long strides brought her beneath the light, he saw she had a cool, mysterious beauty — sharp features set against luminous porcelain, like Steichen’s portraits of Garbo. He stared, unable to imagine how the image had ever escaped him.
Raina quickened her stride, broke into a little run, and threw her arms around him in an expression of sympathy and affection. And he returned it. Moments earlier, he was anxious and alone in a strange city. Now, he was holding this woman who had held his father, who he sensed shared his feelings and concerns, and whose presence bolstered him. He had no idea that her gesture, though genuine, also established a cover.
“Were you followed?” she asked, still hugging him. Her voice had the dusky lilt he heard over the phone.
“I don’t know. I didn’t see anyone.”
“I was, but I lost him.”
“If you don’t mind me asking,” Andrew said in a whisper as they pulled back from each other, “how’d you get into the suite?”
“Don’t whisper. It attracts attention,” she warned. “With a key — your father had given me.”
Andrew smiled, feeling a little naive. “How do you know he was murdered?” he asked.
She blinked at his directness, took his arm, and started walking around the curve of the piazza. “He called me that morning. He was furious, and said he was going to ‘kick Aleksei’s butt.’”
“Sounds just like him,” Andrew said with a little smile. “Who’s Aleksei?”
“Aleksei Deschin, cultural minister, Politburo, and very close to the Premier. Your father ‘did business’ with them for years.”
“He was paid in paintings, wasn’t he,” Andrew said. It was a statement.
“Yes. That’s where the problem arose. He discovered the ‘payments’ were fakes.”
Andrew nodded with some understanding now. “Payments for what?”
“Cooperation — in matters of national security. That’s all he ever told me. For my own protection.”
Andrew was stunned by her reply. “That’s, that’s just unbelievable,” he finally muttered, the words sticking in his throat. “I don’t know what to say.”
To his extreme dismay, she had confirmed his darkest suspicions about his father. His hopes of disproving them, if only to himself, had just been undeniably shattered. The realization was anguishing, and, despite the evidence, fueled his unwillingness to accept the idea that his father had hurt his country.
Theodor Churcher was a patriot, and war hero, not a traitor; and try as Andrew might, he couldn’t reconcile his view with Raina’s; the data refused to compute. If she was right, the world might soon learn that his father had sold out to the Russians. The thought was more than painful — it was mortifying.
He walked in silence until the impact wore off, then his face softened with a question.
“What’s your name?”
“Raina, Raina Maiskaya,” she said lyrically.
“Who killed my father, Raina?” he asked with quiet intensity.
“Glavnoe Razvedyvatelnoe Upravlenie,” she said, bitterly enunciating each syllable.
Andrew stared at her baffled.
“GRU,” she said. “They’re like KGB — just as ruthless but more cunning.” She shook her head, dismayed. “It should never have happened. There was a package. Your father was totally confident it would protect him.” She saw a flicker of recognition in his eyes. “You’re aware of it—”
“Yes,” he said cautiously, hearing McKendrick’s voice warning him.
“Then I assume that it has been—”
“No,” he said, anticipating her question.
“They got it,” she said flatly.
Andrew nodded grimly. “You’re familiar with the contents?” he asked.
“Drawings. Engineering drawings of a tanker.”
“A tanker? I don’t get it.”
“Nor do I. Your father wanted the drawings. I got them for him. That’s all.”
“You got them—”
“Yes, from a man I know. A Jew. He’s a marine engineer in Leningrad. A refusenik. His job sensitivity is used as an excuse to detain him. He wanted his son to get out of Russia before he could be conscripted.”
They had crossed the piazza and were a few steps into the darkness of a narrow street. Raina swung him around, and started walking in the direction from which they had just come.
“What is it?” he asked at the sudden reversal.
“Nothing. Just a precaution. I don’t like to be predictable. To make a long story short, I heard about my friend’s problem, and used my connections to get his son out — in exchange for the drawings.”
“They killed my father before they had them.”
“He must have endangered something of very high priority for them to take that chance.”
Andrew nodded, thinking his father had trusted her completely — and he would now. “The highest,” he said. “My father wanted that package to go to the CIA.”
Raina flicked him a look.
“McKendrick took two bullets trying,” Andrew went on. “Now it’s my turn.”
“How?”
“You got the drawings for my father. Get them for me.”
“Impossible.”
“I’ll be in Moscow in a week,” he said, ignoring her reply, and, in a commanding tone, added, “Find a way.”
Raina’s face hardened at his brashness, then eased into a smile. Pure Theodor Churcher, she thought.
Kovlek had been watching from the steps of a church across the piazza, and casually tailed them when they walked off together. Now, all of a sudden, they were coming right at him. He was positive she hadn’t seen him earlier; positive she had no reason to suspect him. He would handle this boldly, as if he had as much reason to be there as they. And so, he came at them, at a brisk cadence.
As expected, Raina took no notice of him as they passed within a meter of each other. As a matter of fact, she averted her eyes. For no special reason. Just a quick glance to the ground that fell atop the granite pavers where he stepped, that fell atop his shoes, atop the flour that filled the crease between the upper and sole and dotted the polished black toes. She knew a man had followed her into the alley; and she put the pieces together, and knew Kovlek was that man.
“I was wrong,” she said, pulling Andrew closer, and wrapping her arms around him, as if they were lovers. “The man with the glasses—”
Andrew’s eyes flicked in Kovlek’s direction.
“Don’t stare,” she warned.
She pulled him to her and kissed him. Hard. On the lips. “I’ll contact you again,” she said as she broke it off. Then gently brushing the hair from his puzzled face, added, “I’m sorry for what I had to tell you, Andrew. And very sorry for this.” He didn’t understand until she reared back and slapped him across the face. “Animal! Filthy animal!” she shouted, implying he had suggested something tawdry. She turned on a heel and stalked off in the direction of a dark narrow street.