From her left she caught sight of the lone woman who emerged from the stall next to the one she used. Nina did not want to look in her direction. Russian women, she realized soon after arriving with Sam and Alexandr, were quite chatty. Since she could not speak the language she wanted to avoid an awkward exchange of smiles, eye contact, and attempted conversation. In Nina’s peripheral she saw the woman glaring at her.
Oh, God, no. Don’t let them also be here.
With her face wiped with wet toilet paper, Nina took one last look at herself in the mirror just as the other two ladies took their leave. She knew she did not want to be alone in here with the stranger, so she hastened to the bin to dispose of her tissue and made for the door that slowly closed in the wake of the other two.
“Are you all right?” the stranger suddenly spoke.
Fuck.
Nina could not be rude, even if she was being pursued. She still headed for the door, calling back to the woman, “Yes, thank you. I’ll be fine.” With a modest smile Nina slipped out and found Sam waiting for her right there.
“Hey, let’s go,” she said, practically shoving Sam forward. They briskly walked down the terminal, flanked by the intimidating silver pillars that lined the length of the high building. Passing under the various flat screens with their flashing red, white, and green digital announcements and flight numbers, she dared not look back. Sam hardly noticed that she was a bit spooked.
“Good thing your boyfriend got us the best forged documents this side of the CIA,” Sam mentioned as he looked over the first-rate forgeries Bern had his notary produce to get the two safely back to the United Kingdom.
“He’s not my boyfriend,” she contested, but the thought was not altogether unpleasing. “Besides, he only wants to make sure we get home swiftly so that we can get him what he wants. There is no courtesy in his actions, I assure you.”
She hoped she was wrong in her cynical assumption, used more to shut Sam up about her amicable relationship with Bern.
“About that,” Sam sighed, as they passed though the checkpoint and gathered up their light hand luggage.
“We have to find Purdue. If he won’t tell us where Renata is…”
“Which he won’t,” Sam chipped in.
“Then he’ll surely assist us in presenting the Brigade with an alternative,” she finished with an annoyed scowl.
“How are we going to find Purdue? Going to his mansion would be foolish,” Sam said, his eyes raising to the large Boeing in front of them.
“I know, but I don’t know what else to do. Everyone we knew mutually is either dead or proven to be enemies,” Nina lamented. “Hopefully we can figure out our next move on the way back home.”
“I know this is a terrible thing to even consider, Nina,” Sam said out of the blue once the both of them had settled into their seats. “But maybe we can just disappear. Alexandr is very adept at what he does.”
“How could you?” she whispered harshly. “He got us out of Bruges. His friends took us in and harbored us without question and they ended up getting marked for it — for us, Sam. Please don’t tell me you have lost your integrity along with your security, because then, honey, I am certainly all alone in this world.” Her tone was stern and angry at his notion and Sam thought it best to just leave it at that, at least until they had used the time in flight to see their way around it and find a solution.
The flight was not altogether bad, apart from an Australian celebrity getting witty with a gay mammoth who stole his armrest and a rowdy couple who appeared to have brought their tiff onboard and could not wait to get to Heathrow before continuing the martyrdom of marriage they both suffered. Sam was sleeping soundly in his window seat while Nina fought her impending nausea, an ailment she had been suffering since she left the ladies room at the airport. Now and then she would rush to the toilet to vomit, only to find that there was nothing to purge. It was becoming quite tedious and she started to worry about the worsening feeling that was pressing on her stomach.
It could not have been food poisoning. For one thing she had a cast-iron stomach, and second, Sam ate all the same meals that she had and he was unscathed. After another unsuccessful attempt at alleviation she looked in the mirror. She looked strangely healthy, not at all pallid or weak. Eventually Nina wrote off her ill feeling to the altitude or cabin pressure and decided to also get some sleep. Who knew what was waiting for them at Heathrow? She needed to rest.
Chapter 11
Bern was furious.
After his pursuit of the intruders, he failed to discover them among the travelers he and his men had held up just off the winding road from the Mengu-Timur monastery. One by one they had searched the people — monks, missionaries, nurses, and three tourists from New Zealand — but they found nothing in their possession that was of any significance to the brigade.
He could not understand what the two prowlers were looking for in the compound, which had never been breached before. For fear of his life, one of the missionaries did mention to Daniels that the convoy originally consisted of six vehicles, but at their second stop, they were one vehicle short. None of them thought anything of it, because they were told that one of the cars would veer off to serve the Yangste Khan hostel nearby. But after insisting on looking at the itinerary Bern obtained from the lead driver, there was no mention of six cars.
There was no use in tormenting innocent civilians for their ignorance, nothing more could come of it. He had to admit that the burglars had eluded them effectively and that all they could do was to return and survey the damages incurred by the break-in.
Alexandr could see the suspicion in his new commander’s eyes as they entered the stables, wearily dragging their feet as they led the horses in to be seen to by the staff. Not a word came from any of the four men, but they all knew what Bern was thinking. Daniels and Mackey exchanged glances, surmising that Alexandr’s involvement was mostly the common consensus.
“Alexandr, come with me,” Bern said evenly, and simply walked away.
“You’d better watch what you say, old boy,” Mackey suggested in his British twang. “The man is volatile.”
“I had nothing to do with this,” Alexandr replied, but the other two men only looked at each other and then looked pitifully at the Russian.
“Just don’t press him when you start making excuses. Groveling will just convince him that you are guilty,” Daniels advised him.
“Thank you. I would kill for a drink right now,” Alexandr shrugged.
“Don’t worry, you might get one as a last wish,” Daniels smiled, but glancing at his colleagues’ serious expressions he realized that his statement was in no way helping and he went about his business of fetching two blankets for his horse.
Through the narrow bunkers, lit by wall lights, Alexandr trailed his commander to the second floor. Bern skipped the stairs without paying attention to the Russian and when he reached the lobby of the second floor he asked one of his men for a cup of strong black coffee.
“Captain,” Alexandr said behind him, “I assure you my comrades had nothing to do with this.”
“I know, Arichenkov,” Bern sighed.
Alexandr was perplexed at Bern’s reaction, relieved as he was for the commander’s answer.
“Then why did you ask me to accompany you?” he asked.
“Soon, Arichenkov. Just let me have my coffee and a smoke first, so that I can deal with my assessment of the incident,” the commander replied. His voice was disturbingly calm as he lit a cigarette.
“Why don’t you go take a hot shower? We can reconvene here in, say, twenty minutes. In the meantime I have to know what was taken, if anything. I don’t think they would go through all this trouble to steal my wallet, you know,” he said, and exhaled a long tuft of blue white smoke in a straight line ahead of him.