“Your own people,” Khournikova said. “The shooter back there.”
Derek settled his gaze on her. “You’re saying somebody from Homeland Security shot Dr. Davis?”
“No, no.” Her accent intensified. She shook her head. “Not your people like that. Others. Probably CIA. Maybe your Military Intelligence. State Department. My guess is CIA.”
Derek said nothing, but thought of FBI agent Aaron Pilcher. Don’t use the C word.
His creeping feeling of dread had caught up to him. Confusion or fear or paranoia, he couldn’t be sure which, but he was feeling it. The panic rat was back, chewing on his intestines. He struggled to stay calm, to focus on what was happening and not shift into analytical mode. There would hopefully be time for that later. Now he had to find out as much as he could and stay on top of the risk factor. He shoved aside his confusion.
“Who are you with?” he asked.
She shook her head again. “When we get to the safe house. Then I’ll answer your questions. We’re almost there.”
There turned out to be a five-story apartment building made of dirty gray brick. It wasn’t inviting. To Derek it looked like an upscale tenement, if there was such a thing. He suspected that in Washington, D.C., there were. On the street, people were out and about, but not many and he had the sense that most of them were beginning their evening prowl, looking for trouble. The neighborhood projected that feeling. She found a spot to park the Blazer on the street and told him to follow her.
Evaluate, coordinate, investigate, he thought.
Derek followed her. A block away somebody shouted in Spanish. Further off he heard music, a heavy bass beat. Even further away, a siren. The sounds of the nation’s capital. There was nobody at the door of the building, just a buzzer console Khournikova ignored, letting herself in with a key. She headed for the stairwell. He followed, keeping his hand near the Colt on his belt, senses highly attuned to the environment. There were the background sounds of TVs and radios and muttered conversations. The stairs were bare concrete, the metal handrail showing peeling white paint. It smelled of dampness and insect repellant.
She stopped at the third floor and led him down a long hallway with poor lighting, every fourth bulb burned out. The carpet was a worn blue, the walls a dingy white. Fading lower-middle-class, he thought. Welcome to the American Dream.
She stopped at apartment 302, jabbed another key into the door and walked in, flicking on a light.
He followed, pulling the Colt as he stepped into the entryway. When she turned he had it aimed directly at her face. She did not seem surprised.
“Who are you?” Derek demanded.
“Lieutenant Irina Khournikova. Directorate T, Russian Federal Security Service.”
“Directorate T?” He did not lower the gun.
“Anti-terrorism. We need to talk about Richard Coffee. If you put the gun away, we can.” Her hazel eyes met his gaze, not flinching.
Yeah, tough, he thought, confirming his initial assessment. He lowered the gun but didn’t put it away.
“Turn around,” he said.
She continued to stare up at him, then slowly turned.
“Take your gun out — two fingers — very slowly and drop it gently on the floor.”
For a second he didn’t think she’d comply. Then she reached gingerly into her jacket and removed the gun, holding it with two fingers. She bent over and dropped it on the floor.
“Kick it back to me.”
She did without comment. He crouched, gun still aimed at her, and picked up her weapon.
“Go on in. Slowly. Hands on head.”
She did. He followed her. It was a two-bedroom apartment, the living room off to the right, the kitchen/dining area to the left. Straight ahead were three doors: the bathroom and two bedrooms. The carpet was the color of a rotten avocado, the walls a single coat of egg shell. There was battered furniture that looked like it came with the apartment: a TV in the living room, two chairs and a threadbare sofa. The kitchen table appeared to be forty or fifty years old, steel tubing and Formica, the chairs a mismatched set of red and blue vinyl and chrome. Derek jammed the gun in her back and pushed her through the apartment. One of the bedrooms had a double bed with two pillows and a gray blanket and thick blue comforter. The second bedroom had a desk and computer on it.
He examined every room, shoving her ahead of him. Finally they were back in the kitchen. “Hands on the table, wide apart. Lean forward.”
She assumed the awkward position without comment. Derek patted her down, retrieved a man’s wallet from her jacket pocket.
“Do you carry a purse?”
“When I need to.”
He flipped through the wallet. She started to stand up, but he said, “Eh, eh, eh. Stay right there until I tell you differently.” The wallet contained unfamiliar ID written in Russian and an ID that appeared to provide her access to the Russian embassy.
“Have a seat,” he said, and poked around in the kitchen, finding it to be reasonably well stocked. Otherwise the apartment looked barely lived in. In fact, the toiletries in the bathroom appeared nondescript, as if from an inexpensive hotel. The whole place appeared to be exactly what the Russian claimed it to be: a safe house, a bolt hole.
Derek sat at the table, dumped the ammunition from Khournikova’s gun and slid the weapon across the table to her, keeping the full magazine. He holstered his Colt.
“Okay,” Derek said. “Talk.”
“Satisfied?” She slipped her gun into her shoulder holster and shot him an irritated look.
“Not hardly, lady. I’m very pressed for time today. You have exactly five minutes to convince me you’re not wasting my time, so start talking.”
“I need your help.”
“If the Russian government wants help from the United States, there are proper channels to use. I’m not one of them.”
She shrugged. “You are looking for a man called Richard Coffee.”
“What makes you think that?”
“My people have ways of knowing certain things. One of those things is when and if someone is checking Richard Coffee’s records on computer.”
“Then I’ll recommend the Pentagon double-check their computer security. Okay. I might be looking for information about Richard. So what?”
“Why are you looking for him?” She sat perfectly still, forearms resting on the table in front of her. She seemed to be working very hard to appear nonthreatening.
“What? Your people don’t have ways of knowing that?” He imitated her accent, sarcasm dripping off every word.
“Are my five minutes about up, Doctor Stillwater? Do you wish to play games or do you wish to obtain information?”
Derek closed his eyes. He opened them and glared at her. “Why does Russia’s antiterrorism unit want to keep tabs on a dead U.S. soldier?”
“Richard Coffee is not dead.”
Derek felt his heart thud harder in his chest. Confirmation.
“U.S. military records indicate he is,” he said. “As you know.”
Khournikova smiled a hard, tight smile. “Richard Coffee died in Iraq in 1991. He was reborn a short time later as Surkho Andarbek. The name, by the way, is Chechen for ‘strong warrior.’ This was shortly after Chechnya declared their independence. We did not become aware of his presence for some time.”
Derek thought the timing and the Russian language skills would have been perfect. He said, “The military doesn’t run spies like that.”