“Friend of yours?” asked Staci, who had her good arm as far around Bobby Chan’s substantial waist as it would go, which wasn’t very far. Her other wrist was still in a cast, and so was her injured knee.
Staci had essentially swapped fiancés. Blanchard, whose business in Tokyo had been too important for him to cut short, had been unceremoniously dumped by her when he eventually got back to Chino Hills.
Chan, on the other hand, had stayed glued to her from the moment he carried her out of the fleabag flophouse on West Tropicana. The chemistry between two people can’t be analyzed in a lab; Staci and Bobby had the kind of personal love chemistry that can be so elusive in life. It was fun just watching them.
“Just had to work out a little business understanding with Mr. Stout, there,” said Kit as he slipped off the silver chain around his neck that held the key given to him by his father. He held it out for Staci.
“Time for you to take this, Sister.”
Staci limped over to him and put her big brother in a bear hug. She then took the necklace and pendant and draped them back over Kit’s head. “And let you shirk your responsibilities? No way.”
Before Kit could protest, Bobby Chan cut in. “Kit, don’t get me wrong, the ceremony was nice and all that, but this place has the charm of a quarantine ward at a tropical disease hospital. Can we go somewhere and get some chow? And maybe a beer and a shot?”
“Vodka?” asked Yulana, who was holding Kala’s hand, trying to keep her from running off.
Kit eased an arm around his wife and exchanged smiles with Buzz, Angel, and Jen. “You know, Sis, I’m glad I didn’t get to rescue you, and that Detective Chan got the honor instead. Because he’s going to fit into the family, just fine.”
And with that, they departed.
“When should I make the approach?”
“Before he leaves D.C.,” said Margarite Padilla to the man in the ten-thousand-dollar Armani suit.
“What if Bennings says no?”
“Would you say no to what we, I mean, what you are offering him and his team?”
“Would I say no? Of course I would, because I’m not crazy. Did you see what he just did?! He broke the DCI’s hand!”
“Bennings will take the offer. It’s a special operator’s dream come true. Our only problem is, which assignment do we give him and his team first?”
FROM THE AUTHOR
The gestation period for some novels is much longer than others. The idea for what eventually became The Russian Bride first came to me in a dream back in the 1990s when I was married to a Chinese-American woman named Lisa Chan. Lisa always encouraged me to write down my dreams, and so I did.
I was writing screenplays in those days, and working in the film business. Screenplays I’d written had been produced in Hollywood, Canada, Israel, Argentina and elsewhere. I started writing a story inspired by the dream and called it, Asian Bride.
The basic plot is similar to what eventually became my fifth noveclass="underline" a U.S. military defense attaché in Hong Kong is blackmailed into marrying an Asian woman in a phony marriage and taking her to the States, where the real trouble then begins.
I rewrote the script many, many times. Something close to twenty times, I think. Somewhere along the way I changed the title to AWOL. I optioned it. I tried to place it with Asian film companies and worked hard to set up co-productions, all for naught.
At one point, film producer Jacob Kotsky took it to legendary agent Jack Gilardi at ICM as a vehicle for Jean-Claude Van Damme (who was big at the time and shooting a film in New Orleans with red-hot film director John Woo). Gilardi got Van Damme to agree to do the film, as long as we changed it to a Russian setting. At this time, film production in the Ukraine was very cost-effective. So I made the changes—including a title change to Russian Bride—Kotsky and I were about to fly to New Orleans to seal the deal, when he and Gilardi had a falling out over money owed to ICM from another project.
So the whole deal dissolved, just like that. Such is the nature of the movie business.
I shelved the project, went on to other ventures, and became a novelist. Many years later, when I approached St. Martin’s Press with ideas for my fourth novel with them, they liked The Russian Bride. So I wrote it, changing numerous elements significantly from what I’d originally written.
Writing the Russian villains was a lot of fun. Since I have spent years working overseas in an intelligence capacity as a private security contractor, I’ve gotten to know countless current and former members of Russia’s intelligence services such as the SVR, FSB, GRU, and the old KGB. Those folks unknowingly provided a goldmine of material for me to draw upon.
So it all started with a dream, and only took about fifteen years and literally thousands of hours of my time to birth that book into the world.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ED KOVACS is the author of the critically acclaimed Cliff St. James series. Using various pen names, he has worked professionally around the world as a screenwriter (eight of his screenplays have been produced), television writer, journalist, comedy writer, and media consultant. He is a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers, the American Legion Post 299, the International Thriller Writers, and the Mystery Writers of America. Visit his Web site at www.edkovacs.com. You can sign up for email updates here.
ALSO BY ED KOVACS
Unseen Forces
Storm Damage
Good Junk
Burnt Black
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Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE RUSSIAN BRIDE. Copyright © 2015 by Ed Kovacs. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.