Chapter 10
Carter
Hotel Galaksi, Moscow
Eighteen months earlier
Shortly before midnight, Carter turned on the shower, only to hear a loud knocking on his hotel room door. It was Nika—uncharacteristic splotches of makeup beneath her eyes. She’d remained zipped up and professional throughout dinner and the opera, but it was obvious she’d guessed something was up. After the show, as the One Percent boarded limos outside the Bolshoi, Carter had suggested the two of them walk the couple of blocks to the hotel. Given the stupidly cold weather, it wasn’t likely they’d be overheard. As he’d explained the burn notice, she’d kept quiet, but by the look of her face right now, she’d evidently processed the implications.
“Zdravstvuy, moyo solnyshko,” she purred in greeting, for the benefit of the birthday girl, who was letting herself into her ambassador’s suite across the hall.
“Hey, beautiful,” he responded, stepping aside to let Nika in—and duck out of the One Percenter’s view, seeing he was wearing nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist. Nikashouldn’t be here, of course. He’d made it clear they shouldn’t be in contact at all, and they certainly shouldn’t be talking in a hotel room.
She crossed the room and stood looking out through the gauzy curtains. While the tourists’ suites overlooked Red Square, his tiny room commanded a view of the parking lot—which came in useful when he wanted to see whose state cars and limos were coming and going.Hadcome in useful. This part of his life was over. He’d managed to set up a meeting with Randolph that afternoon to appeal the instruction from Langley, or at least lobby to get Nika out, but Randolph had said he was just the middleman.Nothing I can do. Call it a win and walk away with the medal.Dangerous to become a fixture in Moscow.That was the trouble—everyone from the vice president on down was a fucking middleman.
Carter came up behind Nika and whispered in her ear. “You shouldn’t be here.”
She turned and ran her hands up his arms, leaning in so her hair brushed his chest. “Yesterday we kissed in Krasnaya Ploshchad. It will not seem suspicious that I am in your room.”
“Let’s go take a shower,” he said at regular speaking volume.
“Really?”
“No!” he mouthed, with an added meaning he hoped he wouldn’t have to explain. The bathroom was the only part of the room where he could rule out the possibility of being bugged. Not that he had reason to believe the main part of the room was, either, but his agents had installed plenty of bugs in the other rooms, and he had to assume he wasn’t the only one listening in on the hotel’s conversations. Spy versus spy, on an eternal loop.
He placed a hand on her back and guided her into the bathroom, quickly rechecking it. He turned the shower on again, for good measure.
“You shouldn’t have come,” he said, taking her hands. They were cold. He’d never noticed how small and pale they were, almost translucent.
“Where else would I go? My apartment?”
“Far from here.”
“In Russia, there is nowhere far enough. In America, on the other hand…”
“Nika…”
“Did you ask your man, like you promised?”
“Of course I did. We cannot get married. But he says that if you give him a list of your informants, so the U.S. can continue to work with them, he’ll see what he can do.”
“I would choose death over that.”
“I thought you’d say something like that.”
“You don’t trust him, so why would I?”
“I’ve never said I don’t trust him.”
“You think I don’t notice things, but I do. I notice things, I remember things. I remember we talked about defection when you recruited me.”
“It was never a promise.”
“You knew I saw it as one.”
He winced. “You could apply for asylum?”
“I would need to demonstrate there is a credible threat to my life here, and I don’t even know what the threat is. Do you?”
