Clay didn’t answer. What happened between him and Ellie was none of Jake’s business.
Clay frowned. Jake never interfered in matters that didn’t concern him. The fact he’d said anything at all spoke of his regard for Ellen Fletcher.
Clay knew Jake had coached her before, and of course he was working with her now. Jake felt protective of her, that much was clear.
Or was there something more? Jake was a handsome, virile man. As far as Clay knew, he’d had no serious involvement with a woman since his break-up with Maggie Delaine. Maybe it wasn’t Ellie’s virtue he was protecting, but his own self-interest. Maybe Jake had plans for her of his own.
When Clay glanced back at him, he noticed Jake’s attention was fixed once more on the road, where a beige Chevrolet sat parked some distance away.
“I’ve seen that car before,” Clay said.
“What?”
“That car. I’ve seen it before. Last week at the horse show.”
“There are lots of beige cars,” Jake said evasively.
“It wasn’t so much the car. The guy in it sat there all afternoon. I wonder what he’s doing out there.”
Jake shrugged. “Probably just a fan.”
“Probably.” There were some real zealots in the show world. “I’ll see you Thursday.” As he headed to his car, Clay wondered about Jake Sullivan. Though few people knew Jake well, Clay believed he was an honorable man—far more honorable than Clay.
Now, as he thought about Ellie, and Jake’s possible intentions, Clay began to have his doubts.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Ten o’clock Tuesday morning, Jake walked into the Washington Diner. At the back of the busy café, Nikolai Popov stood beside a quiet booth in the corner. He tipped his head as Jake arrived, indicating he should take the seat on the opposite side of the table.
“You’re looking fit,” Popov said. Though Jake hadn’t seen the man in twenty-eight years, he would have known that grating, smoker’s voice anywhere. “Your pictures do not do you justice.”
Jake’s pulse quickened but he didn’t reply, just slid onto the worn red Naugahyde bench.
“The Moscow winters have been far less kind to me,” Popov said.
So true, Jake thought. On that final day of competition in 1960 beneath a hot Rome sun, Popov had been thinner, with a thatch of sandy-brown hair where now just a few gray strands had been combed over to disguise his baldness. But it was his eyes that had changed the most, narrow and hard, far more cunning now than they had been back then.
“What do you want with me?” Jake asked bluntly.
“Relax, Comrade. All in good time. You were always impatient. I see that has not changed.”
The waitress arrived to take their orders, black coffee, not regular, the Jersey version that came with a liberal dose of milk. When the broad-hipped woman returned with two steaming cups, Popov made a grand show of stirring in heaping spoonfuls of sugar, the lengthy display designed to rattle Jake’s nerves.
“Smoke?” Popov pulled a pack of cigarettes from the inside pocket of his navy blue suit. Even in America, the man smoked the harsh Soviet brand.
“I quit years ago. It isn’t healthy. Or haven’t you heard.”
“A troublesome attitude may not be healthy either,” Popov warned with a thin-lipped smile. “But I am certain your curiosity has been piqued quite enough. It is time we come to the point of our meeting.” The Russian took a small sip of the scalding coffee then settled the cup back in its saucer with a soft china clink.
“It has come to our attention that you are in a very convenient place to help the country that birthed, housed, and fed you for the first nineteen years of your life. The State has cared for your family even longer. You owe us a great debt and now you will repay it.”
Popov blew a smoke ring across the Formica-topped table. The odor of the Russian tobacco Jake had once enjoyed now seemed heavy and cloying.
“And if I don’t?” Jake asked.
“If you do not do as you are told—as you were told before—it is your mother and sister who will bear the consequences. They are old women,Tovarich,and life has not been kind to them. They have you to thank for that, just as I do.”
“You? You’re obviously in a position of power and authority. Surely what happened twenty-eight years ago had little effect on you.”
