The Russian Seduction (35 page)

Still, way down deep where she couldn’t shine a flashlight right now, a last stubborn shoot of hope curled and withered. She knew only one reason the guy would call her Victor’s “homework assignment.” Knew where this had to be going. Still, she ached to find some other answer.

“Explain yourself,” she said tersely. Despite the regular pushups she did on her fingertips as part of her
dojo
workout, her hands were aching from holding the gun too tightly.

“Why, isn’t it obvious?” Calmly Ivashov ground out his cigarette in the nearby ashtray. “It can’t have escaped your analysts that Captain Kostenko speaks German, French, English, Mandarin—and, of course, Ukrainian—all of them rather fluently? Do you think this is merely a pleasant hobby for him, along with his black belt and his countersurveillance training? Surely you can’t have thought I was the only wolf in sheep’s clothing in the Russian navy?”

Shit, she hated being right on this one. But the admiral had just confirmed that Victor was a spook. And that the captain’s top secret mission had been to cultivate
her
.

Steady, don’t blow this. You can’t think about it now.
Doggedly she kept the heavy pistol pointed at Ivashov, though her face probably shouted what she was feeling. In the wingchair, Victor tensed and started to push upright.

“Damn it, Alexis,” he growled.

“Don’t get up, captain.” Funny, right now she didn’t have a problem pointing the gun straight at him. In fact, he’d be goddamn lucky if she didn’t blow his balls off. See how he managed to seduce his next sex-starved divorcee with that kind of damage.

But it hurt too much to look at his face, jaw clenched above that gorgeous tux she’d admired so much. Eyes locked on her like a tracking beam, with lines of strain bracketing the sexy-as-hell mouth that had given her the best damn orgasms she’d ever had.

“Let’s go back to the
Lenin
,” she said harshly, and didn’t recognize her own voice. Grimly she retrained the PPK on the admiral. “What were you saying about the missile?”

“I wasn’t saying anything about the missile, Alexis Castle Chase,” the senior officer said precisely. “I was speaking about you and Captain Kostenko—who, judging from the progress reports he’s submitted to my agency, has enjoyed engineering your seduction quite a bit.”

Pain twisted through her heart, as this confirmation of Victor’s betrayal grasped her in both hands and squeezed. But the spark of fury ignited her and sizzled like a bomb fuse, firing her with welcome strength.

“From my perspective,” she said through gritted teeth, “the captain’s performance in bed was barely interesting.
I
tolerated his crude efforts to woo me in order to get close to
you
, admiral. But I’m far more interested in that cruise missile. What was its target?”

She saw Victor’s hands clench on the wingchair, but couldn’t bear to meet his gaze and see written on his face the lies he’d kept hidden for so long. And she’d be damned if she gave up without getting the goods now, after he’d stomped her heart and her self-esteem and her trust into a gummy mess.

Deliberately, she angled a look at her watch. “My backup is scheduled to check up on our situation in precisely one minute thirty seconds. Then you’ll have two more pissed-off agents with guns to deal with, and they’re not likely to be as civil as I am. So I’d advise you to start talking.”

Ivashov took another ten seconds to think about it, one foot tapping thoughtfully on the Turkmen carpet.

“Very well,” he said brusquely. “Your people have already pieced together the pertinent details, or you wouldn’t be positioned here now, pointing a pistol at my chest. Nor would the American navy be poking its arrogant interventionist nose into Russian business in the Black Sea. As your government has undoubtedly surmised, that missile was intended as a warning shot across the bow of the USS
George Washington
, whose carrier battle group was thrusting itself literally in the
Lenin
’s face as she undertook her classified maneuvers.”

Alexis stared into his cold gray eyes, trying to read the guy. Still pretty damn inscrutable, though she could see his situation was chafing him, since an American chick in designer duds had managed to get the drop on him.

Earlier today, the U.S. Defense Attaché had told her the
George Washington
was stationed in the neighborhood during that fateful exercise two years ago. She already knew the Russian military was famous for beating its chest like a damn gorilla at every opportunity. Still, she wasn’t ready to drop the theory of their intervention in that pivotal Ukrainian election.

Hell, maybe they’d been trying to kill two birds with one missile. And, given the potential benefits for the Motherland, they wouldn’t be averse to a repeat performance.

She snuck a glance at Victor and saw his eyes trained like lasers on the admiral.

“How did my father react to that command?”

Ivashov’s nostrils flared in disdain. “Captain Kostenko questioned his orders. He singularly failed in his duty to the Motherland. Entirely contrary to established procedure, he demanded that the order be confirmed at the highest level in Moscow—which, of course, our civilian leadership was in no position to undertake.”

“According to your explanation, he’d just been ordered to fire a missile that could easily have started a war,” Victor pointed out. “It’s hardly surprising that he would have wished to confirm the order before he fired.”

“Nonetheless, those were not his instructions.” Ivashov clenched his patrician jaw. “Fortunately,
starpom
Mishkin understood his duty far more clearly. He received contingency orders before sailing, and subsequent events illustrate that he undertook to execute them. I had already ensured that the
Lenin
received a clean bill of health to operate following its rather hurried refurbishment. The only detail I failed to anticipate was that the faulty seawater valves would choose that particular moment for their catastrophic failure—a failure so enormous that the submarine’s emergency pumps were utterly overwhelmed.”

“In that case, Comrade Admiral,” Victor gritted, “you were personally responsible for the death of one hundred and fifteen loyal sailors, and the loss of a valuable ballistic missile submarine. Moreover, by manufacturing a false report that my father disobeyed orders and his crew mutinied, you sullied an honorable man’s reputation to conceal your own failure from Moscow.”

Alexis didn’t know the admiral or the technical specifications of the
Lenin
well enough to know if Ivashov’s story checked out. But she knew Victor…or thought she did. Judging by the icy glitter in his gaze, if the captain had been standing on the bridge of his submarine, he’d have torpedoed the bastard without a shred of remorse.

“Victor.” Damn, her voice sounded too compassionate, considering she was trying to make him look to Ivashov like another victim of her machinations. Despite his betrayal, she didn’t want to see him court-martialed for conspiring with the enemy.

“Captain Kostenko.” Deliberately, she hardened her voice. “Do you have any other questions for the admiral that are relevant to the
Lenin
’s accident and therefore of interest to my government?”

“I would hardly volunteer to interrogate my own countryman for the benefit of a foreign power.” He shot her a narrowed look, and spoke with equal coldness. “I would advise you, Counselor, to lower that pistol you can barely manage and allow both the admiral and myself to resume our evening, before someone winds up injured—or worse.”

Alexis didn’t need decryption equipment to read that coded message. They’d been closeted with the admiral far too long. Now she needed to confront another minor flaw in her impromptu strategy. How was she supposed to make a clean getaway before Ivashov ordered her detained?

“Thanks for the advice, captain.” Though her hands were burning with tension and fatigue, she kept the PPK trained on the admiral. “This is how we’re going to handle things. I’m going to vacate the premises via the emergency exit next to you. When I’m clear, I’ll transmit that fact to my colleagues stationed outside, at which point they’ll depart unhindered through the main exit.”

Though she could only pray that the Consulate’s technician had indeed managed to follow Victor’s breakneck driving, and was waiting for her outside. If not, her little adventure was going to die a painful death on the street outside this nightclub. In the gown she was wearing, she’d freeze to death in the arctic night.

Concealing her reservations, she hoped, Alexis divided her gaze between the two men. “As for the two of you, you’re going to wait quietly right here for the next five minutes. Then you can send your security goons charging after me.”

She didn’t wait for their permission, but headed briskly for the emergency exit. From the corner of her eye, she saw Victor dividing his wary attention between her and the admiral. She could only hope he’d cover her back while she got out of there. Still, she kept the PPK prudently pointed at Ivashov as long as possible, until the vacant wingchair with its high back reared up between them and blocked her line of sight.

The second that happened, Victor uncoiled from the opposite chair like a striking cobra. Ivashov rose into view between them—with the cold black muzzle of a pistol in his grip.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. I should have disarmed him first.
Recognition of her fatal oversight arrowed through her brain—far too late.

Dimly she registered the ominous click as Ivashov released the safety. Showing none of her clumsy weapon-handling, he swung the gun toward her.

Knowing she’d never be able to target him and fire before he did, Alexis dove toward cover. But her
dojo
-honed instincts shrieked that she’d never get clear. Her blood froze to ice as the pistol fixed her—

Behind the admiral, she glimpsed a blur of motion too fast to track as Victor’s roundhouse kick lashed out. With black-belt-perfect precision, his foot connected with Ivashov’s head. Groaning, the admiral reeled forward, the gun flying from his grip—miraculously, without firing.

Then Victor closed in, landing a vicious chop to the target’s neck. Ivashov sprawled on the floor and lay without moving.

Her heart racing, terror spurting through her and adrenaline flooding her system, Alexis gripped the wingchair with a shaking hand to hold herself up. Numbly, she watched as Victor checked the guy’s pulse, the PPK sagging in her grip.

“He’s out cold,” the captain muttered, straightening his tux with a crisp tug. “Though he may never recall what struck him, he appears likely to recover—unfortunately. I wish I’d killed the bastard.”

Trembling violently, Alexis used both hands to reengage the PPK’s safety, and deposited the thing carefully on the wingchair. If she never saw another gun in her life, she wouldn’t miss it. Though she figured the bitter taste flooding her mouth was comprised in equal parts of residual fear and heartbreak.

“Christ, Alexis,” Victor groaned, scrubbing a hand over his face. “We should have discussed this before you acted. You’re supposed to be a bloody diplomat, for Christ’s sake. All talk but no action. Not to mention that seeing you in his line of fire just subtracted five years from my life. Come here.”

When she didn’t spring to obey, he started toward her, but she avoided him with a quick sidestep. He stopped sharp, comprehension firing his features as he met her gaze.

“You’ll have to keep your distance from now on, captain,” she said coldly, fuelled by her reservoir of rage at his betrayal. She could extract the splinters from her fractured heart later. “Besides, you’ve completed your ‘homework assignment’ for the SVR.”

“Goddamn it, Alexis. Obviously, he said whatever was necessary to distract you. Let me—”

“Don’t even try it.” She cut him short, knowing she needed to get out before she broke down sobbing, right there on Dracula’s couch. Before she begged Victor to say something that would make the whole mess right again, and swallowed whatever load of BS he shoveled out.

“I already knew you’d set me up,” she said tightly, hugging the clutch against her chest. Too bad for the CIA if they got a garbled transmission of her messy breakup. “Show me the identification card in your wallet, Captain Kostenko. Show me the magic talisman that got you through the metal detector with your sidearm tonight.”

God, the human heart was an amazingly stubborn organ. Until that moment, she’d actually nursed a tiny, pathetic hope that somehow he could explain it all away, though her gut told her otherwise. Now she saw the furrow deepen between his brows, the flicker of dismay in his eyes when he looked away. That was when she knew, finally, that they were finished.

“I notice you’re not rushing to vindicate yourself,” she said bitterly, gripping her purse until her fingers ached. Focusing fiercely on holding back the burning rush of tears, for just a little longer.

“Simply let me explain what happened, Alexis—”

“Your identification card, captain,” she repeated, her jaw clenched. “Let’s just get this over with.”