There was a couple of seconds of silence. “I’ll see if I can connect you.”

David looked at his phone for a second and said a mental goodbye. Did they have the equipment on hand like that to trace his phone? The clock on the display said he’d been waiting twenty seconds. Thirty. How long did it take to dial a phone and transfer his call?

As he waited, he paused by a bus stop slowly crowding with people.

“Who is this?” Peterson’s voice pierced the quiet in the street.

“How’s the nose?”

“You better come in, Church. And bring the girl with you.” He definitely sounded as if he was trying to impress a room full of people.

“That’s the thing, she’s in the wind. If the Russians find her before I do, you know that’s not going to be pretty, and you brought her into whatever fuck-fest you have going on, so you better fucking help me find her.”

There was a pause. Was he pumping his fist, or was he trying to figure a way to screw him? “Okay.” He sounded as if he was walking. “I have limited resources. But let’s meet up and figure the best way to track her down before anyone else does. The police are already out looking for her, and there have been some unconfirmed sightings of her in the Psiri district. Where are you? I can pick you up en route.”

David was not down with that idea, but he had few choices with Molly in the wind. He cursed at her again. He would never let her forget this moronic move if they lived to be one hundred. If they lived. Jesus.

“Okay. Meet me at the corner of Sina and Skoufa,” he said, coming up with the only place he knew the location of.

“Be there in thirty.” Peterson hung up.

David deleted all his contacts, removed the memory card and slipped his phone into the pocket of a man at the bus stop as he walked past. He waited until the bus came and the man got on it before heading back toward the scenes of the crimes. As he rounded the corner, police sirens called out again, and he smiled as they rounded the corner and started following the bus. He hoped Molly had the sense to keep her battery separated from her phone as he’d asked her to.

He got to the restaurant that Victoria had invited them to—what was it, two days ago? Felt like a month ago.

He tried to piece together the pieces of a puzzle that had been worrying him. The inscription on the pen, “BP,” which he was now sure didn’t belong to Brandon Peterson. Having met him, he knew he was what he said he was, a low-level wonk—no way could he have rigged those explosives. The reporter covering the tri-cities. Peterson’s girlfriend getting drunk and spilling the beans on an op. But what if she wasn’t a US agent? What if she was a Russian agent recruited because Peterson was on the Russia desk? It wasn’t that far of a stretch. He’d have to meet a lot of Russian companies and people. David also remembered the second SVR man telling him “Spasibo” in the temple. “Thank you” in Russian. And then he realized—ice shivered through his blood—BP, in the Russian alphabet, stands for VR in roman letters. Victoria Ruskin. She wasn’t an agent, she was a full-blown SVR officer.

And then he hated himself. The last piece to the puzzle. The second shot at the cocktail party. Why shoot again if your target had been killed with your first shot? Unless your real target had crouched down to retrieve a dropped note?

He’d been so fucking stupid.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

When Molly awoke, she was tied to a chair, with something nasty-tasting over her mouth. The side of her neck stung, possibly from the drug Victoria had given her. Victoria.

She struggled against her bonds, looking around the dimly lit room. No, it wasn’t a room, it was more like a warehouse. She was tied to a chair in a freaking warehouse. Her brain shifted for a second as if she was watching a movie. She was in a movie. That was the only explanation for this level of craziness.

She blinked several times. Nope, she was still there. And she needed to pee like whoa. And nausea rolled in her stomach. She took a deep breath through her nose. Must not puke, must not puke. With tape over her mouth she’d probably drown in it. Her whole body was rejecting the scene in front of her, and she couldn’t blame it at all. So Victoria was Russian? But she’d had such a normal accent. Nothing about her suggested she was anything other than what she’d said she was.

Molly wondered if she was a plant just to sit next to her on the plane, or if she was a real Russian spy who worked for a news show in America. But why was she wondering about Victoria when she should be wondering how she could get out of here alive?

She tried to see how she was tied to the chair. Looked like a mess of duct tape on her wrists and probably over her mouth. So why would they gag her if she was alone here? If they’d gagged her, there must be someone close who might overhear her.

There was a bang of metal on metal, and Victoria and the Russian man entered the warehouse from a door on the far side. It took them forever to walk to her, and in that time, her heart and stomach started pumping pure terror through her. She could feel herself shake, but she couldn’t do anything about it.

Victoria ripped off the tape on her mouth. Her eyes were sad, somehow. Molly had been expecting some kind of viciousness that…well back to the movies again. In the movies, Victoria would have shot out a kneecap by now.

Why did her brain keep insisting that this was some kind of movie?

“I’m sorry, Molly. But you really should have come to the Media Club with me. We could have avoided all this.”

“What? I don’t understand,” she rasped.

The Russian passed Victoria a bottle of water, who in turn held it to Molly’s lips. As she sipped the water, she continued.

“It was a shame you got involved in our—I suppose you could call it—our strategy for a new Europe.” She crouched next to Molly.

“I can get you out of the country in a matter of hours, if you give me what Doubrov passed you.”

Molly’s heart raced. “I don’t understand. He didn’t pass me anything.”

Victoria leaned in close to her ear and whispered. “I don’t have time for this. This isn’t a negotiation. You tell me, or you don’t tell me. The latter would be no good for you.”

“I’m telling you the truth. He didn’t give me anything.”

Her captor said nothing, just stood and turned her back to Molly. She spoke Russian to Mr. SVR who shrugged and walked back to the door through which they’d entered. It banged.

Victoria turned back to her, and Molly expected her to make some kind of plea. Some woman-to-woman request that would make Molly confess. But instead she just pricked her with a needle again, and before Molly could say anything, the world went black.

David scoped out the rendezvous point. First from the alleyway in which he and Molly had hidden from the Russian, and then from as many vantage points as he could manage, including from the roof. Peterson didn’t seem to have sent an advance team. Maybe he could be trusted after all. God knew he needed someone he could trust right now. He needed to find Molly before Victoria found her.

He waited for Peterson, berating himself for not piecing this all together before now. She’d said her boyfriend was a policy wonk, and what the fuck “tri-cities” were there in DC? He’d been so stupid. So fucking slow. Jesus. If he couldn’t get to Molly in time, he didn’t know what he would do with himself. He figured his future at Barracks Security was over. He couldn’t even trust himself to keep an innocent woman safe.

He stood with his back to the wall watching all ways at the small crossroads until he saw Peterson come into view and advance up toward the meeting point. He seemed nervous, checking behind him every few paces. David stepped forward to meet him.

Peterson acknowledged him with a slight nod.