Ekaterina by Susan May Warren, Susan K. Downs Page A

back into his muscles.
    “Did he contact her again?”
    “Yes, although I didn’t get much of the conversation. I’ve never met anyone with her tvordost . She didn’t even blink when I showed her the picture.”
    “He looks a lot different now. A plastic surgeon is a terrorist’s best friend. You think she’s on the level?
    Hearing his partner suggest it aloud fertilized all Vadeem’s gut instincts. He did wonder, think, well okay, maybe just a teensy bit, that Miss Ekaterina Moore might be exactly who she played herself to be.
    A naïve, gutsy, in-trouble tourist.
    “I don’t know.”
    Ryslan said nothing, but in the silence, Vadeem heard his own voice, calling himself a fool. If this Americanka had nothing to do with the General’s smuggling plot, then the real fence was out there—without even a hint of FSB surveillance. Vadeem wanted to bang his head against the wall.
    “You’d better keep her in your sights, just to make sure,” Ryslan said quietly, fatigue weighing his tone. “I’ll watch the general.”
    “I’m putting her on a plane today.” Vadeem tried not to remember her pitiful pleading, her tears, the way she hit him in the chest when he’d turned off what little part of his heart he could still feel and stood his ground. Yes, she’d chipped away at his gut instincts with her sob story. So much so, he spent the night wondering how a woman with such honest honey-brown eyes could lie like a serpent and wishing, in the darkest corner of his soul, that he was wrong.
    The sooner he got her out of Russia—and his mind—the sooner he could tail Grazovich with a vengeance. “If she’s his contact, the general will start getting jumpy.”
    “Are you sure that’s the best thing?” Ryslan asked. “If you’re right, she could lead us right to our source.”
    . . .Or down a rabbit trail that would cost him precious weeks of investigation. Besides . . . “Someone tried to mow her down last night in her hotel room. She’s not staying in Russia.”
    He heard Ryslan swallow. “Just don’t blow this, Vadeem. Remember your priorities.” He clicked off the line.
    Vadeem pocketed his cell phone, thankful the call had at least roused him early enough to get a cup of coffee before he had to wake poor Miss Moore.
    “Captain Spasonov!”
    The tone put to his name notched his pulse up a beat. He didn’t like the hue of the sergeant’s pallor nor the beads of sweat trickling down his wide face.
    Vadeem’s stomach clenched, and he instinctively knew before the agent said it.
    “She’s gone. The American has escaped.”

Chapter 5
     
    Vadeem leaned against the gate of the monastery cemetery, watching Ekaterina Moore trace her finger across the lettering on a simple gravestone. How long had he been watching her? He’d memorized the taut set of her jaw as she lifted her face occasionally into the morning sun, the red lines etched down her cheeks, her shoulders, slightly slumped, her long legs pulled up to her chest and locked with a firm arm.
    If she was an arms dealer, she had her alibi down to a science. The wind from the Velikaya River, not far off, teased the hair around her face, now turned bronze by the remnant hues of dawn.
    She looked so bereft, his fury had disintegrated long ago. She wore a face that said her hopes had turned to ashes. He had a look of his own, just like it, tucked deep into his past. Perhaps that was why he felt his suspicions dissolving like badly set holidyetz – Russian meat gelatin.
    It didn’t help that he understood exactly what she was searching for. Identity. Family. A connection. He’d listened to her story last night with more than a healthy dose of empathy, and hated himself for having to be the bad guy. And the way she’d leaned forward and let herself cry in his arms. . .well, it made him feel something he’d long forgotten.
    Needed.
    But he couldn’t sacrifice Miss Moore to soothe the demons from his past. Grazovich obviously wanted something, and