Take Me for a Ride (19 page)

He kissed her, and a passing woman put a hand to her heart and sighed.

But he lost his cynical edge in the sweetness of Natalie’s mouth and the surprising tenderness that crept over her expression. He loved that it was for him. But it also scared the piss out of him.

He raised his head and tried to get his bearings again. That was when he saw the photographer, who immediately turned and ducked into the crowd when he realized that he’d been seen.

“Hey!” McDougal shouted. He started after the guy, crossing the street and leaving Natalie standing on the sidewalk, staring. “Hey!” But the portly little man was fast on his feet. Eric started pushing through the crowd, but the man had disappeared.

He looked back to see Natalie stepping into the street to follow him. Then a motor gunned and an old Volvo veered sharply around the corner. It screeched to a halt, and a burly man with blond hair erupted from the passenger seat to grab Natalie.

As the guy opened the rear door and shoved her inside the vehicle, Eric sprang into action, but he had no hope of reaching her side of the car before it sped away. So instead he focused on the driver, whose attention was on the rearview mirror. He wrenched open the door and grabbed him around the throat with his left arm. In the next instant, he had his perfectly ordinary, stainless-steel pen gripped in his right fist, poised to stab it into the man’s jugular.

“Let her go, or you’re dead,” Eric said. He shouted it again at the second man. “I will kill him.” The driver struggled, tried to break the grip at his neck, but McDougal hadn’t sweated his guts out with Cato, ARTEMIS’S trainer, for nothing.

The driver tried stepping on the gas, but the car was a standard and it wasn’t in gear.

In the meantime, passersby had started to gather and stare. Natalie screamed, kicked, and fought to get free from the other man. A couple of tall, athletic-looking guys exchanged glances and then stepped in to help.

The driver said something that Eric didn’t understand, but it must have been the equivalent of “we have to get out of here; let her go.” Because the burly man suddenly ejected Natalie, feet first, from the car. She stumbled forward, into one of the athletic guys, who caught her and stopped her from falling to the pavement.

Satisfied that she was safe, Eric released the driver, who spat curses at him while slamming the car into gear. The Volvo shot forward like a four-doored rocket.

Eric stood robotic in the street for a moment, gripping his pen as if it were a spear. Then he ran to Natalie.

“Are you okay? Jesus, Joseph, and Mary, that was close.”

The athletic guy had set her on her feet and was asking the same question in Russian.

“I’m fine,” she said shakily. But the pulse at her throat throbbed as if someone was in there with a sledgehammer.

The Russian’s friend said in English, “You are very lucky that those men didn’t have guns.”

True. But McDougal didn’t want Natalie any more scared than she already was. He shot the guy a meaningful stare and said, “Thank you for helping.”

He caught on fast. “Eh,” he said to Natalie, chuckling, “you are also lucky that Mikhail did not head-butt you back into car. He is not used to using hands, you see. He is professional soccer player.”

Natalie gave him a weak smile. “Thank you so much,” she said to Mikhail, who nodded.

“I am Ivan,” the English-speaking one said.

Mikhail said something in Russian.

“No, not Ivan the Terrible,” Ivan retorted. “He is comedian as well as soccer player. He refers to sixteenth-century Russian czar who killed his own son.”

Eric stuck out his hand. “Eric McDougal. And this is Natalie Rosen. Really, we can’t thank you enough. Who do you think those guys were?”

The two Russians exchanged another significant glance. Then Ivan shrugged. “Mob. You may have heard—it is very bad here. You want to call
militsya
? The police?”

“No,” Natalie said quickly.

“We can give license plate numbers. You want to go to American embassy?”

Eric shook his head. “We’ll be fine. Thank you.”

Ivan eyed him shrewdly, then pulled a scrap of paper out of his pocket. “You will allow me to borrow your very, ah, how you say,
dangerous
pen?”

Eric gave it to him, and he wrote down two numbers. Then he gave the paper and the pen back to Eric.

“The first is license plate of car, yes? The second is my telephone. You need witness or help—or good Mongolian barbecue—you call. I have restaurant.”

“You’re very kind.” Natalie took a step forward and kissed him on the cheek.

“Ah, for this, you eat my restaurant for free!” He enthusiastically kissed both
her
cheeks, and she blushed, to McDougal’s unaccountable annoyance.

“Okay, enough already,” he muttered.

Mikhail grinned at him and spoke Russian to Ivan, who backed off. “We make apologies that you have bad experience in Moscow, eh? Most Russians, we very, how you say? Hospitable, yes?” He blithely ignored the fact that Americans weren’t at all popular in his country.

But Eric and Natalie nodded, and they all said their good-byes. He took her hand and held tightly to it as they walked away, with no thoughts whatsoever of trying to disengage. Instead, he wanted with every fiber of his being to protect her from harm.

“What I don’t understand,” he said, “is why that guy would be taking photos of us one second, and two other guys try to grab you the next second.”

“You think they’re related incidents?” she asked.

“No, I don’t. That’s what’s bothering me. We’re being tracked by two different people or organizations, and I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all.”

“Kelso wishes to know when the wedding is,” Liam said to Avy when he looked up from his iPhone.

“Why is
my
boss e-mailing
you
? Especially when I haven’t heard from him in at least a week.”

“You know Kelso and I are old chums, my love. And you’re frightfully competent at your job, so why should he feel the need to e-mail you?”

Avy twisted her long brown hair into a knot on her head and secured it with a pencil. Then she fixed her fiancé with an implacable stare. “Don’t tell me. It’s Kelso who’s put you up to this whole kidnapping thing.”

Liam deliberately focused on the screen of the iPhone and began to whistle. When he looked up, Avy was stepping out of her panties and twirling them around on her index finger. “Liam? Cutie-pie? If you’d like to have sex with me anytime in the next five years, you’re going to put down the crackberry and tell me exactly how this whole plot came about and whether or not my boss is behind it.” She blew him a kiss. “ ’ Kay?”

Before he could respond, the panties hit him in the mouth.

He stared at her long, tanned, muscular legs. She wore high-heeled black pumps, a black leather miniskirt, and a tailored jacket.

Liam licked his lips and meekly put down the iPhone. “Where would you like me to start?”

Avy sat down in a straight-backed chair that faced him, smiled sweetly, and pulled a classic Sharon Stone maneuver before crossing her legs.

Liam’s eyes glazed over. “Right. How about if I start at the beginning, then, my love?”

She nodded.

“A couple of days ago, Kelso got in touch. He told me that ARTemis is working on tracking down a very valuable necklace that used to belong to Catherine the Great. This necklace was stolen from a restoration specialist in Manhattan, and the specialist’s insurer had engaged your red-haired colleague to find it.”

“McManWhore,” Avy said, nodding.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Just a nickname we gave him. He’s quite the ladies’ man. I’m actually amazed that he’s back on the job this soon. He took quite a beating recently.”

“Ah. Well, at any rate, ARTemis got a second call, this one from an old gentleman in Moscow who, quite curiously, claims that the same necklace was stolen from his safe. And he, too, would like to engage ARTemis to hunt it down.”

“Kelso smelled a rat,” said Avy.

“Precisely. The old man’s accent held traces of German, even though he professed to be Russian, and so our Kelso toddled off to do a spot of research. He found that there’ve been rumors swirling around this Oleg Litsky for years, the gist of which are that he’s a Nazi war criminal with the blood of hundreds on his hands.”

“Knowing Kelso, he tapped into his vast network of international contacts.” Avy uncrossed and recrossed her legs, which resulted in great distraction for poor Liam. He quite lost the thread of his narrative.

“Liam!”

“Yes, my love?”

“Focus.”

“Oh, but I was, my darling.” He smirked evilly.

She glowered at him.

“Right. Kelso has indeed poked around and substantiated the rumors. Which leads us to right here and right now. You and I, my sweet, are about to pay Litsky a formal visit to discuss just what ARTemis can do for him.”

“Oh, we are? How professional of us.”

“Indeed.” He beamed at her. “Though you might wish to put those back on.” He pointed at the panties, which lay on the floor.

“You think?”

“I think.” Liam nodded. “Unless you aim to give the gentleman a heart attack.”

“And just how are we going to get him out of his house, Liam?”

“I thought you’d never ask.” Liam’s expression changed to one of gravity, even sorrow. “Our poor Mr. Litsky, you see, is eighty-two years old, and at that age, almost any medical emergency can arise. One will, thanks to the syringe in my pocket. Or, come to think of it, maybe you
should
leave your panties here?”

“I don’t think so. What if he takes Viagra and gets a boner instead of a heart attack?”

“I should
not
like that,” Liam said.

“Funny; me, neither. Let’s use the syringe.”

“Quite so. You and I will then call an ‘ambulance’ immediately, and he will leave his home on a stretcher. The ambulance will go not to the hospital, however, but directly to a small airfield.”

“So we’re going to airlift him out of there?”

Liam’s lips twitched, and all sorrow dissipated from his aristocratic features. “Oh, not exactly, my love. Not exactly.”

“Tell you what,” said Avy. “You can fill me in on the details later, after you assure me that you understand something very clearly.”

“And what might that be, my sweet?”

She gritted her teeth. “The next time you make plans involving
me
and
my
company with
my
boss behind
my
back, I will break every bone in
your
high-handed, low-minded, aristocratic body. And then I will turn you over to my U.S. Marshal dad, who has definitely not given up his search for us and could be in Moscow as we speak. Do you read me?”

“Yes, Commander Hunt, I do. Like a very sexy book.”

Moscow State University was a little way outside the city, in an area called Sparrow Hills, or Vorobyovy gory. The university was housed in a massive, thirty-six-story Stalinist-Gothic building that had been completed in 1959.

After several evasive maneuvers to lose the men tailing them, Tatyana and the colonel succeeded and arrived at the university. There they found the history department and knocked on the office door of her old friend Professor Dmitri Prokofiev. A gaunt, stoop-shouldered man with a thin mop of gray hair, he embraced Tatyana warmly and shook hands with Colonel Blakely.

“Tell me, Ted, what the professor looks like after all these years,” Tatyana said. “He’s thin; I can feel that. And”—she chuckled—“you smell of pickled herring, Dmitri.”

He kissed her cheeks. “But yes, my favorite cologne.”

“What does he look like?” Ted mused. “Well, it all depends on whether or not he’s an old flame.”

“Yes,” claimed Dmitri.

“No, no,” Tatyana said, feeling herself blush like a schoolgirl.

“Well,” said the colonel. “This rival of mine, this Dmitri character—you must understand that he has only one tooth left in his mouth, and a rotten one at that.”

“Eh?” Dmitri said, clearly startled.

“He’s bald as an egg, too . . . and pulls his pants up to his armpits.”

The professor burst out laughing. “This is not true, my dear Tatyana!”

“Ted!” She reached out, found the colonel’s arm, and lightly smacked it.

“Well, I’m just trying to make sure you don’t ditch me for him,” Blakely teased her.

“Dmitri, pay no attention to him.
You
tell me what you look like. All right?”

“Yes, yes, much better. I am, of course, six and a half feet tall, with full head of yellow hair, square jaw, many very white teeth. I have the big shoulders, yes? And the wash-machine stomach. All the women in Moscow, they desire me.”

“You’re filthy liars, both of you!” Tatyana said as the professor guided her to a chair. The two men laughed.

They chatted about the trip, about the changes in Moscow since she’d left, and about current events. Then a lull came in the conversation, and Tatyana said, “I need to show you something, Dmitri. I need your help.”

“Of course.”

She nodded at Ted, and he pulled the strange key from his pocket. Especially since they were being followed, they hadn’t wanted to risk her purse being stolen. The necklace was locked in the hotel’s main safe.

Ted handed the key to Dmitri, who found his reading glasses on his desk, put them on, and then bent to examine it. “It appears to be some sort of safety-deposit-box key,” he said.

“Yes, but do you have any idea which bank it’s from?”

Dmitri peered at it again and pursed his lips, turning it over in his hands. He clucked softly like a Slavic hen, then whistled. He then clucked again as he turned to his computer and pulled up the Internet. He typed something in using Cyrillic letters and waited for a moment. He nodded.