To Russia With Love (Countermeasure Series) (61 page)

Trevor’s attention slid to Petrovna and Nelson. Animosity pulsed in a thick wave between them. Petrovna sat in the corner of the couch with an arm resting casually on the armrest, the clenching and unclenching of her fist signaling her agitation as she glared sourly at Nelson. His expression was a mirror image of hers as he kept his gun trained on her. The two looked worse for wear, as if they had been put through a meat grinder. Petrovna’s gaze darted to Boris and hatred flared brighter. Boris himself stood near the hall entry, out of harm’s way, observing the two with a puzzled look in his face.

Trevor almost laughed at the entire comical scene. Five people stuck in a house in the middle of nowhere, ready to do one or more of each other harm. He eased himself next to Cassandra on the couch and got the party started. “Let’s start at the beginning, why don’t we? Boris, why didn’t you tell us about your associations? You would have gotten our full cooperation from day one if you had been up front.”

Trevor’s question dusted off memories of the days and emotions Boris had dealt with over the years. The many good things that he had forfeited for the sake of a job. A job that he believed was helping to improve his fellow countryman’s lives. “To be honest, I never expected I would need to tell you anything. I have been living undercover for a very long time.” Out of the corner of his eye he saw the woman’s head snap up, a deep crease furrowed her brow and disbelief clouded her narrowed eyes.

“Maybe far too long.” To give himself time to gather his thoughts, Boris took the chair across from them and addressed Cassandra. “It was shortly after I met your father. A KGB officer offered me a position after my performance during the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow and the US-Soviet peace talks in the mid-80’s. At the time, I saw no wrong in doing so. I was young, had no family, not many friends, and was dedicated to the service. My introduction to the organized crime unit was under total secrecy. No one was to know I worked for the KGB; otherwise, I would be of no use to the agency.”

Boris paused just long enough to catch his breath. “With the change of times, the collapse of the Soviet Estate, and dissolution of the KGB, my role was carried over to its successor organization, the FSK, and subsequently to the FSB. That is why even though Robert was a very dear friend of mine, I was unable to tell him about my new position or activities. I left the army under the guise of joining the police force to assume the façade of a corrupt officer. An easy assignment really, since corruption within the police is commonplace.”

Nikol sat as if turned to stone. Her eyes never left Boris’s face. She listened intently to his words and tried to make sense of the facts as he laid them out. Questions droned in her head. Everything that she had grown up believing, everything she had focused on her entire life, had been unraveled in just a single minute. She struggled to hold on to the cold mask covering her emotions—the surprise and shock stemming from Boris’s revelations.

Boris sighed deeply, drawing Nikol back from her internal struggle. “It is a sad reality when the population trusts more the mob than they do the police. During the time I was in the police force, I ran guns, passed on information, and cultivated a reputation—all legwork in preparation for the new role ahead of me: taking down the largest gang in St. Petersburg.”

“Zarev’s?” Trevor interrupted, and Boris nodded. “How did you become involved with Mikhailov’s instead?”

“By chance.” Boris found himself reliving that memory. Tumbling once again in the turbulence that had bled from Mikhailov’s eyes that fateful day. “Mikhailov’s wife was murdered by a minor gang in retaliation for some wrongdoing committed by his men. He sought me out. He had heard about my access to the investigation reports and wanted information.” He closed his eyes and squeezed them tight to push that memory away.

“You flipped her killers. You gave him their names,” the woman said.

The intonations of that voice sent him spinning into another memory, the memory of someone who haunted his dreams each night. His eyes snapped open and his brow wrinkled with his contemptuous thoughts. He studied the woman and tried to understand the niggling that had pierced him each time he had seen her. Hearing her voice for the first time played with the edges of his perception, evading his efforts to pinpoint what it was about her that was so familiar to him.

“Yes. It haunts me to this day, but it was something that, at the time, I just viewed as poetic justice. They had killed an innocent woman. It was only fair that they were punished for that. With the information in hand, Vladimir delivered his justice swiftly. The men were never found, but we all knew they were no longer among the living. The gang in question disappeared from the mafia scene shortly after.”

Cassandra leaned forward. “Why us? Why did you use us to get the files? If what you say is true, you were in, friends at that point. Why not try to secure them yourself?”

“Vladimir is a very cautious man, even more so after his wife was killed. He doesn’t engage in lasting personal involvements, so we couldn’t bribe a lover to get the files for us. Although I have had a close association with him for years, he never allowed me into his inner circle until recently, and I never had access to his data storage. Your arrival was heaven-sent. I couldn’t ignore the fact that you were my ticket to those files.”

“How do you plan to use them?” Trevor quirked his eyebrow questioningly.

Boris’s eyes widened. “So you did manage to get the files out.” A profound relief invaded him. That information released all the tension he’d been bottling inside and he slumped in his chair. “I was not sure. I have to admit, I was surprised to see you here. Mikhailov’s men ambushed my house last night. I was certain you had been caught and squeezed for details. I did not quite expect you to have managed to retrieve the files, especially after I received the call from Cassandra telling me—” he scoffed, “—ordering me, to come here.”

“Oh…make no mistake, if Trevor hadn’t made it out you would not be sitting so comfortably,” Cassandra snipped. “We have the data. But you’re not getting it until you answer Trevor’s question.”

Boris measured her with a cool, appraising look as he considered how much to divulge of his activities. Trevor’s stay in the mansion had given him quite a lot of the insight already. Whatever Boris said would only fill in the gaps. “It’s the last piece of information I need to bring down both gangs. I have acquired a significant volume of sensitive information through our Signals Analysis Department during the many years I have been undercover, but we discovered that Vladimir was apparently involved in seeding some of the incriminating information regarding Zarev’s operation to the police, trying to flip him, possibly hoping we would take Zarev down for him, paving the way for his own organization to move in and take over. We cannot allow that. Vladimir is a smart man. His organization has grown in strength and reputation. If we only take out Zarev’s gang we will have a bigger problem on our hands. We want both. But we need to have all our ducks in a row, as you say, before we can sweep in and close down their operations.”

“Okay, I get that we were an opportunity you couldn’t pass up. But now what? If Mikhailov is as smart as you say, he must have connected the dots and will be gunning for all of you,” Cassandra reasoned.

“You better add Dmitriy into the mix,” Trevor quipped. “He can’t go back to St. Petersburg either.”

“My superior is just waiting for me to give the green light to proceed with the arrests. I need to have the files to justify them, otherwise they will just find their way out again.”

“Fine, as long as that guarantees our exit from the country unharmed,” Trevor demanded.

“But of course! Once they are all behind bars, we will make sure he and his associates stay there for a long time. A great number of gang members from both organizations are already under arrest thanks to the little war that took place yesterday.”

“Do not trust him.” All eyes swung in the woman’s direction.

Cocking his head, Boris studied her a moment. “What about you? I do not think you are who you pretend to be. Federal Service? Undercover?”

“Yes. St. Petersburg Central Internal Affairs Directorate,” she responded matter-of-factly with a hostile glare.

“What is your directive?”

She raised an eyebrow and her condescending smile was slow and deliberate. “Apparently my directive was to facilitate your directive. I was recruited to infiltrate Mikhailov’s gang to retrieve the data you could not get your hands on.” Her voice held a heavy dose of sarcasm.

“Bastards!” Boris burst in rage. “They never trusted my methods.”

“Nobody trusted your methods. They are filthy,” she spat at him.

The rest of the people in the room faded to the background as Boris’s full attention focused on the officer lurking in the corner of the couch, her contempt beating at him. “Why would you say such a thing? We have never crossed paths before now.”

The hatred in her eyes was back in full force at his words. “I have to say, you covered your tracks well. You are almost one of them. How you could turn your back on your family for a job is beyond imaginable. Family should be number one in anybody’s life. Blood ties matter.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You. Your loyalty to the service when you had no loyalty to your own wife.”

Boris’s breath hitched as his wife’s image flashed in his mind. “Alina.” The name spilled from his lips in a reverent whisper.

“Yes. Alina.”

Boris was confused. That part of his life had been buried long ago. Very few people were even left that remembered he was married. “How do you know this?”

Nikol’s eyes narrowed to slits. “I know this is true because Alina Petrovna…is my mother.”

“No! It cannot be.” Boris jumped to his feet and began to pace. His pulse raged in his ears and he couldn’t rationalize the news. When Alina had left, as far as he knew, she had not been carrying his child. He stopped abruptly in front of the young woman claiming to be Alina’s daughter and studied her. The tilt of her head as she glared back at him, almost daring him to deny her words; the dark brown hair, the curve of her defiant chin.
Alina
. The last telling sign—even as he recognized he still couldn’t accept—her eyes. The spitting image of his own mother’s. He shook his head.

“It
is
the truth.”

“She hid you from me. Why?”

“What did you expect? She thought you were a gang member. She thought you a thief and a criminal. You should have told her.”

“And what? Involve her in the chaos? Have her end up like Mikhailov’s wife? When she left, my heart was broken, but I knew she was better off. Would be safe. I never expected her to hide our child from me.”

“Do
not
call me yours.” Nikol’s voice simmered low. “I am
not
your daughter. You are
not
my father. I hated you for what you did to my mother. For being nothing more than a criminal.” Boris paled. “You have been my personal target for many years. You are the reason I ended up in undercover operations with the gang squad. I was hoping for evidence to bring
you
down. Searching for the same files I was ironically assigned to steal for you. I wanted you to pay.” She continued with a staid calmness, “I would just as happily put a bullet in your head, but that would break my mother’s heart. For some reason I cannot understand, she still cares about you.”

Boris’s heart shattered. All those years. Those wasted years. To hear that she still cared. “Alina. Where is she?”

“You will have to earn that information,
Papa,
” Nikol sneered. Disgust dripped from her lips.

Silence descended on the room. He glanced toward the blond man referred to as Nathan Nelson and was relieved to see he had holstered his gun. A glint of camaraderie flashed in his eyes as Nelson held his gaze. Boris saw sympathy radiating from Cassandra’s eyes and cool assessment in Trevor’s. Boris scrubbed his face with his hands and rubbed his tired eyes as he took his seat again.

Nikol, his daughter, couldn’t stand the sight of him, and from the hatred and repugnance that sparkled in her eyes, he would have no luck convincing her to give him a chance to prove himself to her. He needed time to think, time to regroup. Time to locate his wife. Alina, after all these years, still cared. That changed everything. With a deep, weary sigh, Boris looked Trevor in the eye. “I’ve answered your question. The files?”

Nikol kept her eyes trained on Cassandra while the woman walked to one of the duffel bags near the door and returned with an external hard drive, which she placed on the table. Back at the couch, she nodded to it. “It’s all here.”

Boris turned the drive over in his hands almost as if he couldn’t quite believe he had it. A satisfied smile curved his lips. “Thank you, Trevor.”

Trevor, which she now knew to be his true name, shrugged. “I wish I could say it was my pleasure.”

“I thank you just the same.” Boris stood. “I need to get back to St. Petersburg so we can shut them down. Cassie,” he nodded to her and then turned to look directly at Nikol. Her heart stuttered in her chest. Here was the man that had haunted her dreams. Dreams of a family. Dreams of a father’s guiding hand. Dream of a mother’s smiling face. Nikol witnessed the play of emotions across his features—indecision, hope, sadness—and hardened her heart. The unexpected turn of events had derailed all of her. She had a goal, she had a purpose before. Her dreams of vengeance deflated like a popped balloon. Once she was alone, she would pull everything out and explore her options.

Boris must have seen the finality of the decision in her eyes because he immediately turned on his heel and, as he headed for the kitchen, called over his shoulder to Trevor, “I will contact you as soon as everything is clear.”

The sound of the door slamming behind him brought with it a new uncomfortable silence. Nikol knew that she should leave too, but could not find the energy to move. It didn’t help that the man, Nelson, continued to stare in her direction.