She was feeding the ducks. He recognized her straight away, even from the back, even though he’d only met her briefly before.
Meghan.
He crossed a swath of grass, slick from the morning’s rain, and went to stand next to her. She started a little and he realized she had a mechanical eye and hadn’t seen him approach. Even as Mischa he knew how to move quickly and silently, how not to draw attention to himself, how not to use the expected path.
“I got your message,” he said.
She tossed the rest of her bread crumbs into the pond all at once, creating a sudden surge of wrestling, splashing ducks. She brushed off her hands and turned to face him.
“What the fuck is this?” she demanded, putting her hands on her hips, reminding him of every woman who had ever been mad at him. Usually he could charm the anger away. Today he didn’t try.
“I don’t know,” he said, as honest an answer as he could make it.
Over her shoulder, he spotted the big man who always seemed to accompany her. He was standing under an oak not far from them, glaring at him. Mischa would apologize if he knew what for. Make it up to the big man, to Meghan —
“What’s your friend’s name?” he asked.
She seemed to think about the question for a little while. She must have decided there was no harm in answering, because she said, “Danny.”
The name did not register with him, did not cause any forgotten memories to resurface.
“Marcus played Warcraft with him a couple of times,” she said, watching Mischa steadily, watching his reaction. Speaking as if Marcus were a different person. Mischa supposed he was.
“And beat the crap out of him.”
That was undoubtedly true. Marcus had been very good at computer games. Mischa was, too.
“Where is Marcus?” she asked. “The e-mail was meant for him.”
Mischa shook his head. There was no way he could explain. He looked at Meghan, not understanding her, not understanding any of it. What was he doing here? What did he want from her? What did she want from him — or, more precisely, from Marcus? And how could he tell her Marcus was never coming back? Ekaterina had undoubtedly shoved him in the incinerator by now.
Meghan turned away from the pond and began walking up the slope to the tree where Danny stood, waiting. Her foot slipped on a patch of mud and Mischa reached out to steady her.
The moment his hand connected, he knew he had touched her before. When? When he was Marcus, of course. But even though this flesh was not Marcus’s flesh, the act of touching her was burned into his memory, some place below conscious thought.
He took a step closer, not letting go of her arm. He could smell the light scent she wore, citrusy, and the human scent beneath, sweat-streaked.
Scent memory was primal, innate, before language, even before thought.
He knew this woman. Deep, beyond description, in a place he didn’t even know he possessed, in his soul.
“Meghan,” he whispered. He leaned nearer to her and took her in his arms. She fit differently — Marcus had been a smaller man — but she felt the same, soft but sturdy, pliant and willful, eager to give and to take. He lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her, an act Marcus had performed before but Mischa had never done. He kept his lips gentle. Her arms came around his neck. She had to stand on her toes to do it, but perhaps she didn’t mind the inconvenience too much.
Then she put her hands on his shoulders and pushed him away, bewildered, but not, at least, screaming for help.
“You.” Now she had her hands on his face, making him look at her, her touch firm but gentle. “Tell me. What the fuck is going on?”
Mischa looked at Meghan. “I don’t know what the fuck is going on,” he said. Which was true, so it sounded convincing when he said it.
Meghan took a step back. “That’s not good enough. I need to know what the hell is going on.”
“We don’t have time for this conversation,” Marcus said. “Ekaterina isn’t going to be happy that I ditched her minder.”
“Ekaterina can kiss my ass,” Meghan said, grabbing his arm. “I want to know what’s going on. I don’t care how happy or unhappy Ekaterina is.”
“At the moment, I don’t either. But she’s going to try to talk to me.” The thought made him uneasy. “I don’t want to talk with her just now. Will you come with me? I promise to tell you what I know — ”
“We’ve got company,” Danny said.
Marcus glanced up, then swore under his breath. He could see Abe, Ekaterina’s security chief, advancing towards them. No way was he alone. Marcus shot a glance around the park, spotted the helpers.
“Danny,” he said, “slide on off, will you? I don’t think Abe wants you.”
“I’m not leaving Meghan.”
“Do what I tell you.” He didn’t raise his voice but from the look on Danny’s face, he knew Danny understood him.
“Meghan,” Danny said, “I’ll hook up with you at our usual meeting place.”
“Our meeting place?” Meghan paused, then nodded and Danny stepped away. No one tried to stop him.
Marcus turned his attention back to Abe and his ring of helpers. They were coming from different directions, a lot of men.
“You go, too, Meghan,” Marcus said, once Danny had walked away free. They wanted him, Marcus. It wasn’t Meghan they were after, although Abe had brought enough men to take a small group of armed commandoes. Marcus would have to talk with Ekaterina about the meaning of overkill later on. Assuming Ekaterina had sent Abe, which he had no way of knowing. But he would find out.
“What is this?” Meghan demanded. “What’s going on?”
“I think Ekaterina wants me back.”
“And, what, you’re just going to let her take you back?” Meghan demanded.
“Ekaterina can be very persuasive,” Marcus said. “Go on now. Maybe later we can — ”
“Fuck ‘maybe later,’” she said. “I want to know what the hell is going on now.”
“Meghan, please. You need to go. Meet up with Danny.” He didn’t move his eyes from Abe’s face. He didn’t read murderous intent there, but he didn’t want Meghan in the middle of this, even so. “Go on,” he said, and gave her a little nudge.
“You son of a bitch,” she said, but she took a step away from him, then turned to pick her way down the path Danny had taken.
“I’m afraid I can’t let you leave, Meghan,” Abe called out as he closed the few remaining feet between them. “I’d like to have a talk with you, too.”
Marcus felt his heart stumble and it took him a minute to remember to breathe. That was not part of the script. He and Ekaterina could play their cat-and-mouse games, but — What did she want with Meghan? No. Not Ekaterina. Abe. What did Abe want?
“You, too, Mischa. Ekaterina asked me to fetch you and bring you to her.”
“Ekaterina did?” Marcus said. “Then she must have given you the safe word.”
“The what?” Abe demanded. “What are we, ten years old?”
“Ekaterina is adamant about my being careful,” Marcus said, which was true. How many times had she said, We can’t let anyone get their hands on you, Marcus.
“Fine, how’s this?” Abe said and pulled back his jacket to reveal the butt of his Glock in its holster. “That do to persuade you?”
Marcus supposed he was confident because he was armed and dangerous and had helpers with similar attributes, whereas Marcus and Meghan were both unarmed and unprepared for physical conflict. But Marcus knew that Abe and his hunters wouldn’t dare risk hurting him. The probability was high, though not as high, that they wouldn’t dare risk hurting Meghan, either.
“Actually, no,” he said, and jumped, dropping his shoulder into Abe’s gut and knocking him off balance. Abe landed hard and let out a grunt of pain. Marcus went down with him, hit Abe’s brachial nevus as hard as he could and shouted at Meghan, “Run!”
She’d already reached top speed by the time he’d secured Abe’s firearm. She’d taken off in the direction Abe had come, like charging through a gap in a chain-link fence.
“Stop!” one of Abe’s helpers called out but no one risked firing a shot, just as Marcus had calculated. There was always the danger that one of Abe’s helpers would forget his orders and start shooting, but Marcus knew Abe only employed well-trained men for a task like this, so the probability was low.
Planting a foot on Abe’s chest to keep him down a second longer, Marcus took a quick glance around. Five armed men against him. Hardly seemed fair. Lifting Abe’s weapon, he shot to stop them, not to kill. When the men were down, he followed the flight path Meghan had taken.
He veered away from the street — Abe probably had his vehicle parked there, and it would have a driver and possibly backup helper or two. He darted across the park, heading toward a group of tourists for cover.
Meghan stepped away from the group, grabbed his hand and yanked him to a stop. “What the fuck is going on?” she demanded, as she had demanded many times before.
“No worries,” he said, breathing a little more heavily than he liked but his body was bigger and heavier than he was accustomed to, so that was no surprise. “They’re not going to hurt us. They just want to bring us to Ekaterina.”
“Uh huh. That’s very reassuring.”
“She can be a little intense,” Marcus explained, shouldering his way through the crowd, Meghan at his side. “Sometimes she does things I’m sure she wishes she hadn’t.”
“Uh huh,” said Meghan. “So what’s your plan?”
He quickened his pace. “We need to leave.”
“I’m with you on that.”
“I mean we need to leave Switzerland.”
“No argument here.”
He didn’t speak again until they’d crossed the park to the Gloriastrasse. Then he said he thought they should head toward the city center. When he came nearer to her, he smelled the intoxicating scent that he recognized now as uniquely Meghan and saw the sheen of sweat on her face from their trip across the park, and a physical memory swept over him, so intense and erotic that for a moment he nearly lost his balance.
He had never made love to her with this body, but a physical memory had registered somewhere deep in his brain and yet if that was so, how could he not remember her?
He shook his head. That was a problem that had to wait for another time. He took her hand and stood for a moment on the corner while he looked around and oriented himself. He’d never been in this part of Zurich before — certainly not on foot — so he took a moment to match it with the map he had in his head.
“Where are you supposed to meet Danny?” he asked. “We need to find him fast.”
“He’s a computer geek. When he said meeting place, he meant a chat room. He’s always got his laptop with him.”
“Okay.” That was easy enough. They just needed to find an internet cafe, which was not a problem in this city. “You know which chat room?”
“There’s a World of Warcraft one he likes.”
He remembered her saying he used to play that game with Danny. But he didn’t remember doing it.
“Fair enough,” he said. “There’s a place about two blocks over where we can rent a computer.” A public computer and an anonymous chat room would certainly make it difficult for anyone to track them. There was always the GPS chip, but he had to take this one step at a time. Right now they had to find Danny and keep moving. “Ekaterina is up to something,” he said. “I don’t know what, but if I’m going to find out, I want to do it from a distance.”
“I don’t even understand why she’s so obsessed about you.”
He couldn’t explain their connection in a sentence or two, so he contented himself with saying, “She won’t like losing me. She’ll be very disappointed.”
“Uh huh.” She stared up at him. “Who the hell is she, anyway? To you, I mean.”
“Ekaterina? She’s my sister,” he said, pushing open the door to the internet cafe.