ODESSA, UKRAINE
Jake was tired and confused. He was still somewhat chilled from the short time he had spent in the catacombs. He had dropped off a reticent Tully at the office and then drove to the small apartment to the east of Shevchenko Park. The place Tuck had loaned him. It was nothing special, and Jake hoped the two women wouldn’t have to be there long. He had been extremely careful coming here, ensuring he wasn’t followed.
He now had Petra alone. He was sure that she was important. She was perhaps the only person who might know what Yuri Tvchenko was up to. Her and the Kurds.
Quinn went back to the office to brief Tully O’Neill, and Helena was resting in the back bedroom. Quinn had told Jake before he left that Petra had told him nothing. But Jake wasn’t sure that Quinn had asked the right questions. Perhaps he was too close to her.
Petra was on an old sofa cradling a cup of tea Jake had made for her. Jake leaned against the wall peering through a corner of the curtains to the street three stories down. It was starting to get dark and some of the street lights were beginning to turn on.
Jake went over and sat on the sofa across from Petra. He was finally alone with her. “Are you all right?”
She shrugged. “I was all right at Helena’s apartment.”
“No. They would have found you there.” He thought she seemed less afraid than at Helena’s place. More willing to talk.
“How long will Quinn be?”
“Not long. He had a few things to take care of.” He wondered what she would be willing to talk about. Start with the things he already knew. That always worked best. “How long have you been a bio-chemist?”
“Ten years.” She took a slow sip of tea, her eyes still trained on Jake.
“Did you work with Yuri the entire time?”
“No. I started at the university in Kiev as a research assistant for another man. He was nowhere near as brilliant as Yuri. He was uninspired. Yuri was a genius.”
He thought about asking her again if she was in love with Yuri. He didn’t believe what she had said earlier about him being a homosexual. But sex was irrelevant to what he was trying to find out. “What was the basis of your research at his apartment?”
She took another sip and stared off across the room over the top of the cup. “I thought I told you. We were seeking a better pesticide. Yuri was certain he could come up with a substance that would revolutionize the industry.”
“Much like his chemical weapons program for the Soviet Union had?” It was a mistake to bring that up, and Jake regretted having said it.
“Yuri did what he was told,” she sneered. “Those pigs used him during the best years of his life. They worked him to death. And for what? To build more and more weapons that would kill more efficiently. He wasn’t a murderer. He was a gentle man. He loved life. Especially since the break-up of the Soviet Union. He always considered himself Ukrainian. He spoke Russian only when necessary.”
Jake was certain now that Petra had more than a passing admiration for the man. She had loved him. “Tell me about the new pesticide.”
“We were working with beans.”
“Beans?”
“Yes. It was incredible. We would synthesize the beans in an alcohol-based solution, along with other chemicals. The result was a highly toxic, yet stable, solution much like sarin that would kill any bug that came in contact with it. Interestingly, some of the bugs would not die right away. They would carry the strain to others and infect the entire peripheral population.”
Jake thought about the isopropyl alcohol he had smelled at Tvchenko’s apartment prior to the explosion. “So what you were dealing with was sort of a cross between Sarin and Ricin?”
She gazed at him incredulously. “You know about these things?”
“A little,” Jake said. “I have a background on some of the more common nerve gas agents and poisons.” He quickly shifted gears back to the research. “So, then Yuri was sort of using his former research for commercial purposes? But how did he plan on keeping the strain safe for civilian populations.”
She finished her tea and set the cup on a small table. “Ahhhh...that was the difficult part. Because the bean base mutated and spread, it affected some bugs differently than others. Some bugs would live for days flying or walking around like normal. Then boom. They were dead. They would twitch and shiver and shake, become completely immobilized, and then die. We tested the bugs after, to see why some had been affected differently, but still had no answer. Yuri had his suspicions, though.”
Jake thought about watching Tvchenko die right in front of him, twitching much like she had described. “What were his suspicions?”
She sat back farther into the sofa, as if she were a turtle hiding inside its shell.
Jake turned quickly toward the door. He thought he heard something.
A clicking noise.
He started to turn his head toward Petra, when the door burst open.
Jake dove to the ground, drawing his Glock.
Two men with silenced Uzis started spraying the room. Bullets hit the wall with thuds.
Jake returned fire, emptying half a magazine.
One man dropped, the other backed away.
Jake rolled across the floor behind a chair and listened, but all he could hear was ringing from the shots he had fired in the close quarters.
He rose quickly and made it to the side of the door, peeked around the corner, his gun pointing the way.
Nothing.
A door down below slammed and he could hear a car pulling away, its tires squealing. He turned to check the man lying on the floor on his back. He had a bullet in his forehead and another had taken out his mouth. A third bullet had penetrated his chest.
Then he remembered Petra, and he ran back inside.
Petra lay slumped back against the arm of the sofa, her hair covering her face. Jake checked for a pulse, but she was dead. She had been hit at least three or four times. It was hard to tell with all the blood.
Now Jake thought of Helena. She would be awake, hiding, frightened.
“Helena,” he called out. “It’s Jake. I’m coming in.”
He went into the bedroom, and she ran and collapsed into his arms.
“What happened?” she asked.
Jake tried to find the words to say that Petra, her best friend, was dead in the other room. “Helena, I’m sorry. Petra is gone.”
She peered up to him. “Someone has taken her?”
He shook his head. “No. She’s been killed. I’m sorry.”
She didn’t believe him. She hurried to the living room and went immediately to Petra. She sat next to her friend, placed Petra’s flaccid head on her shoulder. “You’re all right,” she said. “I’m here now. Everything will be fine.”
Jake stared and became angrier with each moment. How could someone do this? She was a scientist’s assistant. Whatever it took, he’d find the other man who did this, and especially the one who had hired them.