ODESSA, UKRAINE
Jake had hurried off with Tully O’Neill’s Volga and Helena in tow. After driving just a few blocks, he abandoned the car and slid onto a city bus, watching to see if they had been tailed. He got off near the train station and stole a cab waiting outside, while the driver was drinking coffee at a small kiosk. He had no idea where he was heading, only that to stay in one place wasn’t an option. He still wasn’t certain how the gunmen had known they were at that apartment. He was sure he wasn’t followed. Yet, somehow the men had found them, and he didn’t want to take any chances with Helena. The gunmen had to assume Petra had told Helena something, and they couldn’t chance leaving her alive. The same went for him.
There was also no time after Petra’s murder to call Tully and Quinn to tell them what had happened. Part of him didn’t want to call. It would have been like an admission of failure, and he had experienced far too much of that in the past few days. He began questioning his own competence. Yet, deep down, he knew that it would have been nearly impossible to totally protect MacCarty and Swanson. He knew also that if an assassin or group of assassins wanted someone dead, they’d find a way to make it happen. All he needed to know was, why? Why were these people being killed?
He was feeling pretty rotten about Petra, especially. After all, she had died right in front of him. He had reacted too slowly. From now on he would trust only himself, regardless of personal sensibilities and Agency priorities. If the Agency wanted his help, it would have to put up with his rules.
Helena was resting against his shoulder in the front passenger seat of the cab. She had been incomprehensible the entire trip, mumbling in Ukrainian and Russian. Even in her great distress, Jake noticed she was beautiful. She was a lost little girl without her pacifying violin, which had been left behind at the last apartment as they left rather abruptly.
The cab wound through the country road to the northeast, and the lights of Odessa were only a glow behind them now in the rearview mirror.
●
In a few hours they reached the outskirts of Nikolaev. Jake found the train station and parked the cab a few blocks away, wiped his prints from anything he had touched, and got Helena out from the curb side.
She was leaning against him as they walked toward the station. At the window, he bought her a ticket to Yalta. She had no idea why, but also had no strength to protest.
The train would leave in fifteen minutes. Jake escorted her to a private compartment, sat her against a window seat, drew the curtains closed, and took a seat next to her.
“Listen, Helena,” Jake whispered. “You’re going to Yalta. Here’s your ticket.” He stuffed the yellow stub into her coat pocket.
“I don’t know anyone in Yalta,” she cried. She looked like a little girl who had lost her parents at a shopping mall.
“Good. That’s perfect. No one would guess you’d go there. I want you to go to the Summit Hotel. It’s just four blocks from the train station. Pay cash for four days.” Jake slipped her a wad of cash. “I want you to stay there, eat there, sleep there, and don’t leave. If anyone questions why you are traveling alone, simply tell them you are waiting for your husband to return from sea. He’s a merchant marine. I’ll come there to pick you up.”
She gazed up to him. “You won’t leave me there?”
“Of course not. I’ll be there in four days. That should give me enough time to find out who did this to Petra and what they want.”
She tried to smile, but her lower lip trembled.
Jake thought about Petra and Helena being alone for all those hours before he and Quinn had found them. Had Petra confided in her? “I have to ask you something. Did Petra ever talk about her work?”
She swished her head no.
“What about Tvchenko. Did she talk about him?”
She thought for a moment. “Only about how he made love to her. You knew they were lovers.”
“I suspected it. So, Petra probably did know what Tvchenko was up to?”
“Maybe, maybe not. Yuri was very secretive. He was a good man. I’m sure of that. I don’t see how he could have been involved with making bad weapons.”
Jake stared at her. If circumstances were different, perhaps they could get to know each other better. He found himself extremely attracted to her, both mentally and physically. She was a delicate flower without any thorns.
“Are you sure there’s nothing you can tell me to help me find out what in the hell’s going on. Think. It’s important.”
Helena shrugged. “I don’t know anything. I’m a musician.”
There was a last call for the train to Yalta over the speakers. Jake kissed Helena on both cheeks and started off. She pulled him by the collar and kissed him passionately on the lips.
“Jake, please don’t leave me.”
“I have to go.” He didn’t want to, though. It would have been so much easier to simply take the train to Yalta with her, spend a few days making love to Helena in the hotel, and then.... “I’ll meet you in Yalta. I promise.”
He pulled away from her, and she slumped back to her chair.
Out on the loading gate, Jake was walking away but felt as though something was penetrating the back of his head. He turned to watch the train pull away. Helena’s face peered around the curtains, a desperate glare, as if her soul was reaching out for him. In a moment the train was out of sight picking up speed.
Jake went back to a different window and bought himself a ticket to Odessa. He had an hour to waste, and he felt like a stiff drink of whiskey, even though he couldn’t stomach hard liquor. Besides, he needed a clear head. He was confused. In the last few days a prominent scientist had died in his arms, he had nearly been killed by an explosion in that man’s apartment, he had been kidnapped, shot at, and been forced to steal a cab. He had killed a man only hours ago, yet he felt nothing for the dead man. He was nothing. Nothing more than flesh and blood without a soul. Jake was protecting a woman he barely knew, and he was still no closer to finding out what in the hell was going on. His boss had been poisoned, and he had no real reason to stay behind and continue investigating. No reason but pride. He would never run away from a fight, like some whimpering dog that had been bit on the butt.
Somehow his position at the apartment had been compromised. Someone had given him up for dead, and only Quinn Armstrong, Helena, or Petra knew where they were. And, of course, Sinclair Tucker. Jake hadn’t been careless enough to let someone follow him there, but it was possible. Especially if Tully’s Volga had been tracked somehow. It was more likely that someone had sold him out. His jaw clamped his teeth tight with that thought.