She swallowed, shook her head no, though she had a good idea what she’d answered. She’d been weak, wounded, exhausted. He’d taken her unawares.
“When I asked what your name was you said, ‘Felicity Ward—for now.’ And last night you said your name was Felicity Ward. For now. So I guess the first thing we need to know going in is what your real name is. And why you seem to have several.”
She couldn’t talk.
“Felicity? There’s more, isn’t there?”
She nodded.
Metal’s voice was very gentle but very firm. “The only way we can help you, the only way we can protect you, is to know the truth. Do you see that?”
She nodded again.
“Are you ready to tell us the truth?”
She sat very still. She couldn’t move, couldn’t talk, could barely breathe. This day was a long time coming, but it was here. A lifetime of hiding couldn’t stop this day from coming. Was she ready to tell the truth?
She looked at the three of them, watching her patiently. Metal holding her hand.
Was she ready?
She’d been holding her breath and found she had to gulp in air. Her gasp sounded very loud in the silent room.
Was she ready?
Yes, she was.
She nodded.
Chapter Six
Alexandria, Virginia
Goodkind finally came home. Borodin had been prepared to wait a long time since that kretin Lagoshin was making no progress in Portland. For the moment Al Goodkind was their only lead. In the end, though, he only had to wait twenty-four hours. He had only Zolin with him. Milekhin was in the plane.
An elderly gentleman with stooped shoulders arrived in a taxi and entered the front door with a key, carrying a small traveling case. Even without the identifying photo which matched the old man’s face, Borodin knew it was him.
A light in the back of the house came on.
Zolin, who knew what he was doing, detected video cameras at the front, under the porch roof, and said that they were ancient. Zolin slipped out after punching the button on a device that blanketed cell reception within a hundred-meter radius.
He was carrying a combat knife, a Taser, a Beretta 92F in a shoulder holster and a preloaded syringe of etorphine. He also had strict instructions not to use the Beretta. Borodin wanted information without having to tend to a gunshot wound. Not to mention the fact that blood would ruin the beautiful interior of his Airbus.
Borodin knew how to extract information. Goodkind was former FBI and presumably tough but no one held out forever. They had a six-hour flight ahead of them. That should be more than enough time.
All he needed was contact information regarding Felicity Ward’s friends in Portland. The woman had to have friends to have disappeared so completely. A wound required medical care, stitches, antibiotics, a place to recover. Where could she have gone to ground? Goodkind would know. And if he didn’t, Goodkind would be forced to contact Ward with a bloody face and swollen eyes and Borodin would pry her out of her lair.
So much was at stake that Borodin felt an itching under the skin. It had been years since he’d felt anxiety and it wasn’t pleasant.
Since he’d become rich, small troubles had simply melted away and big troubles—well, he had people for that. He wasn’t used to being uncertain about an outcome. His outcomes had all been good these past twenty-five years.
And yet everything about this Deti business—starting from having to find Darin’s daughter—was unnerving.
A hard knock at the window made him start.
Borodin hated being taken by surprise. Had Zolin seem him jump? He should know better than to startle him like that. It was true that the cell phone towers were temporarily out so Zolin couldn’t call ahead on his cell, but still.
And then Borodin peered closer. Zolin looked stressed, pale even in the darkness lit only by the streetlights. He had an unconscious Goodkind over one shoulder. Zolin was very strong but had difficulty shoving the man into the backseat of the town car and moved stiffly.
He limped as he walked to the driver’s side of the car.
“What happened?” Borodin asked.
Zolin blew out an angry breath as he checked the rearview mirror and pulled out. “Fucker was armed and waiting for me. There must be sensors to the side of the house I couldn’t see. Winged me. Had to wrestle him to the ground. We’re going to keep him handcuffed all the way to Portland.”
Shameful, to let an old man best him. “Are you okay to drive?” Borodin asked, voice cold.
“Yeah.”
He winced as he drove.
“Where’d he get you?”
“Outer thigh. Took a chunk out of it. Didn’t hit anything vital.”
“You’re bleeding,” Borodin accused. Thank God Zolin’s DNA wouldn’t be on record here. But if the American authorities somehow caught him and traced him back to the abduction of a former FBI agent...
Zolin glanced down. “Yeah.” His voice was dismissive. Well, hell. Zolin hadn’t thought it through. Bloodstains were bloodstains. Borodin was going to have to hire cutouts to eliminate the town car, break it down into pieces and spread them over a wide tract of terrain. He hated this, fixing problems on the fly. In a foreign country.
The rental agency would put a black mark against the name of one William Novella who hadn’t returned a vehicle. So that identity was compromised.
“Will you be able to pilot the plane?”
Zolin must have sensed something in his tone because he glanced over to Borodin. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll patch it up and inject with a painkiller. And I’ll be copilot. But you’re going to have to watch this guy. He’s tricky.”
Borodin simply turned his head to look at Zolin. Zolin flicked a glance at him, then gripped the wheel harder and concentrated on the road.
Message received.
They rolled up to the hangar in the general aviation sector of the airport. No one stopped them, no one questioned them, no one paid them any attention at all.
Amazing. Simply amazing. It was as if America had built up a series of private airports all over the country for the rich to move around in, encased in their own private bubble.
When the town car rolled to a stop, Borodin got out and stood watching while Zolin wrestled with the still unconscious body, face an expressionless mask. But he was very pale and the side of his trousers was black with blood.
Milekhin appeared at the top of the stairs and casually descended. Without saying anything, it was Milekhin who carried the body up the airplane steps. Zolin headed up, trying not to limp, like an alpha wolf that doesn’t dare show weakness.
Borodin was last up. By the time he stepped into the luxurious cabin, Goodkind was duct-taped to one of the seats, head lolling on his shoulder.
Borodin had a preloaded syringe of norepinephrine that would wake Goodkind right up. In six hours, a lot of information could be gained, particularly in an enclosed space ten thousand meters above the earth where no one could hear him scream.
Though Borodin sincerely hoped not to have to use the instruments in one of the briefcases. Maybe he’d gotten soft in his years as a businessman, decades after the hard things he’d done in Afghanistan, but he’d prefer not to shed blood if possible. He’d rough Goodkind up a little, test his mettle. Then decide how to proceed.
He didn’t care either way what happened to Goodkind. All he wanted was Darin’s daughter. All he wanted were the Deti.
Zolin had patched himself up and was in the cockpit. Borodin had a platter of cheese and fruit and a nice Sauternes, and then with a sigh, somewhere over the flat plains of the middle of the country, brought out the syringe of norepinephrine, the natural hormone of vigilant concentration, a stress hormone. Goodkind would wake up with a pounding heart, hypervigi
lant, with an increased blood flow to muscles and brain.
In excellent condition, in other words, to answer questions.
Borodin injected the syringe in Goodkind’s thigh, sitting across from him in one of the hypercomfortable leather seats, separated by a small table. The ideal layout for two businesspeople getting business done.
Which was exactly as Borodin considered it. He and Goodkind were going to have a trade-off. Goodkind had something he wanted—the location of Darin’s daughter. And Borodin held something of value to Goodkind—his life.
Borodin sat patiently while Goodkind rose back up into consciousness, step-by-step. He saw the actual moment when Goodkind became aware, but still pretended to be unconscious. Someone less observant than Borodin would have missed it.
“Welcome back to the world, Special Agent Goodkind,” he said calmly.
Goodkind’s head lifted and he looked directly into Borodin’s eyes. As his medical records indicated, he wasn’t in good shape. He was very pale and from the skin hanging from his jawline he’d lost a lot of weight recently. But his light gray eyes blazed and his lips pressed together in a thin line.
The message couldn’t have been clearer. Not talking.
All right. The dance now began.
“Now, you might be wondering what you are doing in a plane. You might even be wondering where we are going. And you might be curious as to whether you are going to survive this. Well, let me ease your mind. You are flying to Portland, Oregon with us because we are looking for a young woman I’m told you consider your ward. Which is interesting because that is her name. Felicity Ward. Except it is not. Felicity Ward is actually Nikolai Darin’s daughter.”
Goodkind’s eyes fluttered and his mouth grew tighter.
“Ah, I see these names mean something to you, as they should. Nikolai Darin defected to the West in 1989 with his wife, Irina. And they had a daughter, whose name eventually ended up as Felicity Ward, which is a ridiculous name for a Russian woman. But—ridiculous name or not, we’d like to talk to this young woman because she might know the whereabouts of something that belonged to the Soviet Union and now belongs to the Russian Federation.”
Sudden understanding. Goodkind probably thought that he presented a blank facade but he didn’t. He was fairly easy to read.
“And now, Special Agent Goodkind, we come to the last point I made. Whether you are going to survive this trip. The answer is yes. Of course you will survive this, as long as you give us information that leads to our apprenhending Felicity Ward.”
“Go to hell,” Goodkind growled.
“No doubt I will.” Borodin yawned. He was quite tired. “But not just yet. And certainly not for this. I fought in Afghanistan. I will certainly not go to hell for torturing and killing one American.”
When Borodin used the words torture and kill, Goodkind’s expression didn’t change. Pizdets. A brave man. Brave men were terrible to deal with. Recalcitrant and unyielding.
“However, beyond that, I have no desire to deal with the consequences of, let’s say, commandeering a US federal agent. So once I have the information I need and we have parted ways, you will be free to go.”
Goodkind gave a feral smile. “Riiiight.” Drawing the word out.
“Alas, certain nuances of the English language elude me, but I take it that is sarcasm. Yes?”
“Yes.”
“And yet I have every intention of letting you go, albeit as you would say, a little worse for wear. So. You give me information on Nikolai Darin’s daughter, and when the time is right I release you and no mention of this is ever made by you to anyone.”
Goodkind glared. But he was impotent.
“So, when was the last time you saw or heard from Darinova?”
Those thin lips turned upward. “You can call her that, but she is as American as I am.”
“Indeed. So where is this paragon of Americanness?”
Goodkind smiled fully. “Bite me.”
Borodin sighed. “Another idiom. Probably not a flattering one.”
Borodin smiled into Goodkind’s eyes.
“So, Special Agent,” he said. “It looks like we are going to have a nice, long talk.”
* * *
Three pairs of eyes were staring at her. Blue, dark brown, light brown.
It was time. She’d been keeping secrets all her life. There’d been secrets in her life since before she was born, even. She’d had to switch identities in the womb. All those secrets, all those years. They felt like boulders weighing her down. Sometimes Felicity felt as though she was at the bottom of a deep well and only knew the world through the opening way up high, unreachable, untouchable.
Lately, she’d felt as if she was choking, only it wasn’t physiological, it was psychological. The choking sensation came upon her more and more often, as if something heavy was on her chest, pressing in. It was her isolation and loneliness, of course. She was a homebody by nature but it was turning into agoraphobia. Talking to people was becoming harder and harder, while at the same time she craved human contact, like a prisoner craves sunlight.
She had three people here who wanted to communicate with her. Well, maybe not Jacko. At times he seemed on the verge of hostility, but that was because he suspected her of endangering Lauren. It didn’t make her angry, it endeared him to her. In her world, affection, loyalty, devotion, love were rare things. Lauren was lucky.
None of the three showed any signs of impatience as she worked through this in her head. Felicity was really good at working through problems in her head. She liked it and she trusted herself. But this time it wasn’t just her head that was involved, it was her heart. And she had a lot less experience trusting her heart.
But you had to start somewhere and these three people quivering to help her seemed to be a good place.
Or not.
How to know?
The man after her might not have anything to do with her past and her family’s past. But if her father was involved, there was no one she could turn to. The Marshals had officially given her one last identity and turned her loose. She no longer had a case officer. The only person in that world that knew of her past couldn’t help. Al Goodkind was old and not well. He’d retired to his country house in Virginia and tended roses and drank bourbon.
Maybe she had her new team right in front of her. And maybe not.
This was horrible. She was tearing herself apart. This had to stop, right now.
“Metal,” she said, turning to him, putting a hand on his powerful forearm. Warmth, strength. Electricity. His light brown eyes seemed to glow.
“Yeah.”
“Can you bring me my computer backpack?”
“Sure.” In a few seconds he was back, placing her backpack on her lap.
Felicity sat still for a moment, fingers stroking the straps. The backpack was gray but she could see where her blood had stained it. She should wash it.
Stalling. She was stalling.
With a sigh, Felicity unzipped the top, took out her specially designed laptop, then dug down deep, ripping open a hidden pocket covered with a flap that had a Velcro closure. The pocket was lined with Kevlar and didn’t show anything on airport-quality metal detectors. It would show up on the FBI and NSA and CIA metal detectors, but for flying she was safe.
She scrabbled with her fingers for a moment. Ah, there it was.
Right after her parents died, she’d kept it close in a small pouch under her clothes. Her last connection with her parents. But she didn’t wear it anymore. She just always kept it with her. If she lost it, she’d lose a part of herself.
Her father had said to keep it with her, always.
The pouch was made of very soft suede. She pulled it out and placed it on the table between her two outstretched hands, palms down. All three of them lo
oked at the pouch, at her, back to the pouch.
She blew out a breath. Point of no return. Her mother had had a saying when taking a decision. Either it will turn out really really well or really really bad.
Time to find out.
Knowing all eyes were on her, knowing those eyes were friendly, she opened the string closure and gently tipped the contents of the pouch on the table.
A large gold medallion.
She nodded at Metal, waved a finger at it. “Go ahead.”
He picked it up gently in his big hand, examined it. A pure gold medallion, measuring almost three inches across. It nearly covered the palm of her hand but looked tiny in Metal’s huge one. On one side a bearded man in profile. On the other, a goddess emerging from the clouds. Around the rim the words Inventas vitam juvat excoluisse per artes. They improved life on earth by their art.
Felicity recognized the exact moment when Metal understood what he was looking at. His expression didn’t change, but his features tightened.
“This is a Nobel Prize medallion,” Metal said.
She nodded. “For physics. The 1989 Nobel Prize for Physics was awarded to Nikolai Darin. My father. At the time, a citizen of the Soviet Union.”
“A Nobel. He must have been really smart,” Metal said, and she nodded. Yes. Her father had been a sad man for as long as she could remember but he had been very, very smart.
“Your dad was a defector?” Jacko asked. The way he said it made her bristle a little.
“Yes.” She gave him a hard look. “He defected from the Soviet Union, a dictatorship at the time. Actually, it still is, though it’s called Russia now.”
Metal frowned slightly. “I remember reading about it. Didn’t he die right after? I remember thinking what a bummer to die just after receiving the Nobel.”
“No,” she said. “He defected. He had the KGB following his every footstep but he managed to contact the CIA head of station in Stockholm and they got him out. The CIA faked his death and they escaped, my father and my mother. At the time, though she didn’t know it, my mother was pregnant with me.”