At Her Service

  “Maybe not forever.” In his position, Ershov was fully aware of revolutionary politics, and while he didn’t favor such heretical leanings, he was, still, the son of a dockworker. To even scores was bred in his bones—that retaliatory sense of personal justice not only useful but an asset in his trade.

  “We can see that the patrician Osten-Sacken suffers for his actions if these spies are eliminated. He will be obliged to answer for his blunder. But before we can even think about retribution for the general, we have to stop these spies from escaping.” Kubitovitch leaned forward slightly, unable to suppress his agitation. “Telegrams should go out to our stations in Varna, Kustenje and Constantinople, warning them to be on the outlook for the yacht Argo and the male and female spies. It will be a feather in your cap, Ivan Michaelovitch,” Kubitovitch went on, careful to keep his voice cordial rather than toadying. They all lived a life of lies, but unseemly sycophancy raised suspicions. “If these two spies are captured, you will surely be rewarded with a post in St. Petersburg.”

  “You will be compensated as well.” Blunt, hard words. The director was a brawny, stevedore of a man, his childhood on the docks of Odessa etched on his face and liver. Altruism didn’t exist in his world.

  “I agree. But there is more than enough glory to go around, Ivan Michaelovitch.” Time pressures didn’t allow a lengthy, tactfully phrased discussion. Kubitovitch was beginning to sweat. “If you chose not to act, however,” he added, knowing every minute the director hesitated his options diminished, “and these spies escape, our superiors will require explanations that we may not survive.”

  The director grunted. He knew how errors were dealt with—death was often a blessing. “Give me your messages. I will see that they are sent.”

  “I need a swift cutter as well and a bank draft for five thousand roubles.”

  “Five thousand roubles?” The director scrutinized Kubitovitch, trying to decide whether the five thousand roubles might be funding his agent’s personal escape plans.

  “It could be on your head if they escape,” Kubitovitch warned, the distrust in the director’s eyes transient but revealing. “I could explain that you thwarted my plans to capture them.”

  Mistakes simply were not allowed. Uncertain or not, Ershov couldn’t afford to take chances. Time enough to throw Kubitovitch to the wolves at some later date should it become necessary. “Very well. I hope for both our sakes you do not fail.”

  Kubitovitch met the director’s gaze with one as chill. “I like to live as much as you.”

  Chapter 22

  Rashad’s private railcar arrived in Varna shortly after noon, thanks to lavish bribes showered on various railroad officials en route from Bucharest. Trains carrying war supplies had been shunted off to feeder tracks and spurs while the private railcar and engine sped past, its fireman shoveling hard to keep the firebox stoked red hot.

  The railcar was joined to the Bucharest–Vienna–Paris train that had been waiting ten hours at the station. Rashad’s factotum bestowed further largesse on the railway functionaries at the Varna station while his employer bid adieu to his guests. With the engineer checking his watch and cursing aristocrats who thought the trains ran to accommodate their personal schedules, Rashad and Darley exchanged promises to sail the Agean islands in the fall.

  Darley and Aurore boarded a few moments later, at which time, the engineer immediately signaled to the conductors who swung themselves up onto the train. Working his levers, the engineer blew a long blast on the whistle and, at last, the train moved slowly out of the station.

  Darley and Aurore settled into the comfort of Rashad’s elegantly appointed salon, accepted coffees from Tereza the maid and exchanged smiles across the expanse of exquisite silk carpet fit for a pasha’s palace. Where it had been at one time before Rashad had ousted the recalcitrant subject of the sultan and had taken over the governance of the region himself.

  “You are well connected, my lord,” Aurore teased. “We travel to Paris in great comfort.”

  “Rashad owes me some favors.”

  “I gathered you were old friends.”

  “I’ve known him for years.”

  “And?” She was curious about every facet of Darley’s life—when she shouldn’t be, of course. An affaire was, by any measure, superficial.

  “And—nothing much. We met in Constantinople years ago.” In a luxurious brothel. “We found we had much in common.” Beyond amorous proclivities. “Perhaps we both have traveled the world for the same reasons—ennui at times, the search for adventure…curiosity mostly, I think.”

  His usual bland answer, giving away nothing. “Rashad has a family?”

  He nodded. “A number of children—six, I believe. He said his eldest son is marrying soon.” Like Rashad, Darley experienced a small twinge of regret at thoughts of love and what might have been. “Speaking of young men marrying,” he said, wishing to change the subject, “does your brother have any young ladies in Paris angling to join your family?”

  Aurore smiled. “No, I’m happy to say. He is not ready for marriage.”

  “I did rather get the impression he was enjoying his youth.”

  “Oh yes—in every conceivable way.”

  “And do you have friends waiting for you in Paris?” He meant men friends, although he wasn’t so gauche as to say it. Or admit it actually mattered.

  “Yes, far too many at times. I am not enamored of what passes for social amusements. It’s such a waste of time in most instances.”

  He had met women of accomplishments before, but none with the breadth of Aurore’s interests. “You prefer your vineyards”—he smiled—“and spying.”

  “On the contrary,” she said with a faint shrug, “my spying came about willy-nilly. Once Etienne enlisted, I felt a certain obligation.” She smiled. “Then, I found out that I was good at it.”

  He liked her smile. It was open and unaffected—like she was—in so many delectable and adventuresome ways. “Apropos things you’re good at,” he murmured, his appetite for her never long suppressed. Unquenchable actually—for reasons he chose not to dwell on. “Would you be interested in an afternoon nap?”

  “A nap?” A velvety soft query.

  “Eventually,” he said, as softly.

  “I would, of course. You tempt me every minute, Gazi, my sweet.” Unlike Darley, she admitted her need for him. As she recognized that he would soon be gone from her life. “Just a warning, darling. I may not let you sleep.”

  He grinned as he rose from his chair and held out his hand to her. “It’s remarkable how much and how often we agree…”

  Rashad’s bed was large, the mattress fashioned from the finest swansdown, and in very short order they were cocooned in a cloudlike softness as they lay entwined, and blissfully joined.

  “It wouldn’t be out of the question to indulge in a little foreplay from time to time,” Darley teased, having been admonished to enter her posthaste.

  “Why would I want to when this”—she gently swiveled her hips so every heated nerve involved in their close contact sport fully appreciated her point—“feels so really, utterly perfect.”

  His smile was very close and amused. “So I should just stay here for the duration?”

  “What a lovely thought,” she purred, sliding her palms over his muscled shoulders in delight and appreciation. He held his weight lightly suspended above her, the warmth of his body palpable, a sensation of hard, tensile strength held in abeyance for her pleasure infinitely arousing. “Ummm…nonstop sex from here to Paris…how gratifying.”

  “Greedy puss.”

  But a proprietary intonation tempered his hushed reply. And when in the past she might have taken issue with such blatant authority, her traitorous body melted around his hard, rigid prick in utter submission instead.

  He, of course, noticed, and taking advantage of the increasing pliancy of her vaginal tissue, he eased forward a fraction more and then yet again—another piquant, provocative distance.
br />   She screamed in a wild, feverish exaltation.

  He caught his breath, hit by a wave of gut-wrenching delirium.

  For the next small interval, silence reigned while the glittering carnal splendor slowly faded and brains reasserted their supremacy over pure, unadulterated feeling.

  As Darley lay motionless inside her, they could both feel the rhythm of the train, the slight, pulsating oscillation of vaginal and phallic membranes matching the cadence of the wheels. A subtle, tactile friction perhaps best appreciated when a certain level of stimulation has oversensitized the nervous system.

  “How do you do it?” she murmured at last, her gaze lifting to his, her smile beguiling.

  “It’s you,” he graciously replied in lieu of saying, One learns what women like after years of fucking. And in all honesty…she was extravagantly appealing.

  “Then you don’t mind if I’m perhaps unreasonably demanding on our journey to Paris?”

  He lightly kissed her smiling mouth. “God, no, I’m more than willing.” An understatement of sorts when he was, in fact, feeling a rare, intoxicating fever in his blood. When contrary to past custom, he was in no hurry to reach their destination. “Let me know when you’ve had enough.”

  “Thank you,” she said sweetly. “I will.”

  Although, when it came to sexual willingness, their appetites were well matched. Some would say voracious. Or personally endearing.

  Or both or all.

  But life was dear and time even more precious.

  At some level, they understood that all too well.

  Chapter 23

  After receiving a ship-to-shore signal from their man in Varna, a swift cutter flying an Italian flag had docked south of the city, sliding into a private slip on private land and offloading five men shortly before noon. Within the hour, those men, carrying Austrian papers, had boarded the Paris train—and installed themselves in two private compartments. Commercial travelers one would say on first seeing them. They carried leather sample cases and wore salesmen’s modest black suits and serviceable brogues.

  On second look though, four of them appeared uncomfortable in their business suits. The width of their shoulders and arms strained the cheap fabric, giving them the appearance of peasants dressed up for a village wedding.

  In contrast, the little peanut of a man with them looked as though he was gingerly herding lions.

  The men had all received their instructions from Kubitovitch on the voyage from Odessa, although once onboard the train some reconnoitering would be required. In the course of the afternoon, each man walked through every car in the event their information was incorrect and their targets were traveling in public.

  They weren’t. The Varna agent had been correct.

  Then again, Abdul Rashad was an eminence in the city, easily recognized, particularly when he traveled with his entourage as he customarily did. The Varna agent had given them a description of the occupants of Rashad’s private railcar and the state of their security. Four guards—one front and back, the other two apparently alternating shifts. It shouldn’t be difficult to overcome the guards with the men at his disposal, Kubitovitch reflected. He had four Bulgarian assassins—professional and nerveless.

  After a light supper carried aboard with them, the Bulgarians slept the evening away while Kubitovitch smoked one cigarette after another, too nervous to eat or sleep with so much at stake. Both Gazi and Miss Clement were not from the usual common herd of informants. They were high-profile spies. If this operation proved successful, he was assured the notice of his superiors in St. Petersburg—the only ones who really mattered. Formerly, he had only dreamed of seeing the capital city. The prospect of actually living there had been beyond his imagination.

  Until now.

  He must have checked his watch fifty times before it was time to set out on the mission. Although, as the saying went, he didn’t shoot the gun, he only bought the bullets; the assignment would be carried out by the professional killers.

  After waking his companion, he woke the three men in the adjoining compartment and, after a glance at his watch, offered a final word of confirmation. “If it becomes necessary to leave the train, we meet in Vienna. You know where.” The men had been paid the first installment of their fee; the concluding payment would be delivered on completion of the assignment. Either here or in Vienna.

  Kubitovitch watched the four men walk away with a sense of trepidation, suddenly feeling as if his entire life lay in the balance. Optimism and dread struggled for supremacy in his thoughts. Would all go well? What if it didn’t? Why shouldn’t it, he admonished next. These brutes were Ershov’s best.

  And having reassured himself, he imagined the gratifying scene in St. Petersburg: he would smile humbly as he received the medal of St. Andrew for his triumph; he would offer grateful thanks, give credit for his success to the superb training and discipline of the Third Section Academy. He would be dressed in a new uniform from St. Petersburg’s finest tailor, perhaps a hint of scented pomade in his hair in imitation of the prestigious guardsmen. He half smiled at the image.

  But his hands were shaking when he unscrewed the cap of his brandy flask, and he spilled a drop or two lifting the flask to his mouth. Soon, though, the brandy quelled the worst of his agitation, and after a second drink his calm was restored. He was able to contemplate the sweetness of victory and its ensuing rewards with blissful equanimity.

  Darley was lying beside Aurore, half dozing, when his eyes snapped open and he glanced up. Footsteps on the roof. In a flash, he put a finger to Aurore’s mouth, waking her. Lifting his chin upward, he gave silent explanation for his actions, and at her nod of acknowledgment, he rolled off the bed and grabbed his trousers.

  She watched in silence as he jerked on his trousers, jammed a revolver and kinjal into his waistband and bent low to kiss her. “Lock the door behind me,” he whispered against her mouth, then sliding a small handgun under her pillow, he disappeared through the door like a shadow.

  Locking the door behind him, she forced herself to shake off sleep and deal with the threat. She hadn’t heard a thing, and listening now, not a sound was evident above. Who had been on the roof—or more pertinently, how many? She had considered themselves relatively safe this far from Sevastopol. Apparently, an error on her part.

  After slipping on a dressing gown, she quickly knotted the tie at her waist, picked up the handgun and, sitting on the bed, debated whether the door or windows would be the most likely point of entry. Pushing herself upward until her back was against the headboard, she was in a position to guard both. Fully awake now, her finger rested lightly on the handgun trigger.

  Darley met Stephan near the front of the car. The door had been shoved open, so the wind rushed in, and the black forests of the Transylvanian Alps swept past in a blur.

  “I was coming to check on you,” Stephan murmured. “We have one less assassin. I cut his throat and tossed him overboard.”

  “Footsteps on the roof woke me.” As Darley was speaking, a struggle exploded at the rear of the car, the clang of pots and pans and curses coming from the kitchen.

  Both men sprinted toward the conspicuous sounds of a skirmish.

  Before they’d passed down the length of the railcar and reached the kitchen, quiet had been restored. Vasile, the ostensible cook, was dragging a body by its feet through the back door of the railcar, a trail of blood following in its wake. The huge head had been nearly severed from the body, the arterial blood literally gushing from the corpse.

  Vasile, once a weight lifter in the circus, picked up the limp, bloody form once he was on the platform outside and threw it over the rail.

  “The bastard bled like a pig,” Tereza muttered in functional French as she eyed the mess on the kitchen floor. Diminutive and slender, testament to her former life as an acrobat, she was barely five feet tall.

  Blocking the doorway with his bulk, Vasile offered his wife an astonishingly gentle smile. “I’ll clean this up. Make u
s some coffee as long as we’re all awake,” he added in a mix of bad French and Romany. He nodded at Stephan. “Georgh was garroted by some bastard who dropped from the roof, but he fought him off. Killed the prick with that cannon he carries. He’s sitting on the platform out back, thanking his saints and trying to catch his breath.”

  One of Stephan’s men approached them from the front of the car. “Everything’s clear in front. I sent Alex up on the roof.”

  “Good. Help Georgh.” Stephan nodded toward the back door. “He took out another one of the—”

  The small, muffled cry had the impact of a rifle shot. They all looked up or turned, the ominous sound filling their hearts with dread. An all too familiar sound to those in the kitchen who had seen their share of life-and-death struggles.

  Aurore was in the grip of a bull of a man, one of his arms around her throat in a stranglehold, his other hand holding a gun to her head. Her face was ashen as she fought for breath.

  “No one move,” the Bulgarian growled in his native language, “or she dies.”

  Darley didn’t understand the words but the meaning was clear.

  “Easy,” Stephan said under his breath to Darley.

  “He’s mine,” Darley muttered, his eyes narrow slits.

  Even with lack of air making her dizzy, Aurore was berating herself for missing her target and only grazing the man’s arm. He’d swung through the bedroom window, feet first, with such explosive force the shock of it had ruined her aim.

  The Bulgarian took note of the people grouped at the end of the railcar who apparently had been discussing something and understood from their inactivity that his partners were no more. The slick of blood on the floor was further confirmation.