Frozen Heat (2012)

  They ordered aperitifs, and after Rook surveyed the menu and pronounced the place quite a find, Nikki gave him the unasked-for assurance that it was her first time there. “You mean this hasn’t been boyfriend tested, boyfriend approved?”

  “On the contrary,” she said. “Of course, I had heard all about Le Papillon Bleu, but ten years ago, as a student, I didn’t have enough money to eat in a place like this.”

  He took her hand in his across the crisp white linen. “So this qualifies as a special occasion.”

  “Count on it.”

  They walked off their meal wandering hand in hand past the quaint shops of Le Marais. With the jazz singer’s “Our Love Is Here to Stay” and “Body and Soul” still floating in their heads, they ended up at the Place des Vosges, an immaculately maintained square surrounded on four sides by historic brick-faced homes with elegant blue slate roofs. “This place looks like the rich uncle of Gramercy Park,” she said as they followed the path into the garden.

  “Yeah. But without the sneak attacks by rug-wielding cops.” As soon as he said that, they heard a shoe crunch on gravel behind them and she turned abruptly. A lone man hobbled along the sidewalk outside the park on a bad leg and continued on, whistling to himself. Rook said to her, “You need to relax. Nobody’s going to bother us. Not on our big ROTC.”

  “ROTC?”

  “Hey, I give. At this point, I’m just throwing out capital letters in any order.”

  They had the park to themselves, and she led him to a bench under the trees, where they sat in the shadows together, nestling against each other. The city traffic floated like distant white noise, merely blocks away but buffered by the uniform row of stately buildings surrounding the square and the gentle splash of fountains. As they so often did, without a word or a signal, they leaned into each other at the same time and kissed. The wine and the warm April evening scented by night blooms and his taste released Nikki from the weight of her cares and she pressed herself against him. He encircled her with his arms and their kiss grew in its intensity until they both parted lips, breathing hard as if suddenly remembering that, to live, they also needed air.

  “Maybe we should take this back to the hotel,” he whispered.

  “Mm-hm. But I don’t want to move. I want to freeze this moment.” They kissed again, and while they did, he unfastened the top button of her blouse. She reached for his lap and held him. He moaned, and she said, “You know, I don’t think my New York credential would help me beat an indecent exposure.”

  “Or a lewd act in public,” he said, slipping his hand in her bra.

  “OK, I know we can make this much more interesting back in our bed. Let’s do it.”

  They crossed through the park in silence, arms slung around each other’s waist. As they walked, he felt her shoulders and biceps tauten slightly. He said, “As long as you insist on thinking about the case, why don’t you tell me what’s on your mind? Maybe we could find some kinky way to incorporate it into foreplay. With handcuffs, of course.”

  “You could tell?”

  “Please. I’d like to think I’m more to you than diverting wit and arm candy. But it’s OK if you’re preoccupied, I know this is big.”

  “Sorry. Something from today keeps bugging me. Something I know I’ve overlooked, and I’m reaching for it but I can’t grasp what it is. That’s not like me.” Her reply was only partially true. Nikki did have a feeling of missing a step and it did pester her. But she only offered him that as a cover to avoid the deeper, more personal issue she had been mulling all day.

  Rook yanked her hip to bump his, to shake her up. “Give yourself a break. You’ve had a lot coming at you.” The nod she gave in the dark read to him as noncommittal, so, as they strolled on, he continued, “I mean, beyond the obvious mill you’ve been through this past week, some of the things you learned about your mother …? Those are going to take you a while to digest.”

  “Yeah, I know.” She felt her throat constrict and swallowed hard, which didn’t seem to do much good. How could Rook know her so well, be so attuned as to see through her armor? To get it—that it wasn’t really the murder case per se she was stuck on at that moment. But he didn’t know the depth of it. Rook couldn’t know that right then, she wasn’t walking through a storybook park across from Victor Hugo’s home, holding him while he hummed “Stardust” off-key. In her mind, she was back in that hospital room feeling relief that her mother had been working as a spy to serve her country, only to have the rug pulled from under her by the words she couldn’t shake.

  She could still see Tyler Wynn regarding her from his pillow. The old CIA man saying her mother was one hell of a spy. And how “the sense of mission it gave her fulfilled her like nothing else could. Not even her music.”

  Nikki completed the rest of the thought herself: Not even me.

  Tires screeched. Light blinded her and shook her from her reverie. She and Rook were getting ambushed—boxed in at the street corner—sandwiched between two dark Peugeot 508s with blacked-out windows and their high beams frying them.

  Rook moved quickly and instinctively, sliding to step in front of her. But footsteps approached from behind them, too. Heat pivoted to see the man from before, the whistler, rushing toward them, his bad leg miraculously healed. Four others—two muscle men from each car—converged from both sides, grabbing for them. By reflex, she reached for her hip. But her gun was back in New York.

  In a flash, two of them enveloped Rook and dragged him to one of the vehicles while a third man appeared from the passenger seat and pulled a cloth sack over his head. Heat dodged the first of the other pair when he reached for her, but the one coming up from behind, the whistler, bagged her head, also. Disoriented and surprised, she felt the powerful arms of the other two goons wrap her up in a bear hug and lift her feet off the sidewalk. Nikki kicked air, squirmed, and hollered, but the big men had her overmatched.

  They bundled Heat into the backseat of the other car and wedged her between their wide shoulders when they got in. Her shouts mixed with the scream of rubber on pavement as the Peugeot accelerated. The car had started roaring up the block, when she felt a sharp stab in her upper arm.

  TWELVE

  When Heat woke up, she couldn’t move her body. She tried to figure out where she was. It was too dark to see, but she knew that she was lying on her side, nearly fetal. Her knees felt cramped, pulled up to her chest as they were, but when Nikki tried to extend her legs, she couldn’t; the soles of her shoes were up against a solid wall. A shiver ran through her. This was exactly the position in which she had found Nicole Bernardin inside her mother’s suitcase.

  Her arm itched where the needle had pierced her, but when she tried to reach for it to give it a scratch, something stopped her. Heat didn’t need to see to know what caused that. She was handcuffed.

  To find out how much range of motion she had, Nikki gave the cuffs a tug. And then came a bizarre sensation that made her wonder if she was hallucinating under whatever drug they had injected her with. The handcuffs … tugged back.

  “Oh, good, you’re awake,” said Rook. “Can you do me a favor? Your right elbow is digging into my ribs.”

  Still foggy from her sedation, it took Nikki a moment to process all this. Wherever she was, Rook was there, too, wedged beside her. Or under her. Or a bit of both. She drew in her right arm as close as she could to her body. “How’s that?”

  “Heaven.”

  “Rook, do you know where we are?”

  “Not sure. They gave me something to knock me out. I felt a little prick.”

  “Would you stop?”

  “Sorry. I think it, I say it. Anyway, judging from the scent of steel-belted radial, I’m guessing we’re either spooning the Michelin Man or we’re locked in the trunk of a car.”

  Heat detected neither motion nor an engine idling. Then she tried to envision the space as best she could with no light. “Do you know if these cars have inside trunk releases?”

  “I don
’t. Not sure whether French safety regulations mandate them or not,” he said.

  “Let’s feel around for anything like a lever we can pull. Spare me the jokes, please.” They both tried to move their hands but were snagged. “Rook. Are we handcuffed to each other?”

  He didn’t answer but paused. Then he gave her cuffs a jerk. “Awesome.”

  She ignored him and ran her fingers over her wrists to assess the situation. “Feels like the chain of my cuffs is looped through the chain of yours. Is that biting into your skin?”

  “A little, but not so bad. I had actually fantasized about a furry number with some leopard print, but I’ll take it.”

  “Shh, listen.”

  From outside came the sound of a car slowly approaching over gravel and squeaking to a halt. They heard footsteps and muffled voices then the chirp of a remote followed by the thunk of the latch popping. The sudden rush of fresh air smelled like grass and woods. Hands reached in to unlock their cuffs, and they got hoisted out by the same men who had captured them.

  Standing on unsteady legs, Heat shielded her eyes from the high beams of the Mercedes and tried to build an escape plan. Rook got set down beside her and rubbed his wrists. She could sense him making calculations, too.

  It didn’t look promising. Only two of them, unarmed and weakened by their injections, in some unknown woodland at night, versus four brawny thugs who had already demonstrated pro skills and were also probably carrying. Then there were however many more stood by in that idling car. Nikki waited there, inhaling the BO and cheap cologne of her captors, and decided to ride it out, hoping an opportunity would present itself—and that this wasn’t the same crew that handled Tyler Wynn.

  She flashed a be-cool palm at Rook, and he dipped his head in acknowledgment. Then both turned their attention as the passenger door of the Mercedes opened and another big fella got out. This one opened the back door for a shorter, thickset man in a snap-brim cap who moved around to stand in silhouette before the headlights while his bodyguard waited a yard to the side. The man removed his cap and said, “You wanted to talk to me, Boy-O?”

  “Oh. My. God,” said Rook. “Anatoly!”

  The man in the headlights took a step forward with his arms wide, and Rook rushed toward him, which made Heat tense up, but nobody tried to stop him. The two men embraced, unleashing a volley of back-clapping, laughing, and saying, “You dog” and “No, you dog,” repeatedly to each other.

  When the effusiveness of their reunion settled down, Rook called out, “Nikki, it’s Anatoly. See? He really does know me.” He put an arm around the other man’s shoulder. “Come on, there’s someone I want to introduce you to. This is—”

  “Nikki Heat, yes, I know.”

  “Course you do,” said Rook. “Nikki, say hi to my old friend, Anatoly Kije.”

  The Russian extended a hand that felt callused to her shake. The Mercedes driver killed the engine and dialed down to parking lights, and as her eyes adjusted, Heat got a better look at Kije. He had the squat, blocky physique and weathered bulldog face that would have fit well on the reviewing stand beside Brezhnev at a May Day Parade in Red Square. His hair, unnaturally black for a man his age, was fronted by a jelly roll lacquered by enough spray that his hat had not made a dent. Under a coarse hedge of artificially black brows his eyes were playful, those of a perennial ladies’ man. Nikki had seen many guys like him in the States, but instead of snatching people off city streets they installed custom pools and stone decks on Long Island and in Jersey. She wondered, did they also clean carpets?

  “It is a pleasure to meet you.”

  “You sure went to enough trouble,” she said. “If you had just called, we could have met you at a cafe.”

  “I apologize.” The spy made a slight bow and then gently released her hand. “This is what you call abundance of caution. It is how, in my line of work, one lives to be sixty years old.”

  She said, “You mean as an importer and exporter?”

  “Ah,” he said with a laugh, pointing at her. “I like this one, Boy-O. She has some stones, yes?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  Anatoly checked his watch and made a quick survey of the woods. “Tell me, Jameson, so we don’t press our welcome here tonight. What did you need to discuss with me? Another article you will get a prize for and I get nothing?” He laughed.

  Rook said, “I’m looking to verify some details about an old network that may have been run here in Paris. Now, you know my rules, Anatoly. I won’t compromise national secrets or jeopardize anyone’s life, but that shouldn’t be a problem because I believe this particular operation is inactive.”

  “Let me make a guess.” He smiled at Heat as he spoke to Rook. “That it might have something to do with the work done by the mother of your friend here.”

  “Wow. Clairvoyant,” Rook said.

  “I had some idea. And why waste time dancing when we can get right to business.” There was a noise in the woods, probably just a branch falling, but Kije caught the eye of one of his bodyguards, and a pair of them slipped into the night to investigate.

  “So my mother was involved in clandestine work of some kind,” said Nikki, trying to bring him back to the subject.

  “Most definitely. I first became aware of her when I was stationed here in ‘72 as an agricultural liaison at the Soviet embassy.”

  Rook fake-coughed, “KGB.”

  “Always a wise guy, this one. I love it.” He shadowboxed at Rook’s gut, then turned back to her. “Does that answer what you wanted to know?”

  “Depends. On how much you’re willing to tell me.” She held his gaze in a way that said I want more and you know it. “And seeing what you put us through getting here …”

  “Everything’s a trade-off, isn’t it? The price of my peace of mind is to help you find yours. What else would you like to know?”

  “My mother was murdered.”

  “I am truly sorry.”

  “It was ten years ago in the USA. But you already know that, don’t you?” He didn’t reply. She said, “I’m trying to find out if it was connected to her spying.”

  “Nikki Heat, let us not insult each other’s intelligence. You already believe it is connected. What you want from me is to tell you how.” He paused and said, “I honestly don’t know.”

  “Anatoly Kije?” she said. “Boy-O? Please do not insult my intelligence. You know.”

  “I know rumors. That’s all. And, if true—if,” he said, pointing a finger in the air for emphasis, “it could have come back upon her in a very unfortunate way.”

  Rook said, “Come on, what did you hear?”

  Anatoly became distracted momentarily as the two bodyguards returned from their perimeter check and signaled all clear. Slightly more relaxed, he said to Nikki, “There were rumors that your mother became a double agent.”

  Heat was already shaking her head emphatically. “No. She would never do that.”

  “Well, she wouldn’t do it for me, and believe me, I tried.” A twinkle shined in his roguish eyes. “But people do turn. Some for ideology, some for revenge, some are blackmailed. Most, I find, simply do it for the money. The real answer is always found not in the heart but in the bank.” Heat still shook her head in denial, but he pressed on. “You asked the question, dorogaya moya. The perception, true or not, about your mother hinted that she had some ‘extracurricular’ contacts and activities.”

  “But I’m telling you,” said Nikki, “she never would have gone to work for anyone but the United States.”

  “People don’t always align with another government. There are other entities, you know. The last decade has become a new era for tradecraft.” The gruff Russian spook, who had no doubt ordered (and probably even administered) his fair share of back alley beatings and terminations, took on a wistful look at the mention of this new era. She could envision how an old-school spy like him would be an inconvenient fit among the more outwardly refined operatives who ate sushi, did yoga, and hacked what t
hey needed from underground computer nerve centers.

  But Kije survived, if uncertainly. The bloated hide of his face told her he coped with his unsure future in the world order by cracking open a bottle of Stoli. Heat was more interested in the information she needed. “What do you mean by other entities?”

  “I would say, ask Nicole Bernardin. But you can’t, can you?”

  “What do you know about Nicole Bernardin?”

  “I know that, just like your mother, Nicole became involved with people outside the strict margins of her government’s scope.”

  Rook jumped in again. “For argument’s sake, what if her mother had turned?” He could almost hear the adrenaline rising in Nikki’s veins, so he added, “Or if it just looked like she had—would CIA act on that?”

  “Not likely,” said the Russian. “Well, not on American soil.”

  “Who would?” asked Heat, aware of the possibility it could have been the man standing right in front of her.

  “Kill her?” He shrugged. “As I said, these are changing times. It wouldn’t have to be a government at all, would it?”

  “Could it be the same as whoever hit Tyler Wynn?” asked Rook.

  “Who knows? Either way, it’s a sad lesson about the nature of the trade. You can never really retire. I, myself, tried retiring once. It went poorly. That is why I have to meet people like this.” He gestured to the forest and the night.

  “Even old friends?” asked Rook.

  “You kidding, Boy-O? It is old friends who can be the most lethal of all.”

  Nikki said, “You must know some of the projects my mother was working on. Nicole, too.”

  She had conducted enough interrogations to tell by the way his eyes rose in his lids, to ponder, that he did know, and he was weighing how much to reveal to this friend of Jameson Rook—and daughter of a CIA operative. Then she lost his attention.

  Kije cocked an ear to the darkness. Soon the bodyguards did, too, straining at the horizon as wolves did for signs of food. Or danger. Heat and Rook also listened, and soon heard them muttering, “Beptopet.” Rook translated for her, but by then, Nikki heard it herself. Helicopter.