Brass Monkey: A James Acton Thriller Book #2 Read Online Free PDF Page B

stepped up to him and patted him on the cheek, then gave him a quick peck on the lips. “No need. He was a boy.” She reached down and gave his crotch a squeeze. “You’re all man.”
    His ego restored, Trubitsin looked at her. “Where is it?”
    “Da, how did you hide it from the Americans?”
    “Oh, the lengths I go to for Mother Russia, but mostly for you.” She stepped over to the mirror, and leaned in close. With her thumb and forefinger, she rolled her eyelid up, revealing a tiny string of letters and numbers tattooed underneath. Trubitsin gasped then snatched a pen and a pad of hotel paper, jotting down the numbers. She repeated the process with the other eye and he wrote down the rest.
    He looked at the numbers, then at her, and smiled. “You, my dear, are a genius.”
    She smiled then looked at Yakovski. “Boris, beat it. I want to make wild, passionate love to my man, and three’s a crowd.”
    Yakovski looked at Trubitsin as if uncertain what to do. One glare from Trubitsin removed any doubt, sending Yakovski to the door. “I’ll go get a drink.”
     

 
     
     
    Arbat Street, Moscow
     
    Stanislav Ignatev stood in the doorway of a closed bakery, shivering from the cold of a late evening shower. At first he was excited with his assignment to tail Anya Kushchenko. She has a great rack, as the Yankees would say! He gave a single grunt of a laugh as he remembered the hoots in the squad room as they were briefed. He and several others were assigned to watch her, to see if she did anything unexpected. The chance she was a double agent was definite. The chance she could become one, was even greater. Most who returned to Russia and saw how terrible things were compared to the West longed to return to their former assignments.
    Ignatev however had never been out of Russia. Unless you counted Chechnya, but that wasn’t exactly a pleasure trip. After completing his two years compulsory service, in which he had the misfortune to serve six months in that shithole, he had left the formerly glorious Red Army, and joined the Main Department of Internal Affairs of the city of Moscow, or more simply, the Moscow Police, an honorable profession, and something that would keep him in his home town. Tonight his detachment was part of a much larger team he was sure. No way was this given to local cops only. He was certain SKP agents they simply couldn’t see crawled all over the place. He glanced at a couple kissing on a bench across the street. He’s kissing her neck too much. Definitely SKP.
    Kushchenko had entered the Bulgakov Hotel minutes before, and Ignatev was preparing to find some place to get comfortable for the rest of his shift when he saw somebody step from the hotel that appeared familiar. The man, in his early fifties, short cropped, graying hair, didn’t stand out except for one thing—he had a deep scar running in a jagged pattern from his left eye to the corner of his lip. This he recognized at once from a briefing months earlier. He fished his radio from his pocket and called Dispatch.
    “Dispatch, go ahead.”
    “This is Ignatev. I’ve just spotted Boris Yakovski on Arbat Street, should I apprehend?”
    “Dispatch, stand by.”
    He waited impatiently, watching the man look up and down the street, then hail a cab.
    “Dammit!” muttered Ignatev. He spotted a cab coming toward him and he flagged it down, climbing in the back as soon as it halted. Before the driver said a word, he yelled, “Follow that cab!” pointing at the vehicle containing Yakovski as it pulled away from the hotel.
    “Da, da,” said the cabby as he glanced in his rearview mirror and pulled a U-turn, falling in behind the other cab.
    “Not too close!”
    “Da, da.” The cabby eased back a little.
    “Dispatch to Ignatev, stand by for communication from HQ, over.”
    Ignatev jumped as his phone vibrated in his pocket. He fished it out and flipped it open. “Ignatev.”
    “This is Agent Dymovsky, on special assignment