Ekaterina Read Online Free PDF Page B

cahoots.
    She wouldn’t shake him again.
    Vadeem followed her as she plodded down the street, thankful he had both Grazovich and Moore now in pocket. Grazovich, true to form, had headed straight for the Intourist hotel, found a room on the second floor, and ordered a bottle of Absolut. A couple of purple five-hundred ruble notes in the clerk’s pocket and Vadeem would know if Grazovich did anything but drink himself into a stupor.
    Miss Moore stopped, set her backpack down on her suitcase, and stared up the street. No, no taxis. He could read the realization on her face and in her drooping shoulders. She worked a small book out of a side pocket; a traveler’s guide no doubt. A slight wind pulled her hair back from her face as she frowned, flipping pages, worrying her bottom lip as she read. She looked up, as if to gather her bearings, and he turned and memorized the contents of a nearby bread kiosk. A moment later, she was again trolleying her baggage down the street, in the direction of the Avtovoxhal . He gave her begrudging points for her on-her-feet thinking.
    Then again, anyone with the slightest travel savvy—and especially an international fence for combat accessories—would know that taxis loved to pick up fares at the local bus station.
    Vadeem zipped back to his Zhiguli , a loaner from the local FSB set-up, and followed her, just to keep her in his sights, as she adeptly scored a cab at the depot. He stayed on her taillights all the way back to Pskov and hung out at the ATM machine, fighting his awakened suspicions while she checked in at the local Intourist Hotel. Lodging options were few in Pskov, but it slammed a few more nails in her coffin that she chose Grazovich’s hotel.
    She finally loaded her gear into a rickety elevator and headed upstairs.
    He approached his newly acquainted desk clerk informant. “Which one is she in?” “302.” The desk clerk offered a conspiratorial smile, as if she’d joined the police force.
    “Thank you.” Vadeem took a seat across the lobby, behind a full hibiscus, and crossed his arms over his chest, wondering if his little tourist was staying put for the night.
    She appeared thirty minutes later, face scrubbed, and looking sharp in a pair of khakis and a pink wide collar blouse. She’d obviously emptied half her backpack. It sagged like a deflated ball off her shoulder. He fell in thirty paces behind her when she stepped out onto the street.
    The wind reaped her perfume and sent it streaming back at him. Oh my, did she smell good. Floral, maybe roses, or lavender. Something simple. He paused on the steps, watching her go, debating the wisdom of leaving Grazovich unguarded.
    Except, what was she doing wandering around Pskov?
    He stuck his hands in his jacket pockets and followed her trail.
    He found her just around the corner, sitting in an outside bistro, backpack at her heels and nibbling at a fingernail while studying a menu. One leg was crossed over the other and her tennis shoe moved to the pop rock they were piping over the boom box on the cashier’s table. At first glance, no one would guess she had just spent the day on the lam and wading knee deep into a terrorist’s agenda.
    A half block past the bistro, he bought an ice cream from a vendor and ate it while he watched her pick at a potato salad.
    She had her cover down to an art form. Presently, she looked about as forlorn as he felt every Saturday night in the bleak months of winter—restless, frustrated. But he suspected the brain behind those woeful eyes held a knowledge of the inner workings of a howitzer or a scud missile. Vadeem threw his cone into the trash, tired of this charade.
    He skidded to a halt, stunned, as Ivan Grazovich approached the café like a man on a mission. He wore a smile. Vadeem bristled. Somehow the fact that his gut instincts had played true felt like a knife in his chest.
    Okay, so he’d hoped, in the tiniest corner of his heart, to be wrong. He edged near a building,