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the Kaminsky assassination. Of course not, if those bumblers
from Interpol were on the case. She was just passing the time, anyway, waiting
for OSO to hit her back with the dossier. She would look into Kaminsky, maybe
grab lunch in a pub and study up on the questions. Because she had no doubt
Maksimov knew how to find her, if he wasn’t watching her right now. If not, he
would make himself available in the Three Cocks.
    Ugh, best not to think about him watching her being
willingly violated by three cocks. Best not to think about the dream she’d had
after escaping the Palace, in which it was Alexi naked in the shower, her legs
around his waist and back against the chilly tile while he pounded inside her.
A crashing orgasm woke her up, her mouth dry and clit still throbbing, until
she pressed the last sweet reverberation from it.
    She’d never run across an adversary who didn’t flee from a
confrontation with an agent who clearly wished him harm, but this one had
beckoned her over, told her they would meet again, even, possibly, followed her
to the Palace. And now he was invading her dreams. That would never do. Rule
Number Three sounded simple but it required a complete shutting down of every
decent, forgiving human impulse. Trust no one.
    Her phone gave an echoing, outer-space ping. The Kaminsky
file came up on the screen, neatly photographed, the pages numbered to prove
that nothing had been deleted.
    Templeton had not lied—the official dossier was
straightforward indeed. He seemed to have been a well-known FSB agent without a
blot on his record, even according to the notoriously paranoid Russian security
service. He had a wife and four boys at home. A widow, that is, and fatherless
boys. Coco felt sick.
    She rose, half of the croissant uneaten. What the file did
not say was whom he had come to London to meet. Tracing a Russian diplomat
could not be that hard, even for an agent on her own. And she was completely on
her own. There was a monster on the loose and she was the only person who could
stop him.
    * * * * *
    Getting into one office in the embassy was a breeze. Wet
eyes, practical tourist clothes and a sob story gained her admission to a
stout, wood-paneled office and the audience of a black-haired, severe-looking
man with a face like the lunar surface. The leather chair creaked as she shifted
in her seat.
    “Disappeared, you say?”
    “Yes.” She tried to smile wanly at the pockmarked face on
the other side of the desk. “I haven’t heard from my sister in weeks. We were
already upset when she hooked up with this guy. I mean, I’d heard he came from
a trouble spot in your country, something about a breakaway republic?”
    His dark eyes showed interest for the first time.
“Chechnya?”
    “Yes, that’s it! And he seemed into all kinds of scary,
rough stuff. But Patricia, she just, like, flounced out of Boston and went to
live with him. And now, like I say, I can’t reach her. I’m really scared, sir.”
    “Miss,” the official frowned down at her passport, “LeBlanc,
I suggest you contact your own embassy.”
    “I tried,” she breathed. “They said they knew nothing about
it and, frankly, one officer told me privately that you Russians are so much
more skilled at this sort of thing.”
    Probe for weaknesses. She had this guy’s Achilles’ heel
pegged from first laying eyes on him—framed certificates covering the walls,
shadowboxes of various medals on the desk, turned outward to impress visitors,
a fancy pen and ink set in an imposing brass holder that looked untouched. He
wanted to be seen as powerful, competent, the best. Here was a man who kept
score.
    “Is that so?” he asked, unsmiling. But he sat up a little
straighter.
    “I believe the word he used was ‘masterful’.”
    “Do you have a name for this boyfriend?”
    “Um, just a first name. But I read something in the
newspaper, about that poor man who got killed with the umbrella? He was here to
meet a Russian diplomat who knew