Die for Me (Killing Eve #3) - Luke Jennings Page 0,43
say that we have a friend in common in St. Petersburg. But it’s imperative that we discover what the Twelve are planning, because if what I suspect is true the consequences will be catastrophic, and not just for Russia. So you absolutely have to find out, Eve. And you have to tell me.”
It’s as cold as a butcher’s fridge in the truck, and I zip my jacket up to the chin.
“You know who’s in that Porsche SUV, don’t you? Our mutual friend Richard Edwards. Why don’t you just arrest him?”
“Nothing I’d rather do, believe me. But I can’t. I have to let him run. See who he leads us to.”
“Isn’t that a bit risky? I mean—”
“This is the Twelve we’re dealing with, Eve. We need to take down the whole organization, and if we’re going to do that we need to aim a lot higher than Edwards. He’s useful to them but he’s replaceable, and probably doesn’t know that much anyway.”
“I see.” This is not sounding good.
“So, we need to keep our nerve, let them think it’s safe to go ahead, and wait for the key players to reveal themselves. Then, and only then, can we make our move. First we have to know what they’ve been planning.”
“And that’s where I come in?”
“Exactly.”
“So tell me.”
“I’m going to give you a phone number, which you’re going to memorize, and the rest is up to you. You’re a highly resourceful individual, and I’m confident that one way or another you’ll succeed.” He lets his words hang in the air. “So are you with me? I’m afraid that you have to decide right here, right now.”
“One condition.”
“Tell me.”
“Oxana Vorontsova.”
“Ah. The famous Villanelle. I thought we might get to her.”
“Don’t kill her. Please, I…” I stare at him helplessly.
He meets my gaze, his eyes thoughtful, and then turns to the door. Slowly, barely perceptibly, he nods his head. “I can guarantee nothing. I have to consider the optics. But if you do this thing for me I will try to do this for you. Here is the number…”
He says it three times. Makes me repeat it three times.
“They’ve taken our guns, phones, pens, everything,” I tell him. “They’ll be watching us all the time. I don’t know how I’m going to—”
“You’ll find a way, Eve. I know you will.” He stands up, bowing his head beneath the low roof of the truck. “And now you have to go.”
As I stand in my turn, a handsome young man in a winter camouflage uniform climbs into the truck, and I recognize Dima, Tikhomirov’s assistant. A long look passes between them.
“Please,” I whisper. “Remember.”
Tikhomirov looks at me, his expression sad, and raises his hand.
As I trudge back to the SUV, I repeat the number he gave me.
“So what did they want?” Richard asks, when we’re back on the motorway.
“They checked my appearance against a set of photographs of women that they had on a laptop. I didn’t look anything like any of the photographs—all the women were wearing black Islamic headscarves—and the officers didn’t ask my name. I asked them what it was all about but they wouldn’t tell me.”
“So who was there?”
“An FSB officer, in his forties probably, and two junior guys. A fourth guy came in from having a cigarette just as I left. I didn’t get the impression they were very interested in what they were doing.”
“They didn’t photograph you? Take your fingerprints? Take a copy of your passport?”
“Nothing like that, no.”
Anton looks back at me and grins. “Just checking out women to pass the time?”
“Probably.”
Richard leaves us on the tarmac at Sheremetyevo airport, beneath a bruise-dark sky. He shakes our hands through the driver’s window of the Porsche, and gives us each a taut, crinkle-eyed smile that doesn’t quite mask his relief that he’s not coming with us. How did I work for him for so long without spotting that phony manner?
The Learjet lifts off shortly afterward, heading westwards. Our immediate destination, Anton tells us, is Ostend, in Belgium. No one inquires further.
Oxana sits next to me, her head on my shoulder, and we talk about the things we’ll do, and the places we’ll visit, when all of this is over. We both know it’s a fantasy, that we’ll probably never walk hand in hand by the River Neva in St. Petersburg, watching the ice floes drift past, or sit in the sun on a spring morning in the courtyard of Oxana’s favorite café in Paris, but we promise ourselves these things and