Die for Me (Killing Eve #3) - Luke Jennings Page 0,70

by the kindly meant gesture, and once I start reading I can’t stop.

The lead story, in effect the only story, offers new revelations from “government sources” concerning “the crime of the century.” It tells how a transnational anarchist organization planned the assassination of the American and Russian presidents, and how the Russian security services eliminated the killers in two fierce firefights. There are graphic images of the dead conspirators. Oxana Vorontsova, “a notorious contract killer known as Villanelle,” is described as the leader of the cell, and pictured lying on her back in the snow in front of the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, her face and chest dark with blood, surrounded by armed members of the FSB’s Alpha counterterrorist group. An automatic pistol is clearly visible in her right hand. A photograph captioned “Larissa Farmanyants, the second assassin,” shows Charlie’s body, torn apart by submachine gun fire, lying next to their sniper’s rifle at the window of the Nikolskaya tower on the Kremlin wall, “to which she had illegally gained access.”

On an inside page, where the story continues, there’s a TASS news agency photograph, dated seven years earlier, of athletes on the medalists’ podium after a pistol-shooting event at the University Games at Ekaterinburg. Farmanyants, looking wistful, has taken the bronze medal, and Vorontsova, half-smiling, the gold. Both look very young.

According to official government sources, the assassination of the two presidents was very nearly prevented by an undercover operative of the British Secret Intelligence Service, working in collaboration with the Russian security services. The unnamed female officer had penetrated the group, but tragically had been unable to relay the details of the plot to her FSB handlers in time to prevent the assassination. No details are known about this individual’s identity or present whereabouts.

The article affirms that the FSB, under the leadership of General Vadim Tikhomirov, has been waging a long, covert war against terrorism and anarchy. “With such people, there can be no compromise, and no negotiation,” Tikhomirov is quoted as saying. “Our priority is, and always will be, the security of the Russian people.” In the accompanying photograph he looks sage and reassuring. A little like the actor George Clooney, but steelier around the eyes.

On the sixth day, at eleven-thirty in the morning, I’m sitting cross-legged on the unmade bed, still undressed, turning over the tarot cards, when there’s a knock on my door. I assume it’s the cleaner, a haunted-looking teenager named Irma who slips fearfully around the hotel with an ancient vacuum cleaner, and I call out to her to give me a minute. When the knock is repeated, I sweep up the cards, wrap the crocheted blanket around me, and open the door an inch.

It’s not Irma, but the hotel proprietor, Mr. Gribin. “You have a visitor,” he informs me.

I splash my face with water, dress and walk warily downstairs. Standing in the lobby, facing away from me toward the street, is a woman in a dark coat, with a beret pulled over her hair. Hearing me descend the stairs she turns. She’s about forty, with soft, tired eyes. There’s a faint smell of cigarettes about her.

“Good morning,” she says, extending a hand toward me. “I’m Anna Leonova.”

I stare at her.

“I was Oxana’s French teacher,” she says. She glances at Gribin, still hovering lugubriously.

I belatedly extend my hand. “Yes, I know who you are.”

“I wondered, perhaps, whether we might go somewhere and talk.”

“I’d like that.”

We walk to the Café Skazka and order tea. I tell Anna that Oxana spoke of her affectionately, but sadly.

“She was probably the most gifted pupil I ever had,” Anna says. “Language flowed through her. She had an instinctive feel for it. But she was broken inside. Terribly broken. In the end she did something so terrible that I had to let her go.”

“She told me.”

Anna looks away, her eyes distant. “I was fond of her, more than fond of her, but I can’t pretend I was surprised by what happened. By what she… became.”

“Why am I here, Anna? And how do you know who I am?”

The café owner’s daughter places a cup of tea in front of each of us. My question is ignored.

“Were you never afraid of her, Eve? Truthfully?”

I pick up my cup, touch my mouth to the scalding tea and put it down again. “Never. I loved her.”

“Knowing what she was capable of, you loved her?”

“Yes.”

“Knowing that she could never love you back.”

“She loved me, in her way. I don’t expect you or anyone else to understand