the windows lining the front of the building. He passed through the door and walked by the stand, where a taxi manager stood assigning drivers and passengers.
Yamadayev sat in their car nine spaces back from the taxi stand. Linko slid into the passenger seat and glanced back at the front of the terminal.
“There she is.” Yamadayev spoke quietly, and he did not point. He was Spetsnatz, Russian military special forces, and currently assigned to the FSB. He was not yet thirty, a lean killing machine with soft eyes and a distant manner.
“I see her.” Linko waited impatiently, knowing that the ticking bomb inside the young woman was already counting down.
***
The taxi driver spoke to Anna as he looked into the rearview mirror.
Anna smiled. “Do you speak Russian or English?”
The man smiled back and nodded. “English.”
Anna switched to that language. “Can you take me to the Museum of the University of Athens?” That was where Lourds had told her he was.
“Of course.” The driver flipped on the meter and pulled into the flow of traffic leaving the airport.
Anna’s arm still stung from where the older woman had grabbed it during her fall inside the terminal. She rolled up the sleeve of her blouse and saw the scratch that marred her skin. She took her purse from her carryon, then located a tissue and wiped away the dot of blood, hoping it didn’t stain the blouse. She pressed the tissue against the wound to help stop the bleeding.
The woman must have been wearing a ring. That was the only thing Anna could think of that would account for the small wound. After a moment, she removed the tissue and saw that the bleeding had stopped.
All better.
She crumpled the napkin and put it inside a pocket in her purse to dispose of later. Looking out the window, she remembered other times she had visited the city. She had been to Athens eight times before. The country was so relatively close to Moscow, less than three hours by plane, that it seemed idiocy to not come down to enjoy the beaches and the islands occasionally in the summer when she could afford it.
She had told her parents about the islands, about the swimming and the historical sites and the nightlife. Her father had said he had no interest in swimming and that there were plenty of historical sites to see in Russia if he wanted to look at old things. He had refused to go even when Anna had offered to pay for everything. He had told her she was being too extravagant with her money to do such a thing.
But he hadn’t told her not to go.
She took her tablet PC from the carryon and opened up the file with her story about the Ukraine “reunification” and the coming coordinated terrorist attacks within Greece. She knew she didn’t have enough proof to put before any kind of court, and no one could try President Nevsky for anything he had done, but at least the story would make it possible for some of the right people to start asking questions and overturning stones.
President Nevsky wasn’t bulletproof. Someone, somewhere, would find a way to stop him.
And she intended to be the one to set that into motion.
***
Lourds sat in one of the folding chairs that had been brought in for the meeting with Anna Cherkshan. The young woman appeared tired, and she obviously had a headache, judging from the way she kept rubbing her temples.
“Are you certain you’re all right?” Marias seemed concerned as well.
Anna waved him off. “Merely a combination of not enough sleep and jetlag. Once I get this story to the media, I will rest. But for now we need to concentrate and pool our resources.” She switched her attention to Lourds. “My father had books on Alexander the Great in his personal library. I saw them. He has never had an interest in him before.”
Lourds still had trouble wrapping his head around the fact that the Russian president was behind Boris’s murder. He wanted to play devil’s advocate to shore up his own logic. “Your father may have taken an interest in Alexander the Great since you were working on the story with us.”
Anna cocked an eyebrow at him and smiled, obviously knowing what he was doing. “Oh, really? Then how do you explain the fact that my father bought those books before Professor Glukov had announced to the world that the tomb he’d found had anything to do with Alexander