Wiser Than Serpents (31 page)

The precious hope that had filled her chest took a spiral down to her knees.

Especially when she saw Vicktor.

“Oh, my—what happened to you?”

Vicktor was sitting in a vinyl chair in front of one of the passport desks, boasting a black eye and a vicious welt on his jaw. She’d heard the border guards were cracking down in America, but seriously…

“What happened to you?”

Roman sat down beside him. “Tell me that Gracie was glad to see you?”

But Vicktor’s gaze was on Elena, who still had a hold of Yanna. “You found her.” And the smile in his eyes warmed Yanna clear through. He sprang to his feet and pulled Yanna to him. He smelled a little ripe, as if he’d been in the same clothes for three days. Which, by the looks of him, he had.

He put her away from him, searching her for injury, as if he wasn’t a walking
Fight Club
billboard. “What happened?”

Yanna opened her mouth, not sure where to start, but Roman filled him in with the high points. Elena crept even closer to Yanna.

“And David’s still there?” Vicktor asked, when Roman got to the part about them getting on the plane.

“Trying to track down this other Serpent Kwan wanted to know about. What happened to you?”

Vicktor looked at Roman. “Gracie was in trouble. She got in the middle of a human-trafficking ring—”

“Big surprise there,” Roman said.

“She was just trying to help a friend, and it got ugly. Sokolov tried to kill her—”

“Which meant that you got into the middle of it.” Yanna reached out and touched the welt on his jaw. “That looks like it hurt.”

Vicktor rubbed the welt, wincing. “Sokolov had a ring…” Vicktor wore a strange look.

Yanna’s hand went to her cheek, as memory made her wince. “Gold snake, with red rubies?” she asked.

She saw the answer in his eyes even before he answered.

“The other Serpent in training…Roman—”

“I’m already there,” he said, dialing his cell phone. He looked at Yanna, his eyes light when he got a voice at the other end. “Hey, Preach,” he said, turning from them.

Yanna looked back at Vicktor, who was frowning. “So…Gracie was happy to see you, Dr. Zaitsev?”

He wore the sweetest blush.

“And just how long before you’re allowed back in the country?”

His smile fell.

Oh, perfect.

“But the good news is, I think Gracie is ready to marry me.”

At least someone would get their happily ever after. But as she watched Roman talk, she had to hope that maybe, just maybe, hers wasn’t far behind.

“R
eady, when you are.”

Yanna heard the voice over the radio and peered at the computer screen, which revealed the ancient hotel room—not unlike the room she was in next door—with the black molded plastic double bed, the gold polyester spread, the black velour drapes. An unopened vodka bottle and two glasses were set on the table, and next to that, sat slim and beautiful Zina Bruskho, aka “Madame,” the field operator for this mission.

“You’re on, Madame,” Yanna said, speaking into her lapel mic.

Yanna watched, her breath tight, surrounded by her techies as Madame answered the door, and in walked their target. Qyin-Wo. Chinese Minister of Justice.

It felt amazingly empowering to be on the catch end instead of the run-away side of the mission. Sometimes in her new position as Assistant Director of Surveillance and R & D, Yanna still saw herself handcuffed to a chair, watching Kwan flick out her small knife.

She’d come a long way, baby. In fact, as Qyin-Wo walked into the room, all two hundred and fifty robust pounds of him, and Zina let him pour her drink, Yanna knew she’d been working toward this view all her life.

Watching killers like Qyin-Wo go down.

This view might not be as beautiful as a fourth-story window overlooking lush gardens, but it also came courtesy of a fourth-floor office in the FSB Headquarters off Lubyanaka Square, which overlooked a four-lane road, one of the busiest in all of Moscow. Soon, come spring, when she opened her office window, she’d hear the coughing cars, the pigeons cooing from the metal sill of her ancient window, smell the cooking oil from
chebureki
vendors infiltrating her office. Of course, the paint was peeling from the frame, and the glass rattled when the wind swept by on its way east. Some said that once upon a time, the KGB could see all the way to Siberia from the offices in Lubyanka, but Yanna knew it was only legend, because she couldn’t even see Red Square.

Still, her new office had a window. And red brocade drapes, and a parquet floor, and lime-green walls and pretty soon, pictures. She’d bring some from her new flat—ones of Roman and Sarai, taken at their Christmas engagement party, and Vicktor, and Mae and Gracie in Seattle, and David.

Of course, David. Although she didn’t know where he might be at the moment. Maybe still in Taiwan, although Trish and Cho—who’d had a healthy baby boy two months ago—hadn’t heard from him, even though he’d sent them a huge bouquet of blue flowers and a teddy bear the size of Russia. Even Roman didn’t know where to track down his friend. He hadn’t talked to him since the airport in Taipei, when David had neatly booted her out of his life.

Yeah, that hurt.

A lot.

And even being offered her dream job, which came with an entire department of R & D geeks for her to harass, travel perks and a three-room flat, it only slightly dulled the pain of a broken heart.

Still it was better than being a basement tech grub, stuck in Siberia with a broken heart.

“Are you getting his words?” she asked one of her techs, who was fluent not only in Mandarin but in manning the digital recordings.

“
Da,
Director Andrevka,” he said. Yanna folded her arms over her pressed blouse. Director.

Hmm. David should see her now. Maybe he’d answer her online pages, the ones left in their chat rooms.

It had been five months. After two, she’d stopped trying. Now, if she could only stop hoping she’d find his e-mail waiting for her.

It was very possible he had decided that being with her, knowing her, had made his life so much more complicated than he’d ever imagined, and he couldn’t repeat that ever again.

Her brain, the part not connected to her heart, could admit that loving a woman with high-security clearance, when he had his own high-security clearance, well, there were certainly international issues there.

She couldn’t really blame him for his silence. Not really.

But,
ow.

In fact, his absence had left a great, big, weepy, raw hole right in the center of her chest. Which had made it difficult to breathe, but she’d learned, finally, to bandage that wound with her job, and Elena, who had re-enrolled in Moscow University to finish her law degree. Yanna was also trying out for the Moscow Volleyball team. And wouldn’t David be curious to know she was going to church. Moscow Bible Church, which had a progressive group of new Christians. Roman had given her a Bible, and with a little coaching, she’d begun to read.

She wouldn’t call herself a scholar, by any means. But every day she felt a little more whole. A little more healed.

And maybe, someday, she’d be okay.

Definitely okay. And not because she’d forget David—that might resemble trying to forget about her heart beating in her chest—but she might someday believe in her heart what her brain told her. That God did love her. And that He had a good plan for her life. With or without David.

And that good plan had turned out to be making her not only director of what she loved to do, but also, because of her new exuberance to wipe out human slavery, she’d been the point woman for tapping the offices of Zhenshini & Lubov. Which, as it turned out, was indeed a front for trafficking.

She stepped back from the techs—how she used to hate when her bosses hovered over her—and watched the drama in the next room. Madame had sat next to Qyin-Wo on the bed, letting him refill her drink. She smiled up at the man and it made Yanna press her hand to her stomach.

Zhenshini & Lubov had proved to be only one of dozens of fronts. And after months of surveillance and taps and intercepted messages and chat-room peeking, Yanna had discovered that everything routed through one man, the leader of the network of lowlife scums.

The Chinese Minister of Justice. Only, taking him out would be überfun because while he was in Russia, he had diplomatic immunity.

She’d often wondered if Wo might be a distant relation to Kwan. He was definitely someone in the Serpent nest—she could see the ring from here.

And, well, since he was actually the one in charge of justice in China—and wasn’t that some sort of joke—she hadn’t a prayer of handing over that information to Chinese government officials in hopes of retribution.

Furthermore, assassination was out of the question. Really.

So, instead she’d planned a little sting operation. Only problem was…she had to resort to working with the Americans. Their role in the world allowed them access to international laws, and they just seemed to get the ball rolling. Maybe because the rest of the world still thought Russia shot first and asked questions later.

But as usual, the Americans were late, which left her to run the op in the next room. At least the surveillance part.

Back in the hotel room, Zina had now perched herself on the desk, out of view of the camera. But Yanna’s technology clearly framed Qyin-Wo in the picture. And then, in line with their intel, came another knock. This was the contact with whom Madame had agreed to meet to start channeling her trafficked women through.

Because Zina really was a madame. A repentant, wired, she-would-do-serious-time kind of madame. The kind who knew exactly how to work with these two players.

The kind who had family back in Khabarovsk. And Yanna, well, she might be learning how to be a Christian, but she still knew how to play by Russian rules.

The camera caught Zina as she opened the door to player numero two.

Qyin-Li.

Only, maybe Yanna should adjust her screen, because Qyin-Li wasn’t Chinese. Or even Asian.

The man had the distinct features of an American.

In fact, she’d seen him yesterday at the Chinese-American-Russian summit on international trade.

And bing, it all made sense. Qyin-Wo, one of the Twin Serpents, had come to Moscow to meet his counterpart.

The other Serpent. Aka Lee Quinn.

The Director of the American Institute in Taiwan. The American attaché to Taiwan. Father to the man who’d taken Yanna hostage.

Zina closed the door.

The two men embraced as if they’d known each other for a lifetime. Mafiosa bosom buddies. Yanna shook her head.

A knock came at her door.

“Tell the maid to go away,” Yanna said, her eyes on the screens. The less the hotel management knew about the FSB’s little party, the better.

She heard the door open, whispers, but her focus was on the screen, on Wo and Li, and every word she was getting on her digital hard drive.

“I should have guessed you’d be here.”

Yanna froze. Really, everything inside her simply stilled, and she just stood there, looking at the screens.

And then his hand pressed her shoulder, and her breath came out in an incredulous huff. She turned, and for a second, everything vanished—the room, the five techs who weren’t sure what to do when their director gasped and turned from the operation visible on her flat screen.

Because there he was, David, dressed in a pair of pressed black dress pants, a gray dress shirt, a black tie, clean shaven, his hair blond, his face nicely healed and smiling—at her. He looked like he was going to a wedding.

Or a funeral. Which was perfect because she was going to kill him.

“Hi,” he said.

Oh, she had the greatest urge to slap him. “Hi,” she said softly, her voice completely betraying her.

“Sorry I’m late. I got hung up in traffic.”

Traffic? Where…in Chechnya? Maybe the Middle East? He must have also picked up the ability to read her mind because he had the good sense to appear sheepish.

“You almost missed it,” she said again, softly. Yeah, really missed it—in fact, she wasn’t sure they’d ever get back what he’d missed.

He looked at the screen. “How are we doing?”

“We? I’m sorry, are you part of this operation?”

He gave a laugh that wasn’t really a laugh. “Yeah. Who do you think gave the A-OK on the American side? Vicktor’s fun and games in America—although a political snafu for him—worked out in our favor. Your tip on Kosta Sokolov turned out to be rich in information. We were able to work on Kwan in Taiwan and Sokolov in America and guess what—both of them were working for the Serpents. We’ve been after Lee Quinn for a couple months now, but we wanted to confirm he was working with Wo, who is his half brother. In fact, the Qyins—or Kwans as they were called in America—have quite an interesting family tree. Apparently propagating heirs across the globe is a nifty way of not only creating international blood ties, but producing operatives that blend into society. And they’re not afraid to steal from each other—which was what the Kwan we met was doing to his half brother, Kosta Sokolov. Sokolov had a tidy trafficking operation importing Russian girls into the States until Kwan got wind and began to intercept them. Which is why you and Elena, ended up in Taiwan.” He looked past her, at the screen. “So, how are we doing?”

Huh. Yanna had been privy to some of Vicktor’s fallout after his shackle-and-chain return to Russia. But all he’d gotten for his AWOL activities was three months of desk duty.

She’d heard through Roman, however, that Vicktor had recently been entertaining ideas of leaving the FSB and settling down in some neutral country with Gracie.

“Are we ready to go in?” David asked.

We? There was no
we
here. Yanna turned, directed the question at the two techs with headphones glued to the exchange. Yanna watched on the screen as Qyin-Li stood up. Shook Wo’s hand.

“Go.”

The FSB pounced. Shouting and chaos and
finally
Yanna watched as her agents took down the Twin Serpents and their human-trafficking ring. Gotcha.