The Innocents Club

“And he wants us to help him to do it?”

“That’s my guess.”

“So, what’s in it for us?”

Tucker hesitated. This was the tricky part. He was pretty sure part of the Navigator’s plan was to undermine the presidential ambitions of Foreign Minister Zakharov. But who stood to benefit from that? Russia? America? International peace and stability? Some unknown protégé to whom the dying old man was preparing to hand his torch of secret power?

Tucker didn’t know. He only knew who had the most to lose if this wasn’t handled carefully. But how could he tell the deputy director of the CIA that he’d burn these files and the evidence they contained before he’d let any harm from them rain down on the woman whose name the bloody Navigator had known would be the key to forcing his cooperation?

“Just give me a little more time, Jack. I’ll do you up a full report.”

“How much time are we talking?”

“Twenty-four hours.”

“Done,” Geist said abruptly. He got to his feet.

Tucker watched him head for the door. He knew he should leave well enough alone, but he couldn’t. “One more thing,” he said. “Why was Mariah Bolt assigned to cover the Zakharov visit?”

Geist paused at the door, frowning. “That’s pretty much ‘need to know,’ buddy. She doesn’t work for you anymore.”

“I know that.”

“And so? You got some proprietary interest there? That’d be tough, since I hear she’s seeing that hotshot TV anchorman…what’s his name?”

“Paul Chaney.”

“Right, Chaney. So…?”

Tucker shrugged. “I’m just curious why an analyst gets sent out in the field.”

“I had a little job needed doing, and she was the best person for it. Anyway,” the deputy said briskly, pulling open the door, “this is awesome work, Frank, getting your hands on this stuff. Truly awesome. I’ll need that memorandum on my desk soon as possible, though. You’ll get right on it, won’t you, big guy?”

He winked and pointed his finger in a stagy “you-the-man!” gesture, then was gone before Tucker had a chance to respond with the contempt the performance deserved.

Chapter Seven

So, how exactly did one go about luring a man into betraying his country? Mariah wondered. Bat her eyelashes? Show a little leg? Offer to meet him at the Casbah?

Really. This was hardly her area. As femmes fatales went, she felt about as lethal as a librarian.

One thing was certain. Even if the DDO’s sources were right and Yuri Belenko was carrying some sort of torch for her—something she highly doubted, since their previous meetings had been pretty innocuous as far as she was concerned—she would not sleep with the man. Once again, she cursed herself for not having turned Geist down flat.

She hovered at the edge of an upper-level courtyard of the Arlen Hunter Museum, her second visit of the afternoon. By the time she’d arrived earlier, after stopping at Courier Express to arrange for Frank to collect Chap Korman’s package in Virginia, the security detail had already finished their sweep of the site. She’d had just enough time to show her credentials, walk around and get the lay of the land, and run over the program for the Romanov opening, before heading back to the hotel to change into what she was coming to think of as her Tokyo Rose dress.

Now, after all her scrambling, the guests of honor were running late. Typical Murphy’s Law. It was already after six, and the early-evening sun was casting a magical, luminescent glow over the restless crowd waiting for Secretary of State Kidd and his Russian counterpart to show up.

It was nearly twenty years since she’d last set foot in California, and she’d forgotten this strange quality of the light, Mariah realized—the way it cast a magical glow on everything it touched, lulling with seductive promises it had no intention of keeping. Like a smiling thief, the place could rip out your heart in an instant and leave you too stunned to do anything but offer up your soul as well.

A warm Pacific breeze wafted over the balcony walls, and potted palms and crimson hibiscus rustled softly. The air was thick with expensive perfume and the ripe, masculine scent of the cigars in which one or two of the guests were indulging while they waited to see the Russian imperial treasures.

The irony was not lost on Mariah that the Last Days of the Romanov Dynasty tour should kick off here in the capital of American glitz and materialism. On display were the lavish worldly possessions of that family whose bloody murder had set in motion decades of deadly struggle between Moscow and the West, bringing the planet several times to the brink of a nuclear catastrophe unimaginable in the Romanovs’ day. But eighty years after their massacre at the hands of the Bolsheviks—shot, stabbed, their bodies acid-drenched, burned, then dumped down a mineshaft in an orgy of overkill—the last czar and his family were finally going to be buried in a St. Petersburg royal crypt with appropriate, if tardy, pomp and circumstance. The niceties taken care of, Russia’s cash-strapped regime could get on with the profitable business of exploiting the luckless royals in a manner that would have seemed hypocritical coming from previous communist governments. America, for its part, seemed willing to let bygones be bygones.

Looking over the list of dignitaries expected at the opening, Mariah’s heart had sunk to discover Renata Hunter Carr’s name near the top, just as she’d feared. Well, no matter. The woman was ancient history, and she herself was a long way from the confused little girl whose daddy had run off with the rich man’s daughter.

Sure she was.

She glanced up, feeling dwarfed by the eight-foot-high letters of Arlen Hunter’s name deeply carved into the pearl-gray marble walls of this monument he’d built to himself on Santa Monica Boulevard. So why did suborning treason feel like a piece of cake compared to the prospect of meeting the late magnate’s home wrecker of a daughter?

Were her masters at Langley even aware of the grudge she bore Renata? she wondered. Did Geist know? Doubtful. It was conceivable that the woman’s name was lodged somewhere in her personnel record, a gossipy detail on her famous, philandering parent, noted in passing, then filed away by whatever spit-polished security specialist had done her recruitment background check—an insignificant detail by now, surely, after eighteen spotless years of service. If Jack Geist had realized how much that bit of personal history still rankled, though, he might have thought twice about sending her out on this ridiculous assignment. Then again, knowing Geist, maybe not.

She patted her hair self-consciously. It felt too fluffy. She’d amped up her cosmetics for the occasion, too, and her skin felt plaster-coated. An extra coat of mascara had her feeling as though she was peering out at the world from under lacy awnings.

Ah, well, she thought wryly, the spy, to be truly effective, must be an expert at camouflage, possessed of that subtle capacity to seem neither out of place nor conspicuous. With the bevy of California beauties gracing the arms of the assembled rich and powerful here, her own overdone look no doubt blended right in.

Several well-known figures dotted the patio. The mayor of Los Angeles had already arrived, as well as both of California’s senators and several politically connected Hollywood types. The guest list also included representatives of foreign governments who maintained consulates in Los Angeles, and business people dutifully networking on behalf of their multinational corporations.

Mariah sighed. And then there were the bureaucrats. A considerable number of them, from the State Department, FBI and Secret Service, plus at least one representative of the CIA—though, for all she knew, Geist could have sent others. All attempting, with greater or lesser success, to blend into the party scene. The Secret Service agents were hopeless at it, conspicuous by their stern expressions, coiled collar wires, and plastic earpieces carrying a subaudible stream of clipped commands and sitreps—situation reports—on the movements of and potential threats to Secretary of State Kidd and Russian Foreign Minister Zakharov. Dressed in almost identical dark suits, they also had a distracting tendency to mutter, Dick Tracy–style, into their shirt cuffs.

A flutter of wings sounded behind her as two doves landed nearby on the half wall lining two sides of the terrace. A third dove settled a little apart from the pair, cooing plaintively, keeping a lonely watch. Gossamer violet feathers shimmered as the bird craned her head this way and that.

“Where’s your fella, pretty girl?” Mariah murmured.

Black pearl eyes cast a baleful glance her way. Mourning doves were monogamous, she recalled, mating for life, slow to accept a new partner at the death of a mate. This one’s mate must have fallen prey to some urban catastrophe, dooming her to follow behind the other pairs in the flock, permitted to observe but never join their comfortable circle.

Mariah felt her own loss thrum like an arrhythmia of the heart, a dull, aching reminder of David’s absence and the permanent empty spaces his death had created inside and around her. The sense of isolation. She felt like someone stuck at the top of a broken Ferris wheel—rocking and waiting, looking at the world from a distance. Half the time, she ached for the wheel to start turning again. The rest of the time, she lived in terror of the next, inevitable downward plunge.

The melancholy cooing of the doves sounded a counter-point to the hum of traffic moving up and down Santa Monica Boulevard. Long shadows drifted like pale purple gauze across the courtyard walls. She glanced once more at her watch. Six-fifteen. Nine-fifteen, back in Virginia. Lindsay would be up for a while yet. Like most teenagers, she prowled late at the best of times, and it would only get worse now that she was on summer vacation. If she got back to the hotel in the next couple of hours, Mariah calculated, she could still call without disturbing anyone at Carol’s house.

Then she had another thought. Frank. Before this afternoon, she hadn’t heard his voice in weeks. Now, the prospect of hearing it again brought a smile to her lips.

She leaned over the balcony’s edge to see if the VIPs were in sight. The solitary dove followed her gaze, peering down at the steady stream of cars still pulling up, disgorging high-powered passengers into the building’s maw. A small crowd had gathered on either side of the entryway. In Los Angeles, apparently, all it took to assemble an audience was to string a barrier, roll out a red carpet and wait for the celebrity-seekers to materialize like ants at a picnic.

Suddenly, the doves scattered on a flutter of wings as a strong hand gripped Mariah’s elbow. In her ear, a low voice murmured, “Don’t jump!”

She swung around to find a pair of crystal-blue eyes grinning down at her. “Paul! What are you doing here?”

Chaney kissed her cheek, as eyes had turned in their direction. Paul tended to have that effect on crowded rooms. So much for blending.

“Thought I’d surprise you,” he said. “You look gorgeous.”

“Thank you. I am surprised, but I’m confused, too. How—?”

“I got an invitation to this shindig weeks ago. I wasn’t going to come until you mentioned yesterday that you were. Decided I’d deliver your keys in person.”

Based in Washington, Paul had friends everywhere he’d ever stood in front of a camera. The only reason Mariah had called to tell him she’d be in L.A. early was that the beach cottage near Chap Korman’s house where she and Lindsay were planning to spend their vacation belonged to some friend of Paul’s. He’d been making arrangements to get the keys to her that week.

His appearance always set off mixed reactions in her, but right now, it was mostly dismay Mariah felt. “You shouldn’t have come all this way,” she said, meaning it.