Her brow furrowed. “What does Moscow have to do with anything?”
“I don’t know,” Lyon said. “The kid said Vas had been getting help, instructions, from Moscow.”
“Why would Moscow interfere in the Chicago operation?” she asked.
“I don’t know, but a friend of my father is an expat here. He still has his finger on the pulse of things in Russia. I thought he might be able to find something out.”
“Can you trust him?” Kira asked.
He turned his back to the river and leaned against the railing. “I don’t know.”
I don’t know who to trust.
She nodded. “It was a good call. If you can’t trust him, it doesn’t matter. He’ll report back to Russia, and if they’re already working against you, it won’t change anything. But if you can, you might get something that will help you figure out what’s going on.”
“That was my thinking as well,” he said. He didn’t want to admit it, even to himself, but damn, it felt good to talk to her again.
“And the men at home?” she asked.
Lev was the weaker of the men contemplating an overthrow. By now he would have heard about Lyon’s confrontation with Vas and backed down. “The men at home are in hand. For now.”
He wouldn’t be safe until he knew what was going on with Russia, who was pulling the strings, who they were using.
And why.
He looked down at Kira, the morning sun lighting her hair like spun gold. The old country liked to use women in their work, especially beautiful women. It was a tactic the KGB had used: training women to be spies, sending them to private homes and hotel rooms where they would get men naked and vulnerable, get them to talk, kill them.
Kira had been gone a month. In Washington state, yes, but who had she been in contact with while she was there?
He looked down at her. She stood against the railing next to him, her coffee cup in one hand, watching the pedestrians come and go on the bridge, her expression guileless.
Trusting her was still too hazardous. He had to be very careful now.
He pushed off the railing and she straightened in surprise. “Let’s head back,” he said without looking at her. “I need to sleep.”
Confession time was over.
22
By the time they got back to the suite, Lyon had closed himself off again. She saw it in the way he wouldn’t look at her, the way he kept his shoulders set, facing forward, as if he was afraid to turn her way.
He retired to his room without a word, presumably to sleep, and Kira spent an hour pacing the suite’s living room trying to figure out her next move. Finally, she showered and dressed, throwing on white jeans with a black cable-knit turtleneck and sneakers. The last time she’d left Lyon sleeping was seared in her memory and probably his too. She left him a note so he wouldn’t worry.
Not that he would worry, but still.
Needed some fresh air. I have my phone. Back soon.
K
She took the elevator down to the lobby and stepped out onto the street. The air was cold, and she breathed it in greedily, grateful to be out of the suite. It was large for a hotel room, but it was still a hotel room. She couldn’t think inside its confines.
She thought of her father as she walked, of their many hours working in the garden side by side, of their long talks on the benches that dotted its pathways. Sometimes, even in winter, Peter would clear off the furniture on the terrace so she and her father could sit outside, bundled in coats or blankets and staring across the snowy lawn, steaming cups of tea or coffee in their hands.
She had no particular destination in mind, and she meandered her way through the city, her conversation on the bridge with Lyon playing in her mind. The other pedestrians were a comfort with their busy comings and goings, a reminder that whatever personal crisis they might be experiencing, life went on.
She wondered about the man Lyon said he’d met with in Prague. Was he out there, walking the streets like Kira? Was he an ally? Or would he turn on Lyon when it came to Moscow?
And what about Musa? She could only assume Lyon didn’t fear his presence in Prague. Rurik had traveled with them, which was unusual — Alek was the one who typically watched Lyon’s back — but she assumed that was because Alek was needed in Chicago. If Musa had been a threat here, Lyon wouldn’t have taken her to dinner the night before, wouldn’t have walked unprotected with her this morning.