Blowback (11 page)

S
oon” didn't come quickly. Molly had eaten breakfast, showered, changed into her sundress, washed and dried her panties, dried her hair, read the room's magazines on the balcony, watched some Greek game shows that she made up dialogue for, and napped.

By three p.m., he still wasn't back. She'd gone a little brown from sitting out on the balcony. She'd watched neighborhood people go about their everyday business, which sometimes included taking to the streets with a blanket filled with items they wanted to sell. The small road below her was filled with neighbors chatting and laying out their wares on the sidewalk.

She was starving. Breakfast had been yogurt and almonds with a few cute little pastries that she'd stuffed into a linen napkin and brought up to the room with her. She'd gone up to the restaurant as David had suggested, only to feel totally exposed. She had no idea who, if anyone, was looking for her, but she suddenly realized that she was scared every time someone looked at her face. Not a comfortable feeling. So she'd hauled her breakfast up to the room, locked the door, and put a chair under the handle. She had no idea if that ever worked, but they did it in the movies, so there was that.

She paced the room, wishing for David to come back. She felt safer with him. Even though she still wondered about him. He'd been perfect so far. He'd rescued her, loved her, and kept her safe. What else could a girl want? She felt everything with him. Maybe it was the situation, the fact that she had been thinking about him constantly for nearly a year, but she swore she was falling in love with him. She remembered what she'd said to her friend when she'd first seen David. “Can I keep him?” But it was clear that he still had a long way to go to feel like he could trust himself again. She wondered if it would be best to keep her distance until he could sort out the demons that seemed to haunt him.

She paced the small room, still wanting him to come back. Up and down in front of the bed. Her worst thought, one she'd been hiding in the back of her mind, was that this danger they were in, it was all her fault. She had dragged him into this, without a thought that he might lose his job, or just that she might fuck up his recovery. As this thought bubbled to the surface, she eyed the door, wondering if she should just leave and throw herself on the mercy of the US authorities. Leave David in peace. God knew he deserved it after all he'd been through in the war.

Up and down. Up and down.

David had been hanging out outside the US embassy in Athens. There was a
lot
of coming and going. He'd identified two other teams who were also staking it out. Russians, of course, and some other team. Probably the Greeks.

He'd done some shopping—a baseball cap for him, and a sunhat and a white lacy shawl for Molly, as well as the toothbrush and toothpaste she'd requested. Hats and jackets—or in this case a shawl—were the best things to be seen in if you thought there might be a chance of someone following you. Easy to whip off and discard, which meant harder to follow.

He was sipping a caffé freddo again and reading a guidebook. Except behind his sunglasses his eyes never left the staff entrance to the embassy. His fellow stake-out teams were watching the people using the public entrance. From his vantage point he could see both, but he guessed they had different priorities. No one who worked there would ever use the public entrance.

He took another sip and pretended to speak to someone on his switched-off phone. As he watched the two entrances, it occurred to him that the hotel room did not have any escape route except the stairs. What began as a slight concern started to worry at him. Maybe they needed an alternative plan. Maybe a bigger hotel in a more built-up area that would allow them to use the proximity of the roofs to make a getaway, like he and Mal had done.

He wondered what Molly was doing. God, just thinking about her made him hard. He visualized her on top of him, fucking him like she had this morning. His eyes closed for a second; he knew he shouldn't think about sex right now but was completely unable to stop. He thought about the warmness that had filled him when she'd simply held his hand too. He was totally screwed. He knew that now. He just had to persuade her that he was worth taking a chance on.

Just when he'd come out the other end of his drinking and PTSD, she was fucking with his heart.
Brain
, he meant
brain
. Nah, he meant heart. And it was him doing the fucking. He sighed and checked his watch. It was late. He should call it a day and pick up food before heading back.

He finished his coffee and left some euros on the table, picked up his shopping and headed back to the hotel. About halfway there, he felt eyes on him. He stopped to look in a shop window and used the reflection to watch the people who passed him. He turned to go into the store, using it as camouflage while he checked out the street behind him. Nothing. He was becoming paranoid.

The feeling that someone was watching him was strong, but he'd already begun to doubt his instincts. He knew he wasn't one hundred percent mentally cleared, and so did his boss, which is why he'd been on this easy protective detail to start with. He had to keep it together for Molly.

He was tempted to try to get out from the back of the store, but figured that might draw more attention than necessary, so he emerged and continued down the street.

The traffic was bumper to bumper, and within three minutes, he felt equal parts relief and adrenaline when he caught sight of his tail in the side mirrors of the stationary cars. He wasn't losing his mind. Just because he was paranoid, didn't mean they weren't out to blow him up.

Jesus, it was a suit. No idea what nationality. Wait a minute. The mirrors gave him a slightly distorted view of the man, but with the brief glimpses he'd got, the guy could easily be Peterson.

He strode past the street that led to their hotel and continued toward the metro station they'd used the previous day. There was a bridge and a tunnel and a grassy park, all of which gave egress. He turned down an alley that led behind a Coffee Island shop and waited for his new friend to join him. He placed his bags carefully next to a Dumpster and stood with his back against the wall, right at the entrance to the passage. The suit walked a step or two across the mouth of the alley, but David gave him no time to react. He grabbed him by his lapels and head-butted him, then half dragged, half carried him into the shadows.

“Why are you following me?” he asked the man, as he struggled to get up. Under normal circumstances, he would have been sure not to allow him to get up, but he didn't feel entirely on the up and up taking out someone without fully knowing who he was.

“Where is she?” the man said, holding his nose together with both hands.

“Why do you want to know?” So it was about Molly. “Are you Peterson? Are you the reason someone tried to blow us up?”

The man grunt-shouted and stamped his foot in pain. Guess he must have broken his nose. “Fuck,” he breathed, shaking his head.

David was fast becoming sure he wasn't a threat. No one prepared to do combat would cry over a hurt nose. He released a breath. “You are Peterson, right?”

“Of course I am. I've been in-country trying to stop this clusterfuck since Molly got here.” David didn't entirely believe him. He remembered the BP on the pen.

“Who are you and what were you trying to do by sending a civilian into a shitstorm like this?”

“Are you out of your fucking mind? I need a hospital. You broke my nose.” He started staggering to the entrance of the alley.

“Not so fast, dude. If you don't tell me what the fuck is going on, I will leave you here for someone else to find.”

“I'm not telling you anything ‘dude.' I don't know who the fuck you are, and whoever you are, I doubt you have a sufficient level of clearance. All I've managed to get from your boss is that you're on probation. So forgive me if that doesn't fill me with confidence.”

So Baston hadn't fired him for not getting out of Greece, but he obviously wasn't throwing all his faith behind him either.

David had no time for shit. The longer they were in this alleyway the more likely they were to draw attention to themselves. He sighed and as he stepped toward him, he looked away to the street. In his peripheral vision, he saw Peterson look in the same direction. David grabbed his left arm and twisted it up around his back, pressing his face into the wall behind the Dumpster.

“Tell me what I need to know to keep her safe. If I find out you lied to me, you will never be safe. Not here, not when you get back to your cushy apartment in DC. You see this?” He shoved his phone against the wall so Peterson could see it. “There are five people in here, one on speed dial, who can make you disappear forever. You get me? Anywhere in the world. Except for North Korea, I guess. So, you know, you might be safe there. Tell me what you know.” He pressed on the back of his head just enough to make him growl in pain.

“Okay, okay. Shit man, don't be a pyscho.” David released pressure on him and easily dodged an unpracticed swing from Peterson's fist. It was almost laughable. This desk dude was having a bad day already, and was probably wondering how to explain how he had broken his nose on a surveillance job.

“Really?” David said, raising an eyebrow.

Peterson's shoulders slumped. “I had to…you know.”

Yup, David did know. Peterson had to at least try to put up a fight. Quite ballsy for a desk jockey.

“Just tell me what the hell is going on and we can walk away, no harm, no foul.” David crossed his arms.

“Maybe for you,” Peterson said, touching his fingers to his swollen nose. “I'm going to get you back for that.”

“The only way you'll even have an opportunity to do that is if you tell me what. The. Fuck. Is. Going. On.” He leveled his gaze at him, trying to impart strongly that his patience was already tissue thin. He took a step toward him, and he raised his hand.

“Okay. Okay. I heard from someone connected to the Russians that there was a big op going down here at the G20. The word was that the US was going to lift the Russian finance minister to get their hands on the Russian banking codes—not for money, but to see which Americans are on their payroll. I'm on the Russia desk, and let me tell you, it's a fucking nightmare keeping diplomatic channels open. No way was I going to stand by and let someone fuck up years of my work with some half-assed mission to get their hands on the Kremlin's banking codes. So I decided to run my own op. Make sure our friendlies in the Russian government were warned.”

“Are you a traitor?” David took a step toward him, trying to quell a need to wrap his fingers around the man's throat and squeeze.

“No. It was an unsanctioned mission, no one—and I mean no one, Defense, State, Select Intelligence committee—no one knew anything about it. It was a rogue op, almost guaranteed to thrust us into a war with Russia.

He held his hand up at David's advance. “No. Look. No one at State was picking up any chatter, so they wouldn't believe me, but I knew
something
was happening, and it wasn't going to on my watch. My only way in to warn him was through Molly and her friend Doubrov. I don't have all the fancy contacts that the DOD has. Besides, if it came directly from my office, I'd get fired. Doubrov just had to trust Molly. And all the evidence pointed to him doing so. That's all I know…”

“And no doubt, when they found out you were the one who warned them, your stock would rise in their eyes, right? Maybe they'd request to deal with you specifically, which would raise your stock at State too, right?”

“Why shouldn't I take some credit for stopping an unsanctioned op? I mean…” He trailed off looking thoughtful. Then he shrugged as if he'd thought
what the hell?
“Okay, I believe that the Russians think that Doubrov passed something to Molly, not the other way around. I saw the raw footage. I mean, I told her not to slip him the note, but she did, and if you didn't know it was Molly passing something to him, it could have looked like it was the other way around.”

David's blood ran cold. “She didn't pass him the note, we still have both of them.” That was the worst news ever. If they thought she'd received some intel from Doubrov, they wouldn't stop until they had their hands on her. “You bastard. All you had to do was call her and tell her to get out. Why didn't you?”

“It was my op. They'd have traced it back to me, and my source—” he looked at his polished shoes.

David put two and two together. “Don't tell me, your source is an unsanctioned girlfriend? Someone you care about?”

“Fuck off. Look, I know it sounds cold, but the op was righteous. If Doubrov hadn't been killed, we would be celebrating a victory right now. If I'd called her afterward and told her to skip town, they would have traced the call in seconds, I would have lost my job, my in at the Russian consulate in DC, and my girlfriend…she'd have lost her job if anyone found out she'd been indiscreet while she was drunk. It wasn't her fault. And she doesn't really know what I do. I just never expected the situation to get so out of hand so quickly.”

David grabbed his lapels just one last time and shook him. “You do not involve civilians for this exact reason. You better hope she stays safe, because I will be coming back for you if she doesn't. Understood?”

“Understood.”

He released him. “Get the fuck out of here.”

D
avid picked up some more supplies before going back to the hotel. He circled the building once, looking to see if there was any unusual activity. But the receptionist, clearly visible through the lobby window was still playing a point-and-shoot game on his PC. It all felt normal.

He took the elevator up to the room and used his passkey. The door light flashed green, but the door wouldn't open. Suddenly panicked, he dropped his bags and shouldered the door open, hearing a loud crack as he did.

Molly stood just inside the balcony with her mouth open. “I think you just killed the chair.” She looked pointedly at the wooden chair that now was in two pieces.

His eyes rested on her in her sundress, braless. He was becoming an expert in her breasts and how they looked in a bra and without. He liked the latter better.

“I'm not sure it's safe to stay another night, anyway,” he said putting his bags down. “But first, we'll eat.” He put paper-wrapped kebabs on the dresser, where he'd had her the previous night. “No, scrap that. First this.” He brought her into his arms and held her for a second, pulling back slightly only to kiss her lips. Her constantly welcoming lips. She opened her mouth to him without hesitation, and she felt like home.
Jesus. Get your mind in the game.

She pulled away. “I've missed you. But I've missed food more. No offense.” She went to the dresser, grabbed a package and sat on the bed, opening it in her lap. He glanced at the briefest flash of the tops of her smooth breasts as she sat, making the top of the sundress gape a bit. He felt like a freaking teenager.

When he turned back to the dresser to grab his food, he caught sight of his smile in the mirror. As much as this couldn't work for them, he was definitely enjoying himself.

“What happened?” she asked.

He took a bite of the kebab, and then wiped his mouth with a thin napkin. “I met your friend. He's in some big trouble, or he will be at least.”

She stopped wolfing her food. “What did he say?”

“Nothing much, he just gave me a little background. He's just a desk clerk. He's on the Russian desk now and got some vague intel that no one else would believe, so he just took matters into his own hands. The fall-out we are experiencing right now is why no one lets low-level clerks work in intelligence. They don't know enough to see the big picture. To imagine what could go wrong and weigh the consequences of action versus nonaction.

“Bottom line is that the Russians think that Doubrov slipped you something, not the other way around. That's why they're after you. His op that was meant to warn Doubrov that this colleague was being targeted ended up getting him killed and started the mother of all international incidents.” He paused to let that sink in. “Basically, it's a bad karma blowback of epic proportions. On him, mainly, but also us now. And the US.”

She was silent, eyes half closed.

She tried to remember the excitement she'd felt when Brandon had asked her to serve her country. How proud she'd been. And now two people were dead, most likely because of her clumsiness. Two people were dead.

“I should just give myself up. I should turn myself in to the Greek police. Explain. God, I have to explain to the parents of the bellboy.” Her chest felt tight, as if there wasn't enough room for her heart to beat in it anymore.

David crouched in front of her. “You can't do that. Brandon's mission wasn't exactly sanctioned, which means you'll have no protection from the US embassy. Which also means that the Russians and the Greeks don't have to play nice with you. Besides which, you didn't kill either Doubrov or the hotel employee, someone else did. We just have to keep you safe until they figure out who did.”

She looked into his eyes and saw his sincerity. Nodding acquiescence, she bit her lip to stop herself from crying. He was being so heroic, but she hated that she'd got him involved.

“I'm not going to leave your side. I promise you that. I'll get you through this. It's not your fault.” He shook her a little in his arms as if to make sure she understood.

She had no idea what she would have done without him. What if he hadn't been in Athens? That was a fluke in itself. What if he hadn't covered her with his body when the shots started? What if the Russian had taken her off to his embassy in nothing but a towel? Her breath hitched, and she couldn't help a sob that racked through her body.

David stood, moved their food, and sat next to her, pulling her close in his arms. She made a weird noise as she tried to stop the tears. She couldn't. Nothing could. All the stress and anxiety and worry came heaving out of her. Every time she tried to stop she couldn't. She knew her nose was running and she was probably making a mess of his shirt, which made her cry more when she remembered that he had nothing to change into.

“Come on, sweetheart. It'll be okay. We just need to wait until they lift the roadblocks and we'll be out of here. Whether we have to drive, fly, or walk out, it's okay. I'm not leaving you, and soon we'll be stateside again and this will all be a memory.”

It was the right thing to say, but it made her cry more. She didn't want her time with him to be just a memory. She hated that she'd got him wrapped up in this, and the fact that the Russians thought that Doubrov had given something to her just filled her with cold dread. She had to keep looking for a way out. She had to keep looking for a way out for David too.

She felt wretched about everything. Except him. David was the only right thing in her life now. He was also the only wrong thing in her life. Everything sucked balls. Sucked giant balls.

Her sobs died down to some rough hiccups, and she blew her nose. She splashed some water on her face, but she still looked like utter shit. “I'm so sorry,” she said when she emerged from the bathroom.

He was looking out of the balcony, but not in a “how about this view” way. “Get your things together.”

She slumped. Nothing was going to get better. She didn't even care anymore that she absolutely one hundred percent knew that he was about to tell her to run again. She took a deep breath and wrapped up their uneaten kebabs, shoved them in the plastic bag the hotel had left in the closet for dirty linen, stole the small bottles of Korres shampoo and soap, and slipped into her sneakers again. She rolled up her skirt, blouse, and bra, and shoved them all in the bag.

Grabbing her purse, she turned back to him and waited. A siren erupted in the silence, and a car squealed to a halt.

“Yup, they're here for us. We gotta go.”

She just shook her head and let him gather his phone and cash. “Come on,” he said, grabbing the shopping bags he'd brought in with him. “Stairs.”