The Property of a Lady - Elizabeth Adler [226]
A key rasped in the lock and the room was suddenly filled with light so bright it burned her eyes. She squeezed them shut as pain zigzagged through her head.
“So?” a harsh voice said in heavily accented English. “You are awake at last, Anna Adair.”
Anna Adair…. She hadn’t used that name in years. She hadn’t wanted her mother’s notoriety to tarnish her own young life any longer. She was eighteen, just starting college, and she had wanted to start her new grown-up life as her own person, not as her scandalous mother’s daughter. Besides, there was always the lurking fear that she might turn out just like her. Missie had told her she was being silly, that she wasn’t a bit like Ava Adair, but the fear had still been there and changing her name seemed to put it all a little farther away. She had chosen the name “Reese” from the first college textbook she had bought. And that’s who she was, Genie Reese. Her own name and nobody’s heiress—not even to their dread diseases of the mind. None of her friends at college ever knew she was Ava Adair’s daughter, and she had remained Anna only to Missie and the Kazahns.
The man with the harsh voice hauled her onto a chair, forcing a glass against her lips. “Drink,” he said coldly.
She peered at him through slitted eyes.
“It’s only water,” he said contemptuously. “Drink it, so we can talk.”
He tilted the glass and cool water ran down her face. With a sudden terrible thirst she began to drink, but after a few sips he removed it, laughing mockingly.
“Sit up,” he commanded. “Let me look at the face of Prince Misha Ivanoff’s granddaughter.” His eyes devoured her in the long silence. Then he laughed suddenly. “A pity you did not inherit your grandmother’s beauty—nor your mother’s. But they tell me you are clever, with a keen mind, so I suppose it is some compensation not to have inherited their insanity.”
His heels rang on the wooden floorboards as he began to pace the small room, and she blinked her eyes, trying to adjust to the light.
“Who are you?” she asked, her voice a hoarse whisper. “Why am I here?”
“Do you not know?” He perched on the edge of a small table opposite her and she could make out his bulk, his bald head, his arrogant posture, the folded arms. And then quite suddenly, as if surfacing from a pool, her vision cleared and she could see the flat face, the small eyes under the lowering brow, the jutting jaw and cruel mouth twisted into a smile.
“Surely you must know who I am?” he said. “Or who I represent?”
She nodded. “Russia.”
His snatch of laughter was mocking. “I am Marshal Boris Solovsky, head of the KGB.”
“Solovsky?” She stared at him, puzzled.
“Ah, the name rings a bell! Yes…. I am uncle to the handsome Valentin, the famous diplomat.” She trembled as he leaned forward and took her by the shoulder, thrusting his face next to hers until she breathed his stale breath, saw the open pores, the scar beside his mouth, and the insane gleam in his eyes. Then he reached out quickly and gripped her right breast, squeezing hard. She screamed but he only twisted harder.
“Good,” he said, satisfied. “Now we can begin.”
Valentin parked the perky black Ford Scorpio in the lot at Yildiz Park and walked through the woods to a vantage point overlooking the Bosphorus. Massed banks of bright spring tulips striped the grass with color and the sun dipped in a glowing orange ball over the water. As he watched he thought about Genie.
The sun soon disappeared leaving a grayish light and he turned and made his way back to the car. It was only a few minutes’ drive to Istinye, but by the time he got there it was almost dark. He parked behind a crane at the far end of the small dock and checked the Luger in the holster under his armpit. Then he took the compact Micro-Uzi submachine gun from his briefcase and examined that. It was lightweight and small; with its butt folded it measured only 250 millimeters and was compact enough to fit into his jacket pocket. And it could fire 1, 250 rounds of lethal 9mm cartridges a minute. Pocket death. After leaving the car