The Troika Dolls - Miranda Darling [127]
Stevie wiggled her feet under the blanket.
‘Ouch! My toe stings. Why on earth . . . ?’
Henning said nothing. Stevie’s dignity didn’t need to suffer as well as her body. He could tell her about the flaming ballet slipper tomorrow.
‘It must be one of the exotic side effects . . .’ She furrowed her brow. ‘Obviously someone is still trying to kill me. It’s rather terrifying, only I think I’m too dazed to feel properly frightened.’
‘To be honest, Stevie, I wasn’t sure how you would take Kozkov’s killing. I thought, when you passed out—’
‘What?’ Stevie was suddenly angry. ‘That I’d lost my mind? And there you were, saying how much you admired me. Guess that’s not quite true, is it, Henning?’
Stevie’s fear made her furious and Henning had no right to—well, anything, really!
‘No, Stevie. I thought you might have lost your nerve. It happens to the hardest men.’ He put a hand lightly on her arm. ‘And in any case, for the record, I rate human qualities like compassion, empathy and bravery over the robotic ones of immutability. If I wanted the unshakable, I would go and talk to a concrete pylon.’
Neither said anything for a long time but Stevie let Henning’s hand remain where it was.
Outside, it was already dark. The lamps illuminated flurries of snowflakes that seemed to grow heavier by the minute. Soon they would be the size of postage stamps, thought Stevie.
By now, she had missed the helicopter. David Rice would be properly livid, and trained assassins were trying to kill her.
She turned to Henning. ‘I am frightened.’
He took her small hand in his. ‘You have a good reason to be. I don’t think there is much doubt you are at the top of someone’s hit list but, now that we know “what” and “how”, the question left is “who”—’
‘I think I have some idea . . .’ Stevie squeezed Henning’s hand, grateful she was no longer alone.
‘Our Russian friends who went after Kozkov,’ he supplied.
Stevie nodded grimly then said to her friend, ‘I think I’d rather like that schnapps.’
Henning smiled. ‘Perhaps that could wait until later,’ he said, teasing. Then, all smiles vanished, he said, ‘Stevie, tell me what happened at the polo match.’ He sat gently at the edge of her bed.
Stevie indicated she wanted to sit up, and Henning helped her, his hands so gentle. She took a deep breath and carefully pulled the strings of her mind back together and finished the story she had begun by the fire downstairs.
‘They were looking for me yesterday on the slopes,’ she confessed. ‘I’m sure I was followed.’ There was a Russian with a rifle—but the mist was so thick he missed me.’
Henning stiffened in alarm and she squeezed his hand without thinking.
‘About the snake poison, Henning. When I was in Azerbaijan, I saw this beach covered in snakes. Hundreds of them. It was horrible. There was a decrepit concrete building nearby—it was built by the Soviets for biological weapons development. They used the facility to experiment with different deadly poisons and they had a collection of all the world’s most venomous snakes.’ Stevie stopped. ‘Could I at least have a glass of water?’ Henning got up without a word and poured her a glass. When he sat back down, his hand sought Stevie’s and held it tight as she continued. ‘When the Soviet Union fell apart, the scientists abandoned the facility. They didn’t know what to do with all the snakes so they just released them into the reeds behind the beach. There’s not even a sign to warn people.’
Henning’s face was grave. His grip on Stevie’s hand tightened a little but he did not interrupt her story.
‘The assassin at the polo—Lazarev—was probably ex-KGB. He may be working for the siloviki now, who knows? They’re hardly going to flinch at a little extracurricular poisoning, not if it means protecting even a shred of political or economic power.’ Stevie swallowed. ‘They’d also have access to all the exotic