Alice Cooper once said that “the minute you step on stage, you get eight feet taller.” Well, this must be Penni’s stage. Because she was proving to be a veritable Amazon.
A warm glow of admiration filled him and pushed out against the chill of the night. He couldn’t wait to finish this goddamned mission and get her alone for two, maybe three days, and show her just how much he admired her.
Zoelner obviously wasn’t having any similar feelings toward Chelsea. “Damnit!” he hissed at her. “You don’t sneak up on a guy like that! I almost dropped the hammer on your ass!”
“Please,” Chelsea scoffed, straightening her collar and recovering quickly. “This was not made”—with a Vanna White–style flourish of her hand, she indicated her rather curvaceous physique—“to sneak.” As if to prove her point, she pressed her palm against her side and winced like she had a stitch. “But since the gang’s all here, let’s not waste any time.” She took a second more to catch her breath, using the brief lull to quickly catalog Kozlov’s features. Then she said, “It sure is fancy meeting you here, Andrei.”
Huh, Dan thought, frowning. So I guess we’re just gonna throw all our cards on the table.
Kozlov was down on one knee in the street, rubbing his abused throat. But he went completely still at the sound of his name. “You know who I am,” he snarled.
Now, Dan was no expert when it came to male beauty, but he knew enough to lay down pretty steep odds that Kozlov wouldn’t win any awards for looks, even on his best day. Given the Russian’s right eye was already swelling, as were his lips, Dan would go so far as to say that if you looked up the term “fugly” on Urban Dictionary, you’d see a photo of the Russian FSB officer.
“We do know who you are.” Chelsea advanced another step, careful not to obscure Penni’s aim. “We know you are Russian Federal Security Service. We know you checked into your hotel under the alias Peter Sayankin even though your real name is Andrei Kozlov. We know you came to Cusco via Buenos Aires.” That last bit she must’ve discovered while she and Ozzie were chatting over their air gap network. “And we know you’re hoping to meet up with Winterfield in about”—she checked her watch—“forty-five minutes.”
Aha. And now Dan got her game. Make Kozlov think they already knew all the important things in the hopes of conning him into telling them the not-so-important things. Basically, bluff. Smart cookie, that one.
“Who are you?” Kozlov narrowed his one remaining good eye, turning to spit on the ground as if in punctuation.
“Whoa,” Zoelner said, tucking his Beretta into his waistband and crossing his arms. It made the lapels on his leather jacket flare wide. “Looks like you dropped something there, Andrei.”
Chelsea shot Zoelner a look that clearly conveyed, You’re not helping. Zoelner answered with a laconic shrug.
“If you don’t mind,” Chelsea said, “I’m going to refrain from answering that, Andrei.” With a subtle jerk of her chin toward Penni and Dan—both of them continued to keep Kozlov in their sights—she indicated without words that he who has the weapons gets to ask the questions.
Kozlov glanced over at Dan, his eye swelling more and more each second. Dan had a pretty mean right hook too. “Could you point that some place other than my head, cowboy?” the Russian asked. “Like you, I prefer a hair trigger.”
“Oh, sure thing.” Dan nodded, dropping his aim from Kozlov’s head down to his crotch. “Better?”
Kozlov scowled.
“So now that we all know where we stand, and now that your mission is officially in the garbage, how about you help us out, Andrei?” Chelsea asked, her voice ringing with false sweetness. Zoelner had once said she was a lion when it came to hunting for information, fierce and indefatigable. Obviously her ferocity didn’t just apply to scanning reams of Intelligence documents.
A light in the second-story window of the building across the street clicked on, proving the block wasn’t entirely deserted. Kozlov glanced up at the glow, then leveled a look on Chelsea. “You really wish to do this here, golubushka?”
Chelsea tilted her head like she was trying to decide if that was an endearment or an insult.
“The alley.” Zoelner jerked his chin toward the narrow cobblestoned path cutting behind the coffee shop. “There are no windows back there.”
“A dark alleyway?” Chelsea made a face. “Yeah, that seems appropriate.”
“Move,” Dan ordered Kozlov, motioning with the T/C Contender. “And keep your hands where I can see ’em, or you and me are gonna have ourselves a problem not easily fixed with anything other than a bullet.”