LITMIR.BIZ

      Chapter One

      Renata Hunter Carr was not remotely dead when Mariah Bolt first laid eyes on her. Far from it. That condition was soon to change, of course, and Mariah would be the agent of that change. For those who believe in fate, the wheel was set inexorably in motion three days before Renata’s ill-fated swim.

      Three days and nearly three thousand miles away…

      Jack Geist, deputy director of Operations, acted as if there were nothing unusual about summoning Mariah to his office on the seventh floor of CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

      His secretary turned the handle on the big wooden door leading to the inner sanctum, her other hand raised to Mariah, indicating she should wait. Through the crack between the door and the frame, Mariah saw the deputy at his desk, flipping through a stack of files. When the DDO didn’t look up, the other woman cleared her throat softly.

      “She’s here, sir. Ms. Bolt? Who you asked me to call in?”

      He raised his head slowly, looking distracted and irritated, and gave her a curt nod. She scuttled back out, nodding to Mariah, then pulling the door shut behind her as Mariah entered.

      Geist’s demeanor went through a transformation. He got to his feet and came around his massive desk, hand extended, lips stretching wide in a smile. “Mariah Bolt! I don’t think we’ve ever had the pleasure. Jack Geist.”

      The smile stopped well short of his pallid green eyes, she noticed, taking his hand. He fixed her with a long, piercing look that could have been interpreted in any number of ways, none of which put her at ease.

      His skin had the leathery texture of a pack-a-day man. When he finally released her hand and waved toward the leather sofa and chairs on one side of his wood-lined office, Mariah caught the scent of stale cigarettes only partially masked. She tried to picture the deputy huddled in the center courtyard with the rest of the agency’s nicotine junkies, but the image refused to come. He didn’t look the type to mingle with the masses, for one thing. Also, in her experience, covert Ops people played by their own rules, so she found herself looking around the office for the ashtrays she knew had to be there, despite the building-wide smoking ban—certain he’d have dismantled the office smoke detectors.

      “Thanks for stopping by,” Geist added, following her across the room.

      “No problem.” Not that this was anything but a command performance. Mariah passed up the deep leather sofa for one of the armchairs sitting at right angles to it around a low mahogany table. “My secretary said it was urgent.”

      In fact, Jane had pulled her out of an interdepartmental meeting to breathlessly pass on the DDO’s summons. It wasn’t every day analysts were called to the deep-cover side of the shop, not even specialists like Mariah, who supervised a weapons watchdog group.

      Geist settled his own lank frame at the end of the sofa nearest her. His close-cropped hair was straw-colored, the kind that turns imperceptibly white with age. With his loosened tie and rumpled white cotton shirt, sleeves rolled to the elbow, he looked as though he might have spent the night on that couch, working on some unfolding international crisis. Did men like this have family lives? Mariah wondered.

      Nestled in the corner between them was a low, intricately carved table topped with a hammered-brass platter. It looked like an acquisition from some Arab souk. Like the ruby Persian wool carpet beneath their feet, the water pipe on the credenza and the carved, mother-of-pearl-inlaid wooden boxes scattered around the room, the table was a souvenir, no doubt, of Geist’s travels on behalf of the Company. On a lower shelf of the small table, she spotted another hammered-brass item—a bowl, empty at the moment, but its concave inner surface black with soot. The predicted ashtray. Bingo.

      “The Last Days of the Romanov Dynasty,” Geist said, getting straight to the point. “Ever hear of it?”

      “Yes, of course,” she said, nodding. “Largest and most valuable collection of Russian royal artifacts ever assembled since Czar Nicholas II and his family were assassinated by the Bolsheviks in 1917. Co-curated by the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg and L.A.’s Arlen Hunter Museum. Starts a two-year North American tour this summer.”

      “Tomorrow, matter of fact. At the Arlen Hunter.”

      She resisted the temptation to say “So what?,” already dreading where this conversation was heading. Did he know about her vacation plans? And then, another stomach-sinking thought: Did Geist have any inkling about her connection to the Hunter family? As spectacular as the Romanov exhibit was reputed to be, the Arlen Hunter Museum was the last place on earth she’d voluntarily choose to set foot.

      “We found out this morning that none other than Valery Zakharov is going to do the ribbon-cutting honors,” Geist said. “He arrives in exactly twenty-four hours.”

      “The foreign minister himself? I know the exhibit’s an important revenue-generator for the Russian government, but that seems like overkill, doesn’t it?”

      “My thoughts, too, although Zakharov was due in L.A. later this week, anyway. The conference of Pacific Rim states opens out there on the fifth. There’s going to be a big kick-off reception on board the Queen Mary the night of the fourth.”

      “Nice timing. They’ll be able to see fireworks up and down the coast from there. The State Department should save a bundle on entertainment.”

      “No kidding. Anyway, we’ve spotted several known intelligence figures on the list of names the Russians have submitted for diplomatic visas.”

      “That’s not surprising, is it? Zakharov’s ex-KGB, after all. Well, ‘ex,”’ she amended. “Not precisely. It may be FSB now, but it’s not like they’ve gone out of business. It’s to be expected that Zakharov’s entourage would include some spooks, I would think.”

      “No doubt. That’s why I want somebody there to keep an eye on things.”

      “Isn’t that the FBI’s job?”

      The deputy scowled. “Funny, that’s what our esteemed director said. Between you and me, Mariah, that man’s so pussy-whipped by the oversight committees he doesn’t take a piss without prenotifying Capitol Hill.”

      Mariah said nothing. There was something tacky about a man bad-mouthing his boss to someone he’d never met before and who didn’t even work for him. Given that the director had appointed Geist to his current exalted position, it was also more than a little disloyal. So what was that all about?

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