Page 20 of Ford
She reached out for the back of a chair.
He picked up the bread and brought it over to a cutting board. Retrieved the bread knife from the door and began to slick off large rectangle chunks. “The FSB is still combing the city for you even now. Your picture is everywhere. What were you thinking?”
She stared at him in silence so long he turned to look at her. He had the bluest of eyes, hard and piercing.
Lethal.
She should have hung onto the book. But hello, it wasn’t so different than standing up to any one of her brothers. “What do you mean,what was I thinking? I was supposed to meet someone. He told me to meet him at the restaurant, gave me the time and place, and I was there. Waiting. And then General Stanislov shows up and everything gets crazy.”
“You were on the wrong side of the street.”
She frowned at him. “What?”
He brought the bread over to the table on the board. Then he filled a kettle with water from a filter on the counter and set it on to boil.
“I saw you—you need a better disguise.” He picked up the cheese and pulled out a chair, then unwrapped the cheese from the plastic. “You have CIA written all over you—”
“I’m not—”
“Give it up, sweetie. I know exactly who you are. I was your contact, not just some random ex-pat telling you to run.” He pulled a knife from a sheath on his belt and began to slice the cheese.
“You’re the Bird?”
He gave a chuckle, nothing of humor in it. “Roy likes to call me the Bird. Sort of a joke, but yeah. My name is York. And I know I should have asked sooner, but what with fleeing the FSB, it didn’t seem as important, but I’m assuming…you’re RJ?”
“How do you know my name?”
“You emailed me three times.”
Oh… “Roy said you could stop the assassination.”
He handed her a piece of cheese. “I’m not in that business anymore.”
“Then why did you answer my email?”
He frowned. “I didn’t. You just kept emailing me, so I thought…I’ll find out what all the fuss is about.” The teakettle whistled so he got up and retrieved it from the stove.
She grabbed the tea box, opened the cupboard, and took down two cups, saucers. He seemed to watch her movements as she opened the box and dropped a bag into each cup.
He filled them with water.
“You weren’t the one who emailed me back?”
“Nope. But I had this gut feeling that I should be there, so…yeah. I was standing across the street from where you said you’d be—”
“You told me to be there!”
“Again—”
“Fine. Someone set me up.”
“No kidding, Sherlock.”
She walked to the window. The mangy dog found a banana peel, was wolfing it down. “Someone slipped a gun into my bag.”
“Which is why you took off running. Which, in the light of things, were pretty good reflexes there, Usain.”
Usain. Oh. UsainBolt,fastest man on earth.