Page 75 of Ford
He nodded and shoved the wet visas into the passport documents.
A knock came behind her and she turned.
Her imagination might have had a little field day because the passport official was a young guy, early twenties, fresh-faced, and eager.
Huh. “Privyet,” she said, calling up her memorization. She smiled at him.
He started to smile but then turned to Ford. “Passports.”
Ford handed them over. The man paged through to Ford’s front page, compared the picture, and ran the bar code through a scanner. Jacob Miller, if she remembered correctly. He turned then to Ford’s visa, and the paper sagged in the passport as he opened it, clearly soggy.
“Shto eta?”
“Sorry—” Ford started, but Scarlett touched his arm.
“Vybachte.” She wrinkled her nose. “Coffee.” She then pointed to the pile of sodden brown napkins.
The young man considered her, then reached for her passport.
Scarlett Hathaway, from San Diego. She smiled again, aYep, that’s me. Tourist.
He opened to her visa. It tore in half.
She winced, her expression a little overexaggerated, but it could still work.
The man closed it. Handed it back to her. Glanced at Ford as if sizing him up, then nodded once and moved past them.
Ford blew out a breath and closed the door. Sagged against it.
Smiled. “Thank you.”
“Huh?”
He pulled her against himself, his heart beating hard. “Just. Thank you.” Then he pushed her away. “I’m going to get more coffee. And then, partner, we’re going to learn Russian.”
7
This just might be the longest seven days of his life.
York lay in the cramped bottom bunk of the train compartment, watching central Russia slide by as morning broke in the east. They were passing a river banked on either side by thick pine, elm, and maple, and the dawn skimmed off it in glorious reds and golds.
He’d never been this far east. North to St. Petersburg, yes. And west to Finland, for a conference Tasha dragged him to, but east had always meant Siberia, and no one willingly went to Siberia.
But they weren’t going to Siberia—but beyond it, to Far East Russia, where apparently David Curtiss had a friend who would get RJ and Kat on a ship and point them even farther east, to Alaska.
The whole thing sounded old-school. But he knew the CIA would be looking for them on a plane. The CIA and the FSB and who knew who else.
Damien Gustov.
In the bunk above him, he heard typing—Kat, awake and working on her computer. She’d barely spoken to either York or RJ since being kidnapped, as she deemed it, although no one handcuffed her to get on the train at the station.
Okay, maybe a little because the general had sent a couple of his men with them—thankfully not the ones York had tussled with, or there might have been a do-over.
His ribs still hurt, his lungs chafed from the dunking in the pool.
Never mind that it had been for naught because RJ hadn’t obeyedanythinghe’d said. Had instead gotten herself pulled into the pool and used as leverage against him.
This is why he worked alone.