Page 36 of Close Pursuit

He acknowledged the message and turned off the radio. “You can stop cranking, Katie.”

He leaned back in the chair and pushed his hands through his hair in distress. He couldn’t believe he’d just done that. But he’d had no fucking choice. None at all.

He realized Katie was staring at him in suspiciously. “Start talking,” she demanded.

“Look. This was not my first choice for how to get out of here,” he retorted, anger flaring in his gut. “But someone is trying to kill us, or at least me, and we’ve got a newborn in need of food and care. I had no choice.”

“No choice about what?”

“I called the Russians and asked for an emergency evacuation.”

“As in the Russian government?” she squawked.

He nodded curtly.

“Why?” She uttered the syllable in obvious disbelief.

He supposed he couldn’t blame her. For all she knew, he was a vanilla American doctor who ran around doing humanitarian work.

He answered, “The guy following us, the one I took the ATV from, was American. A redneck, rah-rah, go-us American. The kind of man who wouldn’t knowingly work for a foreign outfit, and the kind foreigners wouldn’t hire.”

“And?” she prodded him.

“And that means whoever’s sent him to kill me isn’t Russian. This was the only safe egress route for the three of us that I could come up with on very short notice.”

He fingered the cell phone he’d lifted off the guy lying quiescent in his pocket. He was dying to see who turned up at the other end of the burner phone.

Katie collapsed onto a crate, staring at him in dismay. “How do you know how to contact Russia to ask for an evacuation? And why on earth would they actually come get you? Are you a Russian spy?”

“Do you truly not know who I am?” It was clear she did not, but he was so used to the people around him treating him with automatic suspicion when they met him, he could hardly believe she didn’t recognize him.

“You’re Alex Peters, M.D.”

He sighed. “Legally, that is true. I changed my name last year.”

“From?”

When he didn’t answer right away, she just stared, waiting. She was really good at that. Did she learn it from her brothers?

He sighed again. “My birth name is Alexei Petrovich Koronov.”

It took a moment, but her face lit with recognition followed quickly by dismay. “Peter Koronov? The spy who was convicted of treason?” she blurted.

“My father.”

“Oh my God.”

So much for their flirtation and mutual attraction?—

He jolted as her arms went around him.

“I’m so sorry, Alex.”

He stood up, pushing her away, using his hands on her shoulders to keep her at arm’s length. “What have you got to be sorry for?”

“I read about you. I remember wondering what would happen to the sons when the father was sentenced to death.”

He shrugged. “My old man was never in danger of being executed for treason. He was too valuable as a bargaining chip against the Russians. The CIA got back several high-level spies in trade for my father.”

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