Page 14 of France Face-Off
“Well, I didn’t protect Anatoly from an attack.”
“Even had you been in that reception hall,” Lucie said, “you still might not have protected him from an attack. No worries,” Lucie said. “However, we did perform a background check on Alexa Sokolov. We were able to capture her image when you two were viewing the video footage from the Baie de Anges reception hall.”
Lucie had his attention. “And?”
“Her parents were CIA agents who were exposed and murdered in Moscow two years ago. Alexa was believed to have perished in the fire that burned their home to the ground. Apparently, she didn’t.”
“Does she have any other siblings?” Striker asked.
“No,” Lucie said, “she was an only child.”
“What does she do for a living?” Striker asked.
“She was a translator before her parents’ deaths.”
Striker snorted. “She claims she’s a translator now. That jives with her story, except for one thing. I found her in the garden about to stab Anatoly Petrov. She swears she wasn’t going to kill him. She was just using the knife to send a message to the man to keep his hands off her.”
“She bears watching,” Lucie said. “I’ll have my people go deeper into her background.”
“What about Natalya?”
“Your duties for her ended. She only needed an escort for the reception.”
“If I am no longer a paid escort, how do I maintain my cover?”
“The sessions are heavily monitored, and you won’t be allowed into those. However, they don’t go on all day long. The delegates will adjourn for lunch and for the evening meal. Lunch and dinner will be provided in one of the banquet halls. You’ll eat when the delegates eat.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Striker said.
“Oh, and, Striker, move about with caution and keep your eyes open. Our sources assure me tensions are high and the stakes are higher.”
Chapter 4
Alex took a circuitous route back to her room on the third floor of the hotel, going up first to the seventh floor and back down to the third in case anyone was watching or following her.
Having traveled and worked alone for the past two years, she’d learned various tricks for maintaining her anonymity and guarding her own safety.
Using her various passports, she’d bounced back and forth between the United States and Russia. In the US, she’d taken the time and invested in lessons in Israeli self-defense techniques, and she’d contracted several survivalist former special forces groups who trained civilians in combat skills. She had learned to fire a number of different guns and knives and had strategically placed a variety of weapons in multiple locations in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany and Russia.
Her parents had left her a significant amount of money, making it unnecessary for her to get a job after their deaths. They had invested well and had Swiss bank accounts only she could access in the event of their demise.
All the information she’d needed had been on an encrypted file on the cloud, backed up on a flash drive stored in a safe along with her passports and the money. They’d understood the risks of raising a child where both parents worked with the CIA. Though she’d long been out on her own, working as an interpreter, using their home as her base when she had to travel, her association with them had put her at risk. If their cover was ever blown, she would be in danger.
They’d taken care of their only daughter financially, if not emotionally. Fortunately, they’d insisted she learn a number of different languages. Not only was she fluent in Russian and English, but she also spoke German, French and Italian. They had left her with connections to people who could provide her with passports, as well as computer gurus who were fluent in navigating information databases and hacking into just about any government or mafia computer system. Although the pain of loss had faded over the two years, she still missed her parents and wished she had spent more time with them and paid more attention to the people with whom they’d worked.
When she arrived at the door to her room, she waved the keycard in front of the lock, pushed the door open and looked inside before stepping in. Her father had taught her to always look before she stepped into any situation. She’d only barely understood the importance of that advice upon their deaths. The house where they’d lived in Moscow had been designed with an escape route built into the kitchen pantry.
The night her parents had died, she’d gotten home from her job well before her mother and father. She’d been in the kitchen making a pot of tea when she’d heard the front door crash open.
Alex had hurried to the living room to see what was wrong.
Her father slammed the door shut and pushed a table in front of it.
“What’s wrong?” she’d asked.
Her father reached into the desk beside the door and pulled out his pistol, dropped the magazine from the handle, checked it and pushed it back into the weapon.
Standing in the living room, her mother turned to face Alex. “Ally,” she said, “go to the pantry.” When Alex had hesitated, her mother spoke more urgently.
