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Rapp felt his face flush.
The chaos of the last several hours combined with a gut-wrenching parting with Greta had thrown him for a loop. He’d completely forgotten to ask about the person who was arguably becoming the second-most-important woman in his life.
“Cut yourself some slack,” Hurley said. “You’ve been through the wringer. Irene was in a car crash. She’s banged up and has a concussion, but no bleeding on the brain. The Russian docs are keeping her in the hospital for observation, but the ambassador has already been to see her. She’s in good spirits and should be discharged in a day or two, but she’s sitting this one out.”
“What kind of car crash?”
“The kind that happens when the FSK is trying to send you a message.”
“How’d you hear?”
“I got on the horn with Stansfield to pass along Volkov’s update before I left Vienna. He gave me the news.”
Hurley opened the second bag, removed two liter-sized bottled waters, and gave one to Rapp. “Drink up. Air travel is dehydrating.”
Rapp accepted the bottle, unscrewed the cap, and took a long pull. “Why are we going to Moscow exactly?”
“To stop a war in Europe.”
CHAPTER 58
RAPPhad to hand it to his mentor.
Hurley never thought small.
“A war in Europe. Is that all?”
Hurley shot him a surly look. “I know this thing with Greta is hitting you hard, but you’re not the only one who’s pissed. Ohlmeyer was my close friend for more than twenty years. In this business, that’s saying something.”
Rapp wanted to respond with an equally sharp comment about the maelstrom he’d been forced to weather with Greta. In what was a surprise to no one who knew the Swiss girl, the woman he loved had been less than enthused with his decision to leave her with strangers while in the depths of grief. It hadn’t helped that he was at a loss to explain why he was leaving or how it would eliminate the ongoing threat to her life. Instead, he’d asked her to trust him, given her his cell number, kissed her forehead, and left for the airport. He wanted to hold the crushed look on Greta’s face against Hurley, but he knew that wasn’t fair.
He’d chosen this life, just as he’d chosen to involve her in it.
Decisions had consequences.
“You said something about an update. What did Volkov learn?”
Hurley’s pinched features slowly relaxed as he seemed to recognize Rapp’s olive branch. “I’ve got to give that Russian son of a bitch credit. Once we came to an agreement on the financials, he was absolutely fearless. In the space of a couple of hours, he bumped three different SVR officers, including the Vienna resident.”
“How’d that go?”
Hurley shrugged. “Some of the meetings were better than others, but he got intel from everyone. Taken in sum, his reporting helped us understand at least directionally what Petrov is thinking.”
“Why would his former colleagues talk to Volkov? He’s a traitor and a defector.”
“That’s precisely why. They knew Volkov was a direct conduit to us. Don’t get me wrong, their organization might have a new name, but the SVR officers in Austria are the same KGB operatives I went head-to-head with during the Cold War. But they’re also different. Or at least have chosen to be different. During the attempted coup against Gorbachev, they could have sided with the hard-liners in favor of the status quo. They didn’t. Instead, they chose their country over the Communist Party.”
Rapp thought this assessment might be giving the former KGB officers a bit more credit than was due, but he pushed his cynicism aside in favor of asking the most important question. “What gives with Petrov?”
Hurley fished a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and offered one to Rapp. He took it. Nothing says bury the hatchet like burning a Marlboro Red with the person who’d once wanted to kill you with his bare hands.
“He’s an old man with scores to settle and dwindling time to settle them. Petrov and Stansfield have a beef that extends back to World War Two. Stansfield killed Petrov’s brother.”
“Holy shit.”
“That about sums it up,” Hurley said, exhaling a stream of smoketoward the ceiling. “But setting their personal vendetta aside, the way the Cold War ended had to have been a slap in the face to Petrov. He spent almost fifty years fighting to advance communism. Then the Soviet Union collapses, and the KGB is disbanded in the space of three months.”
“I get why he hates us,” Rapp said as he lit his own cigarette, “but he’s felt that way for half a century. Why’s he settling old scores now?”
