Russian Connection Read online

  Earlier at the hotel when Nikki saw him in his disguise, she burst out laughing. No wonder. His long wig, bushy beard and thick mustache weren’t flattering. But it did what it was supposed to do. It changed his look so completely his mother wouldn’t recognize him. He slid onto a center bar stool and ordered a Beck’s beer, then leaned back and rested his elbows on the bar, trying to look relaxed. Inside, his nerves twitched. He glanced at his watch. Come on, Nikki, it’s time, dammit.

  While keeping an eye on the door, he pretended an interest in the bartender who strode from behind the counter to the center of the stage. The burly man had donned a coat with tails and, while impersonating the Lord Mayor of Munich, he tapped the first keg of beer with great ceremony with a white wooden mallet and declared, “Ozapft is!” Dayd knew the Bavarian words meant “tapped it is” and that the act of hammering the spout into the keg signaled that the sixteen-day festival had begun.

  A helper wheeled the keg off the stage and the band began to play. In a flurry, waitresses and waiters delivered trays of frothy steins of beer and baskets of giant, hot pretzels. Dancers twirled in a breathless pace as the accordion and tuba-led band played the “Beer Barrel Polka.” From the sidelines, less energetic types clapped in time to the music. An old man did a jig while slap-hitting his body, playing it like an instrument. Nikki, where the devil are you?

  Aromas of sauerbraten, wienerschnitzel and knackwurst spiked the air. Dayd ignored a pang or hunger and rubbed the tight muscles in his neck. Dammit, this whole set up was chancy as hell. Nikki, why did I let you talk me into this? Her determination to meet with the kidnapper was admirable, and he’d do the same thing if Boris were being held. But Nikki wasn’t a trained agent, and meeting with one of Godunov’s men was more risky than jumping in front of a runaway metro.

  He’d done his homework to cut the risk. Earlier, he’d checked the interior of the building, noting the location of the restrooms and all window and door exits. Then, he and Nazar walked the grounds, memorizing the hilly terrain and re-checking exits. To onlookers they probably looked like father and son who’d slipped away from the festivities to have a private talk.

  Now Nazar covered the back door and Boris covered the entrance. Dayd had expected an argument from Nikki when he’d insisted upon wiring her. Instead she quickly agreed and said she’d almost let the police do it. He hadn’t seen any police, but he knew they lurked out there somewhere. They’d been on his tail all day.

  The hell with them. Where is Nikki?

  Then, there she was! His heart thudded. Her erect posture and confident stride as she strode through the doorway didn’t fool him. He wanted to go to her and stay at her side, but he had to keep his distance to give Godunov’s man a chance to make contact. He wished now that the wire was two-way. Without a means to feed her new tactics as the situation changed, he couldn’t control her reaction to unexpected events.

  Damn. So much could go wrong. Concentrate on the goal, not the woman. Who was he kidding? Keeping her alive had become his goal.

  ****

  To conceal the tremor in her fingers, Nikki tapped the table in time with the band’s fast-paced “Pennsylvania Polka.” She searched the crowd looking for some clue to the person she’d come to meet.

  “Dance, Miss?” asked a silver-haired man. “And don’t you dare refuse me.”

  She tensed. His accent wasn’t Russian, and his sparkling eyes and Jack-O-Lantern smile held no threat, but the words don’t you dare refuse me told her he was her contact.

  Trembling, she held out her arms, and he swung her out and began to twirl her around the floor. What if he danced her right out the door?

  “Name’s George White,” he said, grinning.

  She just nodded, not bothering to give her name. After all, he knew who she was. Why else would he insist that she dance with him?

  His steps quickened. She gasped for breath. Dancing the polka in high school gym class and her two-month dating-disaster with Pete-the-polka-fanatic had barely prepared her to keep up with this man’s wide, energetic steps.

  Dayd sat at the bar with his hands wrapped around a stein of beer. Their gazes locked for an instant. His eyes glinted a warning. What was he trying to tell her?

  His mouth remained a grim line. It seemed the two of them were the only people in the room not having a good time. For Dayd’s ears alone, she dropped her head a couple of inches, and breathlessly said into the tiny microphone in her locket, “Smile, or your face’ll freeze like that.”

  “I am smiling,” her dance partner said, in his booming voice. “Who wouldn’t, with you in his arms?”

  With all the music and swishing of dancing feet, she hadn’t expected George to hear her. Dayd’s deepened frown and narrowed eyes verified he’d heard her, too. Yippee. That meant the microphone worked.

  “You did the smart thing coming here tonight,” George said. “It’s a—”

  “I have your disks,” Nikki snapped. “Where’s Glenda?”

  “Disks?” He frowned. “Glenda? Don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure.”

  Nikki’s heart pounded. “Please, don’t toy with me.”

  George smiled. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

  The music stopped, and a man at the microphone announced that the food would be served now, followed by entertainment. Food servers passed by, trailing aromas of freshly baked pumpernickel bread. How could she eat with knots in her stomach?

  George firmly escorted her to a table decorated with huge baskets of fresh vegetables. After requesting her name, he introduced her to everyone in his group and asked her to join them. Oh, my God! He hadn’t known her name. He wasn’t her contact. Not knowing what else to do, she sat down.

  Across the room, Dayd looked livid.

  So he was unhappy. That made two of them. It had been a foolish mistake to let the jolly man’s innocent words unnerve her. To calm down, she inspected one of the heart-shaped gingerbread cookies that marked each place setting.

  George kept up a line of chatter, telling her about his trip to the Munich Oktoberfest years earlier. He explained that the first Oktoberfest, held on October l7, l810, was in honor of the marriage of Crown Prince Ludwig of Bavaria to Princess Therese von (Sachsen) Saxe-Hildburghausen.

  Nikki nodded, thinking that old Ludwig probably never imagined that his nuptial celebration would turn out to be an excuse for beer bashes around the world and a backdrop for a Russian Mafia intrigue. Half-listening to George’s chatter, she continued to scan the room.

  Her breath caught. Glenda appeared in the entryway for an instant, then vanished.

  ****

  Alarm whooshed through Dayd as Nikki shot to her feet, knocking over her chair. “It’s Glenda.” Her cry blasted through the receiver loud and clear. Adrenaline flooded his veins. He leapt to his feet. When she raced toward the doorway, he followed—until someone stuck out a foot and he went down. Hard.

  Two enormous men helped him up. But they weren’t helping. God, they were holding him back, needlessly brushing him off, delaying him. He thrashed against them. “Let me go, dammit.”

  ****

  Nikki felt her feet leave the floor as muscular arms grabbed her around the waist. Her scream died in her throat as an acrid cloth covered her nose and mouth. She flailed about, beating at the arms, fighting the cloth. Her backward kick connected. The man swore in Russian, but didn’t release her. Everything was going black. She went limp, pretending to be unconscious so he’d take the cloth away. It worked, and she gulped air.

  He dragged her outside into the cold mountain air and dumped her into the trunk of a waiting car.

  No, please don’t close the lid. It slammed down, leaving her in darkness.

  ****

  Dayd thrashed against the enormous men holding him. “Let go, dammit.”

  They tightened their hold. “Bastards,” he said as he kneed one in the groin, judo chopped the other in his windpipe, and broke free.

  ****

  Nikki wanted to scre
am and pound on the lid, but letting her captor know she was conscious might work against her. “Dayd,” she whispered into the microphone, “I’m in the trunk of a car…a Buick, I think.”

  ****

  Dayd raced out into the night. Searchlights and light poles illuminated the parking area. An Oldsmobile pulled out of a parking space, followed by a Buick. Both were dark in color. Dayd hoped Nikki knew her cars.

  He drew his .45 and aimed at the rear tire of the Buick. He fired. It was a hit. Another shot, probably from Boris’s gun, took out a front tire. The car swerved crazily, spun around and continued on rims. Then blocked by another car, it was forced to a grinding stop.

  From out of nowhere, police rushed Dayd and seized his .45. He lifted his hands high in the air. They frisked him and found the second gun. The Oldsmobile was getting away. He prayed that Nikki was in the disabled car.

  If not…

  Sinclair got out of the car that had blocked the Buick and hurried toward him.

  “It’s me,” Dayd said, as he yanked off his wig and beard and threw them on the ground. “Glenda’s kidnapper grabbed Nikki. I think she’s in the trunk of the Buick.”

  “She’d better be, Radlavich, or your new address’ll be the county jail.”

  “Stop the Olds,” Dayd said. “Glenda Hollinger might be in it.”

  “You’re not running my show,” Sinclair growled. But he gave the order, then hurried to the disabled Buick with Dayd and the other officers following.

  The two occupants had been handcuffed. Dayd reached inside the car and popped the trunk. His heart pounded.

  Let her be there.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  As the trunk lid opened, tears of relief filled Nikki’s eyes. Dayd swept her into his arms, holding her so tightly she could scarcely breathe. She clung to his neck, absorbing his warmth, his protection. Traces of beer, sweat and Dayd’s now familiar woodsy male scent enveloped her.

  “Are you all right?” he asked hoarsely.

  Nikki nodded. She gently touched his bloody lip, his swollen eye. Her heart swelled in gratitude. He hadn’t let anything keep him from reaching her in time. She tightened her hold around his neck. “I saw Glenda. Hurry, we have to find her.”

  Dayd stood Nikki on her feet and grasped her hand. They started toward the restaurant. Sinclair and several other policemen who had closed in behind them now blocked their way. “You two stay put,” Sinclair ordered. “We’ll look for Ms. Hollinger.”

  After giving the order to his men to search the restaurant and grounds, he nodded in the direction of the two men handcuffed nearby. “Which one of those guys grabbed you?”

  Nikki’s nerves tightened. Dammit, she didn’t have time to play twenty questions. “I didn’t see his face, but it had to be Muscles there,” she said, nodding to the big guy. “Slim-Jim,” she said, gesturing toward the thin guy, “was the shadowy stalker who followed me around the Arrowhead Springs Hotel and probably the rat who trapped me inside the cave with that giant boulder.”

  Sinclair turned to Dayd. “Your bullets weren’t the only missiles flying around. Who fired the second shot?”

  “Wasn’t it one of your men?” Dayd wrapped his arm around Nikki’s shoulder and gave her a protective squeeze. She got the message. For some reason, Dayd didn’t want the detective to know about Boris and Nazar.

  “I could lock you up again,” Sinclair said.

  The detective’s two-way radio crackled and a slightly garbled voice reported they’d just found an injured man in a nearby ravine. Hijack victim—Oktoberfest beer wagon.

  Dayd’s gaze met Sinclair’s. “The wagon was here when I went in.”

  “The driver pulled out just before the shooting,” Sinclair said.

  “Minutes before, another man led the horses into a trailer while the driver loaded the wagon onto his flatbed truck.”

  “Glenda!” Dayd and Nikki said in unison as it all came clear. “In the wagon.”

  ****

  Hours later, exhausted, worried and disappointed, Nikki leaned against the balcony railing of Dayd’s hotel suite and stared at the city’s glimmering midnight skyline. Its brightness mocked her. Neither Glenda nor the wagon had been found, and Nikki shuddered as the horror of the botched rescue hit her full force. The Russians didn’t get their disks—and they would take their rage out on Glenda.

  Dayd joined Nikki on the terrace and handed her a shot of Stolichnaya on the rocks. “This will help you relax.” She heard the tiredness in his deep voice.

  “Thanks, but even a double would fall short tonight.” What she needed was to strip off the silly Oktoberfest costume and get into a hot shower. She took a sip of the liquid and felt the burn from her throat down to her stomach. “I was such an idiot. I really thought I could pull off the exchange.”

  “Godunov’s man never intended to make the exchange. You didn’t have a chance.”

  She studied Dayd’s strong face. She was lucky to have him on her side. But would his steadfast loyalty to his men keep her from her goal?

  “How could the kidnappers have slipped Glenda past your men and the police?”

  “Precision planning and timing,” Dayd said. “Sinclair’s men came up empty-handed when they searched the horse trailer and the Oldsmobile. The Olds had to be a decoy. The disappearance of the beer wagon makes me more certain that’s where they stashed Glenda to slip her out of there.” He touched Nikki’s arm reassuringly. “Try to hang in there, Nikki. We have more to go on than before.”

  “But Glenda is in more danger.”

  “Granted, but we have an edge.”

  She tried to read the expression in his dark eyes. “We do?”

  Dayd slipped his arm around her shoulders, warming her with his touch. “Nazar recorded every license number in the parking lot. I called the info in to Sinclair.”

  “Nazar. The little man who took my picture and spied on me and my friends.”

  “You’ll meet him more formally tomorrow. Like Boris, he’s an important part of my team.”

  Nikki shuddered thinking how scary it was to count on men she knew so little about. “Why didn’t I see this Nazar fellow or Boris at Porgie’s Place?”

  “That’s the beauty of those two. If they don’t want to be seen, no one sees them.”

  She couldn’t hold back her harrumph of disgust. “They must’ve had blinders on themselves. The kidnappers hustled Glenda right past them.”

  Dayd sighed heavily. “I can’t explain that.”

  “Unless she got away and is hiding somewhere.” Nikki knew it was a long shot.

  He shook his head sadly. “Not likely. We don’t know how many men Godunov had covering the place. Besides the two who grabbed you and the two who tried to stop me, he had the men who hijacked the beer wagon and probably another man or two guarding Glenda.”

  “Maybe Sinclair can make those men talk.”

  “Don’t count on it. They’ll be more afraid of Godunov than a little jail time.”

  Nikki shivered again. “None of this adds up. The man who grabbed me didn’t even ask for the disks.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that.” Dayd drew her closer and looked down at her. What she saw in his eyes brought new fears. “It’s always been you they were after. They grabbed Glenda by mistake. But something has changed.”

  “What?”

  “I wish I knew. In the beginning Godunov’s man only wanted the disks. He didn’t find them at your place, so he went to Kitty’s.”

  “And he killed her.” Nikki blinked back her tears.

  Dayd lifted her chin. “Don’t give up. Glenda’s alive. You saw her.”

  “She was almost within my reach.”

  “They almost got you.” His voice was husky, choked.

  Nikki thought of the trunk lid slamming down over her, trapping her in the dark closeness. “Thanks for saving me,” she said softly.

  “You can’t tempt fate again.” He traced her jawline with calloused fingers. “When I thought
they were getting away with you—” With a savagery that took her off guard, he pulled her closer. Searing heat shot between them. Nikki stared wide-eyed at Dayd and met his stunned look.

  His mouth closed over hers, hot and demanding, instantly transporting her to a place where she didn’t have to think. She clung to the dizzying euphoria as his lips trailed down to the swell of her breast.

  “I want you,” he said in a ragged voice, “but my life is constant pandemonium, with danger around every corner.” He lifted his head and hovered close, his warm breath mingling with hers. “If we’re going to stop, it has to be now.”

  He was forcing her to think—to make the decision. He went silent and shut down all movement except his steady breathing.

  Earlier, when he’d lifted her from the trunk she’d felt something deeper than relief and gratitude. Dayd had felt it too. She’d seen it mirrored in his face. Wise or not, they loved each other. Right now it didn’t matter that it was impossible for them to be together forever. When the muscular Russian grabbed her and dumped her into the Buick’s trunk it could have been her end. Those terrifying seconds of imprisonment proved that the moment was all anyone really had.

  Dayd waited, their eye contact unbroken. “I need something from you first,” she whispered.

  “I have protection,” he said in a husky voice.

  She let out a nervous laugh. “I knew you would, and if you didn’t, I do.” She hoped her admission didn’t make her sound promiscuous, because the opposite was true. “I need something beyond that.”

  Dayd looked wary. “If I can give it to you, I will.”

  “No more lies between us. None. Ever.”

  His gaze searched her face. “I thought we already covered that the other night.”

  “I want more—an unbreakable vow from your heart.”

  “A vow like that could be extremely dangerous.”

  Nikki’s heart pounded. She knew after what happened to his brother, Dayd had vowed to never give up his control, or be intimidated into blindly telling the truth, especially if he felt it could result in someone getting hurt. “I know I’m asking a lot. But if I’m willing to trust you enough to make love with you, can’t you give me this? I need it, Dayd, as much as I need the air I breathe.”