Chapter 21

Bolton

Michele greeted me with a huge smile at LaGuardia. I had distinctly mixed feelings about her. On one hand, I was flattered that she’d requested me. People rarely relied on me for anything other than financing. On the other hand, I’d be free of the commitment if it hadn’t been for her, and I wanted to stay close to Lilly. I sensed she needed me far more, and her welfare was much closer to my heart.

I was polite but went out of my way not to sit next to her on the flight over. I didn’t want to encourage any sense of familiarity. This was strictly business, nothing more. I suspected she had insisted on me for not only the sense of security, but because she was interested in me as a man. That, too, was flattering—she was beautiful and powerful—but she wasn’t the one I wanted. Lilly was equally beautiful, if not as sophisticated, but that was what endeared her to me. She hadn’t become jaded by her own sense of power as an attractive woman. In fact, I wasn’t entirely sure she was even aware of it. Maybe she just could never afford to be. Lilly had a genuine heart and her soul was filled with good—even if she was confused. Could I blame her? I couldn’t promise her I’d be there, not yet, anyway. There was always the chance I’d take a bullet and then she’d be alone, unfairly so. She hadn’t yet begun to experience life, and it wasn’t fair of me to ask her to jeopardize that. She deserved a full-time husband who could reasonably account for every day of his life with her, and with whom she could have a family. If she ever stopped working so much, she might have a social life, and I could lose her forever. This mission felt like a ticking clock, except there was a stick of dynamite at the end of the countdown.

We traveled to Moscow. I hadn’t been there in some time. With the Cold War long past, espionage and threats had become cyber-based, and there was rarely the need for spoken information gathering. Michele, it appeared, had come with a specific purpose. Her aide informed me there would be no public appearances this trip. She was coming to see one individual on the inside at the Kremlin. I was to escort her but not enter the complex.

We arrived in unmarked, unmatched, low-key vehicles that drove with the traffic so as not to attract individual attention. I rode in the front seat next to the driver while Michele sat in the back seat, immersed in the compact laptop she carried. She was friendly but seemed to understand I was keeping her at arm’s length. I wondered how much she knew about the threats that had brought me there to accompany her.

The driver pulled up to a building where her security detail was supposed to accompany her until she entered the building for the meeting. I opened her door and helped her out. “I want to talk to you later,” she said cryptically. She was met by Russian security and quietly entered the building while the rest of us were directed to a nearby parking area. She went in alone—a move calculated to remove the threat from her visit. This was solely about negotiation.

I chatted quietly with the driver about sports, my eyes glued to the entrance of the building. A little more than an hour later, the Russians emerged, looked left to right, and then Michele came out on the arm of a well-dressed man who shook her hand, holding it a little longer than necessary, and my driver immediately circled around to pick her up.

Michele seemed pleased, and the rest of the trip back to the airport was uneventful. It wasn’t that any type of aggression had been anticipated—in fact the entire assignment was pretty low-key. I wondered how much of my being ordered along was due to necessity versus her personal desire.

We boarded the plane, and we were soon leveled out, bound back toward the US. It had been a long day, and everyone aboard had laid back their seats and were settled beneath blankets to sleep. I reached up to switch off my overhead light when someone sat down next to me. It was Michele.

“You’re avoiding me,” she commented. I didn’t argue.

“I hope your meeting was successful,” I responded in a generic tone.

“Yes, actually, it was. I think one more trip, and you may feel the noose come off your neck.”

I snapped my head to look at her. She knew every detail of what had forced me along.

“This was your doing.” It was a statement, not a question.

She smiled and nodded. “You might say that.”

“Why? Why me?”

She looked straight forward and motioned to the flight attendant, requesting a cup of coffee. “Would you like something?” she deferred to me.

I shook my head, and she was soon stirring a packet of sweetener into her cup, holding both hands around it as if to warm them. “I wouldn’t want to live in Moscow, never mind the politics. It’s such a cold, sterile country.”

I listened and nodded, waiting for her to get to the point she’d come to make.

“You know,” she continued, “We never got a chance to talk last time, but there was something about you that was quite familiar. In fact, it wasn’t until several days later I realized why.”

“Why?” It was a simple question, intended to get her to the point more quickly.

“You have your mother’s coloring, but your father’s height and, I believe, his nose,” she commented.

Frowning, I looked at her directly and put my hand on her arm. “You knew my mother?”

She took a sip and nodded. “You might say that, but only from a distance. She picked up your father at the airport, and I saw her pull up to the terminal and lean out the door as she watched him load his luggage into the back seat and then climb behind the wheel. I was waiting on the concourse for my return flight.”

I waited for her to go on, but obviously she was enjoying the telling.

“You see, I knew your father, if only for one night.” She let the sentence fall into my brain and intended for me to draw my own conclusions. She had slept with him. I knew that’s what she was telling me. “It was some time ago,” she added, knowing that I was putting the pieces together. “Of course, he was much older than me, but he is a determined man who stops at nothing.”

I felt the heat beginning to flood my body. Michele was telling me in her own way that she’d requested me on this detail due to something my father had done. He was the one I had put everything on the line to come and defend. The bastard!

“I never understood why he did what he did. Your mother was a beautiful creature—such grace, even visible from that distance. I never heard from him again, at least not directly.” She took another sip and sighed. “He runs with a bad crowd, Bolt. Your father is walking a very fine line, and if he’s not careful, he will lose his freedom.” Michele hesitated a moment, making sure I had no further questions, and then she stood, handed her cup to the attendant, and went somewhere in the back of the plane, supposedly to sleep.

I sat in the darkness of the cabin and burned. My father had dominated most of my life and destroyed everything he touched. Now he had managed to come between Lilly and me, probably without even realizing it. I’d make sure he never learned about it—it would give him cause to gloat. I had no idea what he’d been up to, but it certainly didn’t matter to me any longer. He was on his own. If they locked him up, I’d hand them the key.

I settled back in my seat and closed my eyes, dreaming of Lilly’s beautiful white body, soft and open-armed, reaching for me. It’s a wonder I slept at all.