With the ticket agent still yelling, he'd quickly disappeared into the crowd, having no choice but to pace a departure lounge for an hour and a half, then take the only remaining London flight of the evening. All right, he'd thought after cooling down, Novosty wants to use you; maybe you can use him.
But now he suspected things weren't going to be that simple.
He remembered the two KGB operatives Alex had shot and killed at Knossos. They'd been there to find Eva, which meant they knew she had something. Now he realized that wasn't all they knew.
Across the aisle in first class sat a tall, willowy woman who radiated all the self-confidence of a seasoned European traveler. She was also elegantly beautiful—with dark eyes, auburn hair, and pursed red lips—and she carried a large brown leather purse, Florentine. She could have been a French fashion model, a high-paid American cosmetics executive, a Spanish diplomat's mistress.
The problem was, Vance knew, she was none of those things. The French passport he'd seen her brandish at the Greek behind the glass windows at emigration control was a forgery. She was neither French, nor American, nor Spanish. She was an executive vice president with Techmashimport, the importing cover for T-Directorate. KGB.
Vera Karanova was always a prominent presence at
Western trade shows. But there was no trade show in London now, no new high-tech toys to be dangled before the wondering eyes of Techmashimport, which routinely arranged to try and obtain restricted computers, surveillance gear, weapons-systems blueprints.
So why's Comrade Karanova on this flight? Off to buy a designer dress at a Sloane Street boutique? Catch the latest West End musical?
How about the simplest answer of all: She's going to help them track Alex Novosty to earth. Or grab Eva. Or both. They're about to tighten the noose.
So the nightmare was still on. The KGB must have had the airport under surveillance, and somebody spotted Novosty—or was it Eva?—getting on the British Air flight to London. Now they were closing in.