Guilt By Silence. Taylor Smith

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      “Not jeans—genes. G-E-N-E-S,” Mariah explained, spelling out the word. “The kind you inherit from your mother and father that determine if you’ll be big or small—have brown eyes or blue. Red hair is uncommon because the gene is recessive. It hides, unless both parents pass it on.”

      “I knew that,” Lindsay said, sniffing. “I was just testing to see whether or not you did.” She turned to Tanya. “I have hockey genes, too.”

      “Hockey genes?”

      Lindsay nodded. “From my dad and not my mom ’cause she comes from California and she hasn’t got any winter-sport genes in her at all. My dad’s teaching me to play hockey.”

      “You don’t say. Well then, Lindsay Bolt-Tardiff, we have something in common, because when I was a little girl, believe it or not, I used to play on a girls’ hockey team at my school in Russia. We had a small league, but we were very good—at least, we thought so. I played goalie.”

      “My dad plays center. I don’t play any position here because they don’t let girls on the teams. It’s not fair! I have to just skate around with my dad and we pass the puck. But I’ve got a killer slap shot,” she added. “I bet I could get it past you!”

      “I am certain you could,” Tanya said, laughing. “I have not played in many years. Now, I just like to watch.”

      “You could come and watch Daddy’s team play on Saturday. Mom? Couldn’t Tanya come with us?”

      “Yes, of course. We’d love to have you join us. David’s team is just a bunch of guys from some of the foreign missions. Your embassy has a house team, too—David and his friends often play against them. But they’re playing a team from a local factory on Saturday morning. It’s not professional caliber or anything, but it’s fun. Why don’t you come and watch with us?”

      “Oh, you are very kind, but I don’t think—”

      “We could pick you up,” Lindsay offered helpfully, checking with her mother. Mariah nodded.

      As she watched Tanya searching for a response, Mariah saw in her eyes that sudden fear—the fear born of dire warnings from KGB officers about what lies in wait for those who consort with capitalist enemies. And as Tanya’s eyes fell, Mariah saw regret, and then a flash of something else. Anger? Defiance?

      “I would love to, really. But I do not think I can make it on Saturday. Thank you for asking.” Tanya looked at Mariah, hesitating, and then she turned and smiled at Lindsay. “I should be going now. I very much enjoyed meeting you, Lindsay,” she said, giving her a kiss on the cheek. “And you, Mrs. Tardiff.”

      Mariah had unobtrusively scribbled something on a piece of paper. When Baranova held out her hand, Mariah pressed the slip in and left it there when she withdrew her own. “I wrote down the name of the arena,” she said quietly. “It’s near the Alte Donau U-Bahn station, in case you find yourself free on Saturday, after all. The game starts at nine. It was good to meet you, Tanya.”

      The Russian woman held her gaze for a moment, and then turned and walked away.

      In the end, Mariah recalled, Tanya had shown up that Saturday, somehow managing to shake the KGB watchers that kept tabs on all Soviet diplomats. And that was the beginning of it.

      The hockey game was the only time, apart from the IAEA office party, that Mariah and Tatyana Baranova had ever met on open ground. But as the list of references on the computer indicated, they had met eight times again over the next fourteen months.

      Then Tanya had disappeared and CHAUCER appeared to be wound up. Not long after that, David and Lindsay’s car was wiped out in front of the American School.

      Mariah highlighted the first reference to CHAUCER on the screen, hoping against hope to find a back door into the file through her personal log. But when she hit the Enter key, the same stern message appeared: “RESTRICTED FILE. ACCESS DENIED.”

      6

      Rollie Burton stood in the shadow of a clump of blue spruce trees, invisible from the footpath, his mismatched blue-green eyes watching her through windows that ran the length of the swimming pool. His right hand nervously fingered the bumps and crevices of the carved ivory knife handle, anticipating the moment when he would put the blade to use.

      A few minutes earlier, he had been sitting outside her house again, debating whether a break-and-enter job fell within the terms of his agreement with the voice on the phone and if so, how he would pull it off. Suddenly, she had surprised him by walking out her front door and heading off alone down the footpath. He couldn’t believe his luck.

      He had slipped out of the car and started after her, being careful to keep to the shadows. He hadn’t had enough time to catch up and take her quietly before she arrived at the recreation center, but he was positioned now for a quick grab when she emerged. He hoped it would be soon. He was freezing.

      He watched through the window as she stood at the edge of the pool, wrapping her toes over the tile lip. She crouched, arms pulled back, chin tucked, eyes riveted on the lane ahead of her. There was a brief pause when she seemed to hesitate. Then her arms snapped forward and her legs launched her through the air. The triangular point of her fingers poked an entry hole in the water through which the rest of her body neatly slipped, hardly rippling the surface. He watched as her legs kicked powerfully and her arms settled into the rhythm of the first lap. And as he did, Burton experienced a flicker of uncertainty. Most dames panicked when you jumped them, freezing like a deer caught in headlights. But she was strong—that much was obvious—and she might turn out to be a fighter.

      He dismissed the worry with a snort. Hell, he’d taken down trained guerrilla fighters twice his own size. Ain’t no dame nowhere ol’ Rollie can’t handle, he thought. And he loved the look in their eyes when they first saw the knife.

      As Mariah dived into the pool, the shock of the cold water cleared her mind of all but the most elemental instincts for a few blissful seconds. But then her thoughts eddied back, rushing to fill the void, as her body acclimatized to the temperature.

      The Mariah Bolt who had stormed out of Frank Tucker’s office that morning was not the same woman who had walked in. For the past ten months, she had been running on automatic pilot, suppressing rage and pain in order to cope with David’s and Lindsay’s needs.

      She had brought them home by military air ambulance, had seen David settled in—first in a neurological unit for further testing and diagnosis, then into a nursing home in McLean, Virginia, when his condition stabilized and the doctors had run out of hope.

      She had also lined up doctors and physical therapists for Lindsay. That was the easy part of dealing with her daughter’s injuries—the hard part was helping Lindsay cope with the emotional trauma of the accident. Conscious and in horrible pain from her crushed leg, Lindsay had watched her beloved father nearly die in the forty agonizingly long minutes that it took rescue personnel to arrive and pry them out of the wreckage. While Lindsay seemed to have coped well with the tragedy, only Mariah knew the ache and fear she held inside, the tears too rarely shed.

      And then there had been the practical matters of day-today living to get under control once they were back in the States—painful visits with lawyers and a judge to have David declared mentally incompetent and their joint assets signed over to her. There were financial arrangements to be made to ensure that he would have the care СКАЧАТЬ