Page 17 of The Atlas Maneuver

“More than you can possibly imagine.”

CHAPTER 11

KYRA STUDIED THE WOMAN SHE’D FOUND INSIDEYEREVAN’S DACHA. Slender, sophisticated, reserved. And the eyes. Brown dots. Cautious and measuring. But Kyra had not survived in her line of work by being reckless, stupid, or naïve. The house was supposed to be empty. And this woman, naked beneath a silk robe, with the calculated demeanor of a mortician, raised a multitude of alarms. An unexpected new player in the game.

But who was she?

“What is your name?” she asked.

“Roza.”

“Do you have a last name?”

“It’s unimportant.”

Okay. She wanted to remain a bit anonymous. Kyra gestured with the cylinder she’d taken from Yerevan. “What do you know about this?”

“You don’t have a name?” Roza asked.

“It truly is unimportant.”

Roza shrugged with a coyness she found irritating and pointed at the cylinder. “He liked to show it off, especially in bed. He said it was the key to bitcoin worth billions of euros.”

“And what do you know of this bitcoin?” she asked.

They stood inside the dacha’s great room, its ceiling held aloft by pillars wrapped in brass bands set into sparkling stone, like bracelets around a pale arm. Beyond the wall of glass, past the terrace and a row of low hedges, darkness was rapidly enveloping the lake.

“He called it his digital children,” Roza said. “Odd, considering he has real children whom he never spoke of.”

Not really. It seemed perfectly in character.

Roza stepped across the room, closer to the bar that dominated one side, the mirrored wall behind it fronted by glass shelves displaying a variety of expensive amber-colored liquors. Kyra noticed that she walked with a slight limp, a pain in one leg.

“Are you hurt?” she asked.

“The bastard kicked me before he left on the boat. He said I wasn’t… enthusiastic enough.”

“The hazards of your line of work?”

Roza studied her with a casual intensity. “There are risks associated with what I do.” The woman paused. “But there are also rewards.”

“Designer clothes? Shoes? Jewelry? Staying in a house like this?”

“All those. And more.”

“So you’re a whore?”

“Is it necessary to insult me?”

“I meant no harm. But that is what you seem to be.”

“And what are you?”

“I like to think of myself as a problem solver.”

“Did you kill him?”

No need to lie. “I did.”

---