Page 58 of Denied Access
Hurley smiled. “As much as it would bring me great joy to picture you puking your guts off the side of another trawler, we don’t have that kind of time. You’re traveling by air.”
“Thank God.”
“You may want to hold off on the rejoicing. After that bullshit in Barcelona, you’re burned. The airport in Mallorca is tiny, and I can’t risk the Spanish National Police IDing you. You’re not flying commercial.”
As if privy to their conversation, the floatplane’s cabin door swung open. A man wearing a Hawaiian shirt and board shorts stepped onto the float and then hopped to the pier.
After seeing Stan, the pilot gave a friendly wave.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Rapp said.
“Cheer up, kid. Beats swimming.”
CHAPTER 30
LONDON, ENGLAND
THEREreally was no accounting for taste.
As a world traveler, Ilya Lebedev understood the draw of tourist attractions. While it was chic to play down the appeal of Egypt’s Pyramids, China’s Great Wall, or Spain’s Basílica de la Sagrada Família, the truth was that seeing these things in person was often a rewarding if not moving experience. That said, Ilya never imagined he’d be passing a blustery English afternoon sitting next to the Thames while waiting for an Elvis Presley–themed river cruise to disembark.
But there was no accounting for taste.
Especially the tastes of terrorists.
As if hearing his thoughts, the first fat raindrop fell from the leaden sky turning the grime coating the Queen’s Walk into full-fledged mud. Ilya sighed and turned up the collar of his Burberry coat. Cold rain, while an inconvenience, was not anything he hadn’t endured before. As a boy raised in the Russian steppes, he’d thought he’d understood winter.
He hadn’t.
Not until Ilya had spent a month living rough in the Hindu Kushmountains so that he and his Spetsnaz team could use the snowfall as cover to hunt down a particularly wily mujahideen had he truly come to terms with what it meant to be cold. Over the course of those bleak days and frigid nights, every member of his commando team had suffered at least one cold-weather injury. Ilya had lost one-third of a toe to frostbite, but at the end of the hunt the Afghan resistance had one less commander. At the time he’d thought that an even trade.
Eight years later, he was no longer sure.
“Excuse me, sir, where do I buy the tickets for the riverboat cruise?”
The question, posed by an Asian child of about twelve, was asked in English. Accented English. English was one of several languages that Ilya spoke fluently. Actually, more than fluently. After his time in Afghanistan, Ilya had embarked on a career change, leaving the army in search of greener pastures.
He hadn’t wandered far.
As with the American military, there was something of a revolving door between Soviet special operations and the nation’s intelligence organizations. Between his exemplary military record, his service in Afghanistan, and his deployments to several other less publicized combat zones, Ilya had quickly found employment with the KGB’s Directorate V, or Vympel, unit. He’d always had an affinity for languages and already spoke a little English, but by the time he’d left charm school, Ilya could converse like a native and do so with an American accent.
This was important for his current tasking.
“Right over there,” Ilya said, pointing to a glassed-in building on the far side of the walkway. Though the child was just feet away, Ilya spoke loud enough for his voice to carry to her waiting parents. The pair might not speak the language, they were not the only people enjoying what passed for fair weather in the UK. Ilya rolled through the foreign consonants and vowels as if he were responding to a question from his notoriously difficult language instructor. The woman from Ohio. American regional-dialect accents were challenging to master, which was why the preponderance of the charm school’s faculty hailed from the Midwest.
“Thank you.”
The girl flashed a hesitant smile before scampering back to her parents. Ilya didn’t return the gesture. This was not because he had anything against Asian people in general or little girls in particular. Like his Midwestern accent, Ilya had an appearance to maintain. A carefully curated appearance in which smiling at a child might seem out of character. Besides, a double-decker tourist boat was nudging up to the dock.
The show was about to begin.
CHAPTER 31
THEREwas nothing out of the ordinary about this particular boat.
As with the majority of tourist vessels, the craft featured an open-air top with plenty of seating and a glassed-in cabin area where passengers could eat a three-course meal, drink overpriced cocktails, and presumably enjoy the King of Rock and Roll’s greatest hits. The boat’s blue and white livery made it easy to track against the Thames’s muddy-brown water, and judging by the laughter echoing from its deck, the concertgoers seemed to have had a great time.
Ilya did not care about the boat, its amenities, or even Elvis.
