Net Force--Kill Chain by Jerome Preisler (e book reader txt) 📕

worry. I can take care of myself. Maybe better than you think.”

He looked at her a moment, nodded.

“Tomorrow,” he said as she got out.

Duncan watched her cross the pavement and walk up the steps to her outer door. He waited until she went through to her vestibule, waited a little longer. Then he saw headlights a block or so behind him and decided not to push his luck. Any second now, the driver would start honking for him to move or lop off his side-view mirror trying to squeeze past.

He shifted into drive and pulled away, thoughtful look on his face. She could tell him everything was OK, but he knew her better than that.

Whatever was up with the tattooed guy, he didn’t like it.

Not one bit.

The MINI crept up from the corner, its low beams sliding over the blacktop as the Transit pulled away up ahead. Kai inched past the girl’s building, craned his neck slightly for a look out his open window.

He was just in time to see the second-floor lights come on.

“That must be her apartment,” he said. “Good of her to show us.”

In the passenger seat, Tai watched the van’s taillights as it crossed the intersection up ahead and continued straight down the block.

“Let’s get a move on,” he said. “I don’t want to lose sight of him.”

Kai nodded, toed the gas pedal, and followed.

Natasha hadn’t eaten that night. Somehow it got away from her early on, and then Tattoo Guy happened at the club, scrambling her senses, leaving that awful burnt-rubber taste in her mouth. After that, she had just wanted to make it through the rest of the show.

Once upstairs in her apartment, she told herself she should probably fix a quick snack before bed. Staring into the fridge, she considered cheese and crackers, then dismissed the idea and went to brush her teeth. Back in the kitchen afterward, she contemplated having some cherry yogurt, scratched that idea too, and returned to the bathroom to brush again. Finally, she gave up. She couldn’t get rid of the taste or muster an appetite.

Dead tired, she showered, brushed her teeth a third time, and flopped into the sack.

Twenty minutes later, she was still thinking about the tattooed guy. Actually, her reaction to him. She couldn’t help herself. The last person who’d provoked anything close to that inner storm was Grigor Malkira, and that was during her last few years at Uzhur-95.

Tame foxes. That was what they had called the kids. She was one of only a dozen, and the scientists had always made her feel like she was under a microscope. There were their machines, their scans...and worst of all, their horror-show door tests.

Natasha pulled her blanket up. She wanted to sleep but couldn’t. She wanted to forget Tattoo Guy but couldn’t. She wanted to forget the Uzhur too, or at least believe everything would be all right, the way she kept insisting to Duncan. The way she pretended to everyone—except Professor Michaels at Net Force, because he knew the truth—that everything was always all right with her.

But she couldn’t deceive herself. Not tonight.

She drew the cover up higher, burying her face in it, desperate for some sleep. But tired as she was, she stayed awake until the first rays of sunlight came through her window blinds.

Then she finally gave up, tossed off the blanket, and got out of bed to brush her teeth again.

It was a few minutes past noon on a damp gray Sunday in Moscow. At the old Khodynka Aerodrome northwest of the city center, the headquarters of the Main Directorate was quiet for the weekend. Except for the old woman, Urban was alone in his long, bare subbasement office.

She sat across the desk from him, a lightweight metal cane propped up between her knees, her face lined and scored like the bark of an ancient tree. It was always cold at the Aquarium, and she had left her coat on thinking her visit would be brief.

“You look fatigued,” Urban said. “I hope you’ve been getting your rest.”

“It surprises me that you would care.”

“We know each other many years,” he said. “I try to be gracious.”

She waited in silence. Her hands on the handle of the cane, one folded over the other. Their fingers crooked and swollen.

“You asked to see me,” he said at length. “Let’s hear what is so urgent that we’re here on a Sunday.”

“You know what.”

“Humor me anyway.”

The old woman nodded.

“I’ll say her name,” she said. “Natasha Mori.”

Urban gave no reply for a moment. Then he shrugged. “I warned you about getting too attached to your selectively bred charges.”

“Respectfully, I will not apologize for my humanity.”

A smile touched his lips, so thin it was barely noticeable. “You’ve grown very direct, Anna.”

“What have I to lose?” she said. “I turn eighty-seven next month. There is freedom in letting go, tovarich.”

He looked at her. The creaky form of address echoed of the communist past. Some might have thought it quaint, but he saw it as an intentional jab of the tongue.

“You successfully pled the girl’s case when her father was alive. Over my objections. Even then, you put personal feelings over smart politics and our national interest.”

“Viktor Mori was irreplaceable.”

“He was a traitor, and we never should have struck the deal.” Urban nodded vaguely to his left, indicating the Academy of Sciences across the field. “Behind the wall, he was treated like royalty. That was always going to be a problem.”

“I don’t understand.”

“A quick story, then,” he said, and paused. “There was a young officer in the Thirteenth Army. The chief of intelligence invited him for a drive into the Transvolga, his habit with men of promise—their rite of passage. The young officer knew then that he was on the rise. That he’d been chosen for big things. Can you guess how he felt?”

“Honored, I imagine.”

“Yes,” Urban said. “But he was also unsettled. The chief was feared through the ranks. Known as a cruel beast.” He met her gaze, his