Mirror Image

CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

After making their way through the strikers, Peggy and George had gone to the rest rooms at the Hermitage and changed into the clothes they carried, the Western-style jeans, button-down shirts, and Nikes favored by Russian youth. They folded their uniforms into their backpacks, then walked hand in hand up the large State Staircase to the first floor of the Large Hermitage, the home of the museum's extensive collection of Western European art.

One of the gems of the collection, Raphael's Conestabile Madonna, painted in 1502, is named for the city in central Italy that had been its home for centuries. The round painting is seven inches tall by seven inches wide, nestled in an ornate gold frame as wide on each side as the art, and shows the Madonna, in a blue robe, sitting in front of rolling hills cradling the infant Jesus in her arms.

Peggy and George had arrived shortly before Volko was due. Peggy acted as though she was looking at art when she was actually keeping an eye on the Raphael. George, who had never even seen a photograph of the operative, was holding her hand lightly as his eyes ranged from painting to painting. Because it wasn't his wife's hand, he felt guilty enjoying Peggy's touch, the warmth of her fingers against his palm, the feathery lightness of her fingertips against the side of his hand. Thinking about how deadly that hand could be made her touch that much more electric.

At exactly 4:29 Peggy's hand tensed though she didn't break her stride. George glanced toward the Raphael. A man about six-two was walking slowly around the side of the room, toward the painting. He was dressed in loose white chinos, brown shoes, and a blue windbreaker that bulged around a spreading waist. As he neared the Raphael, Peggy squeezed George's hand harder. The Russian cut across the room and was headed toward the right side of the painting, not the left.

Peggy gently tugged George around, then led him slowly toward the door. She hugged his arm now with both of hers, letting him support her. All the while her eyes searched the room, moving slowly instead of darting so as not to attract attention. Everyone else in the room was moving or looking at paintings, all except for a short man in starched brown trousers. His round face seemed out of place here, a dark cloud amid the many sunny, adoring expressions- Peggy stopped by Raphael's Holy Family. She pointed from the beardless Joseph to the Virgin as though discussing them.

"There's a man in brown pants who seems to be watching Volko," she whispered.

"I only saw a woman," George said.

"Where?"

"She's standing in the adjoining room," he said, "the one with the Michelangelo. She's reading her guidebook, facing this room."

Peggy pretended to sneeze so that she could turn away from the painting. She saw the woman, her eyes in her book, though she was holding her head very steady and definitely watching Volko with peripheral vision.

"Good catch," Peggy said. "They've got both exits covered. But that doesn't mean they know who we are."

"Maybe that's why they sent Volko," George said. "They're using him as bait. And he was letting you know that."

A minute had passed and, looking at his watch, Volko began walking away from the painting. The round-faced man began to turn away as Volko approached, but the woman only half turned. The way she was standing, she could still look into the room. The round-faced man stopped.

"Why did she keep watching?" Peggy wondered aloud as she and George wandered over to the next painting.

"Maybe our friend Ronash described us to him."

"It's possible," she said. "Let's split up and see what happens."

"That's crazy. Who'll watch our backs—"

"We'll have to watch our own backs," Peggy said. "You go out behind Volko and I'll go past the woman. We'll meet in the ground-floor main entrance. If one of us gets in trouble, the other gets out of here. Agreed?"

"No way," said George.

Peggy opened her own guidebook at random. "Look," she said quietly but firmly, "someone's got to get out and report on what's happened. Describe these people, break them. Don't you see that?"

George thought, That's the difference between a Striker and an agent. One is a team player, the other a lone wolf. In this case, however, the lone wolf had a point.

"All right," he said. "Agreed."

Peggy looked up from the book and pointed to the room with the Michelangelo. George nodded, glanced at his watch, then pecked her on the cheek.

"Good luck," he said, then set off in the direction Volko had headed.

As George approached the round-faced man, he felt a kind of undertow pulling them together. He kept his face averted, searching the crowd for Volko as he entered the Loggia of Raphael, a gallery copied from one of the same name in the Vatican. He didn't see the round-faced man as he walked beside the spectacular murals by Unterberger, nor could he find Volko- "Adnu minutu, pazhahlusta," someone said from behind him. "A moment, please."

George turned, his muscles tensing as the round-faced man approached. He understood "please," and gathered from the raised index finger that the man wanted him to wait. Where the conversation would go from here, though, he had no idea.

He was smiling pleasantly as, suddenly, Volko came rushing from behind the round-faced man. He'd doffed his windbreaker, which was why George had lost sight of him, and had it stretched tightly between his hands. In one quick motion, he wrapped it around the throat of the round-faced man while he was looking at George.

"Damn You, Pogodin! " he yelled, his own face turning crimson from the strength he put into the attack.

Two security guards from down the hall came running toward Volko, radios pressed to their mouths, calling for support.

"Go!" Volko gurgled at George.

The Striker backed toward the entrance to the Western European gallery. He glanced over his shoulder to see if Peggy would come back and saw that both his partner and the woman were gone. When he looked back at Volko, Pogodin had already drawn a small PSM pistol from inside his jacket. Before George could move, Pogodin had reached around his chest and fired backward at his assailant.

He shot just once and the Russian fell to a knee and then onto his back, blood pooling at his side. George turned away quickly and, resisting the urge to go after Peggy and make certain she was safe, he headed toward the magnificent Theater Staircase and made his way downstairs.

As he departed, George was unaware of another pair of eyes that had been watching from behind an archway at the southern end of the gallery, spetsnaz-trained eyes as sharp and carnivorous as those of a hawk