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I looked around, still blinking the water out of my eyes. Jesus, it was dark. I couldn’t see her. I couldn’t even make out the edge of the lake, just a little of the water around me.
The drone of the plane’s engines was still drowning out everything and I treaded water impatiently, waiting for the noise to fade. Come on, come on… I was getting madder and madder, the image of Cal’s pale face seared into my mind. This was all my fault: I was the one they’d all trusted to keep her secure. If Cal died, that was on me.
The plane’s engines finally faded and I listened. Nothing.
I closed my eyes and really listened, holding my breath. There...a tiny noise, almost just a rhythmic break in the silence. The sound of her swimming.
I zeroed in on it, turned to face that way and started swimming. I wasn’t like her: she seemed to slip through the water with barely a sound, a goddamn mermaid. I was a paddle steamer, churning up the water with my arms and kicking at it with my boots. But I didn’t have to be quiet. I just had to catch her.
As I swam, I stewed on how she’d gotten away from me. Was it because she was smarter and more devious than anyone I’d hunted before, so smart that she made me feel slow and stupid?
Or was it because I was sweet on her? My face burned in the darkness. Before I’d even met her, I'd been smitten with her. Borderline obsessed with her. And that had made me sloppy.
Well, no more. From now on, it was all business. I was going to catch her and bring her in, even if I had to hogtie her and carry her back to the team with her over my shoulder.
I swam on into the darkness. Every few minutes, I’d stop and tread water, checking I could still hear her ahead of me. It was September, but the water was still cold enough to make me shiver and I was getting tired now. It occurred to me that I had no idea how big this lake was. I started wracking my brains: what lakes were there, in West Virginia? I had no clue. If we’d landed ten miles from shore, we were both dead.
Finally, the noise ahead of me changed, the splashing getting louder. I could hear her wading, and then pushing through undergrowth. She was out.
I flung myself forward in the water, desperate to catch up before I lost her. A minute or so later, I felt the ground under me and staggered up a bank, mud sucking at my boots. Ahead of me, I could just make out thick forest. I hesitated. What am I doing out here? I was alone, with no backup, chasing a woman who’d already injured three of us. No one knew where I was. I didn’t even know where I was. I looked down at myself. My clothes and pack were soaking wet and felt like they were made of lead. I was bone-tired from swimming, it was two in the morning and I was ready to drop.
But I wasn’t coming back without her.
I heard a rustling, up ahead. I scowled...and set off after her.
11
TANYA
I could hear him coming.
I was doing everything I could to move silently. I was stepping lightly, ducking under branches and dodging dry twigs that would snap underfoot. But I couldn’t seem to throw him off: he was like an animal that had my scent. And he didn’t need to be quiet. It sounded like a bulldozer coming through the forest behind me. He was just smashing things out of his way, going through them instead of dodging around them and that made him faster.
He was gaining on me. That made me panic and the more I panicked, the more I made mistakes and the easier I was to track. Chyort!
I glanced up at the moon as it broke through the clouds for a second. It was maybe a little after two in the morning. Tonight, at ten, I had a meeting set up with Konstantin Gulyev, the Russian Mafia boss, to find out how he knew the stockbroker murdered by Maravic. That was my only lead, my only chance of finding out what Maravic was doing, tracking him down and finally getting my revenge. I had to get back to New York, get to one of my safehouses and prepare, and then get to that meeting. But first, I had to lose the guy chasing me.
He was still gaining on me and I was getting tired. Between the swimming and the running, my legs ached, but I kept pushing myself on. Surely he must slow down soon? I was still getting over the fact he’d jumped from the plane to chase after me. What was it with him? I’d never known someone so obsessed.
