Susan Warren - In Sheep's Clothing

Without a glance at her, he joined the throng of other passengers moving toward the forest-green passenger cars. A younger man, dressed mafia-style in a crisp black leather jacket and suit pants, fell in behind the old man. Gracie stiffened. Had he looked her way? Help me, Lord!

Just because God wasn’t listening didn’t mean she couldn’t ask. The irony pricked her eyes with tears. This morning’s events had whittled down her list of trustworthy souls in Russia to a fine point. She’d give all the rubles in her pocket for someone like her cousin, Chet, FBI agent extraordinaire, to yank her out of this nightmare into safety.

Not that she should give any man a chance to introduce himself before decking him. She’d been down that road once. Never was too soon to trust another man within arm’s distance.

Gracie shuffled forward, in keeping with her disguise of tired village maiden. She clutched a worn nylon bag in one hand—her black satchel safely tucked inside—and fisted the folds of her headscarf with the other. As the smell of diesel fuel and dust soured the breathable air and cries of goodbye from well-wishing relatives, grief pooled in Gracie’s chest. Poor Evelyn.

Biting it back, Gracie cast a furtive glance beyond the crowd and caught sight of a militia officer. The soldier, dressed in muddy green fatigues, an AK-47 hung over his shoulder like a fishing basket, leaned lazily against a cement column, paying her no mind.

Hope lit inside her. Freedom beckoned from the open train door.

Stepping up to the conductor, she handed the woman her wadded ticket. The conductor glared at her as she unfolded the slip of paper. Gracie dropped her gaze and acted servile, her heart in her throat. Please, please. The conductor paused only a moment before punching the ticket and moving aside.

The train resonated with age in the smell of hot vinyl and polished wood. The body odor of previous passengers clung to the walls, and grime crusted the edges of a brown linoleum floor. Gracie bumped along the narrow corridor until she found her compartment. She’d purchased a private berth with the intent of slamming the door, locking it from inside and not cracking it open until she reached Vladivostok. The U.S. Consulate, only ten minutes from the train station, meant safety and escape from the nightmare.

Escape from the memories. Surely Evelyn’s killer wouldn’t follow Gracie to America.

Tossing her satchel onto the lower bunk, Gracie untied the headscarf and shook out her shoulder-length damp hair. Blowing out a deep, shuddering breath she willed her pulse to its regular rhythm.

So maybe she’d been too hard on God. He had gotten her this far. Perhaps He hadn’t turned his back, completely, on Gracie Benson, a.k.a. foreign-missionary-flop-turned-fugitive.

Gracie grabbed the handle and began to roll the door shut.

A man’s black shoe jammed into the crack.

“No!” Grace stomped on it with her hiking boot. The assailant grunted and yanked his foot back. She threw all her weight into the door. “Get away!”

An arm snaked through the opening and slammed the door back, nearly ripping off Gracie’s hands. She stumbled back onto the bunk, fumbled for her bag.

How had he found her? “Get out!”

Gracie’s heart lodged in her throat. The man was huge. Dark eyes, knotted brow, muscles and menace in a tweed jacket, he stomped into her compartment.

She screamed and flung her bag at him with all her five-foot-two-inch, one-hundred-and-twenty-pound strength.

He sidestepped and caught it.

God, help me please, now. Gracie scuttled to the farthest end of the berth. “Get out!”

He reached inside his jacket—for a knife? She kicked at him, panic blurring her vision, and pain stabbed her foot as she connected with his shin.

He winced. “Calm down!”

English? The accent still sounded Russian.

She jerked. Sucked in a breath. “Get away from me.” She hated the shakiness in her voice. What had happened to six months’ worth of self-defense classes?

“Are you Grace Benson?”

He knew her name. Every muscle turned to liquid. She pushed against the far wall, vowing that this time it would be different. If he touched her, she’d go down bruised and kicking and clawing his eyes out.

“I’ll take your silence as a ‘yes.’”

Was that a smile on his face? She calculated the distance to the door. Trample over him. Run!

“I’ve been searching all over for you,” he said, with a sigh of exasperation.

I’ll bet you have. Had he taunted Evelyn before he slit her neck, too? Her breath left her.

His blue eyes glinted, as if in victory.

Where was the scream that filled her throat? Why, oh why, in times of terror, did she go into lockdown? She shot a glance into the hall.

Where was the conductor?

Her assailant turned and slammed the door closed, cutting off her escape.

Gracie went cold. Oh God, this is it! Please help me!

She watched the man drag a hand through his hair as if contemplating her demise. Would he slit her throat? Or did he have different plans? Not again.

She erupted like a woman possessed and dove at him. “Get away from me!”

He grabbed her forearms in an iron grip. “Stop it! Please. I’m not going to hurt you, trust me!”

She wrenched away from him. Fell back onto the bench seat. Her breath burned her lungs.

“Perestan!” He shook his head as her roaring pulse filled her ears. “My name’s Vicktor. I’m with the KGB and I’m trying to help you.”

Twenty-four hours earlier

Khabarovsk, Siberia

Nickolai Shubnikov knew how to whittle away his son Vicktor’s pride with the skill of Michelangelo—one agonizing chip at a time.

“Whoa, Alfred! Slow down.” Vicktor Shubnikov wound the leather leash twice around his grip and dug in, hoping to slow his father’s Great Dane/Clydesdale. The animal dragged him like a nuisance as he plowed through the row of street vendors, chasing an errant smell.

Two years ago Vicktor might have labeled vet duty sweet revenge. Today he called it atonement.

Vicktor dodged a babushka hawking a bouquet of lilacs, jumped another pedaling sunflower seeds, and skidded to a halt before the metal canister belonging to a wrinkled woman selling peroshke. The fried sandwiches laced the air with the odor of grease and liver. Alfred shoved his wide Dane snout into the sandwich bag.

“Get your beast out of here!” the woman cried. She whacked at Alfred, who didn’t even flinch. Vicktor, however, felt her land a hearty blow on his shoulder.

“C’mon, you mutt.” Vicktor grabbed Alfred’s fraying collar and yanked him away. He thrust the woman a ten-ruble note. She swiped it from his hand.

“Why do you do that to me?” They half trotted down the sidewalk, Vicktor hunched over at the waist and trying to match Alfred’s gait. The dog’s black jowls flopped and his saggy eyes gave no indication of remorse.

Penance. He cursed the impetuousness that had led to this moment. If only he’d been smarter, faster, wiser, he’d be in Lenin Park on this sunny Sunday, slapping shots against Roman, outscoring the former wing. Or maybe he’d be at Yanna’s volleyball game. The Khabarovsk Amur volleyball team didn’t need help from their fans to bury their opponents—he went for the pure joy of watching Yanna’s power spike.

If only David could see her now.

He checked his watch. Noon. Hopefully Evgeny would be in the office. He hadn’t called ahead, but the vet kept normal business hours, and Sunday had been a working day since Stalin outlawed the religious day of rest some sixty years earlier.

He muscled the Dane toward the dirt path that led to Evgeny’s office. Vicktor had to admire his friend for carving out his dreams into a private practice. He and Vicktor had chewed away long hours in high school, concocting ways to free the laboratory mice from Tatiana Ivanovka’s biology classroom. Between the pranks, however, Evgeny had revealed the love of medicine inherent to true physicians. Why he had gone into animal medicine still baffled Vicktor. Then again, Vicktor had sworn he’d never join the militia, and look where he had ended up.