“Gregori Zimyanin.”
“Good.” He gently clapped the tips of his fingers together. “After barely six weeks you have mastered my name.”
“Six of the worst weeks of any woman’s life. They have worn me to a shadow.”
Despite the cold anger that surged through his body, Zimyanin couldn’t help smiling at his wife’s words.
“A shadow. A shadow that weighs the same as a loaded sec wag, wouldn’t you say, Comrade Sister Anya? Huh?”
“My mother warned me.”
“Ah, yes, your mother. The prize sow of Terechevo! You should have heeded her warnings, my dear wife, should you not?”
Anya Zimyanin owned a polished .32-caliber blaster, thrown together in one of the small industrial units around the back of the Museum of the Peoples’ Struggle. And he’d even taught her how to use it. His own 9 mm Makarov was in its holster, which hung on the back of the door. But he had a slim-bladed skinning knife sheathed at the small of his back.
The woman made an obscene gesture to her husband, using the little finger of her left hand, curving it as an indication of what she thought of his sexual prowess.
He replied in kind, carefully placing the tips of his middle fingers together as well as the tips of his thumbs, creating a large circle.
“Like a tunnel, dear Comrade Sister,” he mocked.
“Better than a peeled shrimp, Comrade Brother Gregori.”
It was stalemate, a Kiev Standoff as they called it in Russia.
He shook his head and turned away, intending to take a showerif there was any warm water in their heaterwhen his wife delivered her parting salvo.
“You’re a failure, husband, a failure and a shit-stinking coward.” He turned to face her, eyes blank and emotionless. Anya took a clumsy, stumbling step away from him, holding up a hand to ward off a blow that hadn’t even been threatened.
“Slut,” he whispered, his voice so quiet it barely disturbed the dusty air of the apartment. “Slattern. Whore. Bitch. There are many things that your tongue can slide to that I can ignore. But not coward . No, not that, dear Anya.”
“I did not Please, husband” Her mouth was working in terror, her face becoming distorted with her own fear. Anya had been pleased enough when the sec officer had appeared in her social circle, less than two months earlier, with a reputation for bravery against undesirable social elements in the far, far east. Despite his slightly odd appearance, he had a definite charisma, an aura of something different in the safe world of Moscow petty officialdom. She had set out to bed him and then wed him.
It had seemed a good idea at the time.
Not now.
A thin-bladed knife glittered in Zimyanin’s long, strong fingers, held point upward.
“Not coward, wife.”
“I beseech you, husband.”
He nodded. “I have had many menand womenbeg to me.” His eyes were gazing into some far-off time and place. Anya Zimyanin was more terrified than she had ever believed possible, knowing with an utter certainty that he was going to kill her.
“Anything?” she whispered, throat dry.
He paused. “What?”
“Anything.”
“I don’t hear you, Comrade Sister Anya. Say it again.”
“Anything, Comrade Brother Gregori. I’ll do anything if you don’t cut me.”
“I’ve been offered a lot of things, wife. But I’ve never been offered anything. Let’s stand a while and think about that.”
The dusk gathered strength outside their windows. Inside the apartment the husband and wife stood, six feet apart, time crawling past them. Zimyanin was calmer now, completely in control of himself and his surging tide of anger. He was certain now that he wouldn’t butcher the large, ungainly woman in front of him.
Anya felt the tension slipping away and her breathing began to return to normal. But her husband checked it once more when he took a half step toward her and spoke.
“Anything?” She nodded cautiously, fearful that her neck might snap if she moved too vigorously.
“Good. My men will call here if there’s any news of our three visitors, so we have plenty of time. You and I have all the time in the world, my dear Anya. We can make a start now.”