Zivon shook his head. “I do not believe I have. But I look forward to making his acquaintance.”
“He’s a stand-up chap. I think you’ll like him.”
A friend would be nice, but Zivon wouldn’t get his hopes up. He’d yet to make many solid connections with his new colleagues. They were all polite enough, but they no doubt held him in a bit of suspicion. He would, were he in their shoes.
He would change that, though. He’d prove himself trustworthy. Gain their esteem.
Zivon followed his host up the steps, through the door that opened for them, and into a lovely, bright entryway that carried the scent of turpentine and another whiff of lily of the valley.
The servant who had opened the door—an older fellow with a kind-looking face—offered a smile to his employer. “Mrs. Blackwell hasn’t yet come down, sir. But your daughters are in the drawing room already.”
Blackwell grinned. “Lily made it home in good time, then?”
The servant chuckled. “Over an hour ago.”
“Excellent. Thank you, Eaton. Come along, then, Mr. Marin. I’ll make the introductions to my daughters, and they can entertain you for a few minutes while I make myself presentable.”
Zivon handed his hat and overcoat into Eaton’s waiting hands, thanked him, and followed Blackwell into the drawing room. If not for the empty easel and case of paints by the window, it would have looked as he’d expect—pastels, cream-colored walls, furniture and appointments that were all of good quality but showing their age.
“There are my darlings, Ivy Green and Lily White. How were your days?”
Zivon pulled his attention from the room itself and directed it instead toward where Blackwell had leaned down to greet the two young women who occupied the settee by the unlit fireplace. He couldn’t see much of them through their father, but their laughter and quick answers sounded cheerful. Innocent.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d spoken with girls who were cheerful and innocent. A year? Two? Life in Russia had been so tense for so long. . . .
“Allow me to make introductions.” Blackwell stepped back, revealing his daughters. Zivon couldn’t tell at a glance who was the elder, but both were pretty, in that Western European way. One with brown hair, the same shade as her father’s, and the other with red-gold. “Girls, this is Mr. Zivon Marin, formerly a kapitan in the czar’s Imperial Navy. After the Revolution, he was forced to flee and has found a home here in London, where he assists Admiral Hall in his endeavors.”
Were he his brother, he could simply grin and have them as instant friends. But that had never been Zivon’s way. With his back as straight as a train’s rail ought to be, he bowed.
“Marin, this is my elder daughter, Miss Lilian Blackwell. And my younger, Miss Ivy Blackwell.”
They both smiled at him as he straightened. Easy, welcoming smiles.
Or maybe not so easy. His gaze snagged on the crystal-blue eyes of the elder, Lily, and his breath snagged with it. Her eyes . . . they were much like her father’s. They carried within them a knowledge of the storms always rumbling and flashing on the horizon. An understanding of these times, the good and the bad. A . . . a seeing. He didn’t know what else to call it. Not a gathering of the facts, of the patterns that he sought. It was something different. Something he couldn’t name. But something that made him think she understood things he didn’t.
3
PETROGRAD, RUSSIA
Nadya Sokolova kept her back straight and her hands clasped and wished she’d been a little more generous with her hairpins that morning. A blond curl had slipped free and was tickling her cheek, presenting a picture she knew very well didn’t make her look capable, much less intimidating.
To compensate, she clenched her teeth and lifted her chin another notch. She still wore her uniform from the First Russian Women’s Battalion of Death. The battalion had disbanded recently, after most of them took the ill-advised stand against the Bolsheviks—defending the provisional government, true. But she hadn’t been so stupid, and these new superiors knew it. So she still wore the uniform, as it looked fiercer than everyday clothes would. And gained her fewer leering glances.
She kept her back straight, but a finger twitched. How long did it really take to read a telegram?
Comrade Volkov cleared his throat and finally looked up from the paper in his hands. “I trust you read it?”
A brief nod. She didn’t need to defend the action—the telegram had been delivered to her, after all. Two weeks late, but relief greater than she was comfortable admitting had whooshed through her when it was placed in her hands. Evgeni was alive. Injured, but alive.
Volkov took a long drag on his cigarette, staring at the words again. “This is not good news. This brother of his . . . we were told he was just a linguist.”
Nadya curled her fingers into a tight fist behind her back. Of course that was what Evgeni claimed, what his brother claimed, what his whole department had claimed when the party had taken over their building in Moscow. But Nadya knew better. “He was Intelligence, Comrade. And I have reason to believe he knows about our Prussian.”
Volkov studied the paper, as if those very words would appear on it. “How can you be sure?”
She’d already reported this once, to someone in Moscow. But communication wasn’t yet what it needed to be. There was still far too much chaos in the party. Chaos that would only settle with time, time without outside interference. This was why they needed to know what that Prussian knew. Take action, if they could, to keep the war going in Europe. They must, at all costs, keep the White Army from getting aid.
She cleared her throat and reported it again. “The day I was sent to apprehend the Tarasova woman, she was in his house, preparing him a meal. While I was there, I went through his locked drawers, as I’d been instructed, and I found a series of telegrams sent to us—to the Bolsheviks. He had somehow intercepted them.”
Volkov frowned and leaned back in his chair. “Did you take these papers?”
“No. I’d been told to leave his house looking untouched. I simply made note of which ones they were. My superiors in Moscow instructed me to go back for them the next day, but it was too late. Marin had fled, the papers with him. Along with . . .”
The man’s steely brows lifted. “With?”
She moistened her lips. “Something that looked like codes. Keys, perhaps. I did not understand them and had asked whether they might be important too. This was the first hint we had that the elder Marin brother was in fact a cryptographer, not just a linguist.”
She had to admire the string of curses Volkov spat out as he sat forward—colorful and varied, both. “And we let him slip away? We aided him?”
“A calculated risk.” She’d been so certain they could use him to their advantage. Not sway him—she wasn’t that optimistic. The man was clearly a czarist, through and through. But they could use him. Feed him a bit of false information and let him send it to the Whites he was clearly in league with.
Grinding out his cigarette, Volkov blew out a last stream of smoke and stood. “Go to France. Rendezvous with the younger Marin. We will supply you with what funds we can. Find this Prussian again, first and foremost. And then make sure the elder Marin is not a risk. We haven’t the resources to hunt down every enemy who escapes our borders, but we must know how he got our messages. And make sure he doesn’t foil our plans with the Prussian.”