I snorted. “I have only met him a few times!”
“But to marry a gentleman of means who is madly in love with you—it’s as much a guarantee of security and safety as the whims of fate give a woman.” She smiled, reaching for her salad fork. “You would remain here in our country, and I would welcome the chance to continue our friendship.”
“So would I, but—” I dropped my roll, rising to pick up a copy of the Chicago Tribune I had carried off the plane. “Look at this: Mrs. Pavlichenko is in raptures over American food, eating five helpings at breakfast every morning. Blatant lies. Where do they even get such things, and why are they obsessed with such nonsense?” I laid the paper down again, cheeks heating, fighting for the right words in English. “In your country I am the object of idle curiosity. A circus act, like a bearded woman. At home I am an officer of the Red Army. I have fought, and I am not a freak because I have fought. There are other women like me.” I thought of what I’d told her about how Soviet women had full independence as human beings, not just as women. “This tour—this is my fight now. But soon I will go home, and I will go on fighting for the freedom and independence of my country. Not join yours, as much as I have grown to appreciate it.”
I realized the other table had heard my outburst. Kostia’s face was still, watching me. I flushed and sat back down, tearing my discarded roll into scraps. When I looked up at Mrs. Roosevelt, I saw a strange wistful smile on her face. I’d said there were no women like me in America—well, there were no women here like her, either. Was that why she had befriended me, why she had so liked the idea that I might stay in this country? Because she too felt like a circus act at times?
“We will forget Mr. Jonson,” she said simply, pushing the breadbasket across the table. “I’ll have his name struck off the list of any future events here, before I return to Washington.”
“Thank you,” I said, feeling rather embarrassed now for my impassioned words. “You aren’t staying through the President’s arrival?”
“Yes, about that . . .”
GOD DAMN THAT Soviet bitch to hell and back, thought the marksman. He’d just received word: President Roosevelt had quietly canceled his Southern California appearances. His tour of the nation’s defense plants had been under a press blackout, but alert Washington operators already knew the President’s special train had headed back toward the capital, and Pocket Square had duly telephoned with the update. Maybe it wasn’t Lyudmila Pavlichenko’s fault that the presidential cripple hadn’t felt up to a press leg at the end of his private tour, but the marksman decided he’d blame her anyway. Lady Death was murdering his usually excellent luck on the job.
Idling through the hotel lobby, avoiding the NKVD minders and their stony eyes, he flipped through the remainder of the itinerary. Some Hollywood party; more speeches; then the trip to Fresno . . . Fresno, for Christ’s sake. The marksman remembered a two-for-one job there a few years back, knocking off a couple of executives who’d been dipping in the company funds. Lousy town full of lousy farm hicks, and now he had to go back, after already trailing that woman from Detroit to Chicago to Los Angeles? That was a hell of a lot of travel considering how little he had to show for it: a lot of nights in anonymous hotels, a backache from so many hours behind the wheel of that tin-can Packard, and no damned shot at Roosevelt. He might as well have cooled his heels in Washington and waited for her to return, not run all over the country trying to manufacture a chance at a target that never showed up. And now fucking Fresno.
It’s your own fault, he told himself, still fuming. Normally he would have stayed in Washington rather than follow the tour: kept well back, gathered any information he needed from third parties. Less contact, less trouble, less danger. But no, he’d decided on a more personal approach with this job. Had he really let curiosity get the better of him, after so many years of distant professionalism?
The Soviet delegation came rolling through the doors, back from the evening’s reception. The marksman eyed Lyudmila Pavlichenko over the edge of his newspaper as she paused at the front desk. The night clerk passed over a sealed envelope; the girl sniper raised her eyebrows as she reached for a paper knife. The marksman sat forward a little, knowing exactly what words greeted her: WATCH YOUR BACK, SOVIET WHORE. He’d never seen her open one of his missives before. He hoped she’d blanch, tremble, look over her shoulder . . .