HEART STRIKE by Tracy Cooper-Posey

Project Kobra Book 3.0

Romantic Espionage Thriller 

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She’s American, he’s Russian.  No one wants them to be together.

As a victim of the Kobra’s bomb, and with unique access to classified information, Fabian Santiago isn’t content with justice being delivered someday. When the Seven Seas unit bogs down in trivia she heads to Ukraine to find the Kobra herself.

When she falls—literally—into the arms of Mischa Sokolov, a charming Russian living in Kiev, their affair is so heated she is distracted from her very personal mission…until she learns that Mischa is not quite what he seems, and that her coming to Ukraine is shaking apart decades old conspiracies…

This romantic thriller is part of the Project Kobra series.

1.0: Hunting The Kobra
2.0: Inside Man
3.0: Heart Strike
…and more to come!

This series is also available as a Special Bundle

{Also see: Romance, Romantic Suspense, Romantic Thriller, Novels}

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Excerpt

EXCERPT FROM HEART STRIKE
COPYRIGHT © TRACY COOPER-POSEY 2020
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Misha was a good conversationalist. Fabian found him interesting to listen to and felt none of the awkwardness strangers generally stirred in her.  He made the obvious questions, the get-to-know-you type of questions, seem interesting and noninvasive.

A wordless warning sat at the front of her mind, telling her to speak the truth as often as she could.  Fabian wasn’t sure where she had learned it from.  Possibly the movies, but more likely her father had passed it on.  The truth was easier to remember than a pack of lies.

Mischa, though, did not start with the obvious “why are you here in Ukraine?” Instead, he sipped his tea and said, “You used a phrase a while ago. Something about tremors and…something else.”

So, her misdirection had not worked at all. Fabian nodded. “Harmonic tremors and flank eruptions.”

“Yes, that was it. Are you a geologist?”

“I am a volcanologist.”

His eyes widened. “Really? I don’t believe I’ve met a volcanologist before. Not one that would confess to it, at least. Are you a very good volcanologist?”

“If I was trying to impress you, I would tell you about graduating summa cum laude and how I had five job offers before I left university. Only, I got into the field because volcanoes fascinate me.”

“I remember when the volcano erupted in Iceland a few years ago and grounded planes all over Europe. They’re supposed to be the most powerful force on earth, when they really get going.”

“They are,” Fabian said. “But I think most people focus on the power of the eruptions, which is bad enough. What they miss is the long-term effects of volcanoes upon humanity. And not just the Pompeiis of the world.”

Mischa’s eyes, which she had decided were blue, were steady as he considered her. “Is Pompeii why you got into the field?”

“My father took me there when I was quite small,” she said. “He is good at influencing people and wrangled a private tour of the city. We got to see things the tourists don’t see. I remember one of the remains—it was a small child, only as big as I was at the time. I remember thinking ‘here are the remains of someone who lived thousands of years ago. Were they just like me? Why did they not run away when the volcano erupted?’” She rolled her eyes. “It was silly, but I still remember that child. I keep wondering about them, even today. Nobody is really sure who the girl was.”

“And so an obsession was born,” Mischa said. “Is that what you mean about the long-term effects?”

“The long term effects I learned later, once I got into the business. I was lucky enough to get a job with the teams working on the two biggest volcanoes in Iceland.”

Mischa nodded. “The ones with unpronounceable names.”

“Eyjafjallajökull and Katla,” Fabian said.

He laughed. “I am officially impressed.”

“Does that mean I am still to impress you unofficially?”

“Oh, you did that a while ago.” His tone warm.

Startled, Fabian slid her gaze toward the windows. She liked him thinking well of her, which was bizarre. She had only just met him.

“So, the long-term effects of volcanoes…?” he prompted her.

Fabian brought herself back to the point. “I’m working on Katla at the moment. In fact, I flew here directly from Iceland. Katla is fascinating. It erupted in the late eighteenth century and the eruption was so powerful, the gases and smoke it emitted shrouded the world for two years. Harvests across Europe were impacted for years and years. In fact, historians believe that the eruption of Katla is the reason why the French Revolution happened. The poor were unable to grow crops for a few years, which made them so desperate, they revolted.”

“The French Revolution changed the face of global politics,” Mischa concluded softly. His tone was admiring. “I don’t think I have heard that theory before.”

“But it does make sense,” she insisted.

“If you are a reasonable and rational person, it does,” he said. “Unfortunately, there are people who think the world is flat and global warming is a conspiracy of the Western world.”

“Do you believe the USA is gaslighting the rest of the world?”

They were using English, but Mischa still let his glance shift to the rest of the train, checking for listeners. “There are people in Ukraine who would willingly believe so, for it gives them a reason to be angry. Unemployment, inflation, corruption—there is a lot to be angry about in Ukraine. Even though it was thirty years ago, people still insist the Chernobyl disaster was a military action by the USA. Best not raise that topic while you are here.”

Fabian felt a little jolt of shock. She wondered why he was speaking of Chernobyl. It had to be coincidence, though. The Chernobyl disaster was unprecedented in Ukraine’s history.  She tilted her head. “You speak as if you are not Ukrainian.”

“That is because I am Russian.” His smile was easy. He did not seem apologetic about it. “You should not hold that against me.  I’m actually a very nice man.”

Fabian laughed.  “Do you live here? Or are you just passing through?”

“I live in Kiev. I have been in Greece, on holiday.”

“By yourself? That’s appalling.”

“Says the lady who is travelling by herself.”

“Yes, you’ve got me there. Although this is a working vacation.”

He just raised his brow, instead of asking the obvious question.

As she had deliberately set herself up for this, Fabian answered easily. “When I was growing up, I had an uncle… He was a step-uncle, really. At least, that was how we all knew him and were told to think of him. Elijah was such a sweet man. He always talked to me as if I was a grown-up. The way I thought grown-ups would be spoken to. None of that crouching and speaking with fake seriousness, the way adults who are not used to children tend to do.”

“I know exactly what you mean,” Mischa said. “A hundred years ago, those were the people who pinched children’s cheeks and thought children would adore them for it.”

“Yes, exactly. My uncle never did that. He did not make fun of me and I never felt like he was laughing at me. We just talked like two people. He was the first person who ever talked to me in that way. He always looked out for me. Then he died. And…” She grimaced. And drank her tea. “Oh wow, way too much information. I’m sorry.”

It really was too much information.  It had gushed from her.

“Your uncle came from here?”

“It took years for me to find that out. No one in my family would talk about Uncle Elijah. It was if he had never been there.  When I asked my father and my uncles about him, they didn’t seem to know much about him.  I didn’t understand it.  He was our uncle—step-uncle. He was at every family function for years. Every Christmas, every Thanksgiving. Yet no one seemed to know a damn thing about him.”

“A mystery. That is why you are here? To find out more about him?”

“To find out more about him as a person,” Fabian amended. “It appalls me that no one in the family knew him well, when he was counted as a member of the family. It has only been in the last few years that I finally got my father to unbend enough to explain that the reason no one talks about him is because he was my uncle Ignatius’ lover. Thirty years ago, gay men didn’t openly flaunt their relationships. So Elijah was introduced as a step uncle. Then Elijah died and my uncle Ignatius moved to South America.”

“Did you talk to Ignatius about Elijah?”

“It took two years’ worth of letters and emails to get Ignatius to admit Elijah had been his lover. Elijah died of AIDS-related issues and my uncle is now HIV-positive, too. They didn’t know much about it back then and didn’t know how to avoid it.”  Fabian shook her head.  “Even Ignatius didn’t know terribly much about Elijah’s history before he moved to America. All he knew was that Elijah had come from Chernobyl, and moved to Kiev for a few years before he migrated to America. Elijah was an orphan, after Chernobyl.”

“So much for not bringing up Chernobyl,” Mischa murmured. He straightened up. “It seems you have resolved the mystery already.”

“About who he is, yes. About who he was as a person, no.” Fabian twisted her hair and threw it back over her shoulder, self-conscious. She was speaking the truth, more or less, yet some of what she said surprised even her. “I feel as though I have to find out more about him, to honor him. Does that make sense?”

“Because you took him for granted when you were a child?”

Fabian nodded. “Yes, I think so. I hadn’t thought of it that way. But yes, that is it. I mean, children are self-centered. Yet I feel that if I had been a nicer person, I would have taken a greater interest in him. I feel guilty because I did not. So now, if I find out something about him, it will make up for my lack.”

“I’m not sure why you think that makes you a bad person. As you say, children are self-centered. That’s part of being a child.”

Fabian shrugged self-consciously. “Anyway, I’ve been in Iceland for three months and winter has set in already, there. I thought, a week away, and Kiev is not that far, so…”

Mischa shook his empty teacup. He glanced at his watch. “The bar where I bought the tea is serving Deruny. Let me buy you lunch, Piá?”

“Deruny?”

“Potato pancakes.”

Her stomach rumbled. She had eaten breakfast on the ferry from Istanbul, but that had been many hours ago. “You brought the tea. Let me buy lunch.”

“No one speaks American here, remember?” He slid to the end of the seat and smiled at her. “I will buy lunch. It is payment for an interesting conversation. Russians like their storytellers, you know.” He got to his feet. There were fewer people moving up and down the aisle now. Everyone had found seats and were settled. Mischa looked down at her. “What was the name of your uncle? I mean, his last name.”

“Aslan,” Fabian told him. “Eli Aslan.”