Between Shadow and Soul

by M. L. Buchman

  “Dilya trusts you very deeply, Colonel. Even her parents have not been brought to meet me.”

  Dilya was looking down at her folded hands, her hair shaken forward to hide her face. He knew that she only did that when embarrassed or wanted to assess a situation without appearing to. She was familiar with the space and the woman, so embarrassment seemed unlikely.

  He considered Dilya’s penchant for finding the primary source of information. A quick glance revealed that she’d done so once again. The bulk of the texts in the wall-to-wall bookcases covering all four walls were about spies and spycraft. Tucked into odd corners were microcameras, a tiny 2.7mm Kolibri pistol (which shot the smallest caliber bullet ever manufactured—just a third the size of a .22), and other minute paraphernalia.

  Then he noticed the slotted flash suppressor indicating that a rifle lay atop one of the cases. After a glance for permission—which was answered by what might have been a shadowed smile—he extracted the weapon. Four feet of Soviet Dragunov SVD sniper rifle.

  “Wooden stock. Skeletonized. Chambered for 7.62x54mmR with a ten-round magazine and a PSO-1 scope. Unusually light and well-balanced for what it was. A masterful weapon to find in the White House subbasement… I don’t recognize the serial numbering sequence. The standard ones use a letter prefix and a three- or five-digit number. This only has two digits.”

  “It is the seventeenth of the two hundred originally built for evaluation in 1963,” her husky voice had taken on a curiously soft quality.

  “A truly unique weapon.” He didn’t ask how she’d come by it and she didn’t offer. He considered as he replaced it on the shelf—with everything except the flash suppressor out of sight.

  One of the original two hundred.

  Either she had once been a Russian sharpshooter… But that didn’t fit the contents of the library. Spycraft. She’d been a spy stationed within the old Soviet Union. The original Dragunovs, those that weren’t completely destroyed by the testing, would have been a serious collector’s item. He still had in his own collection the tenth TAC 50 sniper rifle ever built. He also owned the second HK-416, that he’d helped develop with Heckler & Koch which was now standard issue for Delta Force. They’d offered him the first one, but he’d insisted that go to HK’s lead designer.

  Had she stolen the Dragunov? Or…had it been a gift? Ah.

  “What was his name?”

  The woman startled. Dilya’s sudden shift of attention from behind her hair told him that was most unusual.

  He brushed aside Dilya’s hair as he sat and tucked it back over her shoulders. “It’s not as concealing a trick as you think.”

  She grimaced, “It works on most people.”

  “The colonel is right, dear child. You have outgrown that ploy.”

  “So how do I see what I need to see without, you know…”

  “Being seen?” Michael had given no thought to Emily’s comments about how precocious Dilya had become. She had advanced far more than he’d realized—no wonder so many people underestimated her. “I expect that our nameless hostess could offer you some wisdom on that point.”

  He’d also noticed that during her revealing reaction of surprise, their hostess had started to raise her hand toward…

  “That’s a nice locket that you’re wearing, ma’am.”

  The woman sighed and completed the aborted gesture to clasp it tightly. Tightly, but also tenderly. A gift, like the rifle, from someone she still cared about.

  “You may call me Miss Watson.” Then she turned to Dilya, “If you want a lesson in how to observe others without really looking, you may be better served by speaking with this young colonel.”

  Dilya glanced at him—sideways, evoking a laugh from their hostess.

  “You’re both youngsters to me. Your friend the colonel is far closer to your age than mine.”

  Michael hadn’t considered that himself. His career was nearing its end. He’d never have the political savvy of Colin Powell or even Stan McChrystal. He’d always modeled himself after Chargin’ Charlie Beckwith who’d conceived and founded Delta about the time Michael was born. Did the fact that Charlie had never made it past the rank of colonel tell him something about himself? He’d joined the Army at eighteen and gunned for Delta from the first day in Boot Camp. If he wasn’t Delta, he was nothing.

  But that Miss Watson was clearly working, decades on, gave him some form of hope.

  It was a curious feeling, that almost…tickled. When had he lost track of hope?

  Chapter 4

  “If we must discuss Sergei…” Miss Watson sighed and gestured a hand to Dilya.

  But the way the chairs had been placed, and with Zackie now curled up on her feet, Dilya was trapped close by the closed entry door.

  “Allow me,” Michael rose to his feet. “Back of the third shelf, or the fourth.”

  “Third,” Miss Watson chuckled. “There is your man who sees without looking, Dilya. I’m afraid that I must ask how you know about my living room. I’m sure Dilya didn’t tell you. She is charmingly protective of me.”

  “Which is among the highest praise I can think of. Dilya’s trust is not given lightly.”

  With her hair back, Dilya’s blush showed clearly despite her olive skin. He’d never considered that before, but it had been true. He’d witnessed her long internal battle before she finally trusted her adoptive mother. Somewhere along the way, without his noticing, she had granted that trust to him as well.

  Michael rose and felt in the back corner of the waist-high third shelf. A pair of squat dictionaries provided just enough space to slip his hand into the shadowed space—invisible without bending down and using a flashlight. After he pressed the catch and began swinging the two bookcases back and to the sides, he gestured toward Zackie.

  “After you pet him, he sniffed along only this one baseboard before returning to Dilya. He also glanced up at where he knew the catch was. You probably shouldn’t store…” he walked over to the ceramic Snoopy lying atop his red doghouse and lifted the cookie jar’s lid, “…doggie biscuits here if you wish to keep it private.”

  Zackie had followed him into the room, so Michael gave him a biscuit. The dog carried over to the dog bed close beside the large marble fireplace mantel. He stepped over to tap a switch beside the mantel and a merry gas flame snapped to life among the artificial logs inside the hearth’s glass enclosure.

  In contrast to the cluttered outer office, the wide-open bookcases had revealed a charming inner sanctum. It wasn’t something he would have noticed before getting married, but he’d slowly been learning about Claudia’s quiet joy in something cozy: a fireplace, a couch, a cup of tea. A vase of spring tulips sat close by a wingback chair. Flowers. He should try giving Claudia flowers and see what her reaction might be. Dilya came over and fussed with them, perhaps moving her favorite colors to the front. Yes, definitely buy Claudia a spring bouquet.

  Pictures of women adorned the walls. It took only a few moments to see the pattern—spies. He recognized several of the more recent examples: the lovely Anna Chapman deported back to Russia in 2010, Jennifer Matthews who had led the hunt for bin Laden until she made a mistake and was killed along with six others by a bomb in 2009, Ana Montes who had spied for Cuba from inside the Defense Intelligence Agency for seventeen years and was now doing twenty-five years in a federal penitentiary. Every one of the women in these photos must have been spies for one country or another, one century or another.

  The large oriental rug was a sharp contrast to the rough concrete finish of the outer office. Not outer office, outer library.

  “Your picture isn’t here.”

  Her smile spoke volumes.

  So. Miss Watson was far more than she appeared. An American spy, who had received an incredibly rare Russian Dragunov SVD sniper rifle as a gift, had become a spycraft librarian in the White House subbasement.

  “This is the center.”

  “The center?” Miss Watson asked with perfect nonchalance as s
he moved to make tea at a small nook in the corner of the room. Dilya was arranging a plate of chocolate chip cookies with the ease of long practice.

  Michael sat in one of the guest chairs and observed the two women. Five or more decades apart in age, one slender with the posture of youth and the strength of a hard childhood and much practice since. The other slowly shifted as she relaxed. Her first, studied impression was a grandmotherly crone, bent over her knitting. But she moved with a former dancer’s posture and lightness of stride. Her gray hair was a shining fall past her shoulders. She had clearly been tall and very attractive in her day.

  “I have been in Emily’s tactical command room at Henderson’s Ranch,” Michael offered a point of his own validation.

  “Then you know what we are.” Miss Watson delivered the tea as Dilya set the cookies on an ornately inlaid Indian table showing a herd of gray elephants grazing through a sparse forest and swimming in a blue-tinted river.

  He considered the inclusion of Dilya in that statement: what we are. It had structural ramifications that he hadn’t considered.

  Michael had known of Emily’s connection since the very beginning. And then he’d helped install Lauren, a former dog handler for Delta Force, as Emily’s assistant. He knew that side of the operation.

  “Just what is the scope of the White House Protection Force?”

  Chapter 5

  Miss Watson’s smile as she settled in her chair told him that she was quite proud of what she’d built.

  “It is as big as it needs to be—and no more,” Michael guessed her answer before she gave it. “And?” he asked over her hearty laugh that seemed to strip away the years.

  “Oh, it is such a joy to finally meet you, colonel. I have followed your career closely since the day you first landed in Afghanistan with Jawbreaker.”

  He’d still been a sergeant then, the only Delta operator to go in with that initial CIA team just two weeks after 9/11. No one should know about that. At least no one outside the CIA’s black ops S.A.D.—Special Activities Division.

  “Dilya?” Miss Watson made the question almost casual. Almost.

  Dilya didn’t miss it for a moment. “There are two dog handlers, the chocolate chef, and the driver of the Presidential limo. An astronaut, and the new head of NASA’s security.”

  Miss Watson nodded sagely as if that was good list, but Dilya continued.

  “Secretary of State Matthews went to a lot of work setting it up while he was still President. That almost guarantees that Daniel and Alice know about it, though I’m pretty sure that President Zachary doesn’t. Oh, and anything Secretary Matthews knows, his wife and the head of both of their protection details know. The two leads in the Secret Service office know to trust the WHPF’s intelligence tips, even if they don’t know who or what it is. They’re actually awfully frustrated by that—it’s kinda fun to watch. The head chef suspects. Oh, and I’m betting on the three White House librarians, of course.”

  Miss Watson blinked in surprise. “Anyone else I need to know about?”

  Dilya shook her head.

  “Shall I offer some others?” Michael asked. The technique of teasing typically eluded him, but this was an opportunity that was hard to resist.

  They both blinked at him in surprise.

  “Anything that Emily knows, her husband Mark knows.”

  “Nuh-uh,” Dilya regressed to a teenage noise. “She’d never tell him.”

  “That’s Mark’s gift. He makes everyone think he’s just a good old boy. I was there for the very first flight when he founded the 5D company. Mark misses nothing—ever. He knows exactly what his wife is doing even if he doesn’t let on.”

  Dilya looked deflated but Michael couldn’t resist.

  “You’re still missing three.” But that was too much of a clue and she brightened again.

  “Four if you count Zackie,” who was now snoring on his dog bed.

  Chapter 6

  “I already was. It’s only three. I may know about it, but I’m not in your WHPF.”

  And, as if a mission clock had just ticked to zero dark thirty, he felt himself go very still. This instinct had saved his life innumerable times on missions. It was odd that it had been triggered here, especially because he wasn’t sure why.

  There been no more than a hint. A shift.

  It could be nothing, a bat winging by aloft on its hunt for mosquitos. Or it could be an enemy patrol crossing mere steps away from a hidden position.

  Silence, perfect and complete silence revealed the truth more often than not.

  There was, below conscious awareness, the basso thrum of the air conditioning systems. The cycling of the dishwashing equipment on the floor above sent a splash down through the thick lead pipes in the ceiling of Miss Watson’s office. A brief rattle of dog tags marked Zackie’s rolling over in his dog bed.

  They had been discussing the White House Protection Force. His knowledge of it without any participation on his part.

  He opened his eyes, having closed them to listen.

  Miss Watson was no longer the charming matron with an unusual background. Now she watched him with all of the sharp-eyed assessment of a seasoned CIA field agent.

  “An interesting thought, isn’t it, colonel?”

  “What thought?” What had he missed that she’d seen?

  In his peripheral vision he could see Dilya glance back and forth between them. Then she giggled, completely breaking the tableau.

  “What?”

  She shook her head violently enough to flop hair over her face, but this time she shoved it aside. She only had to be told something once and she had it fully integrated. He tried to read her face, but she just shook her head.

  “Ask Miss Watson about her Russian general. I love that story.”

  He waited, but Dilya understood the power of silence too well for that to work on her.

  Finally, in unison, they turned to Miss Watson.

  Chapter 7

  “Lieutenant General Sergei Kulakov of Soviet Union’s KGB First Directorate was one of Colonel General Aleksandr Sakharovsky’s right hand men. He came to my attention as the head of the foreign intelligence service responsible for the US and Canada. Sergei was married to one of Sakharovsky’s favorite cousins. She was a brainless little thug who spent her life drinking and betraying any gossip she could gain to the KGB.”

  Miss Watson looked so sad that Michael was sorry he’d even noticed the rifle in her collection. Dilya’s wide eyes said she hadn’t heard this part of it.

  “I recruited him using his sadness. Even for a Russian he wore it more heavily than most. I was his ‘Bright Flower’.”

  She slipped off the locket and handed it across. In one miniature photo, the brilliant blue eyes still matched the woman who wore it. Though the brightly blonde hair had turned gray, the same natural beauty remained. In the other photo, she sat in the lap of a Russian two-star general. Michael supposed he was handsome, though he’d never been able to tell with guys.

  “He had an illegal translation of Pablo Neruda’s love poetry and we would read it to each other. You should learn Russian, Dilya, it is a very sexy language.”

  “Um…I was already working on that.” This time the blush told him nothing. Unless it was who she was learning it with. A boy?

  “Xavfsiz?” He dredged up one of the few Uzbek words he remembered from her arrival in their Pakistan camp.

  “Duh!”

  As long as she was being safe, he’d let her worry about everything else. If Miss Watson understood the exchange, she gave no sign.

  “For three years I lived very happily. I fed him leaked or declassified information before it was released and he fed me information on disinformation campaigns including forged documents supposedly from the CIA, but created by the Soviet Union to upset various governments. I still feel awful that I never once provided him with actionable intelligence, but his uncanny accuracy ‘predicting’ breaking news elevated him rapidly within the KGB nonethele
ss.”

  She toyed with the locket for a moment before sighing heavily.

  “Do you have regrets, colonel?”

  “Some, ma’am. Not many. Mostly lives I couldn’t save.”

  “You are a fortunate man. I doubt there are many who can say as much. Certainly not myself.” She brushed her finger once more over the tiny picture before snapping it shut.

  Michael rose and came forward to clasp the locket once more around her neck.

  “Thank you, young man. I don’t know how he was discovered. One day he was going to Moscow for meetings. That evening I received a call. The caller spoke the single word ‘Run!’ and then hung up. I didn’t recognize the voice. I paused just long enough to confirm his arrest. I took his Dragunov. We had fired it at his Black Sea dacha many times for sport—he was a masterful shot. We both were. The competition was…” she glanced at Dilya then away, “invigorating.”

  “Meaning you had awesome shoot-out sex. I’m not that young, Miss Watson.”

  “Oh, but you are, my dear girl. Be that as it may, I raced his tiny fishing boat two hundred miles across the Black Sea through an awful winter storm to a miserable port town in eastern Turkey. They firebombed that beautiful dacha where we had spent three lovely years of our lives together. I can only imagine what he thought of my betrayal before they executed him for treason.”

  Michael recognized the strength in her as she sat perfectly upright and recovered her composure one small piece at a time.

  Regrets.

  What would he regret if he lived to be Miss Watson’s age? Not defending Delta Force with his every breath? Being a lousy father?

  Perhaps the key was in Dilya’s laugh. What had she seen of his future in one of her flashes of insight. Why couldn’t he get a glimpse despite all his straining?

  He didn’t know what his future was yet, but perhaps he could find out.