Laynie Portland, Retired Spy

by Vikki Kestell

  Why? Why this man? Why does he draw me? Attract me? Why do I feel such untapped emotion when I’m with him?

  As jaded as her heart had grown through her various love affairs, it was a new and disturbing experience for Laynie to find herself pulled toward a mark. She might be tempted to give more than her body to this dangerous man—even after she had heard the tales circulating about him.

  PETROFF WAS A KNOWN connoisseur of fine things—he employed the best tailors, drove the best cars, drank the finest wines and vodka, ate the choicest foods—and only sparingly, for he scorned overindulgence. He was also a lover of art, music, architecture, and . . . dogs. His favored breed was the Chornyi Terrier, known in the west as the Black Russian Terrier.

  The breed was developed in the Soviet Union during the late 1940s and the early 1950s for use as military dogs. The breed’s pedigree included lines from the Giant Schnauzer, Airedale Terrier, Rottweiler, and other guard and working dogs. In show, the Chornyi closely resembled the Giant Schnauzer. In conduct, the breed was protective and fearless, often thought by its owners—to their amazement—to be more intelligent than they were.

  And as Petroff made the rounds of the St. Petersburg clubs, a disturbing story circulated with him, a tale of Petroff’s favorite Chornyi, Alina, a female dog he had hand-raised from a pup. Petroff doted on her. Alina traveled everywhere with Petroff, slept in his room at night, and served as a further layer of personal protection after his bodyguards.

  According to the rumors swirling in Petroff’s wake, on a certain trip, unexpected celebratory fireworks had so disturbed Alina that she had become terrified and had run off, ignoring Petroff’s repeated commands to come to him. When Petroff’s people located the dog two days later and brought her back, Petroff had pulled his sidearm and shot the dog in the head.

  He had said to his people, so the anecdote went, “I will not tolerate the disobedience of something I own. There can be no forgiveness for disloyalty.”

  It was also rumored that Petroff treated his women with similar possessiveness. As long as a woman held his attention, he kept a jealous leash on her—although most endured only a night or, if particularly engaging, a week or a month.

  When he was finished with a woman, when he no longer found her of interest, he cast her aside.

  But there were also stories of Petroff’s longer-term women, of which only two were known. One, it was said, displeased Petroff’s sense of ownership. He had beaten her senseless. The other, a Lebanese beauty, turned out not to be Lebanese, but Israeli. The loathsome spy of a hated nation.

  The Israeli woman traveled with Petroff when he left to visit Islamabad on state business.

  When he returned to Moscow, she did not.

  Linnéa shuddered a second time. I am to be the bait on the end of this hook. I must be careful, so much more careful than I have ever needed to be.

  Still, the thought of being with Petroff aroused feelings in her, feelings that surprised and concerned her. Why am I like this? she asked herself. Why am I so cold and unfeeling toward a decent man but drawn to someone who might snap my neck on a whim?

  A familiar voice in her head sneered, Because you don’t deserve a “good” man, Laynie.

  “MISS OLANDER! ARE YOU listening?”

  “Of course, sir.”

  Considering the subject closed, Alvarsson focused on his calendar. Today’s date nudged them closer to the end of August, and the northern hemisphere was still in the grip of summer. “If you play your cards right, Linnéa, Petroff will have you installed in his Moscow apartment by Christmas.”

  He fixed her with another glare. “This assignment is too important to jeopardize for any reason. It is your job, this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, to convince Petroff that you are the woman he’s been looking for—not for another tryst or fling, but for a long-term relationship.”

  Linnéa inclined her head. “Of course, sir. Petroff wants someone with whom he can share his life, a companion who is his intellectual equal and who shares his passion for technology. A woman who can be an asset to him in his social circle. An acquisition he can flaunt—not merely an escort or a temporary lover. To that end, I must cultivate the cerebral and companionship aspects of our relationship. I will, initially, resist intimate overtures. I mustn’t yield to him too quickly. The ‘courtship’ and pursuit must prove my worth to him.”

  Linnéa said nothing further as the tenderly nurtured prospect of seeing her sister again died.

  Alvarsson was right. She had a job to do, a crucial role to play. Nothing took precedence over the job. Everything gave way to it. The job was all that mattered.

  The job was espionage.

  Linnéa was a spy, and her modus operandi was seduction.

  Her work was “appropriating” emerging technology and other classified information from America’s strongest rival.

  And this very week, after painstaking months of careful moves, her relationship with Petroff had taken a desired turn. He had sent Linnéa a short letter—an invitation—via her Stockholm office.

  Others read Linnéa’s mail before she did, another aspect of Marstead’s supervision of Linnéa’s cover. They would read and approve her reply, too, before it was sent.

  “How do you propose to respond to Petroff’s invitation?” Alvarsson asked. He held the single sheet between two fingers, rereading it.

  Linnéa had scanned it once and memorized it.

  MY DEAR MISS OLANDER,

  I find myself thinking on our last conversation in St. Petersburg, and I would enjoy the opportunity to continue it. The seaside in late summer holds many pleasures, and I have time to indulge in a holiday. I own a modest dacha on the shore of the Caspian, and my yacht is moored nearby. The sea is open to us for adventure, be it swimming, snorkeling, fishing, or bathing in the sun.

  If you were able to arrange your busy schedule so as to spend a week with me, I would send my private jet to fly you from Stockholm to Grozny on August 26. I would personally meet you in Grozny and escort you to my dacha.

  Miss Olander, if you accept my invitation, I promise to pamper you during the day, while we explore the delights of evening together. Whatever you wish will be my command. Exquisite food. Fine wines. Music. Dancing—and, perhaps, more. I hope to receive your reply soon.

  With great admiration,

  Vassili Aleksandrovich

  THE LETTER’S TONE WAS confident—as though, by simply crooking his finger, she would do his bidding. He had also signed the correspondence with his first and patronymic names, a familiarity. But the coveted invitation, arriving so close to Kari’s wedding in early September, couldn’t have come at a worse time.

  “Miss Olander.” Alvarsson was staring at her.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “How do you propose to respond to Petroff’s invitation? August 26 is next Friday.”

  Linnéa cleared her throat. “I will accept his invitation with an apologetic limitation. I will only be able to stay the weekend—three nights. Work obligations require that I return to Stockholm Monday morning, August 29.”

  Alvarsson nodded his approval. “A good strategy. Two days and three nights. Time enough to deepen the acquaintance but stave off sleeping with him. A taste of your companionship to leave him wanting more.”

  “Yes.”

  “Write your response to him, then go shopping. You’ll need a new wardrobe.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Linnéa returned to her own office, lecturing her heart for feeling sorry for itself.

  I dread giving Kari the bad news—even though I did warn her that my life was not my own.

  Well, she hadn’t planned to become a spy.

  Who does that? she reflected. Who says, “When I grow up, I want to infiltrate our enemy’s homeland, trade my body and soul for secrets, and abandon hope for marriage, family, or future—all for love of country”?

  Yet it seemed to Linnéa that, from her earliest years, she had been destined for this duplicitous, dangerou
s, and emotionally barren existence . . .

  LAYNIE AND HER BROTHER grew up in Seattle, the adopted children of Gene and Polly Portland, a mixed-race couple in an era where racial intermarriage was frowned upon. After years of a childless marriage and being refused adoption because Gene was “white” and Polly was “black,” the couple had tried private—and expensive—avenues.

  Laynie was age three and her brother less than a year old when they came to Gene and Polly. The couple had been overjoyed. They wanted nothing more than to lavish their love upon Laynie and her brother. Sadly, the transition had been neither peaceful nor easy. Some unfathomable horror haunted their little daughter. Laynie had wept and wailed for hours upon end and refused to be comforted.

  Eventually, she had calmed, and their family thrived—but Laynie never could shake the grief and longing for what she had lost. Fragile, wraithlike threads of memory were all she had, but she clung to them. And so, a ritual developed between Laynie and her new mother, a ritual that mystified Polly but, in some way, mollified her precious child.

  “Well, you wouldn’t stop crying, baby girl,” Mama would whisper. “Our poor Little Duck! So confused and distressed. What a fuss you made! I held you and rocked you ever’ night till you wore yourself out. You cried ever’ night for weeks, you did.

  “You cried until your voice was gone and you could only croak. Daddy said you quacked like a little baby duck, and that seemed to tickle you. You liked it when he called you Little Duck.”

  “But what about our names, Mama? Our real names?”

  Laynie always asked about the names, because the tale her mother told her was what made Laynie feel closest to her old memories—closest to the longing she felt, to what she had lost but could not remember.

  “You always in such a hurry at this part, baby girl! Well, a’course the agency would not give us your names, your birth names, since ever’thing ’bout the ’doption was sealed. They told us you were both so young that we should give you the names we chose, so we named your brother ‘Stephen’ after Daddy’s grandfather.”

  Laynie would always argue at this point of the story. “But that was wrong.”

  “So you told us! ‘No. He’s Sammie,’ you claimed. We called him Stephen and his ’doption papers read Stephen Theodor Portland, but you refused to call him anything but Sammie.”

  “That’s right. Now me,” Laynie would continue.

  “Yes, you, Little Duck,” Mama would laugh. “We tried to name you Grace after my mother and, my word! How you pitched a fit. ‘I Laynie!’ you screamed again and again. ‘Laynie! I Laynie! Laynie, Laynie, Laynie!’”

  My real name, Linnéa thought. Not Linnéa. Not Helena.

  The next part of the story was where Laynie’s memories sharpened and where her sense of loss was the greatest.

  “What else did I say?”

  Polly would dither, but she knew that Laynie would insist.

  “Well, honey, you talked about Care. You would stomp your little foot and shout, ‘Care say I Laynie! Care say I am! I not stupid Grace! I Laynie!’”

  Polly would sigh and add, “You sure were a handful, honey, let me tell you.”

  Laynie’s mama liked to move past that part of the story in a hurry, but Laynie wouldn’t let her. That one word, Care, invoked such deep anguish in her that she would weep and sob.

  Care. Something about “Care” sparked a voice Laynie clung to, a voice that, to Laynie, meant everything . . . and yet nothing. A voice screaming, “No! You can’t take them away! You can’t take them!”

  Laynie would cry as though her heart would break, and Laynie’s mama would pull her onto her lap and rock her, knowing she could not heal a wound that Laynie herself could not identify, let alone articulate.

  Polly could only rock and love on Laynie until the storm subsided.

  “Well, we named you Helena Grace, after Papa’s grandmother. Yes, Hel-LAY-na, close enough to Laynie that it didn’t send you into a tizzy,” Polly would conclude.

  “But you called me Laynie anyway.”

  “Yes, sugar. We called you Laynie anyway. We still do,” Polly would agree, agonizing over the shapeless, faceless pain from which her daughter suffered.

  Afterward, Laynie would go in search of Sammie. When she found him, she would tug his roly-poly toddler’s body into her lap or, as he got older, close to her side, and tell him a story.

  Polly would watch from around the doorway as Laynie, sometime during the story, would pat Sammie’s hand and murmur, “You are Sammie. I am Laynie. Care said so.”

  Despite Gene and Polly’s love and nurture, Laynie never did escape the sense of loss. Perhaps that was why, as she grew older, her inability to make sense of those feelings settled within her as two words infused with profound negative impact, labels that shaped her young, tender identity.

  Failure. Worthless.

  Long before Laynie could articulate such loaded statements, an emotional certainty had taken root in her heart. My life has no value. No purpose.

  This inner conviction, without a doubt, was why she had given herself to Marstead.

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING, Linnéa rode a city bus into the heart of Stockholm to shop for clothes. Her selections needed to impress Petroff. He was wealthy and she—in possession of a Marstead-backed credit card—was to spare no expense on her wardrobe. Many a woman would have salivated at the task, but Linnéa chafed under it and hurried to finish.

  She knew which shops were exclusive enough to meet Petroff’s exacting standards and which pricy brand-name clothing fit her with little or no alteration. She tried on and selected two expensive suits for travel to and from Grozny, then two bathing suits and matching cover-ups, two shorts-and-halter-top combos, and two glitzy pairs of sandals—a set for each day on Petroff’s yacht—and three gowns with accessories for the evenings she’d be there. She added a filmy shawl to cover her bare shoulders should the evening prove chilly.

  Hours later, leaving behind a wake of generous tips and large smiles, Linnéa was armed with the tools for her weekend with Petroff. She arranged for the shops to deliver the bags and boxes to her apartment’s doorman, Gustav, and turned her attention to the question that concerned her more.

  How do I tell Kari I cannot come to her wedding?

  Linnéa joined other shoppers outside as they perused window displays and chatted with friends. She moved down the cobblestone walkway at a leisurely pace while she chewed on her problem.

  The date of Kari’s wedding was two weeks out.

  The maid of honor canceling at the last minute? No matter how I tell her, she is going to be hurt.

  A simple phone call would be quickest, but Kari was perceptive and would ask questions Linnéa could not answer. Besides, calling was . . . problematic. Marstead monitored her phones—the landline and clunky cellular phone in her apartment and a desk phone in her Stockholm office. Furthermore, Marstead tracked unusual movements or activities on her part. A long-distance call from a pay phone required a credit card. Marstead would flag those charges in a heartbeat.

  Then there was Petroff. According to Alvarsson, Petroff’s people were investigating her, looking at her life and background.

  They could be watching me this very moment.

  Linnéa’s training had taught her to check for a “tail” wherever she was, but Petroff’s people would be seasoned, perhaps too professional for her to spot. She slowed and stared into a window display, using its reflection to scan the street behind her, her thoughts and her stomach a synchronous churn.

  Now that she had engaged Petroff’s attention, the stakes were mounting higher. So was the danger level. Linnéa cared little for her own safety, but if Petroff were to uncover her family ties? He would have leverage over her. Terrifying leverage.

  Linnéa shook off the fear that juddered down her spine and thundered at the door of her heart. Stop that, she told herself. Keep your head in the game.

  She flexed and rotated her tight shoulders and returned to the problem con
fronting her. She had to tell her sister that she could not attend her wedding, and the means by which she told Kari had to be both unremarkable and untraceable. Linnéa was determined that Marstead remain ignorant of Kari’s existence. Neither could she allow Petroff to sniff out Kari or her family.

  I suppose it must be a letter. A letter in place of myself.

  A letter might take the entire two weeks to arrive, but it was, she acknowledged, the most secure means of communicating with Kari. Initially, Linnéa had told Kari they could correspond through a Marstead “cutout” address. This was how Marstead had allowed Linnéa to correspond with her brother, how she kept in contact with her parents. They wrote to a Posten box Marstead rented and managed. Marstead passed letters in both directions, but they also read all correspondence from Linnéa’s parents and the letters she wrote in return.

  And they occasionally edited her letters.

  I’m weary of Marstead’s constant probing, of their tentacles delving into every corner of my life. I want to keep Kari to myself.

  Besides . . . we are both safer if I do.

  Safer, Linnéa believed, because Kari had money and, as the owner of her own company, had a significant public persona while, in contrast, Marstead had scrubbed Laynie from the public record. An innocent connection made between Kari Michaels Thoresen and one Helena Portland might focus attention on Laynie—whose near-total nonexistence was a suspicious flag in itself.

  That was why, during her return trip to Stockholm after her brother’s funeral, Linnéa had changed her mind . . . had concocted a better arrangement.

  In Linnéa’s apartment, under the cushions of her sofa, and built into the recesses of the sofa framework, was a safe. Within the safe, Linnéa kept the bulky Marstead-issued cellular telephone she used to call her parents on special occasions. It was the only phone she was allowed to use for family calls—and only infrequently. On the cellular phone Linnéa could become Laynie again, even if only for a few minutes.

  But Linnéa kept other items in the safe, namely cash and false identities. The cash she had squirreled away, bit by bit, from her earnings. The IDs had been more difficult to obtain. Her coworker and friend Christor Vinck, Marstead’s Director of Information Technology, had provided her with the name of a man who specialized in counterfeit papers. Linnéa had sought him out at night, circumventing Marstead’s watch over her, and had paid for the identities out of her precious cash reserves.