Laynie Portland, Retired Spy

by Vikki Kestell

  He withdrew a folder from his top drawer and held it for a moment before he slid it toward her. He did not look up when he said, “Your itinerary, travel arrangements, and the assignment are within. The assignment details are quite thorough. We acknowledge that it may be difficult to receive Petroff’s permission, so feel free to employ this dossier—and your impressive acting skills—to leverage Petroff’s permission or that of your entourage, but Alvarsson expects to see you tomorrow.”

  Nyström had been an analyst, not a field operative.

  He was not a skilled liar, not even a credible one.

  Willing her hands not to shake, Linnéa opened the folder and pulled out the travel itinerary. Nothing remarkable. The train from St. Petersburg, Russia, to Tallinn, Estonia. By ferry from Tallinn to Stockholm, Sweden.

  Her thoughts skittered like water poured on a hot skillet, boiling off as frenetic, dancing droplets—before Linnéa, through hard-learned habit, shifted into spy mode.

  Survival mode.

  This meeting was a trial of loyalty. Nyström was told to evaluate my resolve, how insistent I was on being pulled from the field. Poor man! They tasked him with ascertaining my state of mind. It was a test, and I failed.

  They wanted me to agree on my own to go back to Petroff. But with what I’ve just revealed, Nyström cannot vouch that I won’t crack up under pressure if I return to Petroff . . . nor can they trust that I won’t reject their decision and take the matter into my own hands.

  And they are right to fear my abdication.

  Adrenaline spurted through her blood stream, and Linnéa’s heart squeezed behind her ribs, shortening her breath. She exercised every ounce of control she could muster to rein in her body’s outward reactions.

  But they know me! Haven’t I served them well with nary a misstep, not a hint of disloyalty or noncompliance? My superiors should trust that I would never betray them or endanger the safety of our intelligence network.

  She glanced at the folder in her hand. While she read, she evaluated and parsed Nyström’s uncharacteristic behaviors coupled with the abrupt change in her orders.

  When she finished her analysis, her courage stuttered and faltered.

  They discussed my situation up the chain of command. They settled on two courses of action, based on my own choices. If I were to agree to return to Petroff, then all would be well. But if I were to insist on being pulled out, if I pressed for it, if I said I couldn’t bear going back, if Nyström determined that I was close to cracking up?

  They had a second response ready and waiting. If I could no longer function reliably in the field, then I had become a security risk. An untenable liability.

  But if they are not bringing me in, then what?

  The word throat-punched her. Retirement.

  She stilled and forced her eyes to remain on the documents while her thoughts raced on.

  A lengthy night crossing from Tallinn to Stockholm instead of a short flight from St. Petersburg. Marstead will have agents on the ferry, and I will suffer a tragic “slip” while we are at sea.

  My death will be a regrettable accident. It will not appear overly suspicious in Petroff’s eyes, even if my body is recovered. It will not leave him wondering if I were a spy. And I would not be the first passenger to fall from a ferry—although, I’m certain, I would be dead before I hit the water.

  To Nyström she murmured, “We are fortunate that Petroff was called back to Moscow and did not accompany me today. I can continue on to Stockholm this evening, as you have arranged.”

  She lifted her eyes to Nyström and smiled. “To think—I may soon be free of that odious man. I am so grateful!” She willed tears to form in her eyes’ inner corners. It wasn’t difficult, given her horrifying deductions.

  “Thank you, Mickel. We are unlikely to meet after today, but I want you to know that I appreciate your every kindness through the years.”

  Was it remorse or guilt she saw on his face? She turned her gaze away, unnerved. “May I use my office to call Petroff or at least leave a message with his aide?”

  “Certainly, Linnéa.”

  She left Nyström’s office, nodding and waving hello to fellow Marstead employees, until she reached the sanctuary of her office. She unlocked the door, stepped inside, fell against the closed door, and gulped for air.

  She no longer tasted freedom. The atmosphere was rank with betrayal.

  Chapter 3

  LINNÉA LOCKED THE DOOR and sank onto her desk chair. Her limbs seemed to have lost all their strength. Her mind screamed again and again, They intend to kill me! They are going to throw me overboard!

  The black rollers of the Baltic, thrashing and foaming beneath the ferry’s prow, reached their icy fingers toward her.

  Stop! Stop it! Get hold of yourself. You cannot waste what few and precious moments you have.

  She lifted her desk phone’s receiver from its cradle and laid it aside so no one could call and interrupt her. Then she yanked her laptop from its case, plugged in the broadband cable, connected her office printer, and switched the laptop on. When it had fully booted, she slipped on a lightweight headset, inserted the split cable into her laptop’s audio and mic jacks, and opened a command prompt. Typing furiously, Linnéa launched a Voice over Internet Protocol phone call to Stockholm.

  Linnéa’s Marstead superiors insisted that her laptop hardware and software be kept on the cutting edge of available technology. VoIP technology hadn’t been commercially distributed yet, but Christor had configured her laptop with tricks her superiors were unaware of.

  Linnéa and Christor had used the online calling technology sparingly, mostly when Linnéa was in desperate need of a friendly voice. To date, neither Petroff nor Linnéa’s handlers were aware of her laptop’s VoIP capability.

  Was Christor still her friend and ally? Or had Marstead turned him?

  Oh, God! If Christor withdraws his support from me now, I have no hope of escaping either Marstead or Petroff.

  Those in Linnéa’s chain of command—nowhere tech savvy enough to be suspicious of their own IT director—were unaware of a great many things when it came to Linnéa’s backdoor communications with Christor or the various non-standard tech advantages he had provided for her.

  The phone call rang inside Linnéa’s headset. Christor answered on the third ring.

  “Linnéa? Where are you?” He was nervous. Wary.

  “My office, St. Petersburg.”

  “I’ve been trying to reach you for weeks.” Christor’s concern was evident. “I swept your office for bugs, by the way.”

  “Thank you. We’ve been on holiday at the lake. No broadband service—no telephone service at all.”

  He wasted no time. “Listen, Linnéa, I need to caution you. Don’t press Alvarsson to deactivate you.”

  “Too late. We’re way past that now.”

  He went silent for a moment. Then he whispered, “What are you going to do?”

  Linnéa’s throat closed and she couldn’t speak. A familiar longing washed over her, that deep desire for the something or someone she had lost, the need that had haunted her from childhood and pursued her still—a yearning so powerful that its punch doubled her over.

  She gasped and turned to the only memory that came near to quenching her need . . . She and Kari. On The Wave Skipper. The wind and salt spray whipped her face and hair, but her attention was fixed on Kari—Kari’s laughter, Kari’s unfettered joy as Sammie’s two-man sailboat leaped across the chop of Puget Sound.

  That day. That perfect day with my sister. Two fellows in a ship. Safe.

  It wasn’t what they had talked about while out on the water or while beached on the little island where they’d eaten lunch. No, it was Kari herself. She seemed to embody peace and contentment.

  What gives Kari her joy? What does she have?

  Why can I never possess such peace?

  It couldn’t be what Kari had said to her. About God.

  It couldn’t.

 
Linnéa shoved Kari’s voice to the back of her mind, but her sister’s gentle words would not stay there, would not be silent.

  “All of God’s promises are true, Laynie, because he is true. One way or another, he will work those promises into reality. He is God, and he will have his way.”

  No. God is a myth. A heartless fable.

  Then she turned to memories of her dead brother’s two children. The last time she had seen them, Shannon had been four years old and Robbie not yet two. She and Kari had taken them to Lake Union Park for the day. Shannon had asked innumerable questions and Robbie had chased and tormented seagulls, screaming in delighted abandon as he hounded the scavenging birds.

  But those memories were old. Shannon was almost eleven now, and Robbie had turned nine in early June.

  Oh, how I long for a simple life, just be able to hug those babies! And I want to see my sister Kari. I want to see how she has made a family for our niece and nephew. I want, oh, I want, but—

  “Linnéa? Linnéa, are you still there?”

  She clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle the sob lurking in her throat, to prevent it from jumping out. When she had choked down her emotions, she whispered into the phone, “I’m here. Just . . . thinking.”

  “Linnéa? What can I do?”

  When she had cleaned out her Stockholm apartment before moving to St. Petersburg, she had emptied her safe and left its contents in Christor’s care. She’d handed off cash and three identities—three forged passports from different nations, one with an accompanying driver’s license. Christor was supposed to have renewed the documents if they were near expiration.

  What if he hadn’t?

  Those IDs may well decide whether I live or die.

  Linnéa had understood that if Petroff found her out, it would be a one-way ride. She had made peace with that probability. That is, until Petroff began breaking her down, abasement by abasement and blow by blow. She hadn’t known how hard dying by his hand would be—she hadn’t known until then that Petroff would kill her long before she died.

  She could accept a quick death. It was the slow, dying by inches—until she was no longer herself—that she could not endure.

  Two years ago, she had begun making provision for the day when she could no longer bear her life with Petroff, when she knew she was close to cracking up—if Marstead should turn its back on her and she were forced to take her life back into her own hands.

  That day was here.

  I am between an unforgiving rock and a hard, grinding place, with little time and few options before those two forces crush me between them.

  If I don’t get on the train to Tallinn this afternoon, Marstead will shift into high gear and assign every available agent to my “retirement party.” But if I don’t return to Moscow with Zakhar tomorrow morning, Petroff will hunt me with a vengeance even Marstead cannot match.

  Unless . . .

  If she were to survive, so much depended upon what she had entrusted to Christor.

  It was Christor who had helped her establish numbered bank accounts in countries where they protected their account holders’ anonymity. Christor who had taught her how to transfer her Marstead salary into one of those numbered accounts then reroute it to others, using IP anonymizers and proxy servers to bounce the transactions around the world until no one but her knew that the money had landed in a foreign account under a secret American identity. The money, a tidy fortune after years with Petroff, was waiting for her on the “other side” of her escape. It was Christor who had helped her plan her escape and seen to the final details.

  She cleared her throat. “Christor, are the, um, arrangements we discussed complete?”

  “Yeah. I finished up when I visited St. Pete’s last quarter. Your documents are up to date. The, uh, package is in place. The claim check and key are you-know-where . . . with that . . . other thing you asked for.”

  He coughed on his worry and discomfort. “Gotta say, that item was tricky.”

  Linnéa exhaled. She could breathe again! “Thank you, dear friend.”

  “But, Linnéa? Um, is there any possibility that you could reach out to Alvarsson yourself and negotiate a truce with our superiors? I . . . it’s just that . . . Klara and I? We have a baby on the way.”

  When Marstead had recruited Christor in 1991, they had known the young man was a socially awkward but eager-to-please genius. Perhaps because Christor hadn’t fit into the Marstead “mold” any more than Linnéa felt she had, the two of them had hit it off.

  Christor had, initially, suffered from a crush on Linnéa—even though he had guessed at what she did for Marstead, the men she seduced and stripped of their secrets. After Linnéa left Stockholm, Christor had met Klara, and he had bloomed. Matured. Linnéa could not have been happier for him.

  She licked her lips. “A baby? Why, that is wonderful news, Christor. You and Klara must be over the moon.”

  “We are, yes, but . . . but, Linnéa, if you go through with what we’ve planned? And if Marstead suspects I had a role in it? I could lose my clearance and my job. I could . . . go to prison.”

  Linnéa lapsed into silence. She trusted and cared about Christor. She did not want to harm him or his family, but it was too late. He was in too deep—

  It is too late for regrets, my friend.

  Too late, because when Christor had agreed to hold Linnéa’s cash and documents, he had committed his first act of misleading Marstead for her. It was not to be his last.

  Seven years ago, as Linnéa had prepared to leave Stockholm and move to St. Petersburg, she had handed off the contents of her safe to Christor. Then she had entrusted him with her greatest secret. I have a sister. Marstead doesn’t know. She is safer that way. No leaks, no leverage—right? I need your help. Please help me keep her safe?

  After Linnéa left Stockholm, Christor had continued to pay the Posten box’s semi-annual fees and collect Kari’s letters. He then scanned the pages of her letters into tiny image files that he embedded in other images that he passed to Linnéa through their secret chat room visits—and Linnéa had sent short letters in reply.

  Then, six years ago, when Petroff had insisted that Linnéa leave her St. Petersburg apartment to live with him in Moscow, she had written Kari a last letter, explaining that her situation was changing and that she would no longer be able to write but that, if Kari wrote to her, she would continue to receive her letters.

  Kari had not given up on her, and Christor had kept encoding and forwarding Kari’s letters. Although Linnéa had not once replied since then, Kari had written faithfully, twice monthly, for the past six years. Her ongoing letters had been a godsend, a loving, normalizing influence in Linnéa’s otherwise emotionally barren existence.

  In a letter not long after Linnéa moved to Moscow, Kari had managed to convey to her sister that she and Søren were in the process of adding a breezeway onto the back of their house, a walkway leading to separate, specially designed quarters they were building for Gene and Polly. Polly’s MS was not progressing rapidly, but Polly needed handicap facilities and personal care several times weekly that Gene was no longer able to provide for his wife.

  Kari wrote later that the little casita behind their house was finished. Soon after, she and Søren had helped Gene and Polly sell their Seattle home and move to Nebraska. Even though Gene and Polly took most of their meals in their own little dining room, moving them close by had been a wonderful decision all around. Shannon and Robbie were a joy to the older couple, but they were a blessing not only to their grandchildren but also to Kari and Søren. Gene and Polly had taken them into their hearts as their own daughter and son—thus receiving and treating Max as a beloved second grandson.

  With Gene and Polly nearby, Kari was able to send Linnéa regular updates on her parents. It was through Kari’s descriptions of family life on their great-grandmother’s homestead that Linnéa was able to visualize Kari’s husband, Søren, her stepson, Max, Mama and Dad, and, of course, Shannon and Robb
ie.

  Kari’s most recent letter had been filled with details of Max’s preparations to leave home for his first year of college at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. “He’s going to study agriculture and agribusiness,” the letter said, “and by the time you receive and read this letter, he will have started the fall semester.

  “I confess that, although my head reminds me that he will be only four hours away from us and will come home often, my heart insists it is too soon for him to fly the nest. I already miss him so.”

  Linnéa shook herself. This is no time for reminiscing, for daydreaming.

  She whispered, “I realize what I have asked of you, Christor, and the difficult spot I have put you in. I am also confident that if you are half as good at covering your tracks as you say you are—as I know you are—they may suspect you, but they will never be able to prove a thing. So, whatever happens, whatever they accuse you of, don’t cave. Not for an instant. Deny all knowledge. You can weather whatever—”

  A knock sounded on her door. Linnéa threw off the headset, grabbed up the desk phone’s receiver and, cord dragging behind her, unlocked and cracked her door.

  Ebba peeked through the crack. “Ah, yes. You are on the phone. I told Mr. Nyström you probably were. He wishes to see you before you leave, Linnéa.”

  “Thank you. I am waiting for Vassili Aleksandrovich to come on the line. Please tell Mickel I’ll come as soon as I have spoken to Petroff.”

  Ebba left, but Linnéa didn’t move.

  Why does Nyström need to see me again? Has Alvarsson asked for reassurance that I will board that ferry tonight? But neither Alvarsson nor Nyström have any clue how desperate I am . . . how “done” I am.

  Linnéa relocked her office door and discarded the phone’s receiver and the pretend call. With Christor forgotten on the VoIP line, she opened her lowest desk drawer, popped up a false bottom, and retrieved the drawer’s contents. A key, pawnshop claim check, subcompact handgun, and two single-stack magazines, each preloaded with eight .380 ACP rounds.