“What?”
“Do you want to come in and have some tea? I don’t think I can go to sleep just yet.”
And staring into Katia’s eyes, Oliver almost faltered. He almost lost sight of the master plan, the First Principle that Nikolai had explained to him time and time again. He could get lost in her eyes all over again every time he saw her. It was inevitable.
He put on his “honest smile” again.
“No,” Oliver said awkwardly. “No, I don’t think so. It’s late. Thanks anyway, though.”
“Are you sure?” Katia said, stepping closer to him. “You saved my life, Oliver. And I’ve missed you. The least I can do is give you a cup of tea.”
“Well—” Oliver shrugged, his hands in his pockets, gazing away down the street. “I’m not sure it’s, um, appropriate, you know? I mean, you’re Tom’s girlfriend.”
“Is that what I am?” Katia asked, putting her hand on Oliver’s arm. “Come on Oliver. Come inside.”
“No,” Oliver said. “No—thanks, Katia. I’ve got to get home. I’ve got—I’ve got to get to work early tomorrow. Some other time.”
“All right,” Katia said, frowning. She looked perplexed. “All right. Good night, Oliver.”
And then Katia leaned forward to kiss Oliver’s cheek—but he wasn’t there. He had stepped away, down the brick steps and onto the sidewalk. He kept walking, not looking back.
She’s still there, Oliver thought, walking down Jane Street. All I have to do is turn around and go back.
The First Principle was working.
He was winning her back.
Safe Harbor
TOM’S SUIT WAS TORN AND STAINED. His face was bruised and smeared with blood, and his head and neck were battered and dirty. Passengers on the express train had backed away from him, their noses wrinkled in disgust. He looked awful, and he smelled like rancid Chinese restaurant garbage—but there had been no time to do anything about it. He needed to get to Katia as fast as he could.
He was almost certain that the attack had been orchestrated to get him out of the way—it was the only explanation that made any sense—and it terrified him to think about what that could mean in terms of Katia’s safety. He had been unconscious for nearly two hours—until the memory of the ring falling out of his pocket roused him out of his stupor. Enough time for anything to have happened to her, anything he could think of.
In a panic-induced adrenaline rush, Tom found the ring. It had rolled under a parked car. Now, arriving on Jane Street, he could finally see it to safe harbor.
Tom raced up Katia’s brick steps. The street door usually was latched, but now it was propped open, which made Tom apprehensive. Had someone from the Organization been here earlier? Was he too late?
“Katia?” he called out. His injured hand stung with every loud knock on the door. “Katia!” he called out again. “Katia? Are you there?”
“Tom?” Her troubled voice came from behind the door. “Tom, is that you?”
Tom sank against the smooth surface of the door, his eyes closed, sighing in overwhelming relief. He hadn’t realized just how frightened he had been until that moment.
“Katia, are you all right—?”
She’d swung open the door before he could even finish his sentence. Her brow seemed furrowed with anger, but there was a desperate brand of concern in her eyes. And then she took him in—all the bruises on his face, his dirt-clotted, messy hair, his torn and stained suit—and her expression melted into a stricken look.
“Oh my God, Tom—what happened to you?” She dragged him in through the doorway and sat him down on the couch.
“It’s, um—it’s a long story,” he told her. He was staring into her eyes as if he couldn’t believe it was actually her.
“Do those—do those hurt?” She was reaching up gently to touch his face.
“What? A little bit,” Tom said. “It’s nothing, really. I tried to get down here as fast as I could, Katia; I’m sorry I got delayed—”
“No, no—” She was shaking her head. “Tom, what happened to your face? Who did this?”
“I can’t… I really don’t know….”
“Tom.” She groaned anxiously. “This isn’t fair. You can’t just… I was worried sick about you tonight, do you know that? Worried sick about both of us.”
“What does that mean—?”
“And now look at you,” she interrupted, beginning to talk a mile a minute. “This job, Tom, what you do, I can’t live like this. Not knowing if you’re going to come home some night looking like this. Not even knowing if you’re going to come home at all. Soon I won’t be breathing at all—I’ll be holding my breath, wondering why you didn’t show for dinner, holding my breath, wondering where you are at every moment, whether or not you’re safe. I need to know where you are, Tom. I need to know you’re coming home—”
“Shhh.” Tom placed his aching hands on her face, now wet with sudden tears, and tried to quiet her. “It’s okay. I know.” He reached down and began fumbling in his pocket. “That’s why I’m here. I want to—”
“I can’t live in constant doubt.”
“That’s my point, Katia.” He touched her arm; she flinched. “Look at me.”
She finally moved her eyes, looking into his. They were very close now, and he brought the velvet box out of his pocket.
“That’s my point,” he repeated, eye to eye with her. “That’s what I came down here to say. I want to be there for you from now on, Katia.”
Was this how you did it, Dad? he thought, remembering the story as he raised the box and opened it. Did it feel like this?
Katia looked at Tom’s hands and saw the box. It took her a second.
“Oh, Tom—” Katia uttered. She had reached up to touch his hand gently.
“Katia,” Tom said, opening the box so she could see the ring, “will you marry me?”
The ring was important. They always told you that, the people who gave advice. Even Tom’s father talked about the ring. The diamond was supposed to be the keystone of the moment, the rock-hard proof of love and commitment.
But this wasn’t like that. Neither of them was looking at the ring. It could have easily dropped to the floor, and no one would have noticed.
Tom and Katia were staring at each other, and it was like they were back in the bookstore, that cold day long ago, when all she had wanted was a quiet place to write in her journal and all he’d wanted was to be done with his thesis.
“Yes,” she said. That was all. Just “yes.” But that was all he needed.
He blew out the breath he had been holding, slumping his shoulders; he leaned forward, and his dirty forehead collided gently with hers. “Good,” he whispered, smiling madly. “Oh, good. I’m glad.”
“I’m glad, too.”
Then he took the ring out of the velvet box and took Katia’s hand and placed the ring on her finger.
“I think we should do it soon,” Katia said. “As soon as we can.”
“Are you kidding? Let’s go right now,” Tom said, laughing and wrapping his arms around her. He realized tears were running down his face.
“Right now?” she asked. “Well… right now… you smell very bad.”
“Okay, how ’bout in ten minutes? Or maybe ten hours—I could use a little sleep.”
Katia laughed.
They stayed pressed together in Katia’s living room, and neither of them ever knew, or was able to explain later, how long they had stood there—it could have been hours, or mere minutes, or days….
Organization of One
OLIVER APPROACHED THE UNMARKED metal door of the Organization’s headquarters. He stood there for a moment, waving impatiently at the hidden camera, and after a brief pause the door buzzed open.
When he got to the fourth floor, the doors opened and he stepped out into a cavernous, well-lit room. There were lavish Oriental carpets covering the stone floor. The ceiling was very high, with recessed skylights. Banks of computer monitors w
ere inset into one high wall. They all were turned on—each showed a different surveillance view. Many showed the outside of the building; others were connected by satellite to cameras and transmitters in various places around the globe. There was a large antique samovar to one side and a table with a lavish selection of vodkas.
Oliver knew the place by heart—he had been here many, many times over the past month. And the so-called state-of-the-art surveillance teams belonging to the CIA had never discovered this place or figured out what Oliver was doing with his spare time because, thanks to the First Principle, he had won Rodriguez back.
“Hello, my friend,” Nikolai said warmly, stepping forward. He wore a black turtleneck and brown trousers and held a glass of vodka. “Come, have a drink and tell me of the evening’s exploits. I am dying to know how things have gone.”
“Things are going well,” Oliver marveled. He was on his way to the bar, where he poured himself a vodka and added a lime. “The plan worked perfectly. What?”
Nikolai was frowning in sour distaste. He gestured toward Oliver’s drink. “That is what the Cossacks in Leningrad do—pollute the vodka with fruit. It is not civilized.”
“Well, that’s the way I like it,” Oliver said impatiently. “Nikolai, I can see this plan is really going to succeed.”
“Just so. Come! Tell me of your evening,” Nikolai said. There were two leather chairs near the wall of television monitors. Nikolai sat down in one of them, leaning forward and listening expectedly. “It seems to me that everything went quite well.”
“I’ll tell you, Nikolai, it was incredible,” Oliver said truthfully. He had taken a swig of vodka—it was his first drink of the evening, and it went right to his head. “The plan worked. After we left you, we took a cab down to her apartment—”
“Yes? Yes? Go on, my friend.”
“—and she invited me inside!” Oliver was reliving the moment in his head. Now that he could relax and think about it, he was even more impressed with the strategy and its positive results. “Nikolai, she actually invited me inside! It was all I could do not to accept.”
“You are winning her back,” Nikolai said, brushing his red hair away from his face. “The First Principle is demonstrated conclusively, is it not?”
“What about the surveillance team? Did they finish their work in time?”
“Oh, yes,” Nikolai said. “Leonov called earlier on the satellite transceiver. While we were getting in position outside the restaurant, they successfully infiltrated Katia’s apartment and installed their sound equipment. I am expecting their report.”
“Good, good,” Oliver said distractedly, walking over to refill his vodka glass. “As soon as we can get accurate information about her—”
Oliver stopped talking because he had suddenly heard a familiar sound—the buzzing of a remote transceiver. He waited as Nikolai went over and picked up the handset.
“Da,” Nikolai said into the small device. Oliver could barely hear voices at the other end. “Da,” Nikolai said again. He covered the earpiece, whispering to Oliver. “It is Leonov—the equipment is in place. He has been monitoring activity in Katia’s apartment.”
“Good,” Oliver said. The sooner all their surveillance systems were working, the better. It wouldn’t take long for—
Oliver suddenly stopped thinking about the surveillance systems. He stopped because he was watching Nikolai’s face. He could see the Russian’s ugly features darkening into a frown as he listened to the transceiver. “Niet, niet,” Nikolai was muttering as he listened. Oliver stood there, watching, the glass of vodka forgotten in his hand. Finally Nikolai reached up, weakly, to shut the transceiver off. He slowly lowered it, an ashen look on his face.
“What?” Oliver said. A wild sense of dread was coming over him. “What? What is it?”
“I think you had better sit down,” Nikolai said heavily.
“What?” Oliver was walking toward him. “Damn it, Nikolai—tell me what happened!”
“Twenty minutes ago,” Nikolai said, “Thomas Moore arrived at Katia’s house.”
Here it comes, Oliver thought, stumbling toward one of the leather chairs. Nikolai was right—he had to sit down. Here comes the bad news.
“After some sort of verbal dispute, she let him in,” Nikolai went on.
“And?”
“At eleven-forty, Moore proposed marriage,” Nikolai said. “And Katia has accepted. They—ah—did not speak for a few minutes and then began making wedding plans. Apparently they are to be married within a month.”
Oliver felt the world growing dark again. The entire room seemed to be blackening, like a burning sheet of paper.
But something else happened instead. Something happened inside Oliver’s mind at that moment. In the midst of his rage a new emotion washed over him. It was a difficult feeling to understand—it felt like a soothing calm, but it energized him, excited him, at the same time.
Oliver marveled at what had happened in that moment—the moment that Nikolai told him about Katia and Tom. His dark fury almost defeated him—and then it burned him clean. It was like a bright, clear understanding of the world came into his eyes right then. He was standing on the Oriental carpet in the Organization’s New York command center, holding the forgotten glass of vodka, feeling a new, calculating certainty overtake him.
The First Principle… it was just another lie. Had he believed it was a law of nature that somehow could work to Nikolai’s advantage and Oliver’s at the same time? Had he really been that gullible, that naive? In the end, whether he believed in Tom, or in the CIA, or in Nikolai, wasn’t it all the same thing? Following someone else’s orders and trusting them to look after you?
Oliver’s rage melted away.
Gazing levelly at Nikolai, breathing calmly, Oliver made up his mind, right then, about what he was going to do. He was going to trust nobody but himself. He was going to abandon the First Principle, the Organization—throw away the weak allegiance he’d had to others his entire life. Only on his own could he be truly powerful. From now on, he was an “Organization” of one man. Nikolai and his “important people” could get lost.
And Katia would be his.
That was the secret—he really could get the girl of his dreams if he threw away everything else.
Just wait, Tom, Oliver thought calmly. He had already decided what he would do—and his very next decision was not to tell Nikolai.
I’m after you for real, now, Katia, Oliver said to himself.
Just wait.
1983
Katia played the words husband and brother-in-law over in her mind. Not that she would have ever guessed this about herself, but she rather liked the ring of it all.
Cut the Cake
KATIA WAS DRESSED IN HER WHITE wedding gown with the veil pulled back, dancing with her husband’s friend George Niven. They were in the Empire Ballroom at the Plaza Hotel, near the corner of Central Park. The ballroom had enormous, gilt-framed windows that opened up onto Grand Army Plaza. Katia’s wedding guests could stand in the afternoon sunlight, looking out across the wide, European-looking esplanade, gazing down at the old-fashioned horse-and-buggy rigs that brought couples into the park. The wide windows had been left open, so the warm, fragrant spring air was blowing gently into the ballroom. It was exactly a month after the night Tom had proposed and she had accepted. The ballroom was filled with guests, most of them in black tie. Katia wished her mother could have been there, but with everything that had happened back home, that was not possible. But at least Tom and Oliver’s parents could be there. Katia had loved getting to know Henry and Alice Moore this past month. It had honestly been such a great, great gift to have a father figure like Henry. Katia was so delighted by him she didn’t even mind when he went on for hours about computer programming.
The wedding reception had been going on for more than two hours—everyone had eaten; Tom and Katia had cut the cake. Now couples were dancing on the wooden dance floor that filled the center of th
e ballroom.
As George twirled Katia around, she stole a moment to take in the scenery. Tom and Oliver, each looking as handsome and polished as a model from a magazine ad, were walking toward her. Tom, her husband, and Oliver, her brother-in-law, that is. Katia played the words husband and brother-in-law over in her mind. Not that she would have ever guessed this about herself, but she rather liked the ring of it all.
“Darling,” Tom said. “Excuse me, George—I don’t want to interrupt.”
“What kind of a thing is that to say?” George scolded him, laughing. “Cut in, cut in—dance with your lovely wife.”
“Actually,” Tom said, leaning to kiss Katia for no good reason except that they both really wanted him to do it, “Oliver and I are going to have a drink.”
“That’s right,” Oliver said, grinning. He leaned to put his arm around Tom’s neck. “Just between the brothers.” As far as Katia could see, Oliver had put all his jealousy of his brother behind him. It made for a remarkable transformation.
“Okay, but hurry back,” Katia said. She had let go of George, pulling Tom closer; her ear was to his neck. “When I’m finished dancing with George, I’m going to begin saying good night.”
“I think that’s a good idea,” Tom whispered in Katia’s ear. She felt a tingle of excitement as his lips brushed against hers. Behind him, she could see Oliver waiting, looking in the other direction. “Shall I meet you upstairs? Remember that we’re in the honeymoon suite—room 712.”
“I remember,” Katia whispered back.
“Milady, may I have what’s left of this dance?” George said. He was still waiting.
“Sorry, George,” Tom said, leaning to clap him on the shoulder. “Oliver? Shall we?”
“Sure,” Oliver said, leading him off the dance floor toward the edge of the enormous Empire Ballroom. “Come upstairs—I’ve got a minibar up there,” Oliver said to Tom. Katia could hear them as they walked away and delighted herself in the knowledge that they had finally worked things out between them.
Before Gaia Page 13