by Tim Tigner
Max confessed his white lie after receiving his reward the following evening. Then he asked her for another date.
Four years later, she actually was a spy leaving a car to be stolen.
As she closed the trunk, with the senator’s raincoat and umbrella now in hand, Zoya saw a couple of boys wearing low-riding pants and big baseball caps approaching. The trunk noise caused them to look up and meet her eye. They didn’t strike her as formal gang members, more like bored high school dropouts, but she was no expert on American inner-city youth.
She scurried back to the driver’s seat and immediately locked the door. Rubbing her amulet for luck, she studied the two in the side mirror. They didn’t give her a second glance. When they passed without slowing, she made a snap decision.
She lowered the passenger window. “Either of you guys have a driver’s license?”
They stopped and then backed up, reversing themselves like a rewound video rather than turning around. “Say what?” The shorter, thicker boy asked.
“If either of you has a driver’s license, you could make some money.”
“How much?” the leader asked.
“Doin’ what?” asked the taller one.
Both sets of hands remained plunged in pockets.
Zoya resisted the urge to look down and see what they might be holding. “Driving this car back to San Francisco for me earns you a thousand bucks each.”
“This sweet ride?”
“San Francisco?”
“Interested?” Zoya asked.
“Hell yeah.”
“What’s the catch?”
Zoya gave them her conspiratorial shrug and put a bit of mischief in her eye. “It’s my ex’s car. I needed to borrow it, and now I can’t take it back.”
The two looked at each other, then backed away to converse in private. But only for a moment. Their next words were as predicted. “Show us the money.”
“He pays. When you deliver to the address on the registration. Otherwise, how do I know you won’t just sell the car? It cost over sixty thousand dollars just nine months ago. You could easily get twenty, twenty-five, maybe even thirty thousand for it, even without the title. So you need incentive.”
Again the two backed up and put their capped heads together. Their words weren’t decipherable, but their excitement was as evident as the conspiratorial looks on their faces.
Sixty seconds later Zoya was alone on the wet pavement beneath a pink paisley umbrella, wearing a golden raincoat over black 49ers sweats, and holding pitifully little in her pockets. She had a stolen Chevron card, four dollars in change, a box of TicTac mints, a bottle of water, and a company name.
Vulcan Fisher.
She had come to Seattle to find Max. Now all she had to do — as a hunted spy, on enemy territory, without a car or computer or contacts or cash — was figure out how.
Chapter 64
Sleeveless
Seattle, Washington
IN WAYWARD DAYS, Zoya played a woman who runs away from her abusive husband, a major in the Moscow City Police. At the start of her signature scene, she awakes from a concussive blow, and experiences clarity of thought despite her throbbing headache. She rounds up all the valuables in their apartment, and storms out with a vow never to return.
Her first stop is a pawn shop. Arriving with a bruised face, disheveled hair, and a wild gaze, she dumps her plunder on the counter. It’s quite a haul, as it includes a large stash of watches and jewelry that her husband had either accepted as bribes or pilfered from drunks. In a hallmark moment, the unctuous thug behind the counter asks, “Anything else?” once they agreed on the price for each piece. “Just one more thing,” she replies, slipping off her wedding ring and flicking it onto the pile. That’s when the police arrive, and her wayward days begin.
Despite it being the scene that won her the Golden Eagle nomination, Zoya wasn’t hoping for a repeat performance as she dropped Jas’s wedding and engagement rings onto the counter at Seattle Pawn. Nonetheless, she expected that her expression was just as contemptuous as it had been in the movie. The engagement ring wasn’t the one Max had given her, of course. Ignaty Filippov had swapped Max’s out for one he called “more Western.” She held the gaudy bauble in the same esteem that a slave would her collar — but of course she didn’t show it.
“How much you looking for?” the pawn broker asked after a quick, initial appraisal.
“I know what they’re worth, so you can drop the act. My ex paid $15,000 for the set just six months ago. I’ll settle for $10,000.”
“Where’d he buy them?” the broker asked, suspicion in his eyes.
Zoya thought fast. Could experts tell where jewelry was from? Did it matter? Or was he just trying to rattle her. “Moscow.”
The man emitted a satisfied chuff and brought the jeweler’s loupe back to his eye. Fifteen minutes later, Zoya left the little shop with $7,500 cash in her hand, and hope in her heart.
She took a cab to Pacific Place mall and found her way to the dress section of Barneys New York, where she began looking for a very specific item. She didn’t find anything close to what she needed. BCBG Max Azria was similarly disappointing, although it yielded suitable shoes and undergarments. She was almost ready to search for a fabric store when a dress at Club Monaco caught her eye. The style was entirely wrong with a scoop neck and long sleeves, but the color was a perfect rendition of the striking violet purple she needed. “Do you have this in a size two?”
They did, and the dress looked custom fit.
At the checkout counter, Zoya asked another question. “May I borrow your scissors?”
“Of course.”
While the sales associate looked on with wide eyes, Zoya carefully cut off both sleeves and turned the scoop neck into a V. “Much too hot out, don’t you think?”
As Zoya held the defiled dress up to admire her work, the sales associate said, “You’re not going to be able to return it now.”
Zoya had to laugh at that one.
Her outburst brought a smile to the clerk’s face as well. “No one’s ever done that before.”
Zoya gave her a wink. “I prefer setting trends, to following them. Where’s the ladies room?”
The girl inclined her head. “Just outside to the right.”
Appraising her handiwork in the bathroom mirror, Zoya had a mixed reaction. On the upside, she’d achieved the look she was going for. On the downside, she appeared a lot older than the reference image imprinted on her mind’s eye. This gave her pause.
No woman enjoyed aging, but the process was particularly distressing for actresses. Although actors benefitted from increasing opportunities until age 46, the numbers were depressingly different for their female counterparts. Actresses’ careers peaked at 30, and it was almost always downhill from there.
Standing there studying herself in the mirror of a mall bathroom with 30 nearly a decade behind her, Zoya asked herself if she wanted to continue fighting what was ultimately a losing battle. Wouldn’t she be better off getting out on top and moving on to something else, like Gwyneth Paltrow had? But what? My how the last few weeks were affecting her in unexpected ways.
Zoya wasn’t sure if her fresh perspective was a good or bad thing. What she did know was that the prospect of embracing any old role, just so long as it allowed her to keep acting, had become a lot less appealing.
Still, what alternative did she have?
That, of course, was a question for another day. For now she had her hands full just ensuring that she’d have a future beyond bars. The next few hours would be crucial in that regard.
Chapter 65
Purple Flowers
Seattle, Washington
ESPIONAGE was hardly routine work, but it routinely involved repetitive work. Mind-numbing jobs as far from the glamor of James Bond as suburban Seattle was from MI6. Jobs the campus recruiters never mentioned when they came calling.
Max was in the midst of one of those grinds now. To get to the ex
citement of intercepting Vulcan Fisher’s shipment to Boeing, he first had to find out who was doing the shipping, and then when. Thus the mind-numbing task of watching trucks come and go.
He had installed a video camera on the light pole directly across the street from Vulcan Fisher’s main entrance drive. It was a bit distant, but the only electrified alternative, atop the Vulcan Fisher bus stop, was too risky. The guard hut was just a hundred feet away, and bored public transit riders were constantly milling about. Someone would surely spot his camera, and either steal or confiscate it.
After a few minutes of watching the live feed, Max decided to watch the recording instead — at a much faster speed. 10X proved to be too fast. He might miss a truck if his mind wandered or his eyes averted for more than a single second. But 5X was tolerable. His schedule evolved from that. Every five hours, he’d set aside his other work, grab a large coffee, and sit for sixty minutes with his eyes glued to the screen. Still a shit-sandwich of a job, but cut into bite-size pieces.
In between surveillance sessions, he divided his time between investigating the companies whose trucks he’d seen coming and going, and working out the plan’s other details. He found sources for trucks and uniforms. He identified warehouse spaces available to lease and made appointments to see them. He ordered Vulcan Fisher signage. Pulling off an illusion required a lot of attention to detail.
As his second day of reconnaissance drew to a close, Max figured he was in decent shape. He’d identified twelve potential shippers, and had winnowed the dozen down to just three by excluding those that weren’t a match due to cargo type or weight or destination. Wang’s guy was already at work hacking into those three while Max continued the grind. He’d force himself to keep at it until they identified the one shipper delivering autopilot systems to Boeing.
Max had just finished the last sip of his latest coffee when he slapped the pause button and stared at the screen. He was looking at a contradiction. Something he couldn’t mistake, and yet something that couldn’t be true.
He zoomed in on the bottom right side of his screen. The Vulcan Fisher bus stop was a typical city structure, with a roof, back, and single sidewall. This one had a not-so-subtle billboard advertising Callie’s Club.
Max had learned to ignore that quadrant of the screen during his surveillance sessions. He was afraid of getting so mesmerized by people-watching that he’d fail to notice the arriving and departing trucks. But his eye had been drawn by a purple dress. It was an instinctive reaction to a flash of color, like a honeybee to a flower.
Pictures of beautiful women held special spots in the memories of most men. Some were iconic, most were sexy. For their breakthrough photos, Marilyn had posed in white, Farrah in red, and Zoya in purple. Each had managed to provoke the same primal reaction. All had been plastered across countless bedrooms and dorms.
With every click of the zoom, Max’s heart grew and his head became more certain. It wasn’t a look-alike or a hallucination or wishful thinking. The woman in the sleeveless purple dress actually was Zoya.
Impossible — and yet he’d bet his life on it.
He looked at the video’s timestamp. Ninety minutes ago.
Swapping over to the live feed, he held his breath while it connected. Please! Please! Please!
She was there! Zoya was still at the bus stop. She was alone with three younger guys, all sporting well-worn flannel shirts and lustful stares.
Chapter 66
First Things First
Seattle, Washington
MAX’S RENTAL CAR was a mid-size blue Ford, a perfect combination of unremarkable and peppy. He took full advantage of peppy as he raced toward Vulcan Fisher with foxhole prayers spewing from his lips. Being unremarkable would come in handy when he arrived, if his prayers were answered and Zoya was still there.
Among the thousands of questions he had for his fiancée, the most pressing was if she was under surveillance. Was she bait? Or was there another, far more complicated story?
He covered the four miles in as many minutes and caught a glorious glimpse of purple from a hundred yards away. Zoya was still out in front of the covered bench, dangling like a lure, but clutching a silver Club Monaco bag. She’d walked all the way to the curb as though she were trying to hail a cab, but the intent seemed to be to get away from the flannel shirts. They’d risen and were standing behind her like hyenas who’d cornered a gazelle.
Max’s plan was to conduct careful countersurveillance. He’d confirm her presence from the far lane at cruising speed, then double back, park at a distance, and search for watchers on foot. That plan went out the window when one of the men reached out for Zoya’s shoulder.
Max floored the gas, swerved into the curb lane, and slammed the brakes just before the bus stop. His Ford screeched to a stop with the back tire thunking against the curb inches from Zoya’s feet. He leaned over, pushed the passenger door open, and yelled in Russian, “Zoya get in!”
As soon as her right ankle cleared the door, Max hit the gas, rocketing the car ahead and slamming the door closed. “Is anyone watching you?” he asked, his foot to the floor, his eyes darting furiously between the traffic ahead and the traffic behind, scanning for openings and searching for pursuit.
“No.”
“Are you sure?” he asked. With a stroke of good luck, he caught a green arrow and took the left turn at 50 mph.
“I escaped in San Francisco. Drove here through the night. Nobody followed.” Her voice was fraught with deep emotions. Fear, relief, and surprise.
Max was consoled but confused. He didn’t slow down. Better safe than sorry. “I’ve been so worried about you! I’ve been going out of my mind ever since you hit the panic button. Ignaty told me it was an accident. I wanted to believe him, but I didn’t.”
“I hit it when someone showed up at the island. He shot me with a tranquilizer just after I sent off my report.”
“Who was it?” Max interrupted.
“I don’t know. By the time I woke up he was dead, as was my support team.”
“What!” Max looked over into Zoya’s eyes, and his heart melted.
“When I awoke, Achilles had me tied up on a boat.”
Max reached over and stroked her thigh. “But you escaped? For real? Achilles didn’t let you get away so you’d lead him to me?”
“No way. I got away when his friend was killed. And he doesn’t know about Seattle. We never discussed your mission. Never even broached the topic. He was completely focused on his own mission and predicament.” Zoya was speaking fast, as if she couldn’t wait to get the words out.
Max interrupted her. “Throw everything out the window just in case. Everything you had with you on the island. Everything he gave you.” He lowered her window.
She looked down at her shopping bag, then tossed it.
“What about the clothes you’re wearing?”
“I just bought these.”
“No phone?”
“No phone.”
“Great.” He reached out and stroked her thigh. “Please continue with the story.”
She did, and what a story it was.
Max was in a hurry to get Zoya back to his room, but her tale was so enthralling that he feared accidentally hitting a pedestrian or rear-ending another car. Making a flash decision, he took a dangerous turn from the far lane into a Walmart where he proceeded to perform a series of evasive maneuvers in the huge parking lot that would either shake or expose any tail. Satisfied that they were indeed alone, he hid the Ford between two vans in the employee back lot, and turned to the love of his life.
As Zoya described her journey from Hawaii to San Francisco to Seattle, he couldn’t believe that she’d managed to keep her wits and composure about her throughout it all. He felt love and pride welling up inside, overwhelming the fear and doubt that had inhabited his heart for the last few days.
He gave her thigh a big squeeze. “That was a brilliant move on your part, waiting at a place you knew I’d be passing,
wearing an outfit you knew would catch my eye.”
Zoya blushed, her smile dislodging a few tears of joy. “I didn’t know what else to do. I’d thought about going to the consulate in San Francisco. The moment Achilles gave the Hawaiian airline ticket agent our destination, it crossed my mind. But later he actually warned me that the CIA had eyes and ears there.”
Max used the back of his finger to wipe away her tears. “That would have been a bad idea anyway. We’re supposed to be vacationing in Sochi. Korovin and Ignaty would both have had fits if anyone learned otherwise. Maybe if you’d completed your mission, but it wouldn’t have gone well if you’d added a security breach to a failure.
Zoya’s face scrunched.
“I’m sorry,” Max said. “That was insensitive.”
“That’s not it. Well, not entirely. I didn’t fail! I got most of the plan from Achilles.”
“And they know that?”
“Of course.”
“Then why didn’t they pull you out?”
“I’d literally just sent the message when the guy with the tranquilizer gun showed up. Ignaty had me using some old-fashioned code.”
“A manual transliteration cypher.”
“That’s it. Took forever.”
Max was all too familiar with one-time pads. The SVR liked them because they were unbreakable even in the face of American and Chinese supercomputers. If you didn’t have the pad, you couldn’t break the code. Period. “What do you mean by most of the plan?”
“The CIA discovered that Korovin occasionally slips his bodyguard on purpose.”
“When? Where? How?”
“Achilles didn’t say.”
Max thought about that for a sec. “It doesn’t matter, not if you can ask Korovin himself for the details. You could have sent the mission-accomplished signal.”