Semyon didn’t contradict Victor, but he held the silence long enough to signal his doubts.
“I’ve got him under my thumb,” Victor protested.
“Well, now we have another avenue if Reitman doesn’t cooperate. Informants aren’t always reliable. It’s always good to have our own man inside,” Kasparov said.
“But Artur’s never been undercover before!”
“And yet he did admirably,” Semyon said.
Kasparov tilted his head and studied Artur, seemingly reassessing him. “Tell us what else you know about Sofia Reitman.”
“I’ll tell you what’s not in the file. She’s lonely,” Artur said. He flashed to an image of her locked outside the bathroom, her hand on the door that wouldn’t open. He said, “Five years of separation is a long time, and the man who came back to her isn’t the one who left. He’s become suddenly religious. And he’s distant and angry. And she knows he’s keeping things from her.”
“You think you can get her to open up to you?” Kasparov asked.
He remembered her tearful arrival at Ruben’s and the way she had, for just an instant, burrowed into Artur’s embrace for comfort.
“Yes.” Lonely people were prone to unburden their secrets to anyone willing to listen.
“Indeed,” Semyon agreed. “In a case like this, I expect seduction will work far better than torture.”
“If I go back undercover, I can befriend her,” Artur said.
“Befriend her?” Semyon barked out a laugh. “Sometimes you are too funny.”
He hadn’t been joking.
“He wasn’t joking,” Victor said. “He’s never done this kind of thing before.”
Semyon shrugged, but the gleam in his eyes belied his indifference. “Every good undercover agent has a first time.”
Artur had been slow on the uptake. When understanding caught up to him, he felt as if he’d been tackled to the ground after a hard run. He was breathless with shock. “You want me to seduce Sofia Reitman?”
“Of course,” Semyon said.
Artur’s stomach knotted and roiled the way it had when he had spied his first dead carcass as a child, a rotting bird with broken wings.
The idea of seducing a target was all well and good when it was Lilya or another dangle on the hook.
With tremendous self-control, Artur schooled his features to make himself seem confident and intrigued.
“You’re showing real aptitude for undercover work,” Semyon praised. “You’ll need this notch in your belt if you want to join the club. Who knows? Maybe we’ll even be able to implant you in America as an illegal.”
His words were laced heavily with the promise of more and greater opportunities, of a reassignment from the domestic First Directorate to foreign intelligence with the Second Directorate, all the things Maya wanted for him, for them.
But she wouldn’t like this at all.
Victor regarded Artur with what seemed a newfound respect, but whether due to Semyon’s clear interest in him or his own merits was impossible to tell. “So Artur will go deep inside—haha!—while I continue to work on Reitman?”
His pun pulled a smile from Semyon that seemed to please Victor greatly. “I’m counting on you both,” Semyon said, giving Victor the recognition he seemed to crave, too.
“This could work. This really could work,” Victor decided.
“I’m counting on you,” Semyon said, addressing all of them, but Artur felt the message was for him alone. “I know you’ll do whatever you have to do to catch our traitors.”
Chapter TWENTY-SIX
SOFIA
SOFIA CHECKED HER tote bag carefully before leaving her house. The piece of clear tape she’d hooked across the top hadn’t been disturbed that she could see.
That meant she’d survived another day when Mendel hadn’t tampered with her things, hadn’t searched her tote bag, hadn’t found the lipstick-shaped camera currently stowed in the pocket.
He hadn’t yet tried, not that she was aware. Maybe he wouldn’t.
He had denied he’d come home to help the KGB. But so would she if that had been her aim.
She could hear him and Kolya in the throws of another disagreement as Mendel helped with homework. They seemed to be constantly at odds. Kolya seemed to regard every move his father made with sullen disapproval. Usually so quiet and polite, Kolya could be frequently heard grousing, “No, Papa. That’s not how Vera does it.”
“I don’t care how Vera does it.” Mendel’s temper, always hardy, erupted. “I’m here now, and this is how I do it.”
“Don’t fight,” she called from the hallway as she buttoned her coat.
The screaming made her uncomfortable. She’d talked to Mendel about it, but he didn’t seem able to control it. Still, as unpleasant as it was, she didn’t believe he’d actually hurt their son.
She didn’t want to believe it.
She didn’t want to believe he might betray her to the KGB, either.
But her fear hadn’t abated.
His hair trigger didn’t prove he had sided with the KGB, but neither did it prove he hadn’t, and it was wholly unfamiliar to her. Her husband always could be stubborn and pigheaded, but he had never been impulsive and easily riled.
She opened the apartment door and saw the mezuzah Mendel had hung once more. Without the bug, he had claimed, but she hadn’t seen for herself, and she hated the persistent doubts she couldn’t help but harbor.
“I’ll be home at the usual time.” She called out her farewell and headed to work. She might worry about them both, but she didn’t hesitate to leave.
Not once had her commitment to her cause wavered, but right now it consumed her.
The elevator, constantly on the fritz, was out again. She marched resolutely down the seven flights of stairs to the ground floor. She walked out the door, past Mendel’s two agents, and straight to the subway.
She was vigilant as ever, but she worried less and less about the risks as she went about her business.
She entered the subway station and headed down the stairs to catch the train to the university. She kept her tote bag close by her side as she navigated her way through the turnstile.
The Kremlin would pay for everything they’d done to Mendel, for everything they’d taken from her, for all the victims the Soviet system chewed up and spit out, for the countless lives destroyed.
One day, the Soviet government would wake up and find itself powerless to continue terrorizing and oppressing people, all of its sharp and deadly fangs removed.
She didn’t have to wait long for the train. She found an empty row and sat with her bag in her lap.
Maybe the KGB was closing in on her. Maybe Mendel was helping them. The heightened sense of threat only spurred her, giving way to a heady anticipation. She would do as much damage as she possibly could before the noose tightened around her neck.
She looked around her at the people, but didn’t notice anyone out of the ordinary, anyone watching her too long. All clear, for now.
She felt powerless in so many ways, but here was a way to strike back.
When she finally arrived at work and stopped at the guard desk, Grisha spent more time than usual inspecting her things. He stared too long at her chest. She was uncomfortable around him. She wanted to speed along to her work—and her revenge—but waited, hands held loosely at her side, her posture and bearing deceptively demure and patient.
Grisha’s hand curled around the pocket to her work pants, and her breath caught.
He dug out the Tropel she’d hidden there and held the silver tube up to the light. “What’s this?”
“Lipstick,” she said through the sudden dryness in her mouth. Her heart pounded wildly. If Grisha opened the tube, he would know there was no lipstick inside.
“I’ve never seen you wearing lipsti
ck.” His beady eyes fixed on her lips, and her skin crawled.
“No,” she agreed. “But things are different now. My husband’s come home.”
Grisha fingered the tube, rolled it thoughtfully in his hand. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking, but she didn’t like the speculative look in his eyes.
“I heard about that,” he said cryptically.
What had he heard? From whom?
“You’re surprised I know this.” He lifted his chin as if she had challenged his pride. “You think I’m only a lowly night guard.”
“I don’t think anything. I clean toilets,” she said. She had never had such a long conversation with one of the security guards, and his attention made her uneasy.
“Do you know what they do here?” he asked slyly, and she couldn’t help feeling he was trying to bait her.
“I know what they do in the bathroom, and it’s the same as in any other,” she said with a nonchalant shrug.
“This is a high security building,” Grisha boasted. He still held her camera, and she had a stab of fear that he knew exactly what information was contained upstairs and what he held in his hand. “Full of military secrets.”
“Military secrets?” She pretended to be surprised.
He smiled wolfishly. “I assure you that they wouldn’t send a lowly night guard to watch over this place.”
“Oh.” She didn’t have to pretend this time. She hadn’t given much thought to the guards who had worked here, other than inventing ways to avoid being caught by them.
Was he telling her he was with the KGB? Or was this an attempt to exaggerate his own importance and impress her?
She considered the way he struggled each night to find the right keys. If he was a KGB agent, he couldn’t be a very good one, she decided.
Maybe she had nothing to worry about. Nothing more than usual, anyway. Maybe this was all bravado.
He cupped her hand with his moist palm and gave her back the lipstick tube. The metal was warm from his touch. He seemed to stare intently into her face.
He was new, and he seemed to have a stronger interest in her than the other guards had. Was he flirting, or was he trying to intimidate her?
She closed her fingers tightly around the Tropel.
“I should get to work,” she said.
He released her hand, and she headed to the supply closet to change. She locked the door behind her and leaned against it, breathing deeply. That was close!
She changed her clothes and gathered her supplies, pretending for Grisha, and perhaps for herself, that this was a normal night.
Grisha led her, like usual, to the office suite upstairs, but he marched down the hall with uncustomary swagger. He stopped in front of the door to the laboratory suite and wave his hand with a flourish.
“What’s this?” Sofia asked, trying to swallow back her alarm. The lock had been replaced with an electronic keypad, an oversized gadget with a number pad and blinking lights.
“Increase in security,” he said.“I told you this was an important place.”
“I’ve worked here for years,” she said. “How come they’re only becoming concerned with security now? Did something change?”
“That’s classified information,” Grisha said after a long hesitation and puffed out his chest.
She hoped he had bluffed his answer and didn’t know anymore than she did.
He covered over the buttons on the keypad with one hand while he entered the code. His thick lips moved as he punched in the numbers. She didn’t catch all of them, but she expected that if she paid attention, she might be able to decipher it after a few more nights.
Inside the office suite, there was a new, large desk. “See this?” Grisha said. “Now they make everyone sign in and out during the day.”
During the day. Maybe they were increasing security overall, and this didn’t have any direct connection to specific suspicions about her.
Grisha lumbered to the second set of doors. They also had a keypad. He crouched over this one too, again shielding his fingers from her view.
He was frustratingly conscientious. Did he think someone was watching them? Or was he making a show of his special knowledge to impress her?
Sofia glanced around for cameras. She didn’t see any obvious signs, any new fixtures or additions to the ceiling or the walls, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there.
Did the new security precautions extend into the hallway? Would there be cameras? What about the locks on the doors? What if she could no longer access the office?
Once they were through the inside door and into the hallway of offices, she noticed that none of the doors had the clunky electronic keypads.
What she couldn’t tell from her quick, cursory inspection as she shuttled down the hall with the cleaning supplies was whether the locks had been changed or any other precautions taken.
She unloaded her supplies by the doorway and deliberately fumbled for her own keys. She dropped them on the floor and took the time as she retrieved them to look around for cameras. Unlike the keypad and the new guard desk, there was nothing obvious.
She pretended to search her keychain, the same way Grisha usually did. Eager to test her keys on the locks in Max’s office, she hoped Grisha would leave before she unlocked the bathroom.
He didn’t.
He lingered, watching, making her increasingly nervous and uncomfortable. Did he suspect her? Or was he waiting for her to give him a sign of approval.
After his groping last week, she didn’t dare encourage him.
She propped the door open with her hip and took most of the cleaning supplies in with her, but not all of them.
She waited a long moment, ear pressed to the door, and listened. She heard Grisha’s heavy footsteps, heard the door open and shut.
But tonight, she decided she would wait.
She arranged her cleaning supplies and then carefully crept back to the door and eased it open. She peered into the hallway.
“What are you doing?” Grisha demanded.
She startled and gave a little shriek. Yet somehow she wasn’t completely surprised to find him lurking in the shadows. “Oh!” She put her hand to her heart. “You scared me.”
“Why aren’t you in the bathroom?”
She pointed to the bottle of bleach she’d deliberately left on the floor beside the door. She had gotten adept at leaving trails of plausible excuses for most of her activities. “I needed the rest of my supplies.”
“I see,” he said, but she suspected he hadn’t noticed the bleach by the door. He leaned against the wall and watched her go back inside.
What was he still doing out there? Why hadn’t he left? What was he expecting her to do?
She turned on the faucet and filled the bucket with water and bleach. She went through the motions of mopping and scrubbing the bathroom, all the while considering her next move and listening for sounds of Grisha’s movements.
Before Grisha, no one had ever questioned Sofia or even watched her that closely. No one had paid any mind to the lowly woman who scrubbed the bathrooms before. In the past, the guards had left her to herself.
Did someone now suspect her?
She heard the hallway door close once more, but she couldn’t be sure Grisha had actually left. She bided her time and did a perfunctory cleaning, left the bucket and mop in one of the stalls, and tiptoed back to the door. She eased it open and peered out into the hallway. The lights were off, and there was no sign of Grisha now.
She did a second quick check of the hallway and listened hard for any sounds from the security area in the office suite. Nothing.
The hall was so quiet that she could hear the sound of her own heartbeat. She swallowed, and the sound seemed to be magnified in the stillness.
She ached to rush into the laboratory, steal the file
, and continue with the painstaking work of photographing the pages.
But she feared being discovered.
Chapter TWENTY-SEVEN
ARTUR
“WHAT CAN YOU tell me about Yosef Koslovsky?” Artur asked his father. He needed as many details as he could get if he was going to go deep undercover.
“Why on earth would you want to know about him?” Artur’s mother asked. They sat at the dining room table, under an imported chandelier of Austrian crystal, and ate on the fine, gold-rimmed china. Maya had insisted on treating his rare appearance for dinner like a special occasion.
“I have an assignment,” he said. “I’m going undercover.
“Undercover? Since when do you go undercover?” his mother asked uneasily.
“That’s not your usual job,” his father added. Yana and Mikhail Gregorovich had never been completely comfortable with Artur’s choice to have a career in the KGB.
“Artur’s moving up in the ranks,” Maya said with a barbed smile. His ambitions had always been a source of tension between them and his parents.
He wasn’t sure how pleased Maya herself would be about if she knew what “moving up in the ranks” seemed to entail.
Yana abruptly turned to Aleksei, avoiding the minefield around Artur’s career. They boy had eaten the fried potatoes on his plate and nothing else. “Sweetheart, have a little soup,” she suggested.
“No.” Aleksei turned his nose up at the rich, thick vegetable soup Artur’s mother had lovingly prepared, a food staple that had been one of Aleksei’s favorites until recently.
“Then some asparagus? I’ll cut it for you.” Yana reached over and began to slice the tender spears of asparagus, the first of the season.
“No,” he said. “I only want potatoes.”
“You can’t eat just potatoes,” she said. “You need to grow up big and strong, like your papa. You need to eat your vegetables and the kutletka.”
“No,” he said.
There was a miniscule amount of food on the boy’s plate, two spears of asparagus and half of an untouched chicken cutlet.
“If you don’t eat your dinner, you won’t get to have any of the cake I made,” she wheedled.
To Catch a Traitor Page 14