by Graham Potts
She didn’t look at it again until she was safely inside the car. The box had a simple latch secured with a padlock, but the timber had rotted. She chewed the inside of her cheek and touched the latch with her fingers before tugging at the lock. The wood splintered and the latch pulled free.
Anna opened the box and peered inside. The contents were sealed in a plastic bag and she reached in and pulled the bag out, unsealing it and tipping it into her lap. There was a sand-coloured beret, two rows of mounted medals, several photographs, a passport, and a set of military dog tags. There was also an old wallet, with a driver’s licence and a credit card that had expired seven years earlier.
Stephen Andrew Murphy.
“Stephen Murphy,” she said aloud.
The passport, driver’s licence, and credit card were in English, and all had the same name on them. The dog tags said “S. A. Murphy”, along with “Australian Army”.
Anna placed her hand over her open mouth and glanced around again. Nobody was watching her. She shuffled through the photographs. One was of Volkov—Murphy, she corrected—much younger, standing in a uniform. He was beaming proudly, as if he’d just achieved something great. There was a photograph of Murphy with another man, another soldier. They were both smiling, the other man propped against Murphy’s shoulder. There was also a photograph of Murphy with a woman.
Anna turned the photograph over: “Stephen and Simone— Christmas Party” was written in English but the date was smudged. Murphy was sitting behind a table, smiling at the camera. He was wearing an open-necked shirt and trousers, and his arm was resting on the table. The woman, “Simone”, wore a light summer dress, her dark hair shining and green eyes sparkling. Her hand was stretched out on the table too, her fingertips touching Murphy’s hand.
The next photograph was stained with blood. It was “Simone” and another man, the man that had been leaning against Murphy’s shoulder in the second photograph. They seemed sad and appeared to be standing in an airport. Anna turned the photograph over. “Simone and Darren—Deploying”. There was no date.
Anna sniffed and placed everything back in the box. She looked up through the windscreen, her eyes glazing over as she stared into the darkness.
He’s not a monster, he’s a man, she thought. “Stephen Murphy,” she said again, saying it slowly to breathe life into the words.
He’s a man.
CANBERRA, AUSTRALIA WEDNESDAY 14 SEPTEMBER 8:05 AM AEST
“Can I help you?” Siobhán Miller asked, standing in the open doorway. The retired model flicked her honey-coloured hair over her shoulder and squinted. “Do I know you?”
“I’m from hotel management, Mrs Miller.” Simone Elliot tapped a fingernail on the nametag pinned to her lapel. “I’m sorry to bother you, but we’ve identified a potential risk to your safety.”
“Is this about my missing suit?” She neared, her voice a whisper. “I was right, wasn’t I? I’m being stalked.”
“I’m here to deal with another matter.” Elliot forced her way into the room. “A factory recall was issued and we have to investigate our extension cords. They were all supposed to be inspected prior to check-in yesterday, but some rooms were missed.”
Miller closed the door and stared at Elliot.
“It will just take one minute, Mrs Miller,” Elliot assured her, kneeling next to the television. “We take the safety of our guests very seriously.”
“I don’t care about cords. I need to know about my suit. I have to leave for the airport soon and I want it back.”
Elliot shook the sleeve of her blazer and felt the microchip slide into her hand. She stood up and showed it to Miller.
Miller screwed up her nose. “What’s that?”
It was the chip from an air conditioner’s remote control. Elliot had dissected her room’s remote earlier that morning. “You’ve been bugged,” Elliot explained.
“Oh, I hate creepy-crawlies.” Miller shivered. “Can you spray or something?”
Elliot palmed the chip. “No, Mrs Miller. It’s a listening device.” She handed Miller a business card. “I’m sorry I lied to you but I had to get into your room to check for myself.” Elliot drew a pistol from the small of her back and opened the door, checking the hallway.
“Private investigator?” Miller looked up from the card and saw the pistol, her eyes widening. “What the hell is going on?”
Elliot closed the door and crossed the room. She shifted the blinds with her finger and scowled at the window. “I was hired by your husband,” she said. “It looks like you’re under surveillance.”
“Me? Why me?” Miller was breathing heavily. “Jesus, I am being stalked.”
“There’s a team across the street,” Elliot said, tucking her pistol into the back of her skirt. “My guess is they’ve been watching you since you checked in.” She tugged firmly on the tail of her blazer, hiding her weapon.
“Are they watching me now?” Miller asked.
“The blinds are closed and the room is dark,” Elliot explained. “The human eye can only adjust to ambient light anyway, so they can’t see us at the moment.”
“Ambient. Like traffic lights?”
Elliot groaned and shook her head. “No, not like traffic lights. That’s amber.”
“That’s what you said.”
Elliot sighed and glared at Miller. “You’re not the sharpest stiletto in the closet, are you?”
Miller put her hands on her hips. “Did you just call me a lesbian?”
Elliot gestured for Miller to sit on the bed. “Pay attention.” She crouched in front of the young woman. “Your husband is in Spain negotiating a deal worth hundreds of millions of dollars. He believes he’s at risk of corporate espionage and hired me to conduct a counterintelligence operation focused on you.”
“Me?”
“He believed that the Spanish would use you to get information about him. It would put them in a good position to negotiate terms.”
“I would never—”
“Carlos the language tutor planted this,” Elliot said, holding up the microchip. “He’s been using you.”
Miller slowly raised her hand, taking the chip from Elliot. “But he was just teaching me Spanish.”
“I’ve been watching you, Mrs Miller. You’ve been having an affair while your husband has been away.”
Miller shot to her feet. “I have not!”
“I saw the photographs,” Elliot said with a bored expression. “The phone calls, the messages, the late night meeting in the bar, and I’ve got a flash drive full of pictures of you two groping each other.”
“How dare you!”
“I’ve done my job,” Elliot said firmly. “Now, I have to report to your husband and tell him what I found.” She turned to leave.
“Wait!” Miller cried, bounding in front of Elliot and grabbing her arm. “You can’t tell him. Please.”
“I have to tell him, Mrs Miller,” Elliot said, shrugging off Miller’s hand.
“No, he’ll want a divorce,” Miller sniffed. “And the prenup. I’ll be ruined.”
“Those are the consequences,” Elliot said, pushing past.
Miller threw herself against the door. “Wait, please. There must be something we can do.”
“I could lose my licence, Mrs Miller. I have a reputation to think about.”
“Haven’t you ever done something stupid like this?” Miller asked. “I mean, Carlos made me feel special. It’s like he loved me for me. Haven’t you ever felt that?”
Yes.
Elliot shook her head. “No.”
“What would you do if you did?”
Elliot stepped back. “You have to give me a reason not to tell him, Mrs Miller.”
“Tell him that Carlos tried to use me. Tell him he, um, b—”
“Bugged.”
“—buggered me, then.”
A raised finger. “Wait a minute.”
“But don’t tell him we slept together.”
“Jesus,�
� Elliot mumbled, running her hand through her hair. “Look, your husband paid me very well.”
“And I can pay you to do this for me,” Miller said.
“No, I couldn’t,” Elliot said. “Besides, he paid me seven thousand. I couldn’t—”
“I’ll double it.” Miller’s face pinched. “So that’s fifteen grand.”
Elliot blinked slowly and her eyes narrowed. “Right.”
Miller dashed across the room and plunged into her tower of luggage, rummaging through the bags. “I’m off to Spain today and my husband told me to put all my cash in a money belt, but I don’t wear it because it makes me look chunky.”
Miller emptied the belt on the bed and counted out the cash. Elliot thought it best to supervise the woman’s arithmetic and watched over her shoulder. Miller laid out about 16,000 dollars.
Close enough, Elliot thought.
Miller handed over the cash and Elliot peeled off twenty notes, returning them to Miller.
“You should still do some shopping while you’re in Spain,” Elliot said.
Miller smiled. “Thank you.”
Elliot tucked the rest of the cash inside her blazer. “I’ll go back to your husband and say that you never even dreamed of cheating on him, even though Carlos tried.”
“Thank you, thank you,” Miller said, clasping her hands in front of her.
“You’re welcome, Mrs Miller. And remember, I was never here.”
Elliot returned to her room and changed into the Chanel suit before hanging the stolen hotel uniform in the suit bag. She shook out an A3 envelope, dumping the cash inside and tossing in her pistol and magazines, too. Her jeans were draped over a chair and she scrunched the pockets to make sure she wasn’t forgetting anything. She stopped when she felt the necklace, dragging it out by the chain and placing it in her palm. The silver medallion felt like it was burning her hand and she touched it with her thumb before shoving it into the pocket of her pants.
The hallway was empty. Elliot left the suit bag hanging on a rack of dry-cleaning and took the elevator to the ground floor.
“And how are you this morning?” the concierge asked.
“I don’t know,” Elliot replied. “Is brain damage contagious?”
“Oh dear,” he said, clicking his tongue. “You weren’t watching one of those morning shows on the television, were you?”
Elliot grabbed the envelope from her satchel. “Can you please hold this for me until I return?”
“Of course,” he said.
“Leanne?” Emily Hartigan approached the counter and looked Elliot up and down. “I barely recognised you,” she said. “Is that Chanel?”
“It’s a cheap knock-off.” She pointed at Hartigan. “Is that coffee?”
Hartigan cleared her throat and pulled her jacket tighter around her chest. “Cola.”
“You look terrible.”
“Lee had me up all night writing a brief,” Hartigan said. “I stole two hours sleep on the couch in the break room.”
“Do you want me to drive?” Elliot tore the foil from her cigarette packet and tapped a smoke out of the pack. “You’re bad enough when you’re wide awake.”
“Would you mind?” Hartigan asked. “I need to change my blouse before we get to Military Headquarters.”
“Military Headquarters?”
“It’s a long story,” Hartigan said.
MOSCOW, RUSSIA WEDNESDAY 14 SEPTEMBER 2:45 AM MSK
Nikolay Korolev thought she hadn’t aged a day, not in twenty years. He zoomed in and adjusted the focus.
Just as beautiful as the day we met.
She moved gracefully onto the terrace, her unbuttoned blouse fluttering in the breeze.
Using the cold air to sharpen her mind.
Her white tank top was tucked into her skirt, stretched tight across her flat stomach, her nipples outlined under thin fabric.
Korolev licked his lips.
She stretched out her arms before curling them towards her head, running her hands along her slender neck. Her fingers threaded through her hair, raising it skyward, and her breasts swelled as she inhaled. Her tank top pulled loose from her skirt, revealing her milky white skin. He could see the outline of her hips, the ridges vanishing beneath her skirt, inviting him to imagine, to remember.
Korolev rapidly snapped photographs.
She released her hair and it cascaded down her back. He adjusted the focus. She was wearing fake nails, or perhaps it was just a manicure. No, she was chewing her nails again. He knew it was true. The ashtray on the terrace had a dozen butts in it, all stained with cherry lipstick. She was smoking more, too.
As if to confirm his theory, she lit a cigarette before placing a hand on her hip. She dragged deeply, drawing the smoke into her mouth before pulling the cigarette away. The smoke lingered around her lips before she inhaled, her eyes closed. She exhaled, the smoke swirling away from the terrace, and raised the cigarette to her lips again.
Korolev lowered the camera and smirked, looking over his shoulder. The palace guard was watching Korolev and wringing his hands but he quickly looked down at his boots. He was a colonel, a commander of the elite soldiers whose duty was to protect the president. The soldiers were poorly paid and so Korolev had easily purchased access to the palace grounds.
Sweat beaded on the colonel’s forehead and the bribe he’d accepted seemed to weigh heavily in his pocket. Korolev’s bodyguards watched the soldier while Maxim remained in the shadows, studying the skyline.
Korolev raised the camera again. The woman was bent over now, running her delicate hand along her slender calf, stretching. He could see her naked skin at the small of her back.
He snapped more photographs.
Valentina Nevzorova flicked her cigarette away and sighed before pushing through the terrace doors and sitting down in an armchair beside the fireplace. She folded her legs underneath her body and placed a book on her lap. Her chin rested on an open palm and she weaved the fingers of her other hand between her toes.
Korolev checked his watch. Perhaps ten more minutes, he thought. He was poised to take more photographs when he noticed light glinting off metal. It came from the shadows of her study. No, behind the curtains. He adjusted the focus.
No. It can’t be.
“Nikolay?”
“I’m busy, Maxim,” Korolev said. “What is it?”
“Our time is up,” Maxim said.
Korolev lowered the camera and looked away from the Kremlin’s Presidential Palace. “Yes, of course. You’re right.” He turned. “You should arrange supper, Maxim. Stepan Volkov will be my guest.”
President Valentina Nevzorova sat in the study of the Presidential Palace, her eyelids weighed down by the heavy glow of the crackling fire. A book lay open on her lap and the pages were blurry, but she didn’t want to sleep yet. She wasn’t ready for her solitude to end. She listened to the interminable ticking of the clock, clinging to the sound, her head heavy on her palm, her grasp slipping.
The flames flickered and startled Nevzorova. Her heart started to pound. She’d dismissed her security detail for the night. She was alone.
“I’m not here to kill you, Valentina,” a voice murmured calmly.
The president blinked slowly. “‘Ne’er the God made nature can be subdued by any tsars,’” Nevzorova quoted.
“Pushkin wasn’t writing about me,” Stephen Murphy said, emerging from the shadows behind the curtains. “I’m not here to challenge your authority. And I don’t think you’d give up without a fight, anyway.”
“Perhaps you should share your wisdom with Nikolay,” Nevzorova said, looking into Murphy’s eyes. “It might save the city.” She stood up and placed the book on the chair’s armrest, walking to the side table to pour a drink.
“I heard they gave you a medal for putting him in jail.”
“It’s true,” she admitted, pouring some vodka. “And a promotion.” She capped the bottle and started to feel around beneath the table as if searching for s
omething.
“I disabled the alarm button. If you’re looking for your cigarettes, they’re in the breast pocket of your coat.” He pointed to the hat rack by the door where the president’s coat was draped on a hook. “You would’ve seen them when you took one to smoke on the terrace.”
Nevzorova’s shoulders drooped. “How long have you been in here?”
“Twenty-five minutes.” He closed the curtains and noticed a framed black-and-white photograph on the side table. “I cut the alarm while you were powdering your nose.”
“I should sack my palace guards.” She returned to her chair. “Nikolay should not have sent his Wolf if his intention was to negotiate.”
“Nikolay didn’t send me.” Murphy picked up the photograph. “Is this yours?” The image showed a young Soviet infantryman with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. He had his arm around the shoulders of an American GI. “Your grandfather? Or did this just come with the palace?”
“It’s my grandfather,” she said, bowing her head. “That was taken in 1945 just before he helped take Berlin. The US and Soviet forces joined up on the Elbe River and greeted each other like brothers.”
Murphy noticed that the GI had a US quarter and was rolling it across the top of his hand.
“Two days after that was taken,” Nevzorova continued, “the Russian commander left his tent to inspect the lines. My grandfather went to collect some documents and found the GI taking photographs with a micro camera. He slit the American’s throat.”
Murphy placed the photograph on the side table. “I guess you can’t trust anyone.”
“Precisely,” she said. “My grandfather gave me that photograph as a reminder. He always told me to trust my friends the least.” She gulped down her vodka and placed her glass on the floor. “His advice got me this far.”
“What happened to the coin?” he asked.
A smile crept across Nevzorova’s lips. “He didn’t send you after all, did he?”
“You think I’d lie to you about that?”
“What do you want, Stepan?”