Spy Another Day Box Set: Three full-length novels: I, Spy; Spy for a Spy; and Tomorrow We Spy (Spy Another Day clean romantic suspense trilogy)

by Jordan McCollum

  Unless the CIA and CSIS are suddenly interested in the world’s most inept criminal, there’s definitely something I don’t like about any profile this hilarious.

  “Make it believable.” Will’s still using his stern voice. I round Will to peer at the screen between Elliott and Robby’s shoulders.

  The first thing I notice is the picture — it’s me. Why are they profiling me, and why are they using such a cruddy picture to do it? My eyes move to the information in the right column. In Russian. I doubt we’ve hacked Russian intelligence files, and if we have, if they have a photo of me that recent, we’ve definitely done something wrong.

  And then I read the info. Natalia Zhzhyonov. 25. Should I be flattered they’re shaving my age, or not? Twenty-eight isn’t exactly ancient.

  And then I see that one little line that changes everything. Looking for a man 25-45.

  Oh, no, no. This isn’t just a social networking site. It’s an online dating profile. The dread curls around my ribs. I eye Elliott, Robby — and Will. “What are you people doing?”

  Elliott taps on the logo at the top of the screen. РуссКа/RussCa. The slogan underneath translates as “Your Russian/Canadian connection.” I just saw this somewhere.

  “Timofeyev liked RussCa on Facebook.” Elliott pulls up the site’s Facebook page. Now I remember. He clicks on another tab, a profile of a now-familiar bearded man on the deck of a boat. If I had to guess, I’d say the boat was on the Don (it’s Rostov-on-Don for a reason). No wonder he wanted to go out with Kozyrev yesterday. The name at the top reads RotorFyodor. A rhyming username on a guy? Apparently the flying thing is more than just a career.

  They’re setting me up. I resist the urge to slap the back of Elliott’s head. It’d be hard to hit him anyway, since he’s swiveled to watch my reaction. I check. So has Will. “You want me to what? I mean, we’re not above Internet dating, but we know better than to date the dark side.”

  Robby points to a paragraph near the top of Timofeyev’s profile. I am in Ontario this August and would love to find someone to pass the time with. Travel is very lonely.

  “I — okay, yes, I see that, but we haven’t been preparing for face time here.” Watching him, tailing him, chasing him, yes. Dating him? No.

  What’s the problem? Will’s eyebrows ask.

  The problem is that I already have enough problems with my boyfriend, I don’t scream. Not to mention that it’ll take more than a day or two to get ready to meet a possible enemy spy.

  “Travel is very lonely.” Robby points at Timofeyev’s profile again.

  I do not want to do this, but I don’t get a chance to voice a further objection.

  “It’s not like we’re asking you to sleep with him,” Will says. And of course they’re not. We do not sleep with targets or agents, and when the honey pot route is absolutely necessary, we turn to . . . “specialists.”

  Will puts on his I-mean-this voice. “The only female Russian-speaker available from CSIS this week is a throwback to the Cold War.”

  I don’t really have a choice here. I choke down the defeat and the dread, the nerves and the flavor of fear, and then reach between Elliott and Robby to pull up my profile again. No point in draining the resignation out of my voice. “Where was I born?”

  “Canada.”

  If Natalia had been born in Russia, her last name should have been Zhzhyonova, but a lot of Russians dropped gendered last names in the States and Canada. Still, I shake my head.

  “What?” Elliott says. “You don’t think he’ll buy a twenty-five-year-old messaging him?”

  “I don’t know, maybe. But we need a different profile picture.” I’m not sure where they got the shot of me in eye and ear protection, but they know better than to advertise that sometimes I use a gun. I upload my copy of the picture Danny uses for me on his phone: me walking a bike across the locks, the Château in the background. It’s from our first date, so you know I made an effort to look good. “Make sure I’m looking for friendship, not a relationship.”

  Robby checks the appropriate box. Next, I read through what little they’ve got. I highlight a sentence under About me. “What’s this?”

  “‘I’m a laid-back girl’?” Robby translates.

  “Might as well say ‘Lyublyu dolgie progulki po plyazhu.’”

  Robby smirks; Will and Elliott don’t. “I like long walks on the beach,” I tell them.

  Will gives one of his eyebrow-nods. “Good luck.”

  I glance back at what they’ve got in the profile. snagging and prepping for a “date” in the next forty-eight hours? My stomach turns cold. We’re going to need more than luck.

  I lean back in my chair and rub my face. It took most of the afternoon, but we’ve finally got a profile that I think sounds like an actual human might’ve written it. An actual human Timofeyev might want to talk to. It’s one thing to tail the guy; it’s another to try to actively engage him as a decoy.

  “All right.” Robby clicks the button to publish my profile. Now I have no choice. Now we have to initiate contact. Because even worse than getting a date with an enemy spy? Failing to get a date.

  It takes another half hour alternating between tedium and taxing to craft the perfect “Hi how are you ;)” message. We send it through RussCa’s KoketniChat system, a cute play on the Russian koketnichat′, ‘to flirt.’

  Timofeyev isn’t online, at least not according to the gray icon beneath his profile picture. He’s touring SinclAir today, and we probably won’t get a response soon, unless it’s from someone else. I don’t like it, but I’ve had a lot of practice at misleading and deflecting interest from innocent parties.

  I turn to my translation work, a call to Timofeyev’s mother from this morning. Disturbing. A guy in his forties, overseas on a business trip, checking in with Mommy?

  Nothing interesting or useful there, so I check on his RussCa page again. Still offline. Next, I pull up his Facebook profile. I dig out the Wall message from Mikhail Kozyrev about RussCa. Apparently Kozyrev has used the site to meet a herd of tyolochki. That’s “heifers” in direct translation, but something closer to “chicks” in slang. I have to question the wisdom of advertising that on Facebook. Check my email, check RussCa. Nothing.

  It’s about four — and about four hundred profile-and-email checks later — when I get an email from RussCa: a new KoketniChat is waiting. I close my eyes and click. I hope it’s not some random dude. We made my profile appealing to Timofeyev without looking like we were gunning for him, shooting for a 70% overlap in hobbies and interests. You want a target to feel you’re just like them — dating or intel target. But obviously Timofeyev isn’t the only guy who likes flying, biking, and sailing.

  One message in my KoketniChat inbox. From RotorFyodor. My pulse picks up almost like this is an actual adventure in dating. “I got a bite!” I announce.

  Will, Elliott and everyone else crowd around my desk, though Robby and I are the only ones who can read the text. I go sentence by sentence for a rough translation. “Hello, TashOttava.” My username, a totally original (not) take on the pet form of Natalia and Russian form of Ottawa.

  “Very nice to meet you. Please, call me Fyodor. As I say on my profile, I am 43 and divorced. I work in aerospace. I see we share many interests. Normally I wouldn’t suggest this so soon, but I am only in Ottawa this week, and I would like to meet you. Are you busy?”

  Once I finish, I turn my chair to the rest of my team to celebrate. For a split second, a splash of surprise stuns me. I was almost ready to squeal, as if this were real, as if I were surrounded by my college roommates instead of the boys’ club. But now these guys are the closest I get to girlfriends. No squealing, though there are a couple big grins.

  “CSIS can search his hotel room.” Will checks his watch. “How about tonight?”

  “No, there’ll be fewer people coming and going during the day,” Elliott points out. Fewer witnesses. “We might even get a hand from housekeeping.”

  A
flush of mother-pride fills my chest. I try — and fail — to hold back the smile that goes with it. Elliott hasn’t completely lost his touch.

  “All right.” Will looks to Robby. “Do we have Timofeyev’s itinerary for tomorrow?”

  “We haven’t found anything yet.”

  Will leans over me to pull up the Natalia Zhzhyonov profile. “Where do you work?”

  It took us twenty-five minutes to find the right position, but I think we scored with my cover's legend. “I’m an admin for the House of Commons Committee on Industry, Science and Technology.” I should be able to pass the appearance standard of Parliament Hill on my own, as long as it’s lower than that of Pokrovsky Square. (It’s in Rostov-on-Don.) I’m no competition for Russian girls.

  “What’s good in Parliament Hill?” Will asks.

  “Changing of the guard,” three of us say in near-unison. The changing of the guard at Parliament is one of the city’s biggest tourist attractions, and Timofeyev has been too busy to make it.

  “At . . . ten, right? Breakfast before or lunch after?”

  I wait for someone to answer, but take the question myself after two seconds of silence. “It’ll be easier to meet for breakfast than find him in the crowd. What’s walkable?”

  “The Château.” Robby doesn’t speak French, but he manages this word with a good accent. Pity, considering even francophone locals seem to pronounce it more like “the Shadow.”

  Will considers it. “Convenient.”

  Especially if Timofeyev’s staying downtown. But can we pull together an op for tomorrow morning — if I can get a date at all?

  “So, Wilfrid’s or—what’s that other place? The café?”

  Nobody knows, so I Google it. No, not any special super-fast version. Just regular Google.ca. Yes, Google is one of the CIA’s secret weapons.

  “Zoé’s doesn’t open until afternoon tea.” I double check. That’s 2 PM, apparently.

  “Wilfrid’s is better for us anyway. Got a lot of data on it already.”

  We discuss the best time to meet, and settle on between 8:30 and 9, so we have time to talk and eat before heading down to get a good place on Parliament Hill.

  We work out the details of keeping a tail on me until my computer makes a pop-click sound I’ve never heard before. I turn back to the monitor and kill the tab with Zoé’s schedule. My RussCa profile is underneath — and there’s a little blinking box at the bottom. An instant message KoketniChat. From RotorFyodor. My stomach crawls into my throat and hides, but my heart isn’t racing just from fear. Am I up to this challenge?

  “It’s Timofeyev,” Robby announces.

  I click on the blinking box and it grows taller to show the message from RotorFyodor/Timofeyev. A simple “Hi.” Privyet, not the formal zdravstvuyte.

  Elliott leans in. “What does he say?”

  “Hi.” Robby and I have the same current of excitement running through our voices.

  And suddenly it does feel like I’m surrounded by my college roommates. Robby dashes off to wheel a couple chairs over, César and Justin take a seat on his desk with a view of mine, and Will takes the lead position standing at my shoulder.

  But no pressure.

  “Say ‘hi’ back.” Elliott backs up his urging with a shoving gesture.

  “No, you don’t say ‘hi’ back in Russian.” I switch over to a Cyrillic keyboard and type in the proper response: Kak dela? How are things?

  RotorFyodor: Not bad, thank you. I am enjoying your lovely city. Are you from Russia?

  TashOttava: No, I was born here. My parents are Russian. I don’t want to give out too much info that I might forget right now. I steer the conversation to our plans. I got your message. I’m free in the morning.

  RotorFyodor: Tomorrow? You don’t have work?

  My stomach falls back to a couple inches below its normal location. We need a reason for that. I translate the question. Will tells me what to write. I work for a House of Commons committee but they don’t meet until later. I can take off. Are you busy?

  RotorFyodor: No, no plans in the morning.

  Although the setup we’ve worked so hard on is itching to come flying out of my fingers, that might be too abrupt. I have to go slower. Lay the lure. Reel him in. So instead I type, Have you had a chance to see the city?

  RotorFyodor: Only the inside of SinclAir. And the river.

  TashOttava: Oh, then you should see the changing of the guard. No visit to Ottawa is complete without it.

  I wait for him to take the initiative to ask me to go there in the morning. My cursor seems to be blinking slower with each second.

  RotorFyodor: When is it?

  Oh, right. 10 o’clock every morning.

  RotorFyodor: Then you would like to do that.

  Okay, so he’s not actually using punctuation, and in Russian the question and the statement form of that sentence are exactly the same. I can’t tell if he’s asking me or stating the obvious. Either way, I think my answer works: Sure.

  RotorFyodor: Where would you like to meet?

  I give him the summary version of what my team and I discussed about meeting on Parliament Hill — we’d never find one another in the crowd, etc. — and I suggest meeting beforehand. It takes me a second to transliterate/translate the name of our rendezvous (Restoran Uilfrida, Wilfrid’s restaurant), but he seems to get it.

  RotorFyodor: In Shato-Lorye?

  I don’t understand until I read it aloud. The Château Laurier. Da, I tell him. That’s it.

  He picks the time, 8:45. When I translate the confirmation, the men around me burst into cheers. Yeah, not that different from college, down to the shot of giddiness running in my veins.

  But getting the date is only the beginning. Fyodor’s still there. Now I have to make it look like I’m actually into this — into him. The hard part. Especially when I have to face him.

  And you are not working now? he asks.

  I read it off to my crew, but think of the clever response first. No, I say, they took my plow, so today I’m one with a spoon. The original proverb is “One with a plow, seven with a spoon,” meaning for every productive person, there are a lot of slackers.

  RotorFyodor: Seven nannies and the child is without an eye.

  I translate, and then have to translate it again. “It means if you have too many people on a project, nobody does the actual work.”

  “Isn’t that the truth.” Elliott glances at the other guys around the desk, spectating.

  TashOttava: It seems no one is looking after you, either.

  RotorFyodor: Who said I wasn’t working now?

  TashOttava: am I interrupting?

  RotorFyodor: They think I am taking careful notes. But they have nothing here I’m interested in.

  I lean forward over my keyboard. Once the rest of my team knows what he said, the joking mood evaporates. Oh? What are you interested in?

  Aerospace is all he says.

  The tingling of my scalp is all the prompting I need to subtly bait him. We do a little work with aerospace in my committee.

  RotorFyodor: What committee is that?

  TashOttava: House of Commons Committee on Industry, Science and Technology.

  RotorFyodor: What do you do?

  Here it comes. I have to get this right, make this look natural, and still somehow work in the fact I work with sensitive stuff. Stuff he might care about. Stuff he might want.

  I start small, but I can feel my pulse in my fingers. Look at laws related to industry and technology capabilities and R&D.

  RotorFyodor: Yes, but what do YOU do?

  Nice lead in, if I can use it. Oh, I do support work. Law analysis, effect reports, accountability. Sometimes take lobbyists off the MPs’ hands. Honestly, we’re not sure committees have admins. MPs definitely do, but standing committees? If we can’t find out, I doubt Fyodor can, either. But the tension pulls my back taut.

  TashOttava: And what do you do?

  RotorFyodor: R&D and manufacturing.


  Is that an opportunity? My gut says yes. So you’re researching, developing and manufacturing the future of aerospace?

  RotorFyodor: Trying to. We have a lot of competition.

  TashOttava: That’s tough.

  RotorFyodor: That might change soon. We’ll see how long they last.

  And that trails an ominous fingernail down my spine. I check reactions around me. There’s something in there we can draw out, but we have to tread carefully. Come back to it later. He writes again. I have to pay attention now. I’ll leave word with the maître d’hôtel in the morning. Ask for Fyodor’s table when you get there.

  TashOttava: Okay. See you in the morning.

  The little green light below Fyodor’s profile picture changes to gray. I expect a release, the stress of watching my every word gone, but I spin around to face my team with a sinking feeling that’s a lot closer to dread, or maybe disappointment.

  I do not want to go getting this guy confused for someone I’d actually date. And Danny isn’t the least of the reasons why. No, he’s pretty high up there, but what Timofeyev might do to me if he knew who I really was ranks a little bit higher.

  I glance over at Elliott, who lifts his hand for a high five. Like the hard part’s over.

  “Ne govori gop, poka ne pereprygnesh.”

  He furrows his brow, and I translate: “Don’t say ‘hop’ until you’ve jumped over.”

  Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched. Yeah, I’m a little worried.

  Will claps. “All right. We’ve got an op to plan.”

  There’s a minute of thinking silence, and then inspiration flashes into my mind. “Got it.” I sit up straighter. “Erica said we don’t think he’ll go for full-out betrayal, at least not from what we’ve seen of his motivations. But his profile indicates he could be interested in showing off.”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  “Maybe false-flag?”

  Will looks supremely unconvinced, but Elliott picks up the idea. “What if we convince him she’s Canadian, but she loves Russia and wants to give him some American secrets?”