But I’m not here just for the costume change and a fresh coat of paint. I raid one bag for another handheld device. Normally, I don’t have a whole lot of gadgets in my job, but this one’s important. The size of a deck of cards, the scanner doesn’t have external labels or indicators. You have to be in the know to understand the LED display lights on this bug detector.
With the scanner in hand and the cool-weather gear Semyon provided for Danny over my arm, I return to his room. I give Danny’s door a perfunctory knock, then pop the key in the lock. Before I open it, I remember who I am: not his wife. His service provider. (And not that kind of service.) I withdraw the key and wait for the door to open any second.
It doesn’t.
I ignore the nagging, irrational worry and knock again. The door opens less than a second later. “I said I was coming.”
“Sorry; didn’t hear you.”
He buttons the second and top buttons of his dress shirt, and it strikes me once again how handsome he is. He’s even wearing the suit he wore for our wedding. (Without the vest today. Still. The effect? Good.) I want to wrap my arms around him and kiss him.
Apparently Danny isn’t the only one this will be a challenge for.
He’s stepped back from the door, but he’s observing me, too. I doubt someone else’s clothes and haircut and face has nearly the same effect on him. I couldn’t really pass for Lori, but I don’t resemble me, either.
“You look . . . different. Really different.”
“Thanks?”
He opens his mouth to respond, but I shake my head. I’m not actually offended (I think). After another second, he raises both eyebrows. “You coming in?”
“Sorry.” I shut the door behind me and hold up my signal scanner, wiggling it. Danny tilts to take a closer look, intrigued. I drape the coat over the chair and switch on the scanner.
“We’re too far away to see the Sea of Azov, right?” he asks.
“Yeah, it’s twenty miles downstream. Why, do you have a view of the Don?”
“Yep. Aren’t you next door?”
“Building’s in the way.” We fall into silence. After a second, he moves to grab his tie: the dark red one from our wedding. (Is he doing this on purpose? Or did he only bring one tie?)
I pick up our safest conversation from earlier. “Basically,” I say, “when I’m interpreting, you should act like I’m not there.”
Danny pauses in measuring the position of his tie’s knot. “You want me to ignore you? Not sure that’s possible.”
The LED display finally registers its reading, each segment of the line lighting up, turning green. I keep the conversation going as a cover. “I mean, when you talk to someone else through me, address him, not me. Pretend like I’m part of the scenery, the furniture.”
Barely suppressing his amusement, he focuses on his Windsor knot.
Two more LED bars. “Again, I’m bound by ethics to translate verbatim. I can explain cultural concepts, connotations, that sort of thing, but I can’t provide analysis.”
“Aren’t you an ‘interpreter’? What good are you if you can’t interpret?”
“Sorry. It’s my job to translate, not advise.”
He glances at me, barely reining in a look of pure mischief. “Okay, can we—?”
I hold up a finger, waiting for the color on the last bar of the scanner. After two tense seconds, the final bar on the scanner lights up — red. The back of my neck drops twenty degrees. I can’t even flip the display to him, because red means audio and visual bugs. It means this room isn’t private.
I’m surprised, but I’m not. I’m an American spy in Russia. Is anywhere supposed to be safe?
I’ll have Semyon send somebody in to exterminate the bugs as soon as we can. For now, we need to live our covers.
Danny contemplates me, his frown settling in. He rephrases his question. “Will we have time to do anything at Shcherbakov today?”
“Might as well stop in if we’re here, right?”
He pulls on his suit jacket and buttons it. Finally, he replaces his wallet in his back pocket, then reaches for his phone.
“Doesn’t work here,” I remind him. “Yet. We’ll get you a SIM card.” Which was on my list for Semyon, but not in my room with the rest of his deliveries. I pick up the coat Semyon did come through on. European cut, heavyweight fabric, black. It’ll blend in perfect. The pockets are loaded with a hat and gloves. It’s even reversible. “You’ll want this.”
“It’s not that cold — not even below freezing. My jacket’s fine.”
“Not here it isn’t.” I try to fight back a smile and offer the coat again. “Just trust me.”
Danny comes to stand behind me at the desk, meeting my gaze in the mirror. “I do.”
My nascent smile fades, and we stare at our reflections. Thirteen days ago, he was dressed like that, and we stood together for wedding photos. Today, I’m wearing twice as much makeup as I used to look my best in photographs, the blood red coat, and the way-too-much-maintenance copper hair that tapers from short on one side to long bangs on the other.
Danny’s right. I look different. But I don’t just look different. I am someone else.
And yes, that’s smarter and safer. But, man, do I hate it.
I note Danny’s reaction. He needs me to take the lead. So I do. “Ready?” I ask.
“Sure.”
I hand over his coat and walk out first. In the hall, I slip my scanner into my pocket. Once we’re alone in the elevator, Danny puts on the coat while I check the scanner display again. Green lights. Clear. “There’s a listening device in your room.”
He puffs out a breath. “Twenty minutes in the country and they’re after us already?”
“No.” I stuff the scanner back in my pocket. “I just want you to be as paranoid as me.”
“Is that even possible?”
I scan him a long minute, trying to read that inscrutable tone and expression. Is this supposed to be teasing? Or is that how he feels about my job, my quirks — me?
I’m almost afraid to figure that out — and if I obsess over this internal temperature taking, I’m sure to miss something important.
“Look,” he says. “We just got to the point where you’re not using a cover with me. I don’t want to go back to that.” As if that’s not a bolt to the heart, the watchfulness in his eyes, like he’s worried we’re starting over, hammers the arrow deeper.
I don’t have a comeback for that. Instead, I raid his coat pockets for the gloves Semyon provided. “Put these on.” I reach inside the coat to retrieve the knit hat from the breast pocket.
When I try to put it on him, however, Danny ducks away. “No, don’t—”
“Seriously, you’ll want it.”
“It’s only November. I can figure out whether I’m cold.”
I go after him again, and he catches me by the waist, his grin teasing. He pulls me close, and the hat’s the last thing on my mind. I tilt my chin up, anticipating the kiss, but then the elevator stops. We both turn to the gold doors. My reflection, my hair, my makeup: they’re window dressing for the real difference. My eyes are the same, and yet fundamentally different.
I’m not his wife.
And that’s what I hate most.
Danny releases me and I stumble a step. The elevator doors slide open — either I missed the chime or it’s broken — and the glare of the setting sun slices between us.
“Here’s your hat.” I shove it at him and stride off the elevator, pretending to not notice that Danny pockets the hat. And he still hasn’t buttoned his jacket.
He’s right: it isn’t all that cold, and we’re as used to cold weather as people get (that is, though we curse the day winter hits, we can deal). But I’m not kidding when I say he’ll want it.
The icy air creeps into my coat while we walk to the main road, as if the incident in the elevator didn’t leave me chilled enough. After dismissing a couple g
ood Samaritans offering a lift (not unusual, but I’m not trusting them), we hail a real, marked cab. I give the driver exact directions to Shcherbakov.
“Why do you do that?” Danny mutters once we’re in.
“So we’re both clear we know where we’re going.” I focus on the cabbie’s back and drop to my volume. “And we’ll know if he tries anything.”
He scrutinizes me another minute, calculating whether to believe me, or what I mean, I’m not sure which. “Wow” is all he says, and I don’t think he’s impressed.
The cabbie interrupts. “Dolzhny nosit′ shlyapu.”
I toss Danny a told-you-so expression and reply to the driver. “Uzhe eto yemo skazala.”
After a minute, Danny clears his throat. “Interpreter, you going to help me out?”
I fight back the smirk. “He says you should put on your hat.”
Danny closes his eyes for a second, like he’s praying for patience. When he opens them again, my gaze locks on his. “Trust me,” I breathe.
“I do.”
But the hat stays in his pocket, and the lurking look of uncertainty stays on his face.
So much for this mission being “perfect.”
The cab pulls up to Shcherbakov, and it’s obvious Noah’s picture in Paris is out of date. If we’re supposed to get the lay of the land, here’s where to begin: the façade has been updated to über-modern with narrow transparent rectangles, stacked randomly, forming the windows. The effect would be cooler if it weren’t for the Soviet-era gray cement brick forming the rest of the exterior. Blue neon letters stand atop the building, spelling out the company’s name in bold block print: Щербаков.
The juxtaposition of old and new is . . . weird. And not in a hey-cool-post-modernism way, or a purposefully-disorienting-and-whimsical way. More of a were-they-on-drugs-when-they-thought-this-was-a-good-idea? way.
We climb out of the cab and stand on the sidewalk, taking in the “eclecticism.” We’re alone: my last opportunity to smooth things over with Danny — and warn him. “When we know we’re alone and clear, we don’t have to pretend. But the rest of the time, I. Am. Lori. Okay?”
“Okay.” He leans in as if to seal that deal with a kiss, but I retreat.
“We’re not alone.” I nod at Shcherbakov.
Danny glances down at his outstretched hand. “Oh,” I say. “Right.”
We shake on it (belatedly) and start for the vintage-1972 doors. “Show time,” Danny whispers. “You ready?” He’s fixed on the building in front of us, subconsciously biting his lip. His first undercover op. It’s far from my first, but the same nerves echo in my jittering stomach. For me, it’s not (just) fear — it’s anticipation.
“Always ready.” And why wouldn’t I be? I’m in Russia. I’m here with Danny — working with him. I was made for this op.
We march to the doors in sync. We’re more than prepared. We’re a team (thank you, Sylvie), hitting on every cylinder, ready and willing for any challenge.
Why did I ever think this was a bad idea? I can’t think of anything more perfect. I belong here.
I swoop a hand over my hair, making sure none of the strands from the longer side have strayed, and pause at the door to let Danny open it. “Thanks. Always get the door for a woman.”
“Hey, I do try,” he jokes.
The lobby’s open to the top floor, but it feels more like we’re at the bottom of an elevator shaft than in the foyer of an international aerospace company. Danny and I both crane our necks to trace the light up to the skylight overhead.
“Is it normal for me to bring my own interpreter?” he asks. “Or weird?”
“Normal,” I assure him, though lining up an interpreter through the hotel would probably be even more normal. I hunt for the coatroom. It is weird — and rude — to wear your coat inside. Ruder to not tell us where the cloakroom is.
The receptionist finally looks up from her desk a few feet away. “Da?”
I take over in Russian, including using the proper form of Danny’s name to introduce him (though I don’t try to form a patronymic for him — Terryovich?). “Fluker, Danny, from National Research Council Canada, here to see Director Zverev.”
She scrutinizes me and Danny and me again, moving only her eyes. I instinctively stop breathing, waiting for her response. “I’ll call his secretary down.”
“Spasibo.” I release that breath and back off. The thanks is overly polite, but at least I’m not smiling. Russians really do think you’re up to something if you’re grinning without a specific reason. Danny’s not smiling. Good. (Probably the first time I’ve ever thought that was “good.”)
The receptionist picks up the phone. Danny turns to me. “Spasibo — thank you, right?”
“Yep.”
“What’s ‘you’re welcome’?”
“Pozhaluysta.”
Danny repeats it under his breath before another woman emerges from the also-vintage-1972 doors in the shadows behind the receptionist desk.
As soon as this woman steps into the light, I see my definition of “business attire” is about three decades too conservative (though the secretary’s about my age). Her white skirt’s precariously short, and only a tailor or a magician could make her deep purple buttoned shirt fit like that. Her platinum blond hair either receives weekly salon treatments or is actually natural.
And, PS: this is Russia, so she’s supermodel gorgeous. I check Danny’s reaction and see the smile already starting. “Don’t smile,” I remind him, a little snappier than I need to be.
He schools his features into a more neutral expression by the time the secretary reaches us. “Obolenskaya, Nadezhda Vasilyevna,” she introduces herself. I handle the introductions for me and Danny, and Nadezhda pivots to lead us into the belly of the building. “Oh.” She waves dismissively toward one hallway. “You can hang your coats down there.”
I take Danny to the cloakroom. “Try not to drool too much,” I murmur.
“I wasn’t drooling. I wasn’t even ogling.”
“Let’s keep it that way, okay?”
He winks at me, and I realize I’ve dropped the façade unintentionally. One problem with the whole undercover/not undercover idea? Shifting between identities and boxes. Cover. Cover. I. Am. Lori. And I will not slip up again. I hang up my red coat, the only brightly colored one in the room (and the only brightly colored one on the streets). Hiding in plain sight.
They could search my coat pockets, so I grab the signal scanner, small enough to hide in my skirt pocket. We return to Nadezhda, and she leads us through the second set of doors, Danny falling back to take up tail position. Nadezhda stops at an elevator and pushes the button. Once again, all the best in mid-1970s decor. She glances back to appraise Danny for a second (not rude in Russia). “He doesn’t speak a word of Russian?” she asks me without taking her gaze off him.
“Pleasantries.” My voice is too terse, and I try to readjust.
Her face impassive, she turns her back to him to wait for the elevator. “He’s young. Cute. You’re lucky.”
I examine Nadezhda from the corner of my eye. Hard to miss the overtones there. “He just got married.” (So much for losing the curtness.)
“Is that why you’re so on edge?”
I must’ve telegraphed my trepidation. Or maybe I’m telegraphing a whole lot more. My stomach makes one slow twist.
Danny, not entirely oblivious, gives me a meaningful glance in Nadezhda’s direction. “Everything okay?” he asks in an undertone.
“Absolutely.” I make sure Nadezhda isn’t watching and dismiss her with a wave.
The elevator finally arrives, and the interior’s gleaming, jerking us into this century again. “Is Director Zverev in his office?” I ask.
“No. He’ll be with you shortly.”
Shortly, of course, is code for “whenever he feels like it.” Do I mention that to Danny?
We reach the third floor, and Nadezhda l
eads us down the drab hall. (Like they’ve only updated places customers might see, trying to hide the corporate rot.) We stop at a corner office. Assuming that’s as prestigious in Russia as in the States, how high in the company is this guy?
Before we reach the door, it flies open. A man leans out. Even from the head-and-scarily-broad-shoulders view, you can tell he’s practically a giant — and he can’t be much older than Danny and me (though he’s got the baby face of a twelve-year-old). “Vidish′ moya—?” The man cuts himself off to think a second, then ducks into his office.
No way is this Director Zverev. I’m expecting middle-of-the-road, middle-aged, round middle. Russian hierarchy is tied to bureaucracy, seniority and svyazi: connections, not talent.
Danny and I hold a silent conversation in little more than a glance. He’s thinking the same thing. (Also, didn’t Nadezhda say he wasn’t in his office?)
“Direktor,” Nadezhda calls.
The boy-giant reappears at the door, dispelling any doubts, his eyebrows lifted high enough to disappear behind his overgrown hair. “Da?”
“Your Canadian visitor is here.” Her accent’s heavy, but her English is correct.
Her facts, however, aren’t. Again, Danny and I share a split-second exchange. We never said we were Canadian, but we’re definitely not correcting her.
“Come in, come in,” Zverev summons us — also in English — before he turns to his office. We approach the door hesitantly. Zverev’s rummaging through stacks of papers on his desk. A jumble of cardboard tubes nearly buries a pair of office chairs, while pile after pile of paper rings the office. Guess that whole “clean desk policy” fad hasn’t caught on in Rostov quite yet. It’s so much paper I wouldn’t know where to begin organizing. Maybe with a match?
But I don’t have to organize it. I have to search it — a true target-rich environment. And that’s even more daunting.
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) Page 62