“Good to see you,” he says. “Here, especially.”
I raise my gaze to his in the rearview again, and I can see his smile lines smirking. Yeah, super clever, dude. I keep my expression neutral and move only my eyes to stare out the window.
I don’t know how Eager Igor got clearance into a convent, but I don’t see any tourist cars around. We turn off the paved road to bump over a rutted track until we reach the back gates. Eager Igor suddenly isn’t so eager, taking his leisurely time to open the gates before we roll onto a dirt road, and then close them behind us.
Yeah, okay, you’ve got something over me, and I’m not going anywhere.
Our dirt road becomes paved, and we pass typical Russian houses: cinderblock, brick and cement. But the “neighborhood” thins out into a dense thicket right away. We reach the end of the paved road, back onto another gravel and dirt path, clearly in an industrial area. We pass several electric gates before we reach the one Eager Igor wants. The metal gates swing open for him, and we weave between the neglected warehouses.
I try to swallow and to not think about my last face-off in a warehouse.
Only a few cars are around. Eager Igor narrowly misses a white van as we swing around to park in front of a squatty concrete building — a World War II–era bunker. My fingers cramp and I realize I’m gripping my door handle too tight.
I force air into my lungs and pry my fingers free. It’ll be okay. I have a plan. Everything will work out — for Danny. That’s all I need.
Eager Igor gets out and rounds the car to get my door. I smooth my copper hair and compose my heavily made-up features into a mask of cool indifference. I’m not Talia Reynolds — or Talia Reynolds Fluker. Most of all, I’m not Danny’s wife.
I am Lori Dolman. Coming with a list, I have to admit I’m CIA, so I have to construct a new identity to keep the real me — the real Danny — safe. The interpreter job is now exactly what Nadia thinks, a cover for Lori Dolman, CIA Operations Officer.
I ignore Eager Igor’s offered help and climb out of the car. He leads me up to the door in the concrete building. We pass into the interior’s shadows.
A single light switches on at the far end of the room, illuminating the counters ringing the walls, stacked with test tubes, beakers and scientific equipment. My heart falls a foot. What have they done to Danny — and what will they do to me? Nadia leans against a table at the front, her arms folded across her chest. (We’ve got a lover of theatrics.)
Eager Igor shoves me forward. I don’t dignify him with a glance. I know how to handle this. I fall into my new cover: detached, distant, dispassionate. I straighten my back and shoulders, lift my chin, and march across the open cement floor. Each clack of my boots’ heels echoes off the walls, Eager Igor trailing after me. I don’t take my eyes off Nadia. She’s the threat. She’s the one with the power.
If she’s in charge here, what does that make Borya? Her subordinate at the FSB, and her superior at Shcherbakov? Or is he even higher up at the FSB?
“Search her,” Nadia commands. “Do it first this time.”
At least someone here isn’t on their game. Eager Igor pats me down. “Why would I bring a weapon?” I ask. “My list is all the protection I need. You can’t shoot me before I hand it over — it’s encrypted. You’ll never access it without me.”
Nadia waves, calling off Eager Igor. I move forward, stopping beyond the circle of light pooling on the concrete floor. “You have something for me,” I say, like I’m in total control.
Nadia grins — no, she leers, because she has all the power. (Or so she thinks.) “And you have something for me?”
I laugh, one little syllable. “Do I seem stupid to you, Durochka Dinochka?”
Nadia barely flinches at her cover’s cruel nickname. “You seem many things, but not stupid.”
Yeah, thanks. “Bring Fluker out first. I have to see that he’s safe and unharmed.”
“No.” She doesn’t bother explaining her reasoning.
Did something happen to him? Did something go wrong? Did — I can’t think like that. I shove the terror screeching through my mind into a tiny box and lock that part of my brain fast.
I will show no fear. I shrug. “Fine.” I hold up the USB drive from my pocket. “Your loss.”
Nadia’s draws in an almost silent breath at the sight of her prize. I slide it back in my pocket and wheel away, playing the bluff to the end.
“Wait,” she says. She looks to Eager Igor, then nods to the left. He obeys her signal, following in that direction to the back door of the room.
We’re alone in the silence. For a minute, I meet Nadia’s eyes, and the pretenses fall away. We see one another for who we are: equals. Counterparts. Spies.
She might be the one making the power play, but she doesn’t hold enough cards to wield real control. No matter what happens here, I will ultimately win. Our façades might come down — she’s not just a secretary, and I’m not just an interpreter — but my real cover stays firmly in place. She will never know who Danny is to me. She might’ve suspected I had a crush on him, but there’s no way she can know how badly I need to save him.
I will get him out of here alive if it’s the last thing I do. In fact, I’m pretty sure it might be.
The door opens again to interrupt our moment. He’s here — is he okay? Relief and anxiety lace through me, alternately cool and volatile, but I rein in the tumult of emotions. Eager Igor returns with another guard, towing Danny between them. Danny — my Danny — is hooded and handcuffed in front of him. (Crap. I should’ve taught him how to get out of those. Of course, with guards around, that might not have done him much good.)
Eager Igor reaches the table and stops Danny. He pivots Danny to face me, but I don’t address him. I sneer at Nadia. “Do you think I’m an idiot?”
“Excuse me?”
“Take the hood off,” I insist. Danny’s surely heard my voice, though he doesn’t understand my Russian. And, duh, I can recognize my husband’s stature and walk and coat and just him — but I want to see him, see if he’ll be okay.
Nadia snaps at Eager Igor. He obeys and yanks the black hood off Danny’s head. Danny sees Eager Igor first and shoots glare-daggers his direction.
“You okay?” I ask, fighting to keep the real concern out of my voice.
“Sure.” His acidic sarcasm isn’t directed at me. He’s fine (or close enough). Now I need him out of here.
“He is unharmed.” Nadia’s speaking to me, but using English for Danny’s benefit. “Satisfied?”
“Not really,” Danny interjects. “This won’t sound good in my report when I get back.”
Nadia doesn’t even acknowledge him, turning to me and back to Russian. “Will it sound better than explaining you?” she asks. She nods for me to translate for Danny.
Yeah, right.
After a minute, Nadia turns to Danny. “Will it sound as good as explaining you brought a CIA spy?”
Oh, crap. My stomach makes one slow, sick barrel roll. Please, please, please let him keep our real covers safe — though he can’t know what they know —
He gapes at me. “You’re . . . what?”
Whew. Still safe. I don’t acknowledge Danny, fixing Nadia in my sightlines. She holds out a hand. “List?”
I pull out the USB drive for the briefest glance, then slide it back in my pocket, ready to negotiate.
Danny beats me to the punch. “Whoa, whoa, what’s this?”
Nadia and I both turn to him. “What?” she asks.
“Don’t I deserve to know what I’m being bought for?”
She looks back to me, a condescending smile accompanying her response in Russian. “Vasha tsena dorogaya. Kazhdiy agent v Rostove-na-Donu.”
I say nothing. How can I get this over with faster?
“Skazhi yemu,” she snaps. Tell him.
I wish I could lie, but Nadia speaks enough English to tell. She’s making me translate as pa
rt of her twisted power puppetry.
If it’ll get him out of here, I’ll dance for her. I focus on Danny, calm, like every second we’re surrounded by probably armed Russians isn’t driving me insane. “She says you command a high price. Every agent in Rostov-on-Don.”
Again, he gapes at me, but this time the horror in his gaze is very, very real. “You can’t — you can’t do that.”
My words walk a tightrope. “Do you know what I stand to lose if I don’t?”
“I can’t let you. Not for me.”
I wave a hand, dismissing his concerns. “My call. My head.” I snap my mouth shut. I have to be beyond careful what I say. If Danny has any idea what I’m planning, he could so easily give us both away, even by accident. If he had any idea what I’m planning, he’d never willingly leave this room. But everything I’m planning depends on that.
“Now are you satisfied?” Nadia asks me, still in Russian.
I stick to English, because Danny needs to understand this. “Let him go first. I have to be sure you’ll keep your word.”
Nadia’s expression doesn’t change. I repeat myself in Russian.
Now her jaw hardens. “How can I be sure you’ll keep yours?”
And this part’s something that Danny needs to hear too — but if he understood the full implications, it would bring my plans to save him crashing down. I choose Russian. “I’ll stay,” I say. “I’ll stay until you can guarantee that he’s safely clear.”
Nadia contemplates the offer for five beats too long. Finally she gives a sharp little nod to Eager Igor, along with the command to make it happen.
Eager Igor unlocks the handcuffs. Danny jerks away, rotating his wrists. More than anything, I want to run to him, make sure he truly isn’t hurt, kiss him one last time.
But I can’t. I stand there like my boots are buried in the cement beneath my feet, praying Danny keeps the cover, too.
“Thanks a lot,” he says to me.
I think — I hope — the sarcasm is for show (again). “Sorry to drag you into this.”
“Yeah.” He rubs his wrists. “Are we free to go?”
“You are. I’ll catch up.”
After a long minute, I realize I’m trying too hard to maintain eye contact and sell the lie. I rip my gaze away. “What’s the best way out?” I ask Nadia.
She gives directions, and I reflect them to Danny. “Leave the complex the back way.” I point south. “Turn west and you’ll hit the main road in a couple hundred meters. The word for airport is aeroport.”
“Okay,” he says with a hint of hesitation. Danny starts out, but instead of heading through the door they dragged him in, he strolls toward the door I used — toward me. I stay trained on Nadia as he approaches. When he reaches me, he stumbles and bumps into me. The contact jars my arm, knocking my hand from my pocket, sending that precious drive to the cement floor.
“Sorry.” Danny stoops and retrieves the list before I make it there. He presses the list in my palm.
I stare into his eyes, and not because I’m trying to prove I’m not lying. I’m trying to memorize him, make this moment last forever, let him know what I can’t say.
I love you.
Goodbye.
I take the USB drive and slide it back in my pocket.
“Well,” Danny says on a sigh. “Thanks for everything.”
“Just doing my job.”
He nods, focused on the floor. Then he walks away. I observe his retreating figure cross the full length of the bunker. Finally, at the door, he looks back. “Oh, hey,” he calls, his tone casual, light. “I almost forgot: rakastan sinua.”
I bite back the smile and tears that threaten. Hopefully Nadia’s not among the 1% of the world who speaks Finnish. I swallow before I speak, trying to keep my voice neutral for the response. “Minä sinuakin, ikuisesti.”
“What’s that?” Nadia interrupts.
“American joke.” I dismiss the exchange. I wish Danny knew more Finnish, so I could tell him everything else I need to say — but if I told him, he’d stay.
So I think it with every fiber of my being. Be happy. Be safe. Goodbye.
I can’t say that. I can’t say anything. Because I’m not his wife.
But because I am his wife, I have to let him go.
Danny flashes the briefest smile, a shadow of his true, eye-crinkling, Talia-melting one, and still my heart stops for a split second, like I can stop this mess from getting any worse, stop the inevitable outcome, stop time.
I can’t. And I can’t watch him go. I turn away before he slips out the door. One swallow to bury the emotions under the surface, and I’m ready to face fate.
Nadia holds out a hand. “He’s free. I’ve fulfilled my side. The list.”
“Not until I know he’s clear.”
“Fine,” she sneers. She turns to the table behind her and picks up a tablet (larger than the one we gave Danny, so no worries there). She swipes the screen for a minute and then offers it to me. “See for yourself.”
I approach and take the tablet. She’s tapped into the complex’s security cameras, trained on the bunker’s door and the white van parked outside. Danny walks through the gravel lot at a good pace, probably hurrying to get out of the cold. Maybe even thinking the sooner he gets to the airport, the sooner we’ll get out of here.
One of us will. I watch until Danny walks into the next building’s shadow and out of the frame, passing underneath the camera. Not safe enough. “He has to make it to the main road.”
“You cannot possibly believe he’ll save you.” Nadia laughs. “What will he do? Call the politsiya? They would applaud me.”
Actually, I think he’d try to find the nearest American consulate (and he’s out of luck — gotta go to Kyiv or Moscow). “I want to make sure you don’t tail him.”
Nadia grumbles, but taps the screen until we switch views to a camera aimed at the street outside the complex. After a minute, Danny emerges through a gate onto the sidewalk. I wait until he disappears from view. My heart strains against my ribs like it’s trying to follow him, but I clamp down on the ache with an invisible fist and give the tablet back to Nadia.
She sets it aside and holds out her hand again, but I need to give Danny a little longer to get clear. I glance back at the tablet on the table behind her — next to a phone. Danny’s.
Great.
“I believe I warned you about becoming too attached,” Nadia says.
The best thing I have to distract her from the man I love is a secret about the one she loves. I don’t know how much she knows, so I start small. “Getting too attached? Is that why you’re here instead of at ulitsa Novatorov?”
“You’re stalling.” Nadia pulls back her long black coat to reveal the gun in her waistband, cowboy-style. Eager Igor takes the signal and draws his own weapon. (Guess it’s a little late for them to worry about compromising the mission with me.)
Two Russians, two guns — too many variables. But I just need two more minutes to give Danny the chance to run.
I’m about to make a second volley, when I see Nadia’s eyes — curiosity’s getting the better of her. I wait for her to come to me.
“Why ulitsa Novatorov?”
That’s not a leading question — she really doesn’t know. I allow a wicked I’m-enjoying-this-too-much smile. “That’s where Borya’s meeting al-Ansari.”
“The al-An — wait, how do you know?”
“He warned me to keep Danny away from ulitsa Novatorov now, and he asked me if I knew al-Ansari.”
Nadia searches the floor as her brain tries to make sense of this. “Did you?”
“Know al-Ansari? No.” I don’t bother explaining; it’s clear Nadia already knows who he is. And as an FSB officer, she’s got to want al-Ansari for the exact opposite reason Borya does. For all I know, our arms-dealing friend’s on the local most wanted list.
She glowers. If I’m the target of her anger now, I think I
’m merely a proxy for her boyfriend. “I could just arrest you, you know.”
“But you won’t.” I hold up the USB drive. “No me, no encryption key. Or,” I say, drawing out the word, lifting her hopes and mine, “you could let me go and go after al-Ansari.”
“Shut up. Let me think.” Nadia calls me a few nice names, like that’s helping her process.
And then it all makes sense. Unless meeting with al-Ansari is an elaborate sting operation even Nadia doesn’t know about, Borya isn’t FSB. Meeting with an international arms dealer is a big deal. Would he dare betray his country — and his girlfriend — if he knew who Nadia was? “He doesn’t know, does he?”
Nadia whirls on me, scowling. “What are you talking about?”
“He doesn’t know you’re FSB.”
“And we’re going to keep it that way.”
We? Yeah, right. Can I make a run for it?
“Finish our business,” Nadia commands. “Give me the list.”
Sure. I pull the USB drive from my pocket, and slap it in her hand. But as the plastic leaves my fingers, light hits the stripe of blue on the casing.
That’s supposed to be all black.
My plan just hit a patch of turbulence, and my stomach pitches accordingly.
My mind rewinds and then fast-forwards through my last seconds with Danny — him bumping into me. The USB drive hitting the ground. Danny picking it up, placing it in my palm — hiding it until I closed my fist. So I couldn’t see what he’d done.
I never got to teach him sleight of hand before we left Paris, but apparently he didn’t need lessons. Because this isn’t my USB drive.
My heartbeat halts, and the seconds stretch out, my mind spinning out of control as Nadia plugs in the drive. She’ll see it’s not the list. She’ll know exactly what happened.
What’s Danny doing? Why would he take my list, the one thing that — that bought his freedom. The realization sweeps over me like a coating of ice. He’s trying to save me from sacrificing these agents for him and getting me out of here. What’s his plan when they catch him? Using that bargaining chip?
Danny’s doing this for me. He’s trying to save my life. But what he doesn’t know — he’s ruined everything. Now we’re both in twice as much danger.
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 77