“What is this?” Nadia hisses. “Expected expenditures? Itineraries? Sights to see?” She flips the tablet screen to me, and I verify the file titles — our honeymoon plans. In English. Obviously not lists of Russian names. And under the author column — Danny Fluker.
Time to run. I look for an escape, but find only Nadia’s intense eyes. Every ounce of fury in her system aims at me. She jerks the USB drive out of the adapter and hurls it at me. Even Durochka Dinochka could find the list.
“Where’s Fluker?” she seethes, advancing on me.
I fall back a step. “How would I know?”
Nadia reaches out. I retreat again, but she’s signaling Eager Igor. He appears behind me. I maneuver so he isn’t aiming that gun directly at me, but that’s the best I can do now.
“Hold her,” Nadia commands. “Keep her hidden.”
“Where are you going?” Eager Igor asks.
“To get my list. And if I don’t . . .” She draws back her coat, planting a hand on her hip, brandishing her gun again. Her gaze meets mine. “I will hunt you down.”
Nadia backs away wearing a smug grin, her other guard in tow, both staring at me until she reaches the door.
She can’t get to Danny. Right?
The fear already in my veins shouts the answer: yeah, right. I told him where to go, in front of her.
That noble sacrifice I planned to make? Moot. Danny may be trying to save me, but the flaw in his plan is very big, very bad, and very fatal.
The reason I knew I was going to my death with this bargaining chip list? Every. Single. Name. Came off a Jewish Tatar gravestone.
The door closes behind Nadia, and I can finally deal with Eager Igor. This is Nadia’s plan, not his. Maybe he can be bought or bullied or beaten.
Odds aren’t great for any of the above, but I have to try something. “I’ll give you five hundred thousand rubles to let me go.” (Not quite $15,000. Believe me, I can get that if I need it.)
He snorts in derision.
“A million.”
He laughs. “You’re wasting your words.”
“Okay.” I move a pace closer, invoking the universal tone of I’m leveling with you. “I’m not going anywhere. Not worth getting shot.”
Eager Igor casts a wary eye my way. As he should. I don’t exactly enjoy having a gun aimed at me, but I doubt this will work out for him like he thinks. I keep my gaze on his while my brain runs through a visualization. Normally, I’d wait for an opportunity, but today there’s no time. If I act first, I have the advantage — I might even be able to end the conflict before Eager Igor figures out what’s happening.
I take a deep breath, commanding my muscles to relax. Can’t let the energy already streaming through my system give me away. One more breath. One more mental run-through. One more second.
Go.
I seize his gun hand and wrist. I whip his arm up and smack him in the face with his own weapon. While he stumbles backward, I grab the barrel and wrench away the gun.
Now it’s safely in my grasp. Eager Igor recovers enough to give me a scowl that could cause second-degree burns.
He lunges for me. A sharp strike to the temple with the butt of the gun brings him to his knees. I’m running before I hear him grunt.
I slam through the door, scanning the parking lot, but Nadia’s vanished into frigid air. Picking up speed with every step, I start toward the next building. Did Nadia get a car?
That van in front of the bunker. It’s gone.
Finally, I reach the gate to the street. A white van roars past, headed the same direction Danny did. He’s long gone, safely in a taxi by now, and I’ve got to keep moving too. I trail after the white van. By the time I reach the main road, the white van’s ridiculously far ahead, off in the distance, barely discernible amid traffic. Escaping.
Danny could be anywhere, but realistically, unless he went back to the hotel, he has to be going to the place I just told him to go: aeroport.
I.e., the place I just told him to go right in front of Nadia. Right in front of a rival spy.
I grab my phone, but before I send a message, I remember — they took his phone. I’ve got to find him. Taxis dot the afternoon rush. They’re great when you know where you’re going (and how to get there), but I can’t rely on a taxi driver to speed and maneuver to safety. If that’s even possible. Nothing like a car of your own when you need to turn as soon as the impulse hits your spy intuition.
Do I risk stealing a car or searching for someone kind enough to leave their keys? Try CIA mind tricks to convince someone to loan me their car? Do I know anyone I could call?
Wait. I do know somebody who lives on this side of town. I even have his number. Garo.
I pull his business card from the hidden pocket in my sleeve lining. Within a minute, my phone is ringing. Please let him be around. Please let him answer. Please let him help.
“Da?”
“Garo, it’s Sestra Reynolds.” I wince inwardly at using my real name, but my options are dwindling.
“You have called! You—”
I cut off his celebrating without trying to correct him. “I need a favor.”
Normally, I’d try to make this favor sound as insignificant and easy as possible — but I have neither the time nor the inclination. “I need a car. Do you know anybody who has one?”
Garo hesitates for a moment. “To borrow?”
“Yes.” As long as I survive.
I check traffic, like I’ll catch Danny’s cab circling this block, while Garo sits in silence. “Is this a joke?” he asks at last.
“I wish it were.”
“Well . . . all right. Two of my neighbors have cars. Let me phone them.”
“Thank you.” Already the idea of waiting has me bouncing on my toes. “Would they have their cars at home?”
“One of them, probably.”
“I’ll head that way. Thank you,” I say again. I turn up the street for Garo’s building. Doubt he’s moved since I lived here — not how it works in Russia — plus he’d mention that, right?
Every second, one word repeats in a low thrum through my brain: Danny. Danny. Danny. I scan my memory of Garo’s building, trying to drown out the fear. I think the only time we tried to talk to his neighbors, a screetchy lady stalked us door to door until we had to leave. Fortunately, it’s a short trip to Garo’s, just long enough for me to text him and ask for confirmation and his friend’s apartment number. I run straight up to number 27 and knock.
And then, it hits me: I’m in disguise. If Garo described me to them to let them know what to expect, or if they mention the kind-of-inescapable fact I’m (currently) a redhead (as opposed to the brunette he saw two days ago), things will get weird.
Too late. The neighbor answers, a bright-eyed babushka.
“I’m Garo’s friend,” I start.
“Certainly, come in.”
“I’m so sorry, I’m in a hurry — it’s an emergency.”
She opens her mouth to protest, and my heart clenches. I don’t have time for chitchat when Danny’s life is on the line. But at the last second, the babushka pauses and cocks her head to the side, studying me. “All right. Let me get the key.”
“Thank you,” I say, repeating it after she gives me the key.
“It’s a Škoda Yeti. Parked on the street. It was my son’s.”
I have no idea what kind of car a Yeti is, but I thank her one more time and start to go — but wait. I turn back. “What’s the fastest way to the airport from here?”
The babushka’s bright eyes take on a twinkle. “You must not take Koroleva prospekt. You would think it would be faster, but you must take ulitsa Vavilova to ulitsa Nansena. You can cut your trip by ten minutes with traffic at this hour.”
“Thank you!” I shout one last time as I run from the building. I could save a lot more than ten minutes with a shortcut. I could save my husband’s life.
A Yeti’s a sm
all SUV, and Garo’s neighbor’s directions are spot on. My pulse pounds so hard I have to switch on the defrost. After only twenty minutes, I’m closing in on the airport ridiculously fast.
Not fast enough to turn time backward, of course. Danny’s probably already here. Nadia too. Can I get to him first?
I don’t know — but I do know I’ll be spotted the minute I pull into the airport in this disguise. I shrug off my red jacket, shoving it out of sight of the window. My other coat’s back at the hotel. I can face the cold — but if I have to get out of the car without a coat, I’ll attract a lot of unwanted attention.
What if Nadia’s already got him?
No. I can’t let myself think that way. I start on the hairpins holding my wig in place. I’m almost there.
What will she do to him? Will he give up the “list”? Then what’ll she do with him?
Focus. Focus. I try to keep up with traffic, the current speed limit, and the last of my hairpins. Anything to keep my mind too busy to spiral down the slippery slope of speculation.
Even with the shortcut, do I have any hope of finding him before she does?
I finally free the wig and tug off the wig cap as well, releasing my braids and bangs. That may not be enough to help, but I’ll take any little semblance of a disguise.
Hope sprouts in my chest. Could Danny have donned a disguise? I don’t know where he would have gotten one — where are his bags?
I reach the final turn into the airport and spot something to fry that fragile shoot of hope: a white van, turning ahead of me. Nadia? I have no idea — and no time to stop.
I cruise the road, but scan the parking lot, the sidewalk in front of the terminal. Too many taxis — no chance of telling which might be his. If he even made it this far.
Stay positive. He’s here. I’ll find him — before Nadia does. I have serious advantages: I could recognize Danny from any angle, and quite possibly through any disguise.
I slow to watch more closely, but none of the pedestrians on their way to the building have the same stride as Danny. None of them have the same height and build, none — wait. My lungs frost over, and not just because the temperature has to be somewhere south of freezing.
The gait, the height, even the coat and hat. It’s the inside of the reversible jacket I gave him. And he’s heading up to the terminal.
I gun the engine and whip around the taxi pulling in front of me, cutting him off — and I overshoot and jump the curb. Nobody will notice the crazy lady driving on the sidewalk, right?
No such luck: half a dozen pedestrians gawk at me, backing away. I lean across the seat to roll down the window. (Power windows? You’re cute.) But before I crack it enough to call to him, Danny spots me. He jogs up and yanks the door open. “Fancy meeting you here.” He may be joking, but his eyes show the real relief. He hops in and I hit the gas almost before he has the door shut.
I pause at the stop signs and run a (barely) red light, not daring to slow until we’re out of sight of the airport. My gaze is on the rearview more than the road, scanning for that white van.
Finally, we hit a traffic light that’s good and red, and cross traffic’s too heavy to risk it. I stop, but my heart keeps racing.
To complete that effect, Danny leans across the car and draws me in for a kiss full of all the intensity and adrenaline running through both our bloodstreams.
We made it. I have Danny back. Safe.
Now I just have to keep him that way.
The light turns green, and I have to pull away from Danny and drive.
“I was starting to worry,” Danny begins.
“You doubted me?” My cockiness is unconvincing, so I push the conversation forward before he can comment. “Where’d you get the USB drive?”
“Hid it in my shoe before they searched me.”
I glance at him — he tricked Fyodor the same way, only with a pocketknife. (Which we’d have if it weren’t for the stupid TSA.) “Why?”
“It had your real name on it, all our honeymoon plans. I had to protect you.”
“Sweet, but what were you thinking?”
“I was thinking I couldn’t let you do that for me.”
I can’t believe this — I mean, I do, I just wish he wouldn’t do that. “You didn’t know what I was doing.”
“Um, betraying your country? Didn’t we just take someone down for the exact same thing?”
“What did you think would happen when the list wasn’t on there?” I monitor the rearview. No white vans. Has Nadia brought in backup? “What did you think they’d do to me?”
He pauses. “Send you after me.” His tone carries a note of doubt.
Yeah, not the best plan. “We’re lucky they didn’t pick the quicker route with me and then come after you themselves. You couldn’t bargain with them.”
“Oh, but you can?”
The truth must be evident on my face because confusion flickers across his. “What?” Danny asks.
“The list’s fake. They would’ve killed you too.”
Heavy silence smothers us. Danny doesn’t speak until we hit another stoplight. He gets the implications, but he still asks, “So your endgame was . . . ?”
“I had to get you out of there.” I scan the mirrors again. One white van. Minivan. “Anything else was icing.”
“I don’t want you to do that for me. Ever.”
“I know. You didn’t ask me to.” But I’d do it every day to keep him safe. And to keep him safe now, I consult the rearview again. “I need to pick up some things.” And then? If we don’t want to go back to the Rostov airport, the nearest one is in Donetsk, three hours and the Ukrainian border away.
Maybe a train. The station should run to Volgograd, Sochi, Moscow — hours away. If they catch the same train, or warn someone at the end of the line — it only takes a phone call —
“Wait a minute.” Danny breaks into my thoughts, and I jump. “You went in there to die for me, and you don’t even trust me to check a locker for you?”
“No, Danny—” I cut myself off to change lanes.
I brace myself for his argument, but he doesn’t say anything. When I look, I find him staring straight ahead, his eyes . . . resigned.
This — this is what I’ve gotten wrong the last two days. “I’m stupid, okay? I just didn’t put it together.”
“What, that I might be capable of doing something?”
Why do we have to have this conversation while driving? I make a right and hit a red light. First time I’ve been glad for that today. I grab Danny’s hand. “You know what?” I say. “Maybe. Maybe I did think that. But I was wrong — and you’ve proven that by a lot more than opening a locker.”
A smile lights his eyes and Danny starts to lean in, but the light turns green. I have to hit the gas. He settles for squeezing my hand. “So glad you made it out.”
“Me too.”
“How’d you manage?”
“Distracted Nadia — mentioned Borya’s date with an arms dealer — until she realized you had the list and took off after you.” I consult the mirror again. White van. Time to turn. “Then I got away.”
“Wait, what?”
I pause the conversation to take a left; the van doesn’t follow. “Which part?”
“Borya’s doing what?”
“Meeting an arms dealer.” We run into another red light. “Think I found his plan to save Shcherbakov.”
“No, I did.”
I whip around to stare at Danny. “What?”
“I take it you didn’t get my text saying I found something?”
My brain runs in three different directions, trying to figure out what Danny’s talking about, trying to remember when he texted, trying to watch for white vans tailing us.
Danny jumps to the conclusion for me. “We have to stop him.”
“Wait — what did you find?”
“‘Р’ is an ‘R’ in Cyrillic, right? As in СССР —
USSR?”
“Yeah?” I monitor him from the corner of my eye, waiting for him to explain the non sequitur.
“I can figure out the rest of камера. They were on one of the drives you copied.”
Aerospace plans with a camera — just like the ones Fyodor stole. “Are you sure? They’re yours?”
“That’s like asking if I’d recognize you.”
A chill crawls across my skin to curl up in my stomach. If Borya has Danny’s plans, and Borya’s meeting with an arms dealer, even if they’re talking about floral arrangements, we need to be sure. We’ve got to get over there and stop him. But I can’t put Danny in harm’s way again.
He cuts into my thoughts. “How do you know he’s meeting with an arms dealer?”
“He warned me to keep you away. He likes you, too.”
“When was this? During your copious amounts of private conversation?”
If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was getting jealous (but considering I had zero alone time with Borya that Danny knows of, I’m pretty sure that’s just sarcasm). “Last night. He basically kidnapped me to tell me not to tell you this.”
Danny simply gapes at me. “When?”
“After—” After you told me this was all in my head. For obvious reasons, I can’t say that. “ — the hospital. On my way back.”
Danny takes my meaning and falls silent.
I check the mirrors one more time, then pull onto the first side street that isn’t a dead-end. I grab my phone and dial Semyon.
“We have backup?” Danny guesses.
“Maybe.” Maybe not. Not like Semyon wants to hear from me. It’s already rung four times, five. Six. “No answer.” I end the call and open the encrypted texting app. B has the plans; possible incomings to ul. Novatorov. Seems like enough, right?
The app adds a delay, but I can’t imagine it takes a lot of processing power and time to encode nine words. Silence settles over us like the cold, humid air as I wait. And wait. And wait.
In case it’s merely stress playing tricks on me, I check the clock on my phone. Nope, it’s been five minutes. Plenty long enough. Unless you’re trapped.
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 78