“Our hands are full too, here. Separated al-Ansari from his entourage in the Rostvertrol complex, and we’re getting ready for a nice, long talk about where his allegiances lie.”
Semyon might talk big, but last I checked, we haven’t successfully beaten anyone into spying long term. “Good luck,” I mutter. “Trying to lose them and get out. Got anyone to spare?”
“I’ll try to send an intercept. What are you driving?”
“Škoda Yeti, gunmetal — dark silver.”
He pauses a minute. “Might have a decoy. Let you know. Lose them if you can.”
Gee, thanks, that hadn’t occurred to me. But all I say is, “Yeah. Nice working with you.”
We reach a traffic artery and wait for a break in the flow of cars. I’ll take a left if I can — harder for him to follow — but traffic isn’t clear on the far side of the road, so I take a right again.
Danny cranes his neck to monitor his side mirror. “Still in pursuit.”
“Thanks.” I mean it, even if it doesn’t sound like it through the accents of stress. We need a plan, and a surveillance detection route won’t cut it. We’ve already detected them. Too late to convince them we’re harmless — but can we lose them?
The text message comes through. “Take the wheel,” I tell Danny. He does, and I check the text. Encrypted, of course.
“Ease up on the gas,” he says. I pull back, still waiting for the decryption app.
An address. It’s on a big enough street that I know it, though it’s in the opposite direction of the airport. And the last word: manok. Decoy.
“All right.” I take the wheel again. Monitoring the rearview, I navigate a long, winding path across town. The white van can’t keep up. The black sedan falls back or speeds up, but he makes every. Single. Turn.
When I’m two minutes out, I dial Semyon again. “Send him in,” I say once he answers.
I hit the gas and slingshot around a corner. I have to support myself on the window, and I miss Semyon’s answer — but there, up the street, an SUV, identical to ours, idling at the sidewalk. Hope that’s him. “Hang on,” I say, as if Danny hasn’t already steeled himself.
We shoot past the decoy, and now I’m watching the rearview even more closely. He joins traffic, going slow.
“Stop!” Danny shouts. I jam my boots on the pedals and we skid before coming to a dead stop in front of a pedestrian. The babushka gives us a sharp glare, then slowly limps along her way. My ankle answers with a shrieking throb, and I realize I jammed both feet on the brake.
And I killed the engine. Trading with the decoy will be hard enough without this delay.
I restart the car and scan the rearview. The black sedan’s between me and the decoy. Great. Does the decoy have two people in his car? Maybe one of our pop-up dummies?
The babushka clears our bumper. I put the car in first, straining against the pain. “Go, go, go,” I urge the little SUV. I swing a right and get us to a bigger road — big enough for our decoy to maneuver.
And maneuver he does. As soon as we’re on a straightaway, he gets in the left lane and accelerates — right past us. My stomach dips, and a spark of hope puffs out. It’s not him. Is it? We were at the right address; who else could it be?
He pulls into our lane, and I switch into the other lane. To confuse our tail, we’ll have to play a couple rounds of this shell game, but the best solution might be to switch cars. Preferably to one that isn’t identical, but we can’t really be picky.
New plan. I glance at the phone. The call timer’s still counting. “Semyon?” I practically shout. “You there?”
“You said to hang on,” he says.
Oh, did I say — to Danny. Good enough. “New plan, Semyon. Have him head to ulitsa Tsvetkova and ulitsa Molodchaya. There’s an alley behind the produkty. Park there and wait.” This time I make sure to actually end the call, and I turn left at the next light.
Danny needs to be in on it, too. “Pulling the old switch-a-roo.” I flash him a we’re-okay smile (but I’m shifting at the same time, so it probably looks more like I’m-seriously-not-okay).
Within a few minutes, I’m on the familiar street — the street I lived on for six months. And right there is the produkty, the quaint little market with green trim along its plate windows. It belongs closer to Sesame Street than Siberia.
The black sedan’s still on our tail. I cruise past the produkty, but at the last second, I take the corner. The sedan doesn’t have time to turn.
Once he’s out of sight, I pull to the curb.
“Are there details to this plan, or are we winging it?” Danny asks.
“Little of both. Hurry before they double back.” I squeeze his hand and get out of the SUV, careful to plant both feet before I stand, keeping my weight to my good side. The car makes a decent enough crutch, and I slide around the back. Danny meets me at the trunk — no time to mess with our bags, and I can barely drag myself around. He helps me hobble to the sidewalk.
I hate to admit it, but this is getting serious. Not, like, hospital serious (I’ve been a patient in a Russian hospital; I’d rather take my chances), but like I really hope Russian TSA doesn’t require you to remove your shoes because I’m not sure I could get it back on serious. A blowtorch is attacking my ankle, and it might be my imagination, but I can see swelling through the leather.
Danny steadies my waist again. “I got you.”
I can’t clutch his arm any tighter, but I’d squeeze it if I could. “In here.” I start for the produkty doors. I can already smell the warm bread and slightly overripe fruit inside.
The door hinges screech open, and a babushka toddles out to the counter mostly by feel. Olya. “Biznes-lanch?” she calls, offering their “business” meal deal, though it’s long past lunchtime. If I weren’t hurting or hurrying so much, I’d drop the cover, stop to talk. Whenever Sestra Carter or Sestra Bulovskaya and I stopped in, Olya’s two-gold-toothed smile and sparkling-but-cloudy eyes always brightened our day. But using her name would raise questions today. “I’m sorry,” I start, “but do you have ice? I slipped on the sidewalk.”
“Are you hurt? Sit.” She dodders to the back. I move to follow her behind the counter.
Danny doesn’t. I tug him forward. “Come on.”
“I can tell she didn’t invite us to come with her.”
“It’ll be okay. I’ve been here before — and I can’t count the number of times I’ve gotten strangers to do things for me. Social engineering might actually be my most useful skill.”
Danny groans. “You call what you do ‘engineering’?”
I roll my eyes and he helps me to the door to the back room. Olya’s disappeared somewhere in the cramped kitchen. (Where could she hide?) “Do you mind if I sit down back here?” I call to her. “It’s pretty bad.”
“Yes, sit. You don’t need ice. You need a poultice.”
I’m an idiot. How could I have forgotten every Russian’s pathological need to push their homeopathic, old wives’ remedies? Even doctors do this — my companion had one instruct her to use a vodka poultice for this same injury.
“You know what?” I say. “I should go home and rest.”
“This will only take a minute.”
I nod for Danny to help me into the narrow passage to the back door, ignoring Olya’s answer like she ignored mine. “Do you have a back door we could use? We’re parked out that way and it would save us so much time.”
“Yes, one more minute.”
Is her hearing going too? I crane my neck to search for Olya. She pokes her head out from behind the tall shelves. I point to the door. “We’ll just be going — thank you!”
Olya continues talking, extolling the virtues of this poultice and its secret ingredients. Fortunately, the back door is unlocked from the inside and we can slip out to the dingy alley.
Where the decoy car’s not waiting.
Great.
This may be our last ch
ance to talk. “Danny?”
He stops searching the alley to look at me. “What?”
“We have to split up. Can you get on the plane, no matter what happens?”
“How would you find me?”
“Trust me, Danny, I will find a way. I’ll catch up.”
He looks at me, face to face. “You keep saying that — don’t lie to me.”
I hold his gaze. “I will make it back to you. Just, please, trust me?”
“I do.”
Danny starts to turn away, but I take his shoulder and turn him back to me. “You keep saying that. Don’t you lie to me.”
“I do trust you. Will you trust me?”
Then it hits me. From the moment we accepted this mission, I’ve obsessed over all the things I’ve trusted Danny with. But I haven’t trusted him with the one thing most important to me: him.
And like I told him: he’s more than proven himself. It’s definitely time. “Yes. If we wait for our flight, they’ll find us for sure. Buy a ticket for the first international departure, and no matter what happens — get. On. That. Plane.”
“What about you?”
I try to toss off a nonchalant smile, but it’d be more convincing if I weren’t covering a grimace. “I’ll be fine.”
“I know you’ll be fine. I just want to be the one who makes sure of it.”
The understanding finally clicks into place for both of us. He wants to do that for me, and I want to do the same for him. “I love you,” I say.
“I love you too. Makes this tough, huh?”
“Tough, but . . . it wouldn’t be worth it without you.” I grit my teeth, prepping myself for the conversation I never want to have. “If we don’t—” I can’t even say it, but I have to. “I want you to be happy.”
He squeezes me closer. “I am. You know, other than that ‘running for our lives’ part.”
“Kinda put a damper on the honeymoon. Sorry about that.”
“I knew what I was getting into.”
At first, I think he means in Paris, agreeing to this insane assignment. But I look into his warm brown eyes, and I see exactly what he means: he knew what he was getting into when he married me. And he did it anyway.
“You’re probably crazy,” I murmur, pulling him closer.
“Probably.”
I think that’s supposed to pass for romance. Engineers.
He traces a finger along my jaw, drawing me in for a kiss. The instant our lips touch, a car horn honks. I glare at the intruder, but the blue sedan’s driver gestures us over. Okay, I guess I can’t complain too much. “Hold that thought,” I tell Danny. “Our ride’s here.”
“Better be our ride.” Danny helps me to the car.
“Sorry it takes so long,” the driver apologizes (native Russian?). “Had to get your bags from other car.”
“Good thinking.” We’re going to need those. I give the driver instructions to return Garo’s neighbor’s SUV to her, and he starts down the street. At our trunk, I dig out what we need from my bags — a fake passport for Danny with forged entry visa — and hand them to him. “They’ll be hunting for us at the airport. You’re Louis Michaud.”
“French.” He checks the maroon cover, flips it open and pulls out matching credit cards. “Holograms and everything.”
“And biometric chip.” I tap the symbol on the cover where the chip’s embedded. (Yep, we’re good. Apologies to France; I hear your passports are tough, if it makes you feel better.)
“Bonne job.”
I clear my throat. “Didn’t you tell me that’s a Quebecism?”
“I’m kidding.” He tucks the passport and cards in his coat. “What about you?”
“I have mine.”
Danny holds out a hand. I stand there, uncomprehending. Does he want my passport?
“Keys,” he finally says.
“No, Danny, I—”
“Louis,” he corrects me with a hint of a smirk. But the smile disappears. “I’m not sitting there watching you hurt yourself. You navigate.”
“Danny.” I aim my tone to quash any arguments. “I can do this.”
“No.” The rejection is simple and calm, and now I’m the one who can’t argue with him. “Let me help you.”
“But you can’t — are you willing to be ‘paranoid’?”
He casts a quick glance heavenward. “For someone who claims she’s seen a lot of unhappy marriages, you don’t know very much about fighting, do you?”
Huh?
My confusion must show because Danny continues. “Did you ever see someone fight about something stupid, instead of what they really meant?”
Searching my memory doesn’t take long. I highly doubt my parents cared enough about the remote control or what brand of bread we bought to fight about those things for literally years. “Then what were we really fighting about?”
Danny counts off the reasons. “You wouldn’t trust me — not to take care of myself, and certainly not to take care of you. You kept hiding behind Lori, and — I thought that was the problem. I thought I was losing you.”
I grab him for another hug. Because I know exactly how that feels. When I pull back, I slap the keys in Danny’s palm and we hop in — literally for me. Aside from me meticulously monitoring my side mirror and Danny updating me on what cars are behind us, the trip to the airport is uneventful.
But, hello, the FSB has resources everywhere. No time to let our guard down.
He parks and kills the engine. The sudden silence falls on us like a winter coat, thick and heavy. In the rearview, the sun sneaks below the horizon.
“Okay,” I say. “Be careful. Be safe.”
“Be paranoid.”
For a minute, I’m sideswiped. Is this argument bouncing back to bash me on the rebound? Then I look at Danny — he’s serious, not snarky.
“If there’s even a chance you’re in danger, be paranoid. Totally, completely, crazy-as-they-come paranoid.”
I take back what I said about engineers. “That’s the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard.”
Danny scoff-laughs, but leans across the seat to kiss me. “I love you,” he murmurs. “Be safe. See you in a minute.” And he gets out.
I watch him walk away, my heart screaming to go with him. But I can’t. This is more secure. Danny reaches the sidewalk. He checks behind him, but nobody’s interested in his approach.
A black sedan pulls up to the curb, blocking my exit and my view of Danny — and thrusting my heart into my throat. Is it them? Are they hunting Danny?
A short guy in a suit climbs from the black sedan. Could be anybody. But my frozen lungs won’t listen to that weak logic. It’s Eager Igor. He doesn’t go for the trunk to retrieve luggage. He heads for the doors.
I have to get in there faster. I hop out of the car (again, literally) and search the trunk. No cane or crutch — even I’m not crazy enough to tote something like that around. I grab my bag and clench my jaw so tight my molars might crack.
I test my hurt foot. The pain streaks up my calf, but I’ll make it. When Danny’s life might be on the line, I have no choice.
I can’t hide the limp entirely, but I hurry to the doors behind Eager Igor. He reaches the entrance far ahead of me, and by the time I trail him in, sweat’s beading on my forehead from the strain and searing pain of every step. I shove the pain into the background and scan the busy ticket desk.
No Danny.
No Eager Igor.
No good at all.
I hobble to the check-in line, relieved to finally rest my foot. Between the weight of my boot and the swelling, I can’t hold it up long, but I wait, surveying the area every three seconds — and the flight schedule board. The first international departure: Helsinki. Someone’s definitely watching out for me. I think I even have a Finnish passport or two, so I’ll look like someone just heading home. At the desk, I request a ticket to Finland.
“Better hurry,” the
clerk tells me. “They’ll board soon.”
I thank the clerk, pay for the ticket and navigate through security without arousing suspicions (thank heaven they don’t flag me to take off my shoes). But pain etches through my tough façade faster than acid. I don’t dare sit — don’t know if I’ll have the mental or physical strength to get up. I keep moving, slower and slower, but steadily closer to my destination. I have to find Danny. I grit my teeth and push on, though I’m visibly limping.
Finally, I reach the waiting area. But I can’t go straight in. I hide behind a brood of babushki at the opposite (naked) wall to observe the waiting passengers. He’s not in the seats. My fingers tighten on my suitcase handle. He’s not in the line.
And then I catch a glimpse of him, standing by the window, gazing out at the planes in the gathering dusk. That’s my Danny.
I can’t approach yet. If Igor’s around, he’ll be searching for us together. We have to board that plane separately.
I check the waiting area. An ice-fist socks me in the stomach: Nadia. Here. Blending in with her coat and hat. Eager Igor enters from the opposite direction, scanning the area, clutching a couple papers. The light shines through them, illuminating our passport photos.
The line files out the doors for the bus to their plane. Igor stands at the doors, silently touching base with one guy, vaguely familiar, on the other side of the waiting area, then another. Nadia’s other guards. All closing in on our doors.
Of course. The next flight leaving the country. They could stay here all day and check every departing flight, blocking every escape.
I look back to where Danny’s observing the planes, obliv — he’s not there. He’s gone.
Fear floods into my throat, my chest, my heart. They can’t possibly have him. They all wouldn’t still be hunting. Unless they’ve got someone else here, and he’s taken him —
No. I have no choice. I have to trust Danny’s doing exactly what he’s supposed to, and I have to change too. I should’ve done it sooner, but I was so obsessed with getting Danny out safe, I let my own tradecraft slip. I can’t let that hurt either of us. I have to change disguises.
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 81