by Larry Bond
Rostislawitch glanced at his watch. Atha hadn’t called, despite his promises yesterday.
Just as well. The FSB would find a way to listen in.
The one thing that bothered Rostislawitch was Kiska Babev’s accusation about the girl, Thera. Was she an American agent? He dismissed it, and yet. . . could it be true?
Rostislawitch pulled on his pants. It was an old trick, wasn’t it? Using an older man’s vanity against him. The Russian FSB, the American CIA, they were all the same.
~ * ~
A
s soon as he came off the elevator, Thera could tell that something had changed since she’d seen Rostislawitch last. It wasn’t just his meeting with the Russian intelligence agent. He’d been subdued after that, quieter; now there was something aggressive in his eyes, something harder. He’d made a decision about something.
Very likely Kiska had pushed him into making the deal with the Iranians, the exact opposite of what she intended. He acted aloof, as if he didn’t care about Thera or anyone else, as if he’d hardened himself to do something he didn’t really believe in.
She tried not to let her own knowledge of it show, keeping her voice upbeat, and slightly naive.
“Do you think the speaker will be interesting?” she asked as they walked outside. “More funding for research?”
“All of the drug companies are thieves,” answered Rostislawitch. At the corner, he went to the curb and put his hand up for a taxi, even though they were only two blocks from the art building.
“I thought we were walking?” said Thera.
“I don’t feel like going to the dinner.”
“Oh,” she said.
“I’ve made a reservation at a restaurant. The concierge recommended it. Come.”
Thera hesitated. “Don’t you think—”
“I’ll go myself,” said Rostislawitch as a cab pulled up.
Thera waited another moment, letting Rostislawitch start to pull the door closed before grabbing it.
“OK,” she said, sliding into the car beside him. “I suppose the talk would have been boring anyway.”
~ * ~
F
erguson was on a bicycle up the block when the scientist called for a taxi. He waited for them to pass, then turned up the radio volume, listening as Thera jabbered with the doctor, trusting that she would provide enough information for him to catch up if the traffic cleared and he lost them.
~ * ~
Y
ou’re in a strange mood this evening,” Thera told Rostislawitch in the taxi.
The scientist grunted. He wasn’t sure what her reluctance to changed plans meant: it could be read as an honest desire to attend the event, in which case she wasn’t a CIA agent. But on the other hand, it might be because she had compatriots waiting for her there, and was afraid to cross them up.
“Why is a young girl like you interested in me?” said Rostislawitch abruptly.
Thera turned to the scientist. “I am not a young girl,” she said. “And what do you mean by interested?”
“You have a boyfriend?”
“Oh.” Thera turned, facing the front of the cab. “Dr.... Artur . ..”
Thera stopped. This wasn’t acting anymore, was it? Partly it was, and partly it wasn’t. She did honestly feel concern for him. It wasn’t all she felt, but it was there.
Ferguson, had he been in a parallel situation, would have come up with some sort of glib line, pushed the sex angle, and ended up kissing the woman. But that wasn’t Thera.
“I do feel. . . strongly . . . toward you,” said Thera, stumbling over the word strongly. “I wouldn’t call it... I don’t know what it is. It’s really not boyfriend-girlfriend. You’re so much . . . smarter than me,” she said, substituting smarter for older.
She turned to him. Rostislawitch looked as if she had hit him in the stomach.
“I don’t want to mislead you,” continued Thera. She put her hand on his. He started to pull away, but she grabbed his hand. “I—love is not something I think about much,” she said quickly. “I admire you. I do care—when I heard you were hurt my heart seemed to stop.”
“But it’s not sex,” said Rostislawitch.
“No,” she said. “I don’t think so.”
Rostislawitch pulled his right hand from hers and scratched his ear. Her response confused him even more. It wasn’t what he wanted to hear. And yet it was not what a spy would say.
So perhaps he could trust her at least. Somewhat. Maybe.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” she said. “I feel that we can talk— when you talk I like to listen.”
Rostislawitch smiled, in spite of himself. It was something his wife used to tell him, when he asked why she didn’t answer him sometimes. He patted Thera’s hand, even as he reminded himself to stay on his guard—she had proven nothing.
“Is that OK?” Thera asked. “Is it all right? Do you still want to have dinner?”
“I am very hungry,” he said. “And I was told that this restaurant is very good. Of course we will eat.”
~ * ~
8
BOLOGNA, ITALY
The Italians were clearly among those who confused quantity with quality when it came to security. Not only had they blanketed the art building with soldiers, but they had carabinieri police officers surrounding the building. In addition, Nathaniel Hamilton counted at least five members of the Italian SISDE—the civilian intelligence force under the interior minister—as well as a SISMI or military intelligence agent. Admittedly, the latter seemed most interested in keeping an eye on his civilian counterparts, probably looking for details that could be used to blast them in an upcoming parliamentary debate.
The one person Hamilton didn’t see was the Russian scientist.
Or Ferguson, but that was a plus.
The security measures complicated Hamilton’s plans. Not only had he found it necessary to enlist the aid of the embassy to get tickets to the event, but he had had to appear before Marco Imperiati and personally state why he wanted to be there. The Italian intelligence officer had proceeded to give him a lecture about the importance of allies working together toward common goals.
“That is why I am here,” Hamilton had protested, but for some reason that had failed to impress Imperiati. Exasperated, Hamilton finally asked if Ferguson was working with him closely; with a straight face, Imperiati replied that of course he was.
“Uncharacteristically for the Americans,” the Italian SISDE officer added.
“I wouldn’t trust him,” said Hamilton.
“He says the same of you.”
Hamilton stewed. He’d adopted a cover as a technology officer for Her Majesty’s government, and in order to keep the cover semi-intact, he mingled with some of the British scientists at the affair. He smiled when Professor Barclay, a sixty-year-old Oxford don with breath that could choke a pig, ambled next to him and asked how he thought the affair was going.
“Very pleasant,” lied Hamilton.
“You read biology, then?” asked the professor.
“I was a physics man myself,” answered Hamilton. “Cambridge. But I find this all jolly interesting. An exciting frontier.”
“Quite.”
In actual fact, Hamilton had majored in the Romantic poets at Cambridge, but that was hardly the response a science officer would give.
“I do hope you’re sitting at our table,” added Barclay.
“With pleasure, of course,” said Hamilton. He glanced toward the bar, making a mental note to fortify himself with a double Scotch before going in for the meal.
~ * ~
O
utside the building, in a portico roped off for smokers, Kiska Babev was expressing her own frustration that Rostislawitch had not arrived. Unlike the British MI6 agent, however, Kiska at least knew where the scientist was—she’d just received a cell phone call from the agent she’d assigned to tail Rostislawitch.
“The Greek female is with him. I can’t tell where they a
re going.”
“Find out what they are up to. If they are leaving the city, let me know immediately”
“I don’t think that’s what they’re doing. The airport is in the other—”
Kiska pushed the cell phone closed, cutting off the conversation in midsentence as a pair of policemen appeared.
“No cell phones,” said the taller man, speaking in English.
“Not even outside?”
“No.”
“I promise not to use it again,” said Kiska. It wasn’t a difficult promise to make—the Italians were using jammers that severely limited the places where the phones could be used. Inside was impossible, and outside was almost as bad.
“You must give it to us,” insisted the police officer.
“Why? Do you think a cell phone is that dangerous?”
“Please,” insisted the man.
“Very well,” she said finally, retrieving it from her purse. “Will I get it back?”
“Absolutely, at the end of the night.”
Kiska started to hand it over, then stopped. “Are you going to give me a receipt for it?”
“Of course,” said the policeman.
“Well, where is the receipt?”
The men looked at each other.
“I will get it for you,” volunteered the short man.
Kiska played with her phone while she waited, opening and closing it idly. Suddenly the back popped off and the battery dropped to the ground. As the man with her bent to retrieve it, Kiska slipped her finger against the small chip at the back of the battery compartment. Pressing firmly, she activated a circuit in the cell phone that rendered the phone inert. It could no longer remember its own number, let alone be used to make or receive a call.
This wouldn’t be a problem for her. She had two more in her purse, retrieved from a stash in the ladies’ room that she’d planted ahead of time to avoid complications at the door.
“Eccolo,” said the policeman. “Here you are.”
“Grazie,” she said, letting her fingers linger on his as she took the battery. “This must be boring even for you.”
“Eh.” He shrugged. “There are distractions.”
Kiska smiled. The man’s companion pushed his way back outside through the crowd, a small piece of paper in his hand.
“Thank you,” she said, taking the receipt and handing over the phone.
“If you need to make a call before the end of the night, just see us,” said the taller policeman. “We’ll help. There are only a few places where the signal will work.”
“Thank you,” she told him, making sure her eyes lingered just enough so that he would be greatly disappointed when she didn’t turn up.
~ * ~
9
BOLOGNA, ITALY
“Describe the technique for inducing transduction utilizing lambda.”
Thera put down her fork.
“Artur, why are you asking me questions that any first-year biology student could answer?”
“I don’t think a first-year student could handle the technique. They might not even know what a phalange is.”
“Why are you quizzing me?”
Rostislawitch looked down at his plate. As he did, the waiter came up and refilled his glass with wine.
“Artur, what’s wrong? You have been acting oddly all evening.”
Rostislawitch shook his head. He put his fork in a piece of meat, then laid it against the plate. He sipped some wine, even though he thought he’d had too much to drink already.
“What’s bothering you? Are you upset because I’m not interested in you as a boyfriend? Or is it something else?”
“I have to go back to the room,” he said finally “I’m not feeling well. Let’s get the check.”
Thera knew that the questions he’d been asking were intended to vet her. While she thought she’d handled them fairly well, she wasn’t entirely positive. She waited while Rostislawitch paid the check, then held his arm while they walked outside and waited for a taxi.
“What happened to you?” she said. “Was it that woman who met you this afternoon? What was it she wanted?”
“I told you, it had to do with work. A minor matter.”
“It has you upset. Does it have to do with me?”
A cab pulled around the corner. Thera would have let it pass by—she sensed she was on the verge of getting some sort of answer from him—but Rostislawitch raised his hand and flagged it down. Inside the car, he laid his head back on the seat and complained that he was tired. Then he said something to her in Russian.
“I don’t understand,” she said.
“You don’t speak Russian,” he said in English.
“I’m sorry.”
“You’re a good girl.” Rostislawitch patted her hand.
“Professor, you’ve acted very strange all night. You started out asking about love; then you quiz me on procedures. Now you’re sick.”
“Just tired.”
Rostislawitch sat back up. He’d been a fool to believe the she-wolf. The girl was honest and young. . . and just a friend. Perhaps that was what he was truly disappointed about. But it was OK. It was truly OK.
“I will feel better tomorrow,” he told her. “I promise. I want to be your friend. I do want to be your friend.”
“You are my friend.”
“You’re very kind. You’re the only one that’s looked out for me here. We are friends.” Rostislawitch leaned toward the driver. “Her hotel is right up there,” he said. “Ecco.”
“I can go with you,” Thera said.
“I’m just going to bed. Good night, sweet one,” he said awkwardly as the taxi pulled to the curb. “I will feel better tomorrow.”
~ * ~
W
hat’d you slip into his drink?” Ferguson asked Thera over the radio as he followed the cab back to Rostislawitch’s hotel.
“Nothing. He’s acting really weird, Ferg.”
“Kiska put pressure on him. He’s afraid of getting caught.”
“He was quizzing me.”
“Maybe she told him you’re a spy.”
“That bitch.”
Ferguson laughed.
“What’s he going to do?” asked Thera.
“Push Atha to make the deal so he can escape to wherever he’s thinking of escaping to.”
“No, I don’t think he’s going to do that.”
“Bet you ten bucks,” said Ferguson, pedaling slowly past the hotel as Rostislawitch got out of the taxi and went inside.
~ * ~
T
here were no messages on his room’s voice mail. Atha hadn’t called. Maybe the FSB she-wolf had been to see him as well.
Rostislawitch paced back and forth in his room. He felt as if he was losing his mind. His thoughts flew wildly, back and forth, from one form of doom to another.
He’d acted like a fool with Thera. One moment he trusted her; the next he treated her as if she were the enemy. He’d started asking her those ridiculous examination questions, as if she were facing him in an oral exam at the end of the semester.
Poor girl. He didn’t deserve even her friendship.
Rostislawitch took his wallet from his pant pocket and opened it. The check for the suitcase was folded against his euros. He took the check, crumpled it, and tossed it in the garbage.
He was done with it, done with everything.
He paced across the room, back and forth, his head racing.
They’d open the locker eventually. The attendant had said something about items having to be claimed after seven days.
They’d open it, and what would they find? A few odd-looking jars with strange jelly in them. It would look like mold. They’d throw the jars out.
Or maybe the police would be called—maybe the police were the ones who were in charge of abandoned luggage. What would happen then?
A science experiment. Into the garbage.