The apartment looked like a shipwreck. The cushions had been torn from the couch and the cloth slashed open to reveal ragged cores of dingy white foam. Books and papers were strewn everywhere. An armchair was overturned, a coffee table broken. Pictures had been pulled from the wall. Refrigerator and cabinet doors hung open, and all their contents, from bottles of soda to bags of flour, had been spilled onto the center of the kitchen floor like the ingredients for some huge and nasty recipe.
Gaia waded into the room, her sneakers crunching on broken glass. The place reeked. There was a sour, spoiled-meat smell—from the mess in the kitchen, she hoped—and above that the sharp, acrid odor of smoke. She navigated through the piles of broken furniture and heaps of ripped books and traced the fumes back to the wisps of smoke rising from inside a small metal trash can. It was clear that whoever had destroyed the apartment had done it very recently. She reached into the can, pulled out a stack of blackened, smoldering paper, and flipped it back and forth through the air. A few sparks flew off from the sides before the smoke stopped rising.
“All right,” she said. “Let’s see what was worth making such a stink.”
The first few sheets where hopeless. The paper flaked away into dust as soon as she touched it. At the back of the pack a single page had survived. The paper was charred black at the top, and there were a few holes on the page, but the rest was only a toasty brown. In these lighter areas Gaia could make out… something. She held the scorched page close to her face and frowned. The first part was a mess. Some kind of code. The rest didn’t even look like writing. There were no letters that she recognized. Instead, what was left of the page was completely covered in three repeating symbols. A green delta. A red cross. A blue circle. A brown square. The symbols sprawled right up to the right edge of the paper. In the burned areas she could make out glossy spots where more symbols had been.
Gaia stared intently. Some new kind of code? She was good with codes, always had been, but this was unusual. Four symbols, over and over, and what looked like random combinations. How could she translate this?
She lowered the page and gave the metal trash can a sharp kick. The can turned over, spilling gray ash onto the floor. Smoke started to rise from the bland, tan carpeting, but Gaia stomped it out before it could become a real fire. She stirred the black mess with the toe of her shoe and saw something else that had escaped total consumption by the flames. She reached in and pulled out a Polaroid photo. Like the paper, most of the photograph was blackened. The plastic covering over the picture had bubbled and turned brown. In the shadows that remained, Gaia could barely make out the silhouettes of three people, but she couldn’t see any of their faces clearly enough to say who they were. Gaia and her parents? Tom and some friends? There was nothing but dark, somewhat eerie shadows.
“Wonderful.” Gaia sighed and looked around the room. A half-burned page full of nonsense and a half-burned photo of three ghosts. Not exactly the kind of answers she had been hoping for.
Gaia, this is your old friend Disappointment.
Disappointment, you certainly remember Gaia. You’ve met her so many times.
It took half an hour for Gaia to sift through the mess on the floor and check around the room for something the messy visitors might have missed. If there were secrets hiding in this place, they were evidently staying secret. Finally Gaia found a plastic bag that was half full of crushed soda cans.
My father, she thought. Sure, he’s a spy, a liar, and probably a killer, but he recycles. She dumped the cans on the floor, put the burned photo and page of symbols into the bag, and stuffed the little package into her coat.
She gave a moment’s thought to climbing back down the way she had come up, then shook her head. There was plain stupid and really stupid, then there was gargantuan stupid. Gaia gave a last look at the wrecked apartment, flipped off the lights, and went out into the hall to ring for an elevator. She stopped at the door on the way out, turned, and gave the doorman a quick, fierce hug.
“The party was great,” she said. “Thanks for the invite.”
Gaia didn’t bother to look back and see the expression on the old man’s face. She just hunched her shoulders against the rain and kept walking.
Idiot in Russian
THUNDERSTORMS AND CRUTCHES DID not mix. The rubber tips on the ends of the steel-and-wood contraptions weren’t exactly nonslip under the best of conditions. In the rain they were about as useful as racing slicks on a snail.
“Are you sure you want to walk around in this weather? he asked.
Tatiana looked at him and flashed a bright smile. “You said we could look around the park today. I’ve walked around Moscow in worse weather.
“Besides,” she began, but Ed could see her struggle as she tried to translate her thoughts into English. In only a few weeks her speech had already become more fluid, more casual, but she still had trouble digging out the perfect word. “I have you to take care of me.”
“Oh, yeah. Sir Limp-a-Lot.” Ed knew he wasn’t the world’s most likely protector, even if it did feel good to have a pretty girl say that she was counting on him. And Tatiana was extremely pretty. Ed held up one crutch and waved it through the rain. “Bad guys beware.”
Tatiana put her hand on Ed’s shoulder and let it rest there for the space of several heartbeats. “I can’t think of anyone else I would rather have looking out for me.”
Ed stared at her hand. Buzzers went off in his head. Warning. Warning. Physical contact. What was Tatiana doing? This wasn’t supposed to be an official date. Friends only. Strictly casual.
“Uh, Tatiana…”
She took her hand away and gave him a soft smile. “Are you ready?”
Ed looked into her wide eyes. There was an expression on her face that he couldn’t quite read. “That depends. Ready for what?”
“For a walk around the park, of course.”
“One cold, dark walk coming up.” Ed could still feel the spot where she had rested her hand on his arm. It probably didn’t mean anything. Tatiana was from Russia. People in Russia probably did a lot more touching. It was just a friendly thing.
He looked up at the drizzle falling down around the nearest streetlight. “We’re going to get wet.”
“It’s only water,” said Tatiana. “I don’t think I will drip.”
“You won’t what?”
“Drip. Like an ice-cream cone when it gets hot.”
“Melt.” Ed couldn’t help but grin. “You won’t melt. You’re way too…” He was going to finish with “sweet,” but then he realized how pathetic and cornball that sounded. Like something from a really awful black-and-white movie on the Family Channel. Like something from a guy who was desperate to be in love. Only this wasn’t the right girl.
He cleared an irritating lump from his throat. “You sure you won’t be cold?”
“Cold? Here?” It was Tatiana’s turn to smile. “It’s practically summer here compared to back home.” She held out a blue umbrella and pressed a button on the shaft, and the canopy opened into a wide dome. “Besides, I have this to keep the rain away.”
“Okay,” said Ed. “We’ll just make a quick lap now and then come back when the weather’s better, okay? It’ll be more entertaining then.”
She nodded, her blue eyes bright. “Yes, that sounds perfect.”
Ed started up the sidewalk with Tatiana close at his side. The wet sidewalk limited how fast he could move, but Tatiana didn’t seem to mind. She paced along beside him, holding the blue umbrella above them both.
Some NYU students shouldered past Ed and ran on into the rain. Most of them weren’t wearing coats. It wasn’t that cold. Or that wet. Ed knew that New York was capable of infinitely worse weather. So why did today seem like such an über-suck?
They crossed the street and turned toward the park. How many times had Ed walked this way with Gaia? Fifty? A hundred? However many it was, it wasn’t nearly enough. He liked Tatiana, he really did, but no one could take the place of Ga
ia. Even if lately she had been using his heart for a hacky sack.
Halfway down the block they slowed to get around a crowd waiting near the door of a small restaurant. Tatiana peered through the tall windows as they passed. “Do they have very good food there? Is that why everyone is waiting?”
“That’s Jimmy’s Burrito. The food is…” Ed shrugged. “It’s cheap. I guess it’s good. Not exactly your five-star place. It’s one of Gaia’s… I mean…”
“Gaia likes to eat there?”
Ed nodded. “Yeah, sometimes.”
Tatiana stepped away from him long enough to stare through the window. She wrinkled her upturned nose. “You are sure this food is good?”
Her expression was so cute, it immediately restored Ed’s smile. “It’s at least as good as borscht,” he said.
She pouted. “Borscht is… how you say… sucks?”
More cuteness. “Sucks? I thought all Russians loved the stuff.”
Tatiana nodded with mock seriousness. “Oh, yes. And…” She glanced around for a moment and dropped her voice to a whisper. “We are all spies.”
Ed laughed again. “Then maybe I need someone to protect me from you.”
Tatiana was quiet for a moment, then she leaned in and planted a quick kiss on Ed’s cheek. “Maybe you do,” she said. She raised the umbrella high and started forward. “Come on. Show me the park.”
Tatiana walked on, but Ed didn’t move. He stood there leaning on his crutches as though the tips had somehow sunk into the concrete. She’s Russian. She’s only being friendly. Like hell.
Tatiana stopped and looked back at him. “Are you coming?”
Ed nodded. Why couldn’t I have met her six months ago? he wondered. He caught up to her and slipped under the cover of the blue umbrella.
Could it really be only days since he’d had sex with Gaia? It seemed like something from another lifetime. Something from a movie that he had seen once but could barely remember. Gaia had been there, right next to him, warm and soft. He remembered waking up and finding her in the bed. He remembered the smile on her face and the way the sun had slanted through the window and burned against her hair. That morning had seemed like the start of a whole new life. And it had been. It just wasn’t the life Ed had expected. Instead of life with Gaia, it had turned out to be the start of life After Gaia. Ed A.G.
Ever since that morning, she had treated him like he was suffering from some kind of plague. Every time he tried to find out what was going on, she only pushed him farther away. Ed felt more isolated from Gaia than he had on the first day he had seen her.
Lightning flashed as they approached the street corner. The sudden flare caught Tatiana in profile, illuminating her pale hair and lending a strange fire to her blue eyes. For a moment she seemed taller. Different.
“What’s wrong?”
Ed shook his head. “For a second there you looked just like—”
“Like who?” asked Tatiana. Her eyes were narrowed to slits framed by dark lashes.
Ed swallowed. Like Gaia. “Different is all.”
Tatiana continued to look at him for a moment. A smile came slowly to her face, but it was tentative. “Thank you,” she said, but her eyes were still narrow. Ed thought she probably had a very good idea what he had been about to say.
“The park’s right over there,” Ed said, hoping to distract her. He pointed toward the dark brick walls and the looming trees with the rubber tip of his left crutch. “We can cruise around the block, and I’ll—”
“No,” said Tatiana. She looked at the park and shook her head. “You were right. It is cold. We can go to the park another day.”
“So. Do you want to… go home?” Ed asked with a shrug.
She nodded. “I think I should.”
For two blocks they walked along in painful silence with only the sound of rain thumping against the umbrella. A steady stream of cars swam past in the street, sending up twin plumes of water. The people they passed seemed as gray as the evening.
Ed abruptly stopped. “Tatiana, I’m sorry.”
She studied him with her head tilted slightly toward her right shoulder. “You still love Gaia, don’t you?”
Ed winced. “It’s that obvious, huh?”
“If there is a word that means more obvious than obvious, then that is the word to use,” said Tatiana. She took one hand away from her umbrella and put it on her hip. “But Gaia has been so rude to you.”
“I know.”
“She treats you badly. You deserve better.”
Ed sighed. “I guess maybe you get treated the way you let yourself get treated. With Gaia…” He hesitated and stared at the ground. “I wanted her for so long.”
Tatiana let the umbrella fall to the side. Cold drizzle fell down on them both. “I don’t know why Gaia acts the way she does. She’s hurt you so much already. I think that if you keep this up, she’s only going to hurt you again.”
“Probably.” Ed raised his head and looked at her from between strands of damp hair. “How do you say ‘idiot’ in Russian?”
Tatiana tapped a long, slender finger against her chin. “Idiot. Idiot. Ah! I believe the word is ‘Ed Fargo’.” She took his arm, squeezed it, and smiled.
Memo
From: G
To: L
Subject has left the target area. Reconnaissance indicates that the planted material has been removed. Request instruction for next phase. Additional assistance may be required, as subject’s habits continue to be irregular.
Memo
From: L
To: G
That material should ensure the subject follows another blind alley. Proceed with delivery of additional material and evaluate subject’s response. Continue observations. Resources will be made available. It won’t be long now.
dangerous dangerous
But in the absence of their leader, the M&M twins seemed to be verging on mental anarchy.
Spearfish
A STORM HAD PASSED THROUGH during the night. Lines of driftwood and brown seaweed along the beach marked how far the gale-blown waves had reached, but now, under the morning sun, the sea was almost glassy.
Tom Moore sat on a clean patch of sand and stretched out his legs until the heels of his brown Paloma loafers were lightly touched by the gentle surf. The sun warmed his face, and his surroundings were reflected in the lenses of his aviator sunglasses. It was a small bay, no more than half a mile across, and the beach was small, too, but it was a beautiful space. Tall palm trees curved out into the bright air above the sand. Dark patches on the impossibly turquoise water marked knots of coral reef just below the surface. Off to one side a stack of sun-bleached, faintly pink shells showed where both locals and tourists had fished conchs from the water. It was exactly the sort of place where people came to relax and enjoy themselves.
Tom wasn’t relaxed.
He reached down, picked up a handful of sand, and let it trickle away through his fingers. In books and films it seemed that secret agents were always ending up in places like this. How many movies had there been where James Bond spent time on the beach with some bikini-wearing babe? All those chase scenes on motorboats and fights on yachts. Agents in films seemed to get in a large share of yacht time.
Tom’s life had certainly not worked out that way. It seemed to him that for every hour he had spent in sunshine, there had been at least two spent in shadows. Letter drops in the basement of some Chicago high-rise. Meetings in a Moscow alley. Midnight assignations in Abu Dabi. Being an agent, a successful agent, was about keeping yourself inconspicuous. It was easier to hide where it was dark.
It had only gotten worse over the last few years. The years without Katia. Since her death there had been more dark meetings, more travel, and more lurking in shadows. Tom turned over his sandy hand and looked at the back. Thirty minutes on the beach, and he could already tell that the sun was starting to redden his skin.
That’s what happened when you dragged a mushroom out into the sunlight
.
He wondered where Gaia was at that moment. It was a thought that often crossed his mind. Probably the thought he had more frequently than any other. Being away from his daughter was… It was almost like losing his wife, only not as sudden. Losing Gaia was an ache that went on and on.
That was why he was here, so far from everything and everyone he considered important. If Loki’s plan could be discovered, if his agents could be neutralized, if Tom could ever be sure that Gaia was completely safe, then he could go home again. He could get back to Gaia and try to salvage something that looked like a normal life.
He had been down here for days, trying to find the tag end of Loki’s organization. So far his progress had been slow. Loki had taken steps to cover his tracks. All Tom had been able to turn up were the names of a few agents that might—might—be working for Loki. He was going to need more information to find the next link in the chain.
Tom took another glance down the deserted beach. What would it be like to come to this place on an actual vacation? To get some of those drinks with funny, tropical names and little umbrellas, toss some towels down on the sand, and soak up so much sun, it drove out all the years of hiding in shadows? He might even get Gaia to shed her grungy sweatshirts. They could be a real family, he, his daughter, and—
His thoughts were interrupted by a splash out in the bay. A small, dark shape broke the smooth surface of the water. A moment later the shape was revealed to be the head of a man with a mask on his face and a snorkel alongside his ear.
Tom waited until the man was stepping free of the waves, then stood and brushed the sand from his neatly creased khaki pants. “Good morning,” he called.
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