The Ides of Matt 2016

by M. L. Buchman

  Just in case, Alisa would have to die tonight along with the ever-so-surprised Sergey. Irina (still a top-twenty name among Ukrainian women) would be born tomorrow with fresh papers and a new address. She had deep connections in both the “renegade terrorist” Ukrainian camp and the Russian “our special forces Spetsnaz aren’t really here” camp (to which Sergey had belonged).

  If Sergey had truly kept everything to himself, then there was only one person who still could expose her, Lesia Melnyk. Lesia was General Vlad Kozlov’s mistress and worked in the same department as Alisa. She had been Alisa’s first friend in a long time and the betrayal cut deep.

  Alisa decided that except for Lesia she was safe enough. Her thinking was that with Sergey’s demise and his report gone, an identity change should be enough to protect her. She could stay and continue running her other contacts, so she called off the extraction.

  The other reason to stay was unprofessional as hell and she didn’t care. Lesia was her supposed best friend and the first person she’d turned, or thought she had. Alisa wanted revenge—badly.

  Alisa put the thumb drive in her pocket. A glance around the apartment hurt so much. She wanted to take everything and could take nothing. She slipped her parents’ photo in her pocket, tossed the paper copy of Sergey’s report along with a couple recent copies of Pravda on top of her stove, set the burners on high, and left quickly.

  By the time she had walked a block away, her one-bedroom kvartira (rather than kvartyra as Sevastopol was no longer a Ukrainian city but rather a Russian one) was on fire. When she glanced back two blocks later, it was engulfed and flames were streaming out the windows. She wore a dead man’s clothes, which weren’t a bad fit except for being very tight across the chest even without a bra (it would have helped if Sergey had worked out more in life), and had her long blond hair tucked up into a worker’s cap. The May weather was too warm for a ushanka fur hat. She’d liked that hat and hated to leave it behind in the flames.

  For three nameless hours, she slouched her way across the city and back. No longer Alisa and not yet Irina, she watched carefully for a tail.

  After that she sat for an hour in the back of Zeppelin Club. It was Friday night and the work-week crowd was blowing out as desperately as they could. The loud Euro pop was predictably awful though the “exotic” female dancers managed to not look too bored. Her stool at a small table along the far side of the stage allowed her to watch the entrance between the dancers’ bare legs and other body parts as they arched and writhed. It was hard to believe, but perhaps Sergey really had been dumb enough to confront a foreign agent without a backup.

  She spent another hour drinking at a shadowed table in a porn club, the favorite of one of her contacts, but gave up around four a.m. while the party was still rolling hard (pun intended). She staggered her way back past Alisa’s apartment. The fire brigade had been and gone. The burned shell would reveal nothing that would arouse suspicions except for its no-longer-existent renter’s failure to return. No one waited in the shadows looking for a woman with long blond hair and serious curves. And certainly not for a drunken man staggering homeward.

  She hadn’t meant to drink as much as she did, though it was the leading national pastime. That, and griping about the brutal Russians or the lazy Ukrainians—depending on who you were drinking with: the noble Ukrainians or the world-conquering Russians. But the nerves had gotten to her. She’d made it through the Russian invasion of Crimea more calmly than facing exposure by Sergey. Had he been just one tiny bit less interested in her breasts, she’d probably be screaming in an SVR torture cell at the moment.

  And if she’d been one bit less angry at Lesia Melnyk, she’d have climbed on the damned helicopter and been safe by now. But the anger had grown rather than abating. The alcohol buffered none of the emotions ripping at her.

  She leaned her head against the door of the safe house, just three streets over from her burned-out apartment, and struggled to catch her breath. Her hands were shaky as she reached for her keys.

  Purse, where was her purse?

  No, dressed as a man now.

  Pants pocket.

  Key in door, the soft click of the lock.

  And at the same moment there was a soft sound behind her, then a jabbing pressure in the middle of her back.

  “Medlenno,” a voice commanded in Russian. Slowly indeed.

  3

  Manny eased through the doorway and kept his Glock 19 pressed against the man’s back until they were both inside. He’d been through far too much shit in the last ten hours to trust anyone, safe house or not.

  Impossibly, he hadn’t died despite his helicopter being shot down by a missile. However, the explosion had happened less than a thousand meters from a Russian frigate, so there was no way for Quinn and Patty in the backup helo to fish his ass out of the water without being targeted themselves.

  The Russians had been slow to arrive and inspect the explosion area, which had allowed him time to swim to shore unobserved. Then the CIA had tried stonewalling on the location of their safe house. That had given him his first smile as he hid at the base of a Crimean cliff, carefully covered in sand except for his face despite the nighttime darkness. He wouldn’t want to be one of Langley’s CIA headquarters personnel right now, not with his 5E commanders Pete Napier and Daniella Delacroix after them. They’d coughed up the safe house address eventually.

  Manny had made selections from a couple of clotheslines and then simply walked across the city. Sometimes brash paid off. No one stopped him, except for his nerves which had attempted to asphyxiate him at every step. When he’d arrived, the door was locked. He really hated Crimea.

  The CIA’s passive-aggressive goddamn joke, not telling him where to find the key. If he ever met the bastard who—

  Unproductive thinking!

  The ground floor was totally locked and barred.

  He’d climbed up to a small balcony, that was equally fortified, and squatted down while he tried to figure out what to do. The traffic was light in this neighborhood at oh-four-bumfuck in the morning, just some drunk weaving his lazy ass home.

  Then the drunk had stepped up to the safe house door directly below Manny’s balcony. He waited until the man almost had the door open, then dropped down and crowded him inside.

  Once through the door, he shoved the drunk up against the wall. If this was the caliber of men the CIA could find, it was no wonder the Russians had moved in so easily.

  The house was quiet and dark. The very first light of dawn filtered weakly through a small window set above the door, just enough to see shapes.

  Without moving his weapon, Manny kicked the man’s feet apart and forced him to raise his hands, palm-flat, against the wall. Then he began checking out the man. A vicious flick-blade in his sock. Manny almost missed the thin strap for the hideaway holster inside his thigh—for hidden carry but not quick draw, he’d pants the guy in a moment and take it. Then he reached to check the crotch, but there was nothing there.

  The drunk began cursing in slurred Russian, but he nudged his sidearm hard against his kidney…no, her kidney…and the Russian grunted and began complaining louder.

  “Zatknis!”

  The drunk woman continued to grumble, but she did so more quietly. He reached around to undo her belt and pants enough to recover the hidden weapon. Her jacket gave up nothing except a thumb drive which he pocketed. Then he yanked the jacket off her and tossed it aside just in case he’d missed something. Another blade, this time tucked down between ample breasts, and a shower of long hair when he knocked the cap aside. He couldn’t feel anything inside the cap except a photo that it was too dark to see.

  He eased away until he was well out of reach with his back against the front door so that there would be no surprises. Then he flicked on a light on a small table.

  “Turn. Slowly,” he said in Russian.

 
“Your accent. It is terrible,” the woman mumbled in heavily-inflected English as she turned.

  “So sue me.”

  She rolled over, still leaning against the wall for support, until her back was pressed against it. Without the jacket, her men’s clothing didn’t mask a thing about her. Trim, built, long blond hair that cascaded past her shoulders, and piercing blue eyes in a lovely face.

  “Damn. I can see I should have visited Crimea sooner.”

  “Go and take yourself to hells, Yankee. Who are you?”

  “Prince Charming. And it’s ‘to hell’ but you’re too late, I’m already there. Who are you?”

  “I do not know this anymore,” her voice wavered. “Call me the Grand Duchess Anastasia for all I care,” then the woman slid down the wall to sit on her butt. “Nothing left but ashes.” She rubbed at her face then leaned her head back against the plaster. Her hands dropped into her lap.

  Manny felt as exhausted as she looked. He’d been running mostly on adrenalin since they’d woken him at this time yesterday morning, a thousand kilometers away.

  Her head tipped slightly to one side.

  Then she softly began to snore.

  Manny really, really hated Crimea.

  4

  Alisa woke slowly.

  Except she wasn’t Alisa anymore. She was…Irina now. Irina. Had to repeat her new name until it was second nature. Irina Kovalenko. Irina Kovalenko.

  Irina remembered her apartment burning, no, her torching her own apartment. She remembered…

  Chyort voz’mi! She remembered slitting Sergey’s throat. She’d managed to lead him down to an out-of-the-way dock along the waterfront after convincing him that taking her out to dinner was a sure path to success with her—thankfully Sevastopol was mostly waterfront. And while he’d been enjoying himself, groping her breasts with brutal strength, she’d slipped a blade up through the soft underpart of his chin and managed to cut his brainstem just like in training. For a moment he’d squeezed her breasts so convulsively hard that she was the one who almost cried out. Then he let go and slumped to the planking. She’d stripped him, tied an anchor that she stole from one of the boats about his ankles, and quietly disposed of the first person she’d ever killed.

  But she’d held it together, by god. She’d made it back to her apartment, studied his report, made a plan, and executed her escape.

  She made good until…the man at the door. He’d come out of nowhere. She’d had no tail; she was certain of it.

  And then there’d been a gun at her back.

  An American man who—

  Irina tried to sit up—and flopped back on the mattress. Now that she’d tried to move, she could feel the ropes about her wrist and ankles. Not tight but, she pulled on them, not giving either.

  “Der’mo!” She opened her eyes. Oh shit!

  She was in a small, dingy bedroom. A battered dresser. A small, dust-hazed mirror. The ugliest wallpaper on the planet, blue with large red roses, that was peeling at the corners.

  And a bed, the one she was tied to. Her wrists were above her head, not uncomfortably so, but too far to reach the knots with her teeth. Her ankles were tied, but she could still feel her toes, so the circulation wasn’t cut off. A slight motion and she could tell that she still wore a shirt and her panties, but none of her weapons. A blanket lay over her, a woolen one. It itched.

  If this was an SVR prison cell, it was much more luxurious than she’d expected. If this was a hotel…it sucked!

  She raised her head to look about more carefully. Beyond the foot of the bed a man slumped deep in a battered armchair. He was slender, with dark hair that needed a trim. He needed a shave as well. His sidearm was on his lap, his booted feet were crossed on the foot of her bed, and his dark eyes were watching her.

  “Bet you feel like shit,” his voice was low and painfully astute.

  Her hangover sprang to the foreground. “Spasibo, parshiviy. I had not noticed.”

  “You’re welcome and I’m only an asshole when I’m in the mood. At the moment, I’m totally there. You know, it’s not your average person who falls asleep at gunpoint.”

  “Long day,” she countered.

  “Tell me about it.”

  She closed her eyes and swore to herself that she’d never drink vodka again.

  “Seriously, tell me about it. Start with your name.”

  “My name is Irina,” Irina what? Started with a K. “Irina Kovalenko.” Her gaff shouldn’t be too noticeable. “Had too much to drink.”

  “That explains the night, now tell me about the day.”

  She opened her eyes long enough to glare at him. A light curtain across the window kept her from telling what time of day it was, though it was still bright enough to hurt. She closed her eyes and let her head drop back to the pillow again.

  “Who are you, tolstak?” Because she wasn’t about to tell some unknown fat-ass about her day.

  5

  Interesting place you have here, Grand Duchess.” Manny made it conversational when it became clear she wasn’t going to say anything more.

  She looked at him strangely when he called her that. Too far gone last night to remember naming herself as the youngest of the old Czar’s children.

  Once he’d been sure that she wasn’t feigning sleep, he’d stripped her outer clothes, tied her to the bed, and tucked her in. Then he’d investigated the house.

  The interior dimensions hadn’t matched the exterior and it hadn’t taken him long to figure out why. First and second floor each had hidden rooms, subtle ones, not easy to notice. Except he’d been trained by the very best instructors the US Army had on room clearing techniques—including identifying and opening hidden spaces. One space was packed with clothing in multiple sexes and sizes. He selected a few pieces that fit better than what he’d been able to scavenge off the clothesline. The other space had weapons, a nice forgery setup for making false passports, and a few radios.

  He’d also found a laptop and checked out the thumb drive he’d taken from her pocket. If she’d done even half of what was in the report he found there, he was impressed as hell. But it didn’t mean that he trusted her either.

  “Not my place,” the blond mumbled without opening her eyes. Christ, he could look at her all day. Even hungover she was a knockout. While crossing the city last night he’d noted that Ukrainian women were on the whole exceptionally attractive, but she was above and beyond.

  “No. It’s the CIA’s I assume, since they sent me here. And yet you had a key. What’s a drunken trollop doing with a key to a CIA safe house?”

  “I am no a drunken trollop!” She was angry enough to ignore her hangover and glare at him, at least one eye’s worth.

  He took pity on her and reached over to close one of the heavier curtains.

  “What is trollop?” She asked in a much gentler tone.

  “Whatever you say, Duchess. You were skunk-drunk last night, and parading around in men’s clothes without a bra despite your impressive figure. Now who the hell are you?” He’d had enough of stupid games. “And try to come up with a real name this time.”

  She sighed. “If I do, will you get me some aspirin?”

  “Sure. Might even let you take it too, Duchess.”

  “You would make lousy interrogator for SVR. No call me that.”

  “Whatever you say, Duchess. But I’m one hell of a pilot.”

  That brought her head back up to look at him, “Pilot for the Americans? The Night Stalkers?”

  He started to nod and then could only think of one way she could know that. It jolted him to his feet clenching his weapon.

  She cringed, so he slammed the pistol into his belt. He’d left his holster in the back of a handy police cruiser last night—which was bound to confuse the crap out of them though it had no markings on it.

  “You bit
ch!” She flinched as if he’d struck her. He’d never hit a woman, but he was awfully tempted to strangle one at the moment. “You cancelled an extract less than sixty seconds from pickup?”

  “No! I call three hours before. Three hours!”

  Manny didn’t even know how to answer that.

  It eventually led him to his untying her and the two of them sitting across the kitchen table from each other. It had one leg too short and kept rocking back and forth as they both drank burned coffee made with ancient grounds. The kitchen was as disreputable as the table and the only food was a bag of rice that probably had been there since before the Soviet Union had imploded.

  They determined that their watches were in sync. The abort-mission command had taken three hours (minus sixty seconds) to worm its way out of Langley and out to the field. Insane. Manny knew the Night Stalkers wouldn’t have delayed such a message; they’d know the risk.

  “Goddamn spooks,” he couldn’t help complaining.

  “Spooks? Ah, spies. I too am spy, but I am agreeing very much.”

  He smiled. It was hard not to smile at her. And not just because of her physical attributes. He enjoyed her in-your-face personality—milquetoast, quiet women never did it for him and she was anything but. Plus, he certainly did like the way she looked in just a men’s shirt, underwear, and socks. If she thought she was playing him by not getting fully dressed, it wasn’t going to work—but he wasn’t going to file any complaints about the scenery. For some reason the plain white socks just made the whole outfit real damn cute.

  She rested her elbows on the grimy table and leaned her head down into her hands. Her shirt hung forward and the scenery got a whole lot better. The upper part of her breasts were full, creamy…and bore dark patches the size of fingerprints.

  “Who marked you, Grand Duchess?”

  “I tell you to stop—” She glanced up at him, noticed the direction of his attention, then scowled before looking down at her own chest. “Moodak! That bloody dead bastard!”