The Hidden Vector: A Spy Thriller

by Mathew Snyder

  The minibar had a single miniature bottle of Jack Daniels, which he poured into a glass he found in the bathroom. It needed ice, but he didn’t bother. The whiskey wouldn’t last, and the minibar only offered tiny bottles of vodka and some unappealing chilled wine. He needed just enough to calm himself and get some sleep. The harshness of the whiskey warmed his throat, and for the moment there wasn’t any pain. His head buzzed, but the sharper sting between his temples had eased.

  He heard a knock. He glided over the floor and he felt for his pistol on the dresser. The knock repeated. He leaned to the keyhole and saw Maria’s face staring back at him, her arm raised to knock a third time. He opened the door a few inches and hid the Beretta behind his back.

  “Did I wake you,” she whispered.

  He shook his head.

  “Listen, Ethan, I …” Her voice faded. “I wanted to see if you were okay.”

  “I’m fine. Really.”

  She had removed her blazer and wore only her tight-fitting tank top. Her dark blonde hair fell in tangles around her bare shoulders. She reached her hand to his face and touched the welt at his head. He backed away, then eased and let her hand touch him.

  “After everything today I can’t sleep. I was just sitting in my room alone. This job …” Again her voice faded away.

  He noticed her lips were a darker rose. She pulled her hand away.

  “You know, they don’t tell you how lonely it gets in the field. You put on all these masks for the job, and even when you go home at night you’re someone else,” she said.

  “It’s hard on all of us,” he said.

  “It’s just, I thought we were a good team today. Right? We watched out for each other. It was the first time I felt like someone understood what it was like in a long time. I don’t want to be alone right now. Can I come in?”

  He opened the door wider. She pressed herself to him, lunging up where her lips found his, her hands running once through his black hair. Part of him resisted, clinging to a hope he knew was empty and gone. He shivered, and she mistook it for thrill and pressed harder against him. Was it the exhaustion? How had he missed her attraction? He felt her lips and the warmth of her tongue. This woman wanted him, and in that instant he didn’t care how or why they had come together. He welcomed it then and thought only of the scent in her hair. He wrapped one arm around her waist. With the other, he placed the Beretta on the sink countertop just inside the room. Their mouths breathed into one another, and he closed the door.

  She tugged at his belt and lifted his shirt, then removed her own. In the dim city haze and moonlight, he traced the line of her breasts with his hands and found her taut stomach and a thin scar on her side. His fingers dwelt there, touching the mystery that made her more real. They kissed and again pressed close, their bodies greedy for release. He lifted her against the window with her arms spread against the wall. He teased her belly, her thighs, and slid into her, her silhouette rigid and ecstatic. The cool night tingled on his skin, and the two of them clung together sweating. They moved to the bed together silently, but the tension remained as they strained and pressed against one another. Her warmth intoxicated him. He quickened, her wrists clasped in his hands. She moved with him. Her breath became a moan, barely audible. When it was over, they fell to sleep in the open air.

  He woke in the early morning to the sound of her showering. He found his glass of whiskey and finished the last traces while he waited. A shower would do him good.

  “Good morning,” she said with a smile in the mirror. She wrapped a towel around herself.

  Ethan stood behind watching her in the mirror, staring at her shoulders that glistened where droplets fell from her hair. She seemed different to him then, a woman altogether new in the course of a night. He had no real sense whether that was his discovery or her intention. He gave her a wistful grin, and she turned to face him.

  “You know, Ethan, it doesn’t have to mean anything,” she said.

  “It always means something,” he said.

  She kissed his cheek, and he took his turn in the shower.

  They drove back to Tbilisi in the Mercedes, taking their time along the coastal road and valley highways. Maria spoke to him, and he to her, each revealing too little of themselves to matter. The balance was unfamiliar to him, though he had observed it many times. Fellow officers who, once far from home, found one another for romance without any history or future. It wasn’t regret they shared, but caution and self-preservation. A part of the craft that one learned only through intuition.

  “How long have you been at this?” she asked.

  “A while,” he said.

  “You really can’t tell me after last night?”

  He shrugged.

  Maria became quiet. She twisted in her seat and stared out the window for several minutes, her face concealed behind gold aviator sunglasses.

  “They make good liars out of us, don’t they?” she said.

  “I think we figure that out all by ourselves. That’s not what bothers you about it anyway.”

  Maria turned toward him once again, feigning shock with an open grin. “Oh, really? Please enlighten me.”

  “It’s not the lying. Lying is what we do, there’s no getting around that. You came into this work ready and willing to lie. It’s safer that way. Smarter. It’s what the lying becomes.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “Isolation.”

  “Is that what you do? Keep everyone away from you?”

  “That’s not what I meant,” he said. The muscle in his jaw tightened, and he avoided looking at her.

  “Who is she?”

  “Who?”

  “Oh, come on. I’m good at this, remember? You’re not married. Tell me you’re not married.”

  “I used to be,” he said.

  “So that’s it. And I take it that wasn’t your idea?”

  “Look, what the fuck do you want from me? This isn’t going anywhere. It can’t. You’ve been stationed here for, what, four or five years? Long enough to make inroads, but not long enough to get too comfortable. You don’t have any real friends, but you say you love the people. I think that yesterday was the most excitement you’ve had since you got this assignment. I think you enjoyed every minute of it.”

  “You’re telling me you didn’t?” She smiled and reached to touch his arm with the back of her hand.

  “It doesn’t matter. Tomorrow or next week, we’ll both be back to keeping everything at arm’s length. Because we have to.”

  She pulled her hand back. He sensed something stir in her. Her amusement was gone, replaced by a hotter instinct.

  “Jesus. Don’t you ever let your guard down?” she asked.

  He held her gaze for a moment, then focused on the road.

  “Not if I can help it.”

  That much wasn’t a lie. Her vulnerability last night and now made him more cautious, not less. Look where that got me, he thought. He stared at the horizon where the highway vanished atop a rise, but his mind wandered back home. There was so little he could tell Sarah over the years, yet so much she knew about him. Lying to her was necessary, a routine she tolerated at first. The distance between them was the consequence of his omissions and untruths. When she gave it back to him in kind, he hated her for lying. He knew she would leave, and then she did. He had more than a year to reckon with it. But it was an affliction without cure. She held on longer than he expected. The truth was he deserved it.

  They arrived in the city after more small talk and long silences. She seemed undeterred, ever eager to open herself to him.

  “What now?” she asked as he drove around in the late day bustle around the city.

  Good question, he thought. His driving pattern was erratic, his eyes on the car’s mirrors as he worked his way through every familiar seeming vehicle behind them. The last thing he wanted was a tired drive that allowed anyone to recognize them together. Whatever they were up against, it wasn’t over.

  “Rel
ax,” she said. “Just get me back to my apartment. Here, turn left on Pekini. You should stay.”

  “Thanks, but I need to catch up with Wade.”

  “Call me before you go anywhere.”

  It wasn’t a question. He nodded, then left her waving at a quaint apartment building with pale yellow walls and wrought iron bars on the windows.

  ◆◆◆

  He met Wade for supper in an American themed bar north of downtown closer to the embassy. They ordered burgers while surrounded by young tourists and NGO workers who congregated on a Friday night for a taste of home. Familiar songs drifted through the smoky air from a gaudy jukebox. Survivor gave way to Katy Perry. There was no sense to it. The young crowd seemed as unaffected by the incongruous noise as they were by the cigarette haze. For Ethan, the atmosphere was a thoughtless mash of nostalgia that reminded him of nothing in particular about home. It was just another bar with a veneer of American gleefulness and outdated beer posters. He and Wade fit in among the crowd unnoticed, themselves only vaguely American, which was all the anonymity they needed for now.

  “Nice shiner,” Wade said, nodding at the small, dark bruise between Ethan’s nose and right eye.

  “You should have seen the other guy,” Ethan said.

  “I heard about the other guy. Old. Fat. Sounds like you missed me.”

  He just shook his head. Wade didn’t look much better. His right arm bore a crisscross of scratches and cuts from his tumble out of a moving car. The arm had barely scabbed over, oozing slightly just beneath his shirt sleeve. Wade didn’t share many details. He was in the car with Rezo Kaladze, who got a call and then pulled his weapon. Rezo killed Giorgi Gelashvili in the seat next to him without a word. Wade’s instincts kicked in, and he leapt from the car. He paid for the effort with a set of lacerations and a sore shoulder. Rezo never slowed down.

  A skinny waitress with bleached hair in braids brought them burgers and fries. She doted on them, practicing her English with each request for ketchup and napkins. Talk of their work fell away and they ate quietly, observing the other patrons who flirted with one another and smoked.

  Ethan thought again about Maria and her eager prying. With Wade, he had history. They understood each other, and each knew the other’s movements and intentions. They could eat together at ease. They had a kind of professional trust, an unspoken bond. But each kept himself apart for the ugly possibilities their work one day promised. Yesterday, he thought that day had come, but he let the memory drift as Wade drained the last of a warming bottle of Natakhtari lager and ordered another.

  Ethan’s phone buzzed, and he got Wade’s attention by tapping at his breast pocket.

  “Home office. Time to go.”

  Ethan returned the call while Wade drove his newly rented car away from the bar. Wade’s Toyota was quieter than the Mercedes, but Ethan still pressed his ear into the phone awaiting a familiar voice.

  “This is Dodger,” he said.

  Kay’s voice responded. “Hourglass here, have weekend plans for you, Dodger.”

  “What did you have in mind?”

  “Recent asset now at high risk. Require immediate intervention to secure asset’s intel on recent event.”

  He knew immediately something had changed. Seda was now an active target for someone. But she must be still alive. He ran through possibilities and wondered if the men who took her had done something with her. Why isn’t Corso on the line for this, damn it?

  “What is asset’s current location?” he asked.

  “No change in status or location. Hourglass requires new intel as soon as possible. Sooner. Your priority here is the asset’s knowledge on contacts in Romania. You are to verify without outside involvement.”

  That explained Corso’s absence. The Georgians still had Seda, but the GIS was compromised. Someone in Georgian intelligence wanted her dead. It meant the Agency was pursuing other more official avenues, probably through Alan Sanger. Ethan’s assignment was something they could later jettison, along with him and Wade if necessary. The distance between him and Corso right then was a cosmic gap, held together by Ethan’s faith that Corso knew something serious enough to eyewash the Georgians and leave him and Wade without any help, but still moving.

  Kay’s always delicate voice drew him from his thoughts. “Dodger, please confirm?”

  He wondered just how in the hell he and Wade could do this. They wanted things tidy so that this mess fit neatly in a briefing, part of a larger explanation for people with larger responsibilities.

  “Affirmative. Just weighing the options.”

  “Understand you are on your own, Dodger.” Her voice was weaker still.

  “Not entirely. I’m with Nomad now. We’re going to need more friends.”

  “Keep it in the family.”

  He sighed, but before he could reply the line was dead. He stared at the phone in thought. Corso wasn’t kidding around.

  “What’s the deal?” Wade asked.

  “We’ll talk at the embassy.”

  A rare wave of worry took Wade’s face. Ethan leaned back in his seat, and Wade ceased his cautious meandering to head directly north for the embassy grounds, muttering under his breath at the clumsy driving of the Georgian youths out on the town.

  Ethan shared the news with Wade in a dull meeting room on a lonely floor at the embassy. The offices outside the room were dark and empty, though they kept the door closed.

  “The orders aren’t complicated,” he told Wade. “Seda Alaskhanova knows something about contacts in Romania. Langley wants answers without GIS involved. Soon. Sounds like they don’t want Sanger directly involved either, which makes things tougher. Corso seems to think someone in GIS wants her silenced.”

  “Some of Rezo’s friends, I bet. Glad Corso gave us plenty of time for a well-planned operation then,” Wade said.

  Wade’s worry had faded after battling the traffic, and he had recomposed his usual sardonic self, a mechanism no doubt inspired by some ghost of gunnery sergeants past. It was now part of him, as innate as his steady hands and measured breath. Still, after the week’s events, Ethan shared Wade’s pessimism. They had almost nothing to work with, but whatever else happened from here, he wasn’t going to lose anyone in the process.

  “Right,” Ethan said. “Let’s wind it back. You said Rezo got a call before he killed Giorgi. So, he wasn’t acting alone. Did he say anything to you in the car?”

  “The man was ice cold. I kept thinking I didn’t like the way he acted before. He was smug, you know? Just the way he was acting. But then he gets that call, says maybe two words, and then pulls his weapon while he’s still driving.” Wade’s hand formed a gesture like a gun and jabbed his finger at Ethan.

  “And who made that call?” Ethan wondered aloud.

  His mind again flashed to Rezo standing over him with a crooked sneer. The gunshots echoed in his head, and he closed his eyes for a moment. My friends at Scorpio send their regards. Wade was right. Rezo was smug enough to taunt him. Whatever Scorpio was had dispatched Rezo to finish what they’d started with Marcus Eldridge. Ethan couldn’t think of anyone that made sense. But that’s what Corso wanted him to answer.

  “How the hell are we going to get Seda to talk even if we do get access to her?” Wade said. “We couldn’t do it before.”

  “Not without leverage we couldn’t.”

  “Yeah, well, she can have that fucking Mercedes back if she wants,” Wade replied. “She can leverage that all day.”

  “No, think. She has to figure these people want her dead by now. So, if we offer her a way out, she’ll make a deal. GIS has her in a building east of the city. Somewhere close to the airport. Maria says she worked a rendition there a few years ago.”

  “Just great. Sounds like the Ritz,” Wade said.

  “It’s just an old building.”

  “That’s not how it works. I’ve been to these places before, remember? They’ll have it locked down tight, and they don’t exactly post visiting hours.
No way we’re just walking in, let alone out of there. Especially not with a prisoner.”

  “We’re supposed to have access. That’s part of the deal. So, we just need to arrange a meeting to question her,” he said.

  “Sanger’s holding all the cards there,” Wade said. “He has all the contacts with the Georgians. I don’t think he’s going to be eager to cut us in. Not after this week. I can tell you after talking to him yesterday that he doesn’t like either of us very much. Especially you.”

  “I wasn’t going to ask him.”

  “Who the hell you going to ask then, your new girlfriend?”

  Ethan shrugged, feigning modesty with a smirk.

  “Shit. You think that’s going to work? Man, you barely know her. She’s a ball buster. How do you know she’s not going to go straight to Sanger anyway?”

  “I think she and I have an understanding.”

  “What the hell …” Wade said. “Oh, shit. You did not shack up with her on the job. Tell me you didn’t.”

  “In my defense, she showed up at my door.”

  “That doesn’t make it better, man. You do know that I slept in this very fucking building last night, right? Me and a blanket in a glorified janitor’s closet and you were debriefing a very fit coworker at some resort hotel. I’m surprised at you. Not saying I blame you, understand. I’m just surprised at you. Shit.”

  Wade shook his head.

  “Besides, she can shoot straight when she has to.” Ethan knew that would get him going.

  Wade howled. “Oh, that is fucking low. Man, don’t even. She was barely ten yards away from the guy. You really going to kick a man like that when he’s down?”

  “I had to give you hell for it sometime. At least someone put that rifle of yours to good use.”

  “I’ll remember that next time I’m watching your back.”

  They laughed it off and continued planning over reheated coffee from a nearby break station. The coffee was bitter and burnt, but warm enough to keep them alert.