Laynie Portland, Retired Spy

by Vikki Kestell

  “I hardly require your services for such a short trip. When I have finished my business, I will return to our house outside Moscow. I wish you, in the meantime, to attend to our apartment in the city this afternoon. Ready it for Vassili Aleksandrovich, should he wish to sleep there this evening.”

  “But . . .” Alyona fidgeted further. “This is highly irregular, Mistress. Is . . . does Master Petroff know your plans?”

  For seven years, Linnéa had played Petroff’s game, and for seven years, she had played her own game, right beneath his nose. It had taken all her skills of subterfuge, her strength of will, and her loyalty to the company, but she had succeeded beyond Marstead’s wildest dreams.

  If Petroff’s superiors were to ever learn the volume and importance of the intel the mistress to the Russian technology czar had “acquired,” and if the Security Council were to discover how she had, subsequently, conveyed that intel to a joint NATO intelligence alliance? The revelations would rock the Russian government to its core and would earn Petroff a slow, painful death in the dank basement torture and execution chambers of Lubyanka Prison.

  Yes, the rewards were well worth the risk, but the “game” had cost Linnéa. The price had been years of her freedom—a price she was no longer able to pay.

  She was exhausted. Worn. Frayed.

  Like finely spun silk stretched beyond its capacity, the network of threads holding her façade of composure together might rend and give way without warning, leaving in its place a gaping hole. The walls in her psyche separating farce from reality, madness from sanity, possessed the strength and resiliency of wet tissue paper.

  I’ve had enough.

  I want out.

  I need out.

  Linnéa had sublimated so much of her will and identity to Petroff’s control that she recently found herself wondering, Who am I? and Why am I? As those questions resounded in her head with growing intensity, another force bubbled its way to the surface. Strong and volatile, the swelling, primal sensation terrified her because she had so little control over it.

  Rage.

  Rage burned in her with a fervor that required every ounce of Linnéa’s training to stem. She no longer had the desire to restrain or suppress it. Suppress it? No. Linnéa yearned to release the rage. She wanted it to burst from her mouth and from her hands. She imagined acts of violence against those who, at Petroff’s command, kept her on a leash . . . and she daydreamed of setting Petroff’s bed on fire—with him in it.

  How long can I continue to do this? How much more can I endure before I shatter and give myself away?

  “Mistress?” Alyona repeated.

  Linnéa’s Marstead sources had uncovered Alyona’s background. Petroff had handpicked the maid—a Belarusian close in age to Linnéa—from the ranks of the Red Army. Linnéa did not need Marstead’s sources to tell her that Alyona was Petroff’s first line of supervision and control over Linnéa. The woman had been Linnéa’s “maid” and keeper for the past three years.

  During that time, Linnéa had hidden her real emotions from the woman, but it was getting harder as time wore on . . . and as the day of her deliverance drew near.

  This morning, Alyona’s impertinence came perilously close to igniting the rebellion Linnéa had envisioned too often of late. She unbent and fixed the woman with a cold stare. “Are you questioning me, Alyona? Perhaps I should slap the presumption from your mouth.”

  Oh! How good that felt!

  Linnéa had not threatened Alyona before. The woman’s expression froze, and her usually florid complexion drained to a mottled white.

  “I-I beg your pardon, Mistress. I will . . . I will leave you now to-to-to arrange the car and driver for you.”

  “You do that,” Linnéa whispered to the maid’s back.

  Careful! Oh, please be careful! the voice of sanity and self-preservation urged her, but she cared less at this point than she had in years past.

  She resumed her packing, readying herself for the coming confrontation. Moments after the maid conjured an excuse to leave the room, Linnéa anticipated that the man to whom she was companion and mistress would storm into the bedroom of their lavish cottage to confront her.

  Linnéa, get a grip! You cannot allow yourself the luxury of letting your anger bleed through. You must not rouse his suspicions.

  She expected his furious roar and did not flinch when he threw open the bedroom door, sending it crashing against the wall, rattling the cottage’s windowpanes.

  “What is this? Where the *blank* do you think you are going?”

  With a placid smile firmly in place—the one she had perfected during her years with Petroff—Linnéa glanced up from her packing.

  “Ah, my love. There you are!” She tucked her makeup bag and a small box of jewelry into the suitcase before she turned to him. “Your being called back to Moscow today provides the perfect opportunity for me to hand in my quarterly report. As I told you last week and reminded you yesterday, I am overdue at my office.”

  She chuckled softly. “Despite how I enjoy the lake and the forest, I cannot be on holiday forever, you know.”

  “I told you to quit that job, Linnéa! For the past five years I have ordered you to quit—and still you defy me!”

  He towered over her, crowding her personal space. Glowering. Shaking with rage, fists clenching and unclenching.

  Linnéa did not shrink. She straightened and faced him. She was a tall woman herself, but her uplifted chin scarcely reached his shoulders. She placed her hands upon his chest and smiled her best smile—the one that dimpled both sides of her mouth in innocent, girlish fashion. She knew what was needed and looked past his fury, deep into his eyes, disclosing her soul to him. Offering him deference. Making herself submissive. Acquiescent. Adoring.

  “You know my heart belongs to you, moy lyubimyy—my love. My job is but a distraction for those times when we cannot be together. Please do not deny me this little thing, this trifling diversion.”

  “Deny? You speak of deny? I have denied you nothing, Linnéa. I have given you everything a woman could wish for—a grand house outside of Moscow, an extravagant apartment in the city, this lakeside dacha, another cottage by the sea, a yacht, and money to shop the finest stores in the world. So! So, what have I ever denied you? Eh?”

  Only my freedom, Linnéa thought. But after all these years in service to my country, I shall soon take back my life.

  Linnéa leaned into his chest, lifting her chin higher, baring her neck and making herself vulnerable to him. She never pled or wheedled—Petroff despised whining in any form. Rather, she “capitulated” her desires, providing him with the opportunity to be generous.

  As a benevolent tyrant.

  A tyrant, nonetheless.

  “Why, Vassili Aleksandrovich, you yourself told me last evening that you must leave for Moscow this morning, nyet? And after you have gone, what is here for me? The days . . . and the nights will be unbearable. And you will be busy for long hours in Moscow—unable even to come home and sleep with me, will you not? This checking in with my company will amuse and divert me a little from your absence. So, then, I shall complete this business, shop a bit, perhaps pamper myself at a spa, and then come home to await your return.”

  He searched her face for deceit, finding nothing but what Linnéa wanted him to see. Then he could not help himself. His arms came up and wrapped themselves around her. He pressed her close to his chest—not in selfless affection, but in the pride and power of ownership—for whatever Petroff “loved,” he had a pathological need to possess completely. Linnéa was a beautiful, intelligent, and successful woman—a jewel Petroff owned body and soul, a pearl he flaunted before the world as his and his alone.

  “It is true that I have been summoned to a special assembly of the Security Council. Some emergency of state over rumors of an impending attack on high-value targets of unknown number, the information coming to us via a source I have little confidence in. However, Secretary Rushailo himself wishes me o
n hand for my technological advice, should he require it.”

  As with many powerful men who felt their vaunted positions were unassailable, Petroff’s pride was his weakness. He trusted his inner circle and believed the rules of operational security applied only to those peons below him. In his efforts to prop up his self-importance, he was frequently not as circumspect with classified information as his position warranted.

  Linnéa’s unspoken opinion was that Russian politicians on the Security Council and their advisors lived in a state of perpetual agitation, reminding her of the characters in a folk story who cried over and over, “The sky is falling! The sky is falling!” Nevertheless, she gathered and passed on to her superiors whatever crumbs Petroff carelessly dropped.

  Feigning concern, Linnéa’s brow furrowed. “An attack? Will you be safe, my love?”

  “Da, without a doubt. I surmised from the call that it is not a threat toward the Motherland, and I am not certain how much credence I give the intelligence—coming through Afghani sources—but I cannot decline the summons. However, should the situation clear quickly, I will return here, perhaps as early as tomorrow evening.”

  Still chewing on where the supposed attack might be aimed and hoping to pass the nugget on to her superiors without delay, Linnéa pouted. “Ah, my darling! We both know our holiday is over, do we not? For the sake of the Council’s safety, they will keep you in seclusion for a week, perhaps two. I might just as well return to Moscow and wait for your return to our house or apartment—equally alone in either place—or . . . or I can take advantage of the present crisis to visit my office in St. Petersburg so that, afterward, my time is all yours as it should be. I hope you will not say no, Vassi.”

  Linnéa willed her eyes to moisten just a little and blinked to push the gleam of unshed tears to the corners of her eyes. “This job helps me bear the lonely hours until we are together again.”

  Petroff’s grip loosened marginally. “Marstead knows how vital my connections and favor are to their success in Russia. They are aware that I wish you near me at all times. For this, they should make allowances.”

  “Just so! But your superiors will keep you sequestered until the present crisis passes, and while they keep you, I cannot be with you, can I? It is only two nights in St. Petersburg, Vassi, zvezdochka—my star—two nights I would be alone in our bed, without you, missing you.

  “Save me from such longing, Vassili Aleksandrovich! I shall drive into the city this morning and check in with Marstead, pro forma. Nyström will give me my next assignment, and I shall return to you with another list of upcoming technological exhibits you and I will enjoy visiting and scientific breakthroughs on which I am to write my reports. This I do for them every quarter, as you know—although my present report is quite past due.”

  He pursed his lips and regarded her, hovering between admiration and puzzlement, even as his anger slipped a little. “Truly, I do not understand you sometimes, Linnéa. You do not need this ‘job’ as you call it.”

  “Need? No, I need for nothing, Vassili Aleksandrovich, nothing except you. You have made me your queen, and you shower me with luxury and your love.” Linnéa dimpled again. “You even allow me my insignificant pet projects.”

  The former KGB officer studied her, finding nothing duplicitous in her words or expression. Only adulation. He sighed. “I wish you always near me, Linnéa.”

  “Dal'she ot glaz—blizhe k serdtsu. Further from the eye—closer to the heart, my darling. These infrequent trips to my office in St. Petersburg and my little assignments away from you? They keep our loving fresh . . . and thrilling, do they not?”

  She winked and whispered the promise of something racy she would buy in St. Petersburg and model for him when they were reunited in Moscow.

  He grinned, then roared a laugh in response.

  Linnéa grinned back, even as she wondered how much longer such wiles would work on him. So much of her “free” time was given over to the beauty treatments and rigorous workout schedule that kept her body as lithe, youthful, and attractive as possible despite the unforgiving advance of age.

  Her looks and sweet compliance were the sole means by which she navigated the labyrinth of Petroff’s shifting moods. Cloying, spiteful control at one end of the spectrum and lavish overindulgence at the other.

  With fits of cruelty and physical abuse sprinkled between.

  He sobered and cleared his throat. “Are you all right, Linnéa? I did not hurt you last evening, did I? If only you would not anger me so . . .”

  Linnéa’s smile did not falter. “I am yours, Vassi. I did not mean to displease you. I am sorry.”

  She had iced the lump on her temple. Makeup would cover the bruise, but she could do nothing for the blood that had seeped into the sclera in the outside corner of her left eye. Would he refuse to let her appear in public because of it?

  “What of this?” He caressed her temple with his thumb, indicating the blood-red stain in her eye.

  She shrugged. “It is nothing. Everyone has, on occasion, scratched or poked themselves while sleeping and wakened to a reddened eye, is this not so?”

  He grunted, the extent of his remorse. “Da, this is so. And you have this report of yours ready? It will project Russia’s technological advances in a favorable light?”

  “But of course.” Linnéa smiled once more, knowing she had won. She gestured toward the portfolio atop her laptop, both lying on the bed next to her handbag. “Do you wish to review the report before I hand it in?”

  He had already seen it—Linnéa knew Alyona had slipped him the portfolio, then returned it.

  Because nothing I do goes unreported.

  “No, but if you insist upon this trip, Alyona must accompany you,” Petroff announced. “I will also send Zakhar with you. It is not right for the woman of such an important Russian man to traipse about the country without a proper escort.”

  “Alyona’s assistance will be welcome, and Zakhar’s help with the traffic and crowds of St. Petersburg will be appreciated.”

  Linnéa knew how to “negotiate” with Petroff to procure the best situation she could hope for. Although she had expected to be strapped with Alyona and a driver, she had harbored a very small hope that she might manage to leave without the company of Zakhar, the dour, middle-aged lout who, like Alyona, dogged Linnéa’s every step.

  Zakhar was ex-Soviet military and loyal only to Petroff—another element of Petroff’s elaborate, layered ring of supervision and control over her.

  Dimitri Ilyich Zakhar! She loathed Petroff’s single-minded lapdog and the way he stared at her, undressing her with his eyes, the red birthmark that ran from his throat up the right side of his cheek darkening with lust as he watched her.

  Linnéa shuddered.

  “And you will keep your mobile phone with you at all times so I may reach you?”

  Only one response was acceptable.

  “Certainly, Vassili.”

  The phone was the electronic leash that tethered her to him. She dared go nowhere without it—or ever turn it off. And woe be to her if she neglected to keep it charged!

  Linnéa would check in with her St. Petersburg office later today, and she would find out if Alvarsson and his Marstead superiors had approved her request to quit the field and “come in from the cold.” If so, Nyström, her St. Petersburg boss, would deploy resources to facilitate her escape from Zakhar and Alyona’s overwatch, either this afternoon or, at the latest, tomorrow.

  I am so close to freedom! I must keep my act together a little longer.

  Linnéa tried not to envision a scenario in which her company superiors turned down her request. The possibilities crept in anyway.

  What if they will not pull me out? If they insist that I stay?

  But I cannot maintain this façade forever. I am forty-six years old now. True, Petroff does not keep me only for sex. No, he has never been faithful to me in that regard—it was not agreed to. But I know he is growing restless, dissatisfied wit
h me. The beatings come more frequently, and he is less remorseful after.

  How long before he perceives that I am aging, before he no longer desires me? How long until he finds a younger, more accomplished woman, and his admiration for me pales in comparison?

  If he were to take a new mistress, would he simply allow me to return to Sweden? I cannot believe so. I am too well-known in his circles. It would prick his pride to allow me my freedom.

  If—no, when—he drops me for another woman, he will not let me go. He would not be able to tolerate the idea, even the remote possibility, that another man might have me. He could not abide that. I would, I think, simply disappear . . . as so many of his enemies have.

  She also played out a terrifying scenario in her thoughts where Petroff held her in tender embrace and whispered in her ear, “Do you think me so naïve, kotyonok moya, my kitten? I have known from the beginning who you were—a spy for the Americans and their NATO lackeys.

  “I have enjoyed our little game all this time—letting you ‘find’ important papers I brought home, giving you access to just enough emerging intel to make your superiors believe you were an invaluable asset that helped America to win the Cold War. I let you believe these things—all while feeding you dezinformatsiya, disinformation we wished the US to act upon—as they have.”

  She needed no imagination for what would follow such a conversation.

  Linnéa’s breath caught in her throat. I have waited too long already. It must be today!

  But what if her superiors did not approve her request? Slipping away from both Zakhar and Alyona in St. Petersburg—without assistance, without others running interference to aid her—would not prove easy. On her own, she might fail . . . and then?

  Then Petroff would realize that her adoration was and always had been a sham.

  Linnéa experienced an abrupt and fearsome insight. Petroff’s dacha on Lake Komsomolskoye was not far from Lake Ladoga—the largest freshwater lake in Europe. At one hundred thirty-six miles long and nearly eighty-six miles wide, Lake Ladoga was also seven hundred fifty-five feet deep at its lowest point.