by Tom Savage
Nora was grateful to the CIA—especially this man—for what they’d done for Jeff. And four or five days was fine; she had two weeks until the spring semester began at Stony Brook. But her real motive was much simpler: She’d felt a great sense of accomplishment after her European ordeal, and she was excited at the prospect of another one.
“Ham,” she said, “whatever you want me to do, the answer is yes.”
“Thank you. Welcome to the Company. Again. But this time, it’s official. Now, down to business.”
He nodded to Ralph, who placed the iPad in front of her on the table. Nora looked down at the image of a dark-haired beauty in a sparkling red evening gown. She was about thirty, with the high cheekbones, languid smile, and curvaceous form of a movie star. Behind her in the photo, Nora could see spires and onion domes against a gray sky. Despite the plunging neckline and bare arms, the weather was obviously cold. There was something vaguely familiar about the lovely face, but Nora couldn’t immediately identify her.
“Galina Rostova,” Mr. Green supplied before she could ask.
“Ah, yes,” Nora said. “I knew I’d seen her before. That looks like Red Square behind her. She’s done a couple of films that were released here—I saw one of them—but I believe she’s mainly known for her stage work in Russia.”
Mr. Green—Ham—leaned forward. “This woman will be your assignment. She has certain information that could be vital to our interests, and she’s offered it to us. But we have to meet her terms. That’s where you come in.”
“What are her terms?” Nora asked.
He glanced down at the picture and sighed. “She wants to come to America. We need you to bring her here.”
Nora frowned. “I don’t understand. There’s no Soviet Union anymore. I thought the Russians were basically free to come and go as they like these days. Why doesn’t she just hop in a plane?”
“It’s more complicated than that,” he replied. “You see, Galina Rostova isn’t exactly free, not in the way you mean. She needs our help to get away from…certain people.”
Nora noted his pause before those last two words, feeling the first thrill of potential intrigue she remembered from the last time. “So, you want me to smuggle a famous actress out of Russia?”
Hamilton Green shook his head and met her gaze. “Not Russia. Italy. That’s where she is now, on an international theatrical tour. She’s in Rome at the moment, but she leaves for her next stop in three days.” He leaned forward once more. “We want you to smuggle her out of Venice.”
Chapter 3
Venice!
La Serenissima, the city of love and mystery, with curved streets made of water and labyrinthine alleys bathed in shadow. A clutch of ancient settlements constructed on a scattering of islands in a vast lagoon at the northeastern corner of Italy. Venice the beautiful, the insular, the inaccessible.
The inescapable.
He might as well have said Alcatraz. Nora almost mentioned that, but then thought better of it. This man was her husband’s employer, and now he was her employer. She wouldn’t begin their relationship with negativity. He’d have a plan, of course—he was one of the CIA’s leading strategists. She’d hear him out and help him to make his plan a reality. That was her job now. But Venice, of all places!
She said, “What do you want me to do?”
The two men regarded her, and then glanced at each other. Ralph reached for another cookie as his boss took charge.
“You’re a journalist,” Mr. Green said. “We can arrange for you to have access to Rostova. You’re doing an in-depth piece on her for American television, a news show along the lines of 60 Minutes. You’ll need several locations for the camera—backstage at the theater, in her hotel, maybe a walk around the city; that sort of thing. A few meetings over four days. We’ll figure out which place is best for the extraction.”
Nora nodded. “Okay—but you mentioned a camera. I’ll have a crew with me?”
“We’re hoping you can help us with that,” he said. “I want at least two people with you at all times, and you can decide what their covers are. A cameraman, of course, and whatever else you need…” He trailed off, apparently at a loss.
“A director,” Nora supplied, “calling setups and shots. There’d be one person for hair and makeup and wardrobe, and a sound guy—there’s always a sound guy. So, four people. And one of them can also be the manager who handles travel, hotels, locations, and keeps nosy tourists from wandering into frame.”
“ ‘Into…frame’?” Mr. Green shook his head in wonder. “I’m relieved. You seem to know the correct terms.”
Nora thought a moment, and then took the initiative. “May I make a few suggestions?”
He sat forward again. “Please do. We’ve only just come up with this plan, and we’re flying blind. If you have TV news experience, I’d welcome any input.”
“Well, I’ve never done a news show, but I’ve been around them, and I’ve done enough TV work as an actor to know what goes on there. If we keep the number of people who know about this to an absolute minimum, we’ll be able to fake it fairly easily. So, we’re an independent production company with a potential network deal—we film the interview, then sell it to the highest bidder. That way, we don’t have to get an actual network or news show involved. We’ll give Rostova’s people our phone number, so you’ll need someone in New York or Langley to man that number twenty-four/seven, just in case the Russians call to check on us.”
Mr. Green raised his eyebrows, impressed. “And what do we call this independent company?”
Nora thought about that. “Something cute but appropriate; they always seem to have names like that. Screen App? Flash Drive? No, Sound Byte! Sound Byte Productions. SBP—we should make up a logo to put on the cameras and ID cards…”
She noticed that Ralph had emptied the cookie plate again. Now he was typing on a keyboard attached to his tablet, which was also recording the conversation. As the wind and rain continued beyond the kitchen curtains, Nora elaborated on the plan, making lists of things they’d need, and Ralph dutifully wrote them down. Mr. Green had relaxed back in his chair, watching her, a little smile on his face. After about ten minutes, he held up a hand to stop her.
“Okay,” he said. “That’s enough to start with. We have three days before you travel, and I’ll be spending most of that time making arrangements. We’ll get your crew and equipment.” He turned to Ralph and murmured something, and the younger man nodded. “Your crew will have working knowledge of their cover jobs, and we’ll try to find people who speak Italian and/or Russian. Rostova is fluent in English, so that won’t be a problem.”
Nora nodded. “Good. I don’t speak much Italian and I don’t know Russian at all, so I’ll need a lot of help. I didn’t know the CIA had so many talented people in its ranks.”
“Oh, they won’t be Company people,” Mr. Green said. “We can’t use our own people for any of this. That’s why I came to you. Galina Rostova and her theater group are traveling to several European countries, an eight-week tour, doing some Russian play in all the major cities—”
“The Seagull,” Ralph interjected.
“—and they’re accompanied by handlers from SVR RF. That’s the Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation, part of the new group that replaced the KGB a few years ago. They handle all civilian intelligence matters outside Russia, so I suppose you could call them our counterpart over there. We work with them a lot, and they know a lot of our people by sight, including your husband. That’s why we need you to assume an identity, so there’s no possible connection to us. And the four people with you can’t be Company, either. We’ll be getting them from other sources.”
Nora started to ask which other sources he meant, and then thought better of it. The less she knew of these details, the better. But Ham Green’s comments had made something else clear to her.
“That’s why you arrived here so unexpectedly tonight,” she told him. “You knew Jeff wou
ldn’t be here. You don’t want Jeff to know about this, do you?”
The two men glanced at each other. Ralph reached for another cookie, frowning when he saw that the plate was empty.
“That’s up to you,” the field office director said. “Your discretion. In truth, I didn’t announce the visit because I thought Jeff might disapprove.”
Nora smiled. “Disapprove? Ham, you and I both know he’s going to hit the roof! You let me handle him.”
“Very well,” he said. “And now we’ll let you get back to whatever you were doing before we interrupted you. You and I have a lot to do in the next few days, and you’ll want to know more about all this. I’ll call you tomorrow, but not on your phones. From now on, you must use this.” He rose and turned to Ralph, who pulled a sleek gray cellphone from his pocket and handed it to Nora as he, too, stood up. She stared down at the instrument in her hand, remembering her recent escapade in England and France, and she laughed.
“A burner phone!” she said. “A prepaid disposable. I guess this makes it official—I’m really working for the CIA. I’m a spy!”
She went over to the chair by the radiator and retrieved their hats and coats, which were now fairly dry. From the lack of sounds beyond the drawn curtains, she figured the rain had stopped. As Ralph produced his own phone and called the driver, Mr. Green walked to the front door with Nora.
“Thank you for helping us,” he said. “We’ll discuss the operation in detail, but I can’t tell you about the information Rostova has promised us. That’s not my call, because it’s not my jurisdiction.”
“Oh, I don’t think I’ll need to know about that,” Nora assured him. “What I do need to know is, who are the ‘certain people’ you mentioned earlier, the ones Galina has to get away from?”
Hamilton Green paused in the foyer. They heard the sound of an approaching car in the drive outside. For the first time during this odd, secret midnight meeting, Mr. Green avoided Nora’s gaze.
“Well, um, that was a bit of an exaggeration,” he said to the foyer wall. “It’s not people, merely one man, but he’s someone you’ll want to avoid. I’ll tell you about him when I call you tomorrow.”
“Okay,” she said, “but who is he?”
Now he turned to meet her gaze, and she noted the wary expression in his eyes. “His name is Nikolai Malinkov—General Nikolai Malinkov—and Galina Rostova is his mistress. General Malinkov is a leader of the Russian army. After the president, he’s one of the most powerful men in Russia.”
Nora nodded and opened the door. “I’m beginning to see why this defection is so important.”
“Exactly,” he said. “Thank you for the coffee. I’m sorry about our dramatic arrival.”
Nora laughed. “No you’re not.”
Hamilton Green paused to study her face for a long moment, another faint smile on his lips.
“No,” he admitted, “I’m not. Good night, Nora.”
“Good night, Ham.”
He walked down the steps and over to the waiting gray Lincoln with Ralph right behind him. Nora watched the car move away down the drive and turn onto the beach road. Then she shut the door, locked it, and used her new phone to call her husband.
Chapter 4
As the Delta jetliner began its descent over northeastern Italy, Nora studied her two traveling companions. They were sipping coffee, as she was, bringing themselves fully awake. All three of them had slept through most of the eight-hour flight to Milan, having left Kennedy International at eleven P.M., and then they’d endured a one-hour stopover before flying the rest of the way to Venice. This was a one-hour flight, so they’d arrive at Aeroporto di Venezia Marco Polo at three P.M. Ten hours, all in all, but with the six-hour time difference it was sixteen hours by the clock.
She’d met Frances Camillo two days ago in New York City. Mrs. Camillo was an attractive strawberry blonde a few years older than Nora, with a wonderful smile that offset her no-nonsense attitude. She was a wardrobe expert who’d worked in New York TV and film until her recent retirement. Her husband was a New York–based official in the federal government, which is how Mr. Green knew of her. She’d been approached, and she’d readily agreed to a free trip to her favorite Italian city. She knew clothes, hair, and makeup; she was familiar with Venice; and she spoke Italian. She was perfect.
She was also very nice. Nora had closed up the house on Long Island the day after her visit from Mr. Green, and gone into the city to stay with Jeff at their new apartment in the Village. Two days with Jeff and their daughter, during which Dana had accompanied her and Mrs. Camillo on a shopping spree to find two suits and two evening dresses for a successful newswoman. Frances Camillo possessed that rare combination of a keen intelligence and a sunny disposition, which made her a pleasant, valuable companion. By the time the three women had finished raiding the upscale shops on Bleecker Street at the CIA’s expense, they were fast friends.
The young man in the aisle seat beside Frances was also nice, but in an entirely different way. Patrick (“Patch”) Sullivan was Irish-American, like Nora, and he was her daughter’s current love interest. He was a grad student at NYU, where Dana was now a senior in the theater arts department, and movie cameras were his life. He’d been added to the crew at Nora’s suggestion.
Patch was what Nora’s parents’ generation would have called a hippie. Tall and lanky, with longish brown hair and a patch beard (hence his nickname) and mustache under a strong nose and beautiful brown eyes, he had that laid-back, anything-goes quality Nora associated with the flower children of the sixties. His earbuds were constantly in place during the flight, blasting muffled doses of vintage rock bands, and his favorite word was cool. He thought Nora was cool, Frances was cool, and working a lucrative gig as cameraman for a bogus film company in Venice was way, way cool. He didn’t talk much, but he grinned a lot—and he was crazy about Dana. He was so in love with Nora’s daughter that he didn’t ask questions when Dana presented him for Mr. Green’s inspection. He simply grinned and said yes immediately. Nora thought that was cool.
The coolest thing about Patch Sullivan was the fact that he had a brown belt in karate and could disable a man with his bare hands. When Mr. Green assured him that this probably wouldn’t be necessary, he shrugged and said that was cool. He also spoke “a bit of Italian,” the result of one college summer working as a room-and-board apprentice to an American film company in Rome. He knew cameras, he loved Rome, and he was eager to see Venice, so he was perfect too.
Nora smiled at her new friends from her window seat. “I’m glad you two are with me.”
“I’m glad, too, Joan,” Frances said. “It’ll be fun.”
“Cool,” Patch added. “Joan—I have to get used to that.”
Nora nodded, hoping they would keep their high spirits when they learned the true nature of this enterprise. So far, they’d been told only that Nora was interviewing a Russian actress for the Company, and Nora knew they assumed that state secrets would be passed. They weren’t yet aware that they might soon be accessories to kidnapping, or abduction, or whatever the crime would be called, if it was a crime at all. But they seemed to like the cloak-and-dagger aspect of working for a phantom production company and addressing Nora by her new name, Joan Simmons. Joan Lunden and Sue Simmons were her favorite former TV newswomen, and the name was also one letter off from Jean Simmons, one of Nora’s favorite actresses.
She pulled an old-fashioned manila file folder from her trusty Coach shoulder bag. “We meet the other two members of our crew at the airport, then we all go on to our guesthouse, Pensione Bella. Our director and sound man are Venetians, but they’ll be staying with us at the pensione.” She didn’t add that the two men were private detectives in addition to their other talents, or that both of them would be armed. Mr. Green had insisted on that.
She opened the folder and looked down at Ralph’s neatly typed schedule on the top sheet. No tablets or smartphones were allowed for this operation; everything had to be wri
tten on paper, including bios of Galina Rostova and General Nikolai Malinkov. She held out the folder so the other two could read the schedule along with her, even though they’d seen it before. The sense of order on the typewritten page was oddly comforting to her.
Wednesday
3 P.M.—Arrival, MP Airport
8:30 P.M.—Performance at La Fenice
Thursday
12 P.M.–5 P.M.—Lunch at Caffè Florian, Murano tour
8 P.M.—Dinner Reception at Hotel Danieli
Friday
3 P.M.–5 P.M.—Walking tour of Piazza San Marco, etc.
8:30 P.M.—Second performance at La Fenice
Saturday
10 A.M.—Depart, MP Airport
“We’ll all be at the theater tonight,” Nora told them, “and I hope you’re not bored. Chekhov—in Russian, no less. They’ll have supertitles in Italian and English, but even so…”
This was met with a shrug from Patch, but Frances said, “I’m looking forward to it. I know the play, but I’ve never seen it in the original Russian. It’ll be interesting.”
Nora didn’t ask Patch if he knew the play; she was pretty sure he didn’t. Instead, she said, “You can study Rostova’s looks and movement, get an idea of how you want to film her.”
“Cool,” he said.
A flight attendant began the landing announcement, so Nora returned the folder to her bag. She’d already read the dossiers on Rostova and Malinkov, but she would read them again later. She intended to memorize them.
The landing was smooth and the airport business with immigration and baggage claim was mercifully swift. Nora was lugging her suitcase toward the front entrance when a young man who’d materialized beside her suddenly took it from her hand. He also took Frances’s bag.
