Tanya’s ears buzzed. Yes, the dead drop had been destroyed, the old crumbling bricks replaced and re-mortared. Surely Zerena hadn’t been responsible for that?
“Well?” Zerena asked.
Tanya picked up the spoon and stirred her coffee and uttered the ancient word, watched the coffee shimmer in the lights. Anything to not have to answer right away. What Nadia didn’t understand was that Tanya knew she was being developed. She would cash in on Zerena’s trust eventually—but this plan only worked if she fell prey to Zerena’s spider games.
“It’s an interesting proposal,” Tanya said. She sipped her espresso, now smooth and rich as dark satin.
“You said it was a personal matter,” Zerena said, smiling a little. “Then surely it would be nothing for me to pass messages between the two of you.” Her eyes smiled, too. “I’ve always been a bit of a romantic, myself.”
Tanya looked up at her sharply, her cheeks burning. Let her think she has you. “It’s not that,” she muttered, knowing she sounded unconvincing. Hoping she sounded unconvincing.
I hope you know what you’re doing, Nadia had said. Tanya hoped she did, too. Hoped the chance for a payoff would come soon, before Zerena decided the whole process was taking too long, and instead of helping Tanya, worked to unravel her life and her career in one miserable swoop.
Tanya knocked back the rest of her espresso, as if it were alcohol, as if it would give her courage.
“Fine,” said Tanya. “You can be our go-between.”
She was not sure she liked Zerena’s smile.
3.
Josh strolled up to the desk where Edith was working and cleared his throat, not wanting to surprise her while she was working. Edith glanced sharply at him, although her expression dissolved slightly when she saw who it was. A smile wavered for a moment before vanishing, like the bright flash of a leaping fish in the seconds before it vanishes back into the ocean.
“Josh,” she said. “This is a surprise.”
“I’ve got some exciting news.” Josh slid into the chair in front of Edith’s desk. The files she was examining were arranged in neat, perfect stacks, and when she slipped her pen behind her ear she made it look like a fashion accessory. Behind her, Gabe leaned back in his chair, a file propped open in front of him. Pretending to read. Josh squared his shoulders; Edith’s investigation had not found anything tying Gabe to Dom’s betrayal. So Josh tried to look past his own misgivings.
“My fieldwork is going excellently,” Josh said.
“Ah yes,” said Edith. “The mobsters.”
Gabe flipped a page of his report.
“I have an opportunity,” Josh said, pressing both hands against her desk. He was barely able to contain his excitement. “I wanted to see what you think, since you’ve got more of a pulse on Langley these days than any of us.”
Gabe peered at them from behind his file, then went back to reading.
Edith raised one of her perfectly arched eyebrows. “Do I, now?” Her eyes flashed. “Well, let’s hear what you have planned, then.”
“The mobsters asked for agency help in something they’re doing in a couple days,” Josh said. “Kazimir asked me personally.”
Edith pursed her lips. “And what exactly is Kazimir’s role in the organization, again? Is he the, oh, the leader, I suppose?”
“More or less,” Josh said. “He’s the one setting up the operation. It’s some kind of hand-off—”
“What are they handing off?” Gabe tossed his file to the table and peered over at Josh and Edith.
Josh stiffened. “Kazimir swore up and down that he didn’t know,” he said. “Only that it was precious. I’m thinking stolen goods. Artwork, maybe.”
“A less than savory operation,” Edith said. “But a potential usefully one. Who are the clients?”
Josh felt Gabe watching him. “Some kind of anti-Soviet group. If we can help with this hand-off, then Kazimir will be a lot more willing to pass information along to us, to make arrangements—it’s a huge coup.”
Edith smiled at Josh. A real smile, this time. “And your first time running an op, too! Well done. Perhaps I’ll buy you a drink sometime, to celebrate.”
Josh grinned back at her. His ill-conceived remark at the Vodnář had paved the way, improbably, for a sort of friendship between the two of them. At least as much of a friendship as could exist between someone with her standing in the CIA and someone with his. “Do you think this sounds like a solid plan?”
“I do,” Edith said, slipping back into the matronly persona she carried with her into the office. “I think it could lead to some strong ties between your office here and the underground—worth seeing where it leads, at any rate. Tell me, what does Frank think about all this?”
Josh flushed. “I haven’t exactly, ah, told him yet.”
Edith fixed him with a disapproving look. “Josh—”
“I had a reason!” Josh took a deep breath. “I want someone with your expertise on my team—”
Edith pressed one hand to her chest in a kind of aristocratic gesture. “Joshua, you know that’s not why I’m in Prague.”
“I know!” Josh said, leaning over the desk. “But if this goes well, there’s a chance we can get in even closer with these people. Which gets us more contacts in the underground. Anyway, I figured if I came to you first, you could maybe pull rank with Frank, make sure we can work together.”
Edith sat back in her chair, studying him. She was going to say yes. He could tell.
Gabe’s voice cut through the office. “I want in, too.”
Josh startled a little. Gabe had shoved his file aside and was watching the two of them with an unreadable expression.
“Oh.” Josh frowned. What were the protocols here? He’d had no intention of asking Gabe to come along—Edith might trust him, but Josh still couldn’t let go of his uneasiness after everything he’d seen last winter. “I think probably only one of you is—”
Gabe rolled his eyes. “I miss fieldwork, Josh. Sitting behind a desk like this.” He thumped the desk with his palm. “It’s getting to me.”
Josh didn’t bring up the fact that Gabe had in fact wormed his way onto his current assignment; if he missed fieldwork, it was his own damn fault.
“Actually,” Edith said carefully. “It could be good to have both of us.” She tapped her nails against the desk. “Show the whole team is trustworthy. That can only help you, Josh.”
Josh’s shoulders sagged. He rubbed at his forehead, remembering the conversation he’d overhead at Bar Vodnář. Gabe and the Soviet woman and their strange, incomprehensible code. But if Edith didn’t think anything was an issue—
“Fine,” he said. “Gabe, you’re on the team.”
It almost choked him to say it. Gabe nodded and turned back to his files.
“We’ll be meeting with Kazimir tomorrow to work out the details,” Josh said. “I’ll get back to you with the exact meeting time as soon as I hear from him.”
“Very good.” Edith flipped open one of the files, a sign that the conversation was over. Still, when Josh stood up, she peered up at him, her hand hovering near the pen tucked behind her ear. “Congratulations, Joshua. This is an excellent first op.”
“Thanks so much.” He grinned down at her. He wasn’t going to let anything screw this up. Not even Gabe talking his way onto the project was going to bring him down. Besides, Gabe was incredibly capable when he was on his game. And he wasn’t a traitor, Josh told himself as he said his goodbyes and slipped out of the office.
Everything was going to work out fine.
• • •
“We may have hit a snag,” Gabe said.
“Oh?” Alestair swung his umbrella like a cane, tapping it against the walkway in time with his footsteps as they strolled along the footpath leading through Vrtba Garden.
“In the hand-off.” Gabe watched a squirrel scurry across the flower beds, its tail bobbing. “You’re going to need to find a way to get word to the�
�to the others.”
“I still can’t believe that dead drop was built over,” Alestair huffed. “Such an inconvenience.”
Gabe scowled. “You’re telling me.”
“Well, what’s the issue? Or are you stalling to enjoy the spring weather and the pleasure of my company?” Alestair looked sideways at Gabe and grinned. “They’re both lovely, I have to admit.”
So Gabe told him. He told him about Josh coming into the office, excited and babbling about his first time heading up an op. The CIA was going to be there when the Ice handed off the Hosts for safekeeping.
Alestair took all this in. His umbrella stopped swinging, and instead he rubbed at his chin, frowning. “This is a somewhat upsetting revelation, Gabe.”
“I know how it sounds.” Gabe sighed. “That’s why I came to you. But I don’t think it’s the end of the world, either.”
Alestair watched him, tapping his umbrella against the sidewalk. Gabe took a deep breath. “In a roundabout way,” Gabe said, “the CIA’s really just helping the Ice.”
“I’m not sure how that’s supposed to alleviate my concerns.” But Alestair’s eyes twinkled a little, like this was all a bit of harmless interagency teasing. He started walking again, and Gabe followed. Dappled light fell across the stone steps.
“We’re going to be there helping out Kazimir and his crew,” Gabe said. “So we’re helping the Ice. And I know Josh and Edith aren’t Flame—”
“Yes, that’s where my concern is.” Alestair glanced over at Gabe. “Do you know? For certain?”
Gabe scowled. “Yes, I know for certain. When Edith and I investigated that apartment a week or so back, she thought the ash was just mess—she didn’t recognize it as protective at all. And Josh—” He stopped, looked out at the flowers blossoming in the dirt, at all those rain-worn statues of Roman gods. Josh might be suspicious of him, but it was only because he didn’t understand the world of magic in which Gabe moved. “Josh is definitely not Flame, either.”
Alestair took all this in without speaking. They resumed their stroll. Gabe found himself wishing he could have taken this to Tanya—an unnerving thought, considering he and Al were supposed to be allies as far as the non-magical world was concerned. But he trusted her in a way that he didn’t quite trust Alestair. It wasn’t that he thought Alestair was Flame, nothing that extreme. Only that something about the man made him uncertain. With Tanya, that wasn’t the case.
But she had been right, that night at the boxing match. He would never tell her, of course, but he had been taking too many risks. That was how he’d ended up strolling through this extravagant garden with Alestair instead of with Tanya. Getting word to the Ice as quickly as he could.
“I don’t like it,” Alestair said. “Too many opportunities for something to go wrong.”
Gabe sighed. “We don’t have a choice. Frank’s already signed off on it. Edith and Josh are going to be there.” A teenage couple kissed next to the statue of Venus, bags of schoolbooks at their feet. Cutting class, probably. The girl’s laughter trailed up into the air. Gabe couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt that carefree.
“We just have to make sure the cargo stays in its boxes,” Gabe said, eyes still on the couple. “And since it’s frozen, I don’t think that’s going to be a problem.”
• • •
Sasha sat in the driver’s seat of his car, sipping from a cup of cheap coffee he’d bought on his way here. He arched his back, trying to find a comfortable position in the cramped seat. Every time someone opened the doors to the nightclub down the street, music thumped out in a pulsating wave of noise that pounded in the marrow of his bones.
A pair of young people, dressed in the sort of cheap, gaudy clothes that would have Zerena choking back laughter, approached the doors. The girl kept one hand on her boyfriend’s shoulder, steadying herself as she wobbled on her high heels. The bouncer took their money with a scowl and sent them inside. Sasha picked up the envelope his chess partner had given him and pulled out the contents: a stack of photographs, all of the same woman. Not the woman who had just slipped into the nightclub with her boyfriend. The woman in the photograph had gone inside about an hour ago, a shining jewel in the center of a crowd of friends.
Sasha flipped through the photographs for the hundredth time since he received them. The woman in them was young and very beautiful, her hair curled and teased in the way American girls wore it these days. Too much makeup for Sasha’s taste, and too few clothes. In most of the pictures she was dancing, eyes closed, head thrown back, long limbs splayed gracefully, frozen in that one moment in time. Almost all the photographs had been taken at this nightclub, and Sasha caught glimpses of its interior in the pictures. Candy-colored lights, mirrors on the wall, all the fixtures gleaming in an over-polished approximation of wealth.
The music thumped; the door had opened again. Sasha glanced up. A woman stepped out, a man’s sharkskin coat draped like a cloak over her tight, sequined dress. His heart pumped. He held up one of the pictures like a doctor examining an X-ray: In his field of vision it lay side by side with this woman strolling along the sidewalk. The real version was sweat-dampened and heat-flushed, but it was definitely the same woman.
Sasha slid the photographs back into their envelope and rolled down the window of his car. The woman’s heels clicked rhythmically against the cement. She didn’t even look at him; she was smiling to herself, probably drunk. He picked up a charm he had brought with him, a simple thing he always kept handy. A bundle of matches tied together with silver thread.
A tracking charm.
He struck one match against his fingernail and the others went up in a silvery blaze. The woman had turned down a side street, but it didn’t matter. The silvery flame guttered once, twice, and then bent, showing Sasha the way.
He climbed out of the cave of his vehicle and followed the woman into the night.
4.
Tatyana Larina was having her heart broken on stage. She crumbled to the feet of Onegin as he warbled that he was unworthy of her love, that she should not be so open. Josh leaned forward, watching the devastation through Alestair’s opera glasses. Onegin belted his confession out to the audience, his hand pressed to his chest. Josh might have felt a stirring of pity for poor Tatyana, having had his own heart broken so often by the callous, bookish boys he’d always been so drawn to, but he was too thrilled to be sitting in Alestair’s opera box. With Alestair. On a date.
Well, not a date, exactly. Two weeks ago Alestair had told him, breezily, that the Prague State Opera was performing Eugene Onegin, in the original Russian, as part of its spring season. “I have season tickets,” he’d said, sipping a glass of wine—they’d been at one of the dip circuit parties, overpowering string music drowning out their conversation. “I’ll be there opening night.”
He hadn’t said anything more, but Josh had called for his own ticket the next morning. Which meant that two weeks later, exhilarated from his recent inroads with Kazimir, he was able to sidle up to Alestair in the opera house lobby and exclaim, “Al! Didn’t expect to see you here,” even though he had, in fact, expected just that, as had Alestair, who smiled warmly at him, took his ticket, and exclaimed with likely-not-feigned disgust, “You’re sitting in the rear balcony?”
Josh shrugged. “It was cheapest.”
Alestair wrinkled his nose, but he was smiling too. “Then you simply have to join me up in my box. I have the room.”
And now, here they were: on a date.
The curtain fell with a sudden and unexpected weight, and the audience roared with applause. Josh set the opera glasses aside and leapt to his feet, pounding his hands together in delight. Alestair rose, too, although he did so with his usual unflappable, casual air.
“Wonderful, isn’t it?” Alestair asked, leaning into him, clapping politely. “I do prefer hearing it in Russian. When they brought it to London, they translated it into Italian.” He scoffed. “You know I’ve no issue with tradition, but some
things are too much.”
Josh laughed. “The story’s too damn Russian to be in any other language. Have you ever read the novel?”
“I’m afraid not,” Alestair said. “But I’m sure you have. Here, let me buy you a drink. They’re sending us off on intermission.”
Buy you a drink. Josh’s stomach twisted up with excitement. Of course, Alestair had bought drinks for Josh before, usually at Bar Vodnář—but that was different. Everyone bought drinks for each other at Bar Vodnář.
Alestair waved one hand dismissively. “I’ll bring it back. I’m friends with the theater director—they let me do that here.” He winked. “A gin and tonic?”
“You know me too well.” Josh smiled.
Alestair winked at him and slipped out of the box.
As soon as he was alone, Josh took a deep breath and wiped his palms, damp with sweat, along his trousers. The lights had come up in the theater, revealing the slow parade of people down in the orchestra seats trickling into the aisles. Voices rose up, laughter and chatter, and Josh felt light. When he had read Eugene Onegin back in college he hadn’t even known it had been made into an opera. He had been a dedicated student, too involved in his studies for his own good, determined to break his way into intelligence work despite being both gay and Jewish. The boy he’d been then would drop his jaw at the man he was now. Sitting in an opera box, an MI6 intelligence officer buying him a drink.
“Here we are.” Alestair’s voice pulled Josh out of the past. His heart thrummed. Alestair slid back into his seat and handed Josh his gin and tonic.
“That was fast,” Josh said.
“Ah, you know. Sometimes you can talk your way to the front of the line.” A bright grin. Alestair sipped calmly at his martini and gazed out at the curtained stage, his expression thoughtful. Serious. Josh wished he could move closer, wished he could lay his hand over Alestair’s and keep it there. He took a drink from his gin and tonic to stop himself.
Alestair stared at the stage, unspeaking. Josh wasn’t sure what to say, afraid that if he opened his mouth it would be too much. Ordinarily conversation came to them easily—Alestair had an endless supply of stories to tell—and it was strange for him to be so quiet. Josh felt a stirring of panic. Had he misread Alestair mentioning the opera? Had Alestair not expected him to buy a ticket, and only invited him up here out of some sense of British propriety?
The Witch Who Came In From The Cold: The Complete Season 2: The Complete Season 2 (The Witch Who Came In From The Cold Season 2) Page 25
