Best Kept Lies

by Helena Maeve

  Grigory had been convinced that nothing here could surprise him. He was wrong.

  “You little traitor…”

  “Oh, spare me.” Oksana waved a hand, gold wedding band sparkling like a taunt. “You leave me in the wild for ten years, and you’re surprised when I learn to fend for myself?”

  “There’s fending for yourself and there’s abandoning everything you ever stood for—”

  “Everything you stood for,” she corrected. “And where is Mat’ Rossiya now, hmm? Do you think Uncle is going to send the cavalry for you?” Her jeans creaked when she crouched down, putting herself at eye level with Grigory. “We’re cannon fodder. That’s all we’ll ever be as long as we let the SVR use us.”

  His rage barely contained behind a civil front, Grigory smirked. “And Section lets you run free, I suppose? You all got together and decided to abduct me on a whim? Again, might I add…” Despite himself, he glanced up, seeking Karim’s gaze in the dark.

  But Karim wasn’t looking in his direction. He seemed entranced by the pistol in his hands, silencer and all.

  Ballast sank into Grigory’s gut. He’d never been a fan of poetic justice and this defeat rankled worse than any other—worse than Oksana’s betrayal, worse than losing Sergei for the sake of settling scores.

  “Let’s begin. What do you want?”

  “You,” said Karim. “Your allegiance.”

  “I was more tempted with you on your knees. Now, though…” Grigory wrinkled his nose. “I think not.”

  From the corner of his eye, he watched Oksana and the unnamed agent trade wary glances. Was it possible they didn’t know?

  Grigory flexed his wrists, considering how best to exploit that advantage.

  “The alternative is death,” Karim pointed out.

  “I know.” A smile rose, unbidden, to Grigory’s lips. “You can’t risk me going back to report that one of our operatives has turned her coat. I convert, you let me live. I don’t…” You get to be the one to press the trigger.

  No doubt Karim had waited for this a very long time. If Oksana was in cahoots with the SIS, then she would’ve passed Grigory’s orders on as soon as he’d issued them.

  He wondered what it was like for Karim to know that he was going to bed with a man who wanted him dead. He was a better agent than Grigory had thought. Nothing about what they did suggested hate.

  “We know you’re working to infiltrate Section ranks,” Karim shot back, reverting to their métier rather than stooping to Grigory’s level.

  “Every intelligence agency in the world is working to infiltrate Section ranks,” he scoffed. “Is it any wonder? Someone has to make sure you don’t topple your own government if you won’t…”

  The quirk of a smile at the corners of Karim’s mouth was likely just a trick of the light.

  Grigory flexed his hands behind his back, pulling against the plastic bindings until the ties bit into his wrists. “Get on with it.”

  “What?”

  “The beating, the torture—whatever you have in store for me—just fucking do it!”

  The derelict theater echoed with his shout. Grigory couldn’t be sure, but he doubted they were still in town. Karim was too clever to bring him anywhere that screams might draw a crowd.

  Why did he feel better knowing that Karim knew what he was doing?

  Grigory wavered between anticipation and dismay. There was no way out of this. He couldn’t turn. He wouldn’t.

  “Are you that stubborn?” Oksana seized him by the shoulders. “No one is coming to save you! No one cares!”

  Who was watching her children? Had she taken leave from work to come all this way just for Grigory?

  He tipped back his head to watch her, this girl who’d once cried for her mother, who’d left Moscow with a single suitcase for a life of solitude and lies. That was real worry in her gaze. She knew what had to be done.

  “You’re right,” said Grigory. His shoe clattered to the boards, the sound as loud as a gunshot in the silent auditorium. Plastic scraped the skin off the top of his foot, but the pain wasn’t enough to stop him from pulling his knee up to his chest and planting a solid kick into Oksana’s solar plexus.

  She reeled back, swearing. Her hands were torn from his shoulders as the chair tipped back violently.

  Grigory tucked his chin, but impact still rattled through his skull. He cried out as his fingers twisted beneath him. Always double-check your knots, golubushka. The chair was cheap and old, but made of metal. It didn’t break or bend.

  “Son of a bitch!” Oksana shouted.

  Her Russian was as colorful as Grigory remembered.

  “Right then,” drawled her nameless companion.

  Grigory saw him reach into the waistband of his track bottoms. Gun, gun, rang in his ears like the bellow of a foghorn. Panic ramped up his pulse. He twisted, but it was no use. He was a fish on the line, already hooked. The more he struggled, the more he tired himself out. But he wasn’t going down without a fight. He couldn’t. This last shred of pride was all he had left.

  The barrel of a Walther P99 flashed into view above him.

  Good choice.

  Grigory froze, staring into the round, black aperture with blurry vision. Oksana was right. He was that stubborn. He was that willing to die to keep from serving yet another master.

  Do it, do it, do it.

  A noise like a roar of thunder shook the rickety walls of the theater. Another followed swift on its heels.

  Two bodies lay on the ground when the watery fog in Grigory’s eyes cleared. Karim stood above him, Browning in hand. He’d never looked more stoic.

  “What…what happened to the silencer?” Grigory forced out. If he didn’t talk, he’d have to think and that way lay the hope that he might get out of this alive.

  Karim looked down at his pistol.

  He seemed detached, somehow, alien. Were it not for the gentle rise and fall of his chest, Grigory would’ve suspected a psychotic break. He wouldn’t be the first agent to lose it in the field. But Karim was calm as he lowered the gun, replacing the safety with a quiet click.

  Every muscle in Grigory’s body tensed in apprehension. Karim’s hands could be gentle, sure, but they belonged to a killer.

  He scrambled to his feet the minute the ties around his wrists and ankle snapped open under the tender snip of Karim’s pocketknife.

  “You fuck.”

  Karim cocked an eyebrow.

  “This is why you followed me to Normandy? The final act in Section’s little tragedy?” Grigory tugged at his own hair, dimly aware of his voice cracking pitifully but too far gone to care. Karim had turned on Section. Section had recruited Oksana.

  Oksana was dead.

  He darted a glance to her unmoving body. Yes. Dead.

  Grief threatened to engulf him, bittersweet and familiar so soon after Sergei’s death. It made the shame of finding comfort in Karim’s arms all the more potent.

  “Where’re you—? Karim!”

  He had the good grace to stop dead in his tracks, halfway down the rotted steps that led out of the auditorium.

  “This doesn’t end here.” Grigory’s voice shook. Two dead agents, one of them wearing both Union Flag and Red Banner, were a problem during peacetime. Moscow would demand answers. London would be out for blood.

  God only knows where the Americans will land on this.

  “Why did you do it?” Grigory wondered. “I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times we slept together. And I’m not that good in bed.” At the end of the day, they were on opposite sides of the barricade. Just because they took pleasure cruises into enemy territory didn’t mean they belonged there. “Is it…? Is it because of Nathaniel Jennings?”

  Karim’s shoulders tensed beneath his leather jacket. He still held the Browning in his left hand, the grip loose, as if the pistol was an extension of his arm rather than a tool. “I know an Alistair Jennings…”

  “His son.” Surprise, surprise. “It
’s all very Shakespearean…”

  “His son works for Section.”

  “In theory.”

  “No,” said Karim. “In practice. We’ve been aware of Moscow’s interest for some time. He’s not a very good spy.”

  Absurdly, Grigory bristled on Nathaniel’s behalf, the penny dropping after a long beat. “He’s running us…” Not the other way around. All those meetings he took, thinking Nathaniel needed handholding, reassurance, all those times he promised him that the Craft affair wouldn’t crash down on him. “Son of a bitch…” Grigory dragged a hand over his face. “Well. If it’s not that, then why are you doing this? You’ve just given me the Section Chief’s son.”

  “Because I don’t work for Section. Or Directorate S. Not anymore.” Karim looked down at the gun in his fist. “I make my own choices.”

  “What?”

  “I can say it in Russian, if you prefer…” And he did—a little stiltedly, as though he was having trouble maintaining that aloof facade he’d adopted, but he got out the words.

  They still didn’t make any sense.

  “You’re CIA, then,” Grigory surmised.

  “You’re not hearing me.”

  “What you’re talking about is… It’s impossible. There are no private contractors. That’s a myth… Sooner or later, everyone’s strings end up being pulled by some agency.” Grigory swallowed, choking on the smell of blood soaking into dusty floorboards.

  Rogue agents were a threat to the stability of a highly precarious system. The sooner they were brought to heel, the better for everyone.

  Karim rounded on him slowly. His eyes were soft, gauging. That had to be the reason why Grigory didn’t lunge for the MI6 operative’s Walther to defend himself. Oksana’s body cooling on the dusty ground was testament to Karim’s willingness to press the trigger.

  “You can’t let me walk out of here alive. We both know it.”

  “And if I do?” Karim jerked up his eyebrows.

  “I’ll come after you.” Grigory took a shuddering breath. “I have to.” The system survived on a tally of debts and dues.

  It happened gradually, a twitch of muscle at the corner of his lips, the gentle slump of his shoulders, Karim turning away with the hint of a tired smile on his face. “Counting on it, love.”

  His shadow stretched long across the rat-chewed carpet, then vanished as he stepped over the debris of plaster and cement.

  Grigory could only follow.

  Chapter Twelve

  Francesca Bandini’s coffin gleamed in the low morning fog. Mourners in black clustered around the grave, heads bowed against the chill. The branches of a cherry tree shielded them from view, but their identities were no mystery. There was the family—husband, two children—and the extended family—sister-in-law, mother-in-law—as well as a gaggle of teachers and staff from the school where she worked. Neighbors and friends had come out as well, braving the dreary weather.

  Grigory had gone through the attendee list with a fine-toothed comb. The painstaking task had taken up most of the night and still he couldn’t report to Moscow that they’d uncovered any trace of her Section controller. All identities checked out.

  It went without saying that someone close must have turned her away from the SVR. Their agents were meant to withstand all kinds of pressures.

  “Does it bother you?” Zorin wondered.

  “What?”

  “You were there. You couldn’t stop it.” She rolled her shoulders, the sleeve of her navy cashmere cardigan brushing his upper arm. “I’m supposed to say something about it not being your fault.”

  “I know it wasn’t,” Grigory replied. He felt compelled to keep his voice down, as though the interment five hundred feet away might be disturbed by his blather.

  Zorin hummed.

  “You disagree.” He’d known her too long for sighs and murmurs to remain undecipherable.

  “Oksana left Rome without my knowing. I failed. That’s my part of the blame.”

  Grigory’s patience wore thin. “And mine is in not talking her down?” It galled him because it was true. He did have a responsibility. As Oksana’s handler, he should have vetted her more—he should have kept in touch throughout the years.

  Deep cover didn’t lend itself to regular chats, but maybe if he’d eased her back into the life, she could have…

  No.

  “Oksana made her choice,” Grigory said firmly. “My hands were tied.” Literally.

  Officially, Grigory had been the target of a Section-mounted abduction that only succeeded thanks to Oksana’s involvement. Despite her disreputable demise, her training was still touted as a weapon even their enemies valued.

  Unofficially, Grigory had put down a traitor and an enemy agent. Neither his report nor his off-the-record conversations with the director made any mention of a fourth participant.

  “I hear they’re sending you to London,” Zorin volleyed.

  The conversational about-face would’ve caught him by surprise if it had come from anyone else.

  “We’ve lost our Section mole at headquarters.” And they lost theirs. “I’m to recruit another.”

  Zorin fell into step beside him, the two of them turning away from the mourners like a single organism, perfectly in sync. “Any candidates?”

  “One.”

  When Grigory made no move to elaborate, she took his arm. “Those vacation shots you sent will come in handy.”

  “Guess Normandy wasn’t a total miss, then…” It was paltry consolation. Nathaniel Jennings was relatively low on the totem pole—even with a father in the stratosphere of the British Secret Intelligence Service. Worse, he was about to be dispatched to Miami, to be put firmly out of harm’s way.

  Zorin had been assigned to serve as his handler, but she would not be joining him in Florida.

  “There is one thing I don’t understand,” she mused as they reached her Fiat.

  Grigory opened the driver’s side door in silent invitation. Indulging Zorin’s questions was not unlike trying to catch salmon with bare hands. Her wriggling was more than unnerving.

  “Oksana was one of our best wet work specialists. Excellent markswoman… And backed by an MI6 agent, she still couldn’t finish you off.”

  A church bell tolled somewhere in the distance, the dull clang muffled by the thick mist that blanketed the cemetery. Tombstones and sculpted stone angels seemed to hold their breath. Even the drops of condensation on the windshield of the car froze in anticipation where before they might have trickled down.

  She didn’t have a choice. Excellent markswomen were just as susceptible to double-crossing as the rest of them. “Guess she didn’t want me dead after all.”

  Zorin held his gaze. The lines around her mouth deepened as she peered past the jelly of his eyes and the thin membrane of his irises, deep into the inner labyrinth of his skull.

  Since the attempt on his life in Normandy, she was his controller no longer. Moscow had deemed him ready to head his own office, in London, as part of the Rezidentura’s top tier of foreign operatives. A permanent position, in other words, in an established office where they could keep an eye on him.

  The promotion came at a propitious time. Zorin’s distrust was palpable.

  She nodded as she slid into the leather front seat of the car. She was so petite that she had to stretch to reach the pedals.

  She didn’t reach to adjust her seat, though. She wouldn’t, until Grigory was out of sight.

  “I wonder…”

  “Hmm?” Grigory hovered his hand over the door, ready to nudge it shut and make a run for it.

  “Do you think Uncle considered the alternative?”

  “What might that be?”

  “Perhaps,” Zorin ventured, “Oksana spared you for a reason.”

  Grigory forced himself to smile. Preposterous suggestion, comrade. But it wasn’t and he’d known the minute Karim lowered his Browning that life from then on would be littered with doubts.

  Zorin
was the first to say aloud what countless agents in Moscow must have been thinking.

  His heart constricted at the thought. Did Dmitri also suspect him of making a deal with the enemy? More worrying still, did the director?

  “Drive safely,” he told Zorin, neither acquiescence nor denial. Playing up his innocence would only make it worse.

  The Fiat purred to life as he backed away from the curb. His hands in his pockets, he felt for the revolver sewn into the lining of his trench coat. Tempting, but dangerous. Another dead agent in his near vicinity might be too much for Center to ignore.

  He didn’t move until the car had disappeared over the hill, the rattle of its engine drowned out by the fog. Grigory’s shoes made soft, scraping sounds on the pavement. He couldn’t see the mourners when he looked over the cemetery green. Perhaps it was time to let the fog do the same for him.

  This was a good day to disappear.

  * * * *

  “I thought you didn’t think it was a good idea, coming here…”

  Grigory bounced from deep sleep to wide-awake in the space of a lurching heartbeat. He sat up on the couch, rubbing grit from his eyes to conceal the twitch of nerves in his fingers. “Sorry, I fell asleep.”

  “I saw.” In low-slung yoga pants and a black tank top, Karim cut a strange picture by the ornate mahogany sideboard. “Wine?” His soft drawl was rougher than normal.

  One day on the subway, he’d dropped word of a house in Ravenna straight into Grigory’s hands. A careless invitation. Grigory had suspected it concealed a trap. He’d stopped by once to prove himself right. He’d been annoyed when Section operatives hadn’t climbed out of the hedgerow, when Karim had failed to welcome him with his Browning cocked and aimed.

  They ended the argument in Karim’s bed.

  The villa was small and nondescript. Its white-washed walls blended well with the terracotta and bare stone properties along the quiet street outside. A tall brick wall festooned with ivy obscured the narrow front yard from its neighbors.

  There was only one bedroom, furnished with a comfortable king-size bed.

  Grigory sighed and took the glass Karim pressed into his hand. “I shouldn’t.”