Spy Another Day Box Set: Three full-length novels: I, Spy; Spy for a Spy; and Tomorrow We Spy (Spy Another Day clean romantic suspense trilogy)

by Jordan McCollum

  The hope falls from Danny’s face. “Well, in this case, we’d need the cell phone.”

  “If we had a cell phone, we could do a lot more than turn off the boat,” Elliott points out.

  “You got a better idea?” Danny’s shoulders square in his suit jacket to make the subtle challenge. And yeah, it’s just a little sexy.

  I look away. I do not need to think about how hot he looks right now. “So what can we do then?”

  “We could trip one of the sensors. It’s like a security system: motion sensors, fire, theft, battery, high water.”

  “High water? How about hell?” Elliott mutters.

  Yeah, that’s the kind of sensor we need. It’d be tripping all over the place. But without it, we can wreak a good amount of havoc. “Do any of those automatically shut off the engines?”

  An impatient flash of why did you think I wanted it? crosses Danny’s face. “Yeah, if we can find the server on the boat, we might be able to short it out from there.”

  Elliott and I exchange a glance, and I’m pretty sure my expression matches his: ohhh yeah. “Where would they put the server?”

  We wheel around the room, scanning. Would we have found it in our inventory?

  Elliott snaps. “Might’ve seen it.” He strides to the galley and throws open a rosewood cabinet between the microwave and the wall-mounted LCD TV. Danny and I follow.

  Inside is a narrow black box with two antennae. Jackpot.

  Almost. Danny pulls out the server, careful not to yank its cords, and turns it over. “What on earth . . . ?”

  I lean over to see what he means. The labels in marker along the back edge are in Russian. Worse, the Russian doesn’t make sense, more of a personal shorthand in Cyrillic. “ВЗ1” through “ВЗ3,” “ВД,” “КС,” “ДД” . . . And the list of letters doesn’t correspond to any wires, fuses or switches.

  I try to think how you’d say engine shut off. Vyklyucheniye dvigatelya? “I think we want B funky-letter.”

  “But what are we going to do with that?” He turns it around to look at the back. There are little green lights that occasionally flicker next to each label. Still not helpful.

  Man, if I had my favorite waist packs, we’d have that thing open in no time. But a knife would work in a pinch. I dash to the table and grab one with a thin blade. By the time I get back to the counter where Danny’s standing, though, he’s already using his Swiss Army knife on the screws holding it together.

  “Any idea what to do once you get it open?”

  “Do I look like a Double-E?”

  “A what?”

  Danny starts on the next screw. “An electrical engineer.”

  “You know you smart people all look the same to me.” I slide the knife over the granite.

  “Smart? Seems like you think I’m pretty stupid.” He’s concentrating pretty hard on that last screw. A lot harder than he needs to.

  “It’s not like that.” He doesn’t respond, but I can’t complain, since I don’t know what else to say. On his other side, the kettle’s still boiling, and I reach around to turn down the stove again. Danny eyes me a second, his brand new ex-girlfriend sidling up to him. I jerk back.

  Ugh. His ex-girlfriend.

  I push the thought away. Stay in the present. Stop the boat before we get any farther away from the people who’ll notice we’re missing.

  Danny uses the dull knife I brought over to pry the case open. The top lifts off and a thin packet of papers plops onto the circuit boards of the base. The instructions? Danny opens the envelope and pulls a sheet out halfway. “Russian.” He slides the paper back in and hands it to me. He turns back to focus on the server unit. “Somehow, I don’t think yanking the wire will do it,” Danny says, mostly to himself, I think.

  Elliott catches my attention and mouths, You should tell him.

  No. I can’t. The time is wrong. The place is wrong. It’s all wrong.

  But what if I don’t get another chance? He needs to know, right?

  “Danny.” My voice quavers. He doesn’t look up from examining the guts of the server. Elliott gives me a go-on nod. “We’re going to have to talk about all this.”

  He fixes me with an expression I’ve never seen from him before, piercing, intense, controlled. “Believe me, we will. But let’s live through it first, okay?”

  “Okay,” I echo.

  “I might be able to short the wires to trick it into shutting down. Can you check those?” He pushes the instructions my way.

  I empty the envelope. It takes all of three seconds to process that these aren’t instructions at all. They’re something bigger. A lot bigger.

  The second sheet has a mugshot-quality photo attached. Kozyrev, probably fifteen years ago. Right under the words Glavnoye Razvedyvatel′noye Upravleniye.

  Chills steal over my scalp on spiders’ legs.

  No. This doesn’t make any sense. He wouldn’t keep these papers here. Would he?

  This is so much worse than the Russian mafia.

  I look at Elliott, and he must recognize the horror on my face. “What?” The worry in his voice speaks almost louder than the words.

  “Kozyrev is GRU.”

  Elliott’s on his feet before I get the last letter out. Danny turns to us, instantly wary. “What, what’s GRU?”

  Elliott takes the papers and my place at the counter. “Russian military intelligence.”

  Danny does a double take. “He’s a Russian spy?”

  “Oh, don’t worry, dude.” Elliott claps him on the shoulder. “The Cold War’s over.”

  Danny ignores Elliott. Always a good call. “Well, now are we going to swim for it?”

  My mind hurtles to come up with the perfect phrasing. If Kozyrev thinks his boat is this secure, there might be a lot more to find. We need to figure out if Kozyrev is taking anything back to his superiors. We need to search again. We need to tear this boat apart. “It just got a whole lot more complicated. This guy’s been living in Ottawa for four years. Fyodor’s only the latest installment. Who knows what else he might have picked up?”

  Danny and Elliott both turn away from me, Danny to the server again, his protest written in the set of his jaw. Elliott shuffles through the rest of the papers.

  Time to search. But before I can say that or move to start, something drops in front of my face and closes on my throat in one swift motion. The cord around my neck jerks me back until I hit someone standing behind me, and panic screams in my ears.

  I clamp onto the fear, focus my breathing, fight for control. I can get through this. They haven’t killed me yet.

  “Stay back or she gets shot.” Thick accent. The voice isn’t close enough to be my attacker. “Tell us who you really are.”

  Two of them. Two of them. I kick myself one more time. Ivan and Volkov — two of them.

  I never should have trusted Ivan. I drive an elbow into the fleshy middle of the guy behind me, but his grunt’s bigger than his flinch. He yanks the cord over my throat tighter.

  “Whoa.” Elliott holds up hands like the people who have me are spooked horses and not spooks. (That’s spy for spies.)

  My attackers back up, following the perimeter of the room away from Danny and Elliott, and of course I have to follow. The rope or whatever it is across my throat is starting to cut off the blood flow. If somebody doesn’t come up with a plan pretty quick here (Hint, hint, Elliott!), I won’t be conscious to help.

  We edge toward the door and on the far side of the room, Elliott tracks with us. “Hey, hey, we don’t have to do this the hard way. Give her back and we’ll get you what you want.”

  “We will take both,” comes the reply, and there’s another yank on my neck. “Kozyrev does not believe you. Who do you work for?” My pulse hammers against the cord.

  No more waiting. I throw my head back, hoping to catch the guy in the nose or the jaw. Whatever I hit has a lot of give — nose, probably — and then the cord around my throat goes slack. I grab the cord to make sur
e they can’t trap me again. Within a second, Elliott and Danny both rush in. Danny tosses the rope from my neck over my head. I turn around in time to see him push the guy off balance. Ivan.

  How did I trust him? Was I really that off tonight, and was I wrong to trust Danny, too?

  Oh, come on. My bordering-on-unhealthy paranoia has officially crossed over. The guy is currently fighting for my life. I jump into the fray with an ankle shot aimed to bring Ivan down.

  I did not think the soundproofing in this yacht would work in our favor like this.

  Elliott delivers a good, hard knee to Volkov’s stomach and I take Ivan down the rest of the way with a strike to the neck. Danny secures him with the cord he was using on me: speaker wire.

  My heart rate returns to normal, and the fear in my bloodstream hardens to anger. I’d love to smack them around, especially Ivan — he’s probably GRU, too — but it’s not productive. I have to rechannel that anger, and besides, physical torture in interrogations is like performing dental surgery with . . . I don’t know, an ice skate. It might work in a pinch, but it’s not the best way to do things. And you’re likely to damage something important that way. Like the truth.

  “Get him into the bathroom.” I grab the last pieces of rope.

  Sure enough, the shower door is open again, the lock and chain on the floor. I direct Danny to march Ivan into the shower and Elliott to hold onto Volkov in the bedroom. With the extra rope, I pull Ivan’s arms up behind him, looping the rope over the high shower handle. Once they get above his waist, Ivan sucks in a breath.

  Torture isn’t effective, but it might be a little deserved. I only pull a little bit more. “Did you know Kozyrev was GRU?”

  He doesn’t answer at first; I yank the rope. He grunts.

  I try again in Russian, but he hesitates again. I give the rope a sharper jerk. “You know I cannot answer.”

  “I know you’re going to.” Tug tug. “We’ll never make it to Russia.” Tug.

  Ivan looks down. “I am not GRU. Private contractor.”

  “How long have you worked with Kozyrev?”

  “A week. My company gets the contract to help him. We come.”

  I cast a glance at Danny like he understands the Russian. “How many is ‘we’?”

  “Four, the four on the boat. We watch Kozyrev’s friend’s hotel room, we prepare for the trip. Kozyrev is finished with his mission, and we are here to clean up.”

  Clean up indeed. I start to tie the rope there, but Danny takes it from my hands. He lets it slip half an inch before he ties his weaver’s knot. He’s too nice, but obviously I didn’t fall for his bloodlust.

  I gag Ivan and Danny ties his ankles together. Elliott drags Volkov in and ties him to the pipes under the sink. We trudge back to the dining room table and add the chain, key and lock.

  Yeah, this is a lot deeper than I thought.

  Although I’m reeling a little at the idea that we’ve had the wrong bad guy all along, that Kozyrev has never crossed our radar before, ops continue as if nothing has changed. And in a way, not much has: we’re still trapped on a boat, we still have to figure out what’s going on, and we still need to stop it.

  Danny gets back to work on the security server and Elliott and I start looking for all the odd places you could hide information. Considering we could be searching for something as small as a flash drive — or smaller, microdots were invented between the World Wars — this is a little daunting.

  After a couple minutes of testing the very well-glued carpet and very secure moldings, I come back to look over Kozyrev’s credentials again. His GRU ID. A map of Ottawa with red Xs. (Not on Keeler Tate, thank goodness, but I think one is the American embassy. Like Google couldn’t find that for you.) A list of aerospace manufacturers in the area, including NRC Aerospace. Is he involved with Fyodor’s plan, or is Fyodor a GRU pawn?

  Elliott joins me, adding more papers and a USB drive to the pile, all he got from the laptop and desk. But apparently the ceiling above us is more interesting than his finds. I follow his gaze, like we can watch the people up there through the tiles and aluminum/fiberglass overhead. We can’t hear anything. Soundproofing does cut two ways.

  This doesn’t feel right. “It’s been too long.”

  “We need more time,” Elliott concludes. “Maybe I can buy us a little.”

  He picks up three life vests and a flare, and goes to the door. Once he peeks out the window to clear the rear deck, he turns back to us. “How do you undo this thing?”

  Danny sets down the data collector to go untie the weaver’s knot and open the door for him as quietly as possible. I come to watch Elliott slip up the steps and out to the rear deck in silence. What’s he doing?

  I don’t think any of us can breathe, staring up at the sky lounge above him. Where two of our captors are supposed to be. Who might have guns. I bite my lip.

  Elliott checks over his shoulder and edges to his right, keeping close to the door. When he reaches the port side of the boat, he’s moving so slowly he’s got to be within sight of the yacht’s upper level, and if somebody up there turns back, they’ll see him.

  Danny grips my shoulder. My rib cage goes rigid.

  Elliott eases the life vests over the side of the boat and releases them. I think the engine noise and wake mostly cover the soft splash.

  Even my lungs wait for him to return to the cabin.

  His plan might work; it might distract them or make them think we’re overboard and then they’ll spend their time circling those vests. Or it might backfire, like if they flip out and come running to make sure we’re safely locked in the shower. I’m probably being paranoid — I’m good at it, what can I say? — but part of me believes option B is a lot more likely for anybody with half a brain.

  I want Elliott to report any noise from the helm and the lounge above his head and get back in here. But he doesn’t look back. He crosses the open doorway and leans against the non-sliding part of the glass door. We can only see his silhouette on the curtain. He waves us off.

  I know better than to say anything, but my protest is screaming through my brain. No way am I letting him stay out there alone. I pull away from Danny and quick-march up the four steps. I’m so keyed up my footsteps sound unnaturally loud on the carpeted stairs.

  As soon as I reach the top, hands clamp on either side of my waist. “Cut it out, Danny.” I decline to seriously hurt him, so I can’t stop him from lifting me off the steps. He lets me go before my feet hit the floor. Lucky for him, I manage to catch myself. Meanwhile, he turns to shut the sliding door.

  “No,” I whisper-shout. “Elliott is coming back.”

  Danny ignores me and starts on the lashing. He’s smiling. Smiling.

  “Please tell me you’re not this happy about potentially offing Elliott.”

  “Huh?” He secures the knot. “Oh, no. Come here.” He drops to his knees next to the steps, pointing for me to get on the other side. He reaches behind the stairs. They skim a couple inches over the carpet.

  Wait, what? I jump to help. We pull the short staircase from its place below the door, revealing a rectangular hatch.

  “Can’t believe I didn’t think of this sooner.” Danny undoes the latch and, shielding me from the hatch, swings it open. A mechanical cacophony fills the room and I try not to pull back. He hits a button just inside the new room, and lights flicker to life.

  The acrid smell of fuel and oil hits us in a thick wave. Engines.

  Danny casts me a sidelong smile and slides his feet through the hole.

  “Wait.” I grab his shoulder before the rest of him can follow. “What now?”

  “Emergency shut down button. You want to stop, right?”

  No choice. I nod and Danny disappears into the engine compartment.

  Now we really have to be ready to fight. In a dress. Great.

  I tap a warning knock on the sliding door behind Elliott, then turn back to the table to sort through our finds. We’ve got enough knives, and ma
ybe I can catch them off guard. If I crouch under the dining table? Behind the kitchen cabinets? (Hello, there. Mind if I slice that Achilles tendon?)

  My hands hit the papers Elliott found and they slide to the floor. I slap them back on the pile. The printouts show a sketch of a box, labeled with numbers and some notes in Cyrillic. Not helpful now. I turn back to the knives for the best option. Full tang, right size, good maneuverability. I find a wooden-handled candidate and grab it just before an alarm screeches.

  The vibrating of the boat that I’ve gotten used to and the motor’s hum vanish. We’re still moving, still in the current, but the engines are dead.

  Yeah, they won’t notice that. Right. The deck settles and the angle of the floor, sloping back toward the rear of the boat, shifts to level. The supply pile shifts, too, again sending Elliott’s papers cascading to the carpet.

  I look back to the doors. Elliott’s shadow is gone. Danny’s out again, slamming the hatch shut. I motion for Danny to open the curtain. He turns around in time to catch a flash of bright light through the curtain. He yanks it aside. “A flare.”

  Elliott fired one of the flares? The distraction. Now that we’re far enough from the life jackets that you can’t tell there are no people in them, he shoots a flare to alert the folks upstairs of our “escape.” Smart, until they come to check on us.

  I’m pretty sure Elliott can take care of himself on the rear deck, maybe hide. And we should do the same. “Take cover.”

  Danny starts toward me, but stops when he sees the papers on the floor. “What’s this?”

  “Papers Elliott found. Deal with it later.” I try to wave it away for now. “They’re going to come check on their engines.”

  And hopefully we’ll be able to defend the cabin. I try to tow Danny under the dining table, since he’s right by it, but he stands frozen. “This isn’t possible.”

  “Danny, we have to hide, or we’re going to lose our biggest advantage.”

  He points to one of the notes on the page. “What does this mean?”