Lying and Kissing (7 page)

I could feel Luka’s hand on my thigh, his fingers toying with the waistband of my panties.

“Take some time,” Adam said. “Think about it.”

I didn’t need time. There was only one possible choice.

“My answer’s yes,” I whispered. “I’ll do it.”

A half hour later, Adam called in Roberta. He asked me to wait in the hallway while they discussed my reassignment. While they discussed
me.

It turned out that the soundproof walls at Langley aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.

“Are you out of your
goddamn mind?!”
yelled Roberta. “She’s a languages geek, not a field agent!”

She’d always seemed so proud of my skills. It didn’t feel that way now.

“She’s smart,” said Adam calmly. “She’s resourceful. She handled herself well at his house.”

“She could have been killed! If he’d seen her messing with his laptop—”

“He didn’t. And anyway, it’s her choice.”

Roberta’s voice rose further. “You don’t know her like I know her! She’s got issues!”

“Do you think I’d be suggesting this without having read her file?”

“That’s not the same as knowing her! She has flashbacks! Nightmares! She can barely get in a goddamn car, Adam!”

Hot shame flared in my cheeks. I hated being a mess. I hated still feeling like a teenager.

“She’s CIA,” said Adam. “She’s done her training. She wants to do field work. And Malakov wants to fuck her. That’s good enough for me.”

“You
know
that kind of field work needs a certain kind of woman,” snapped Roberta. “Arianna is
not it.
Get Nancy!”

I jerked at that.
Nancy?
They’d put my best friend on this, instead of me? My stomach tensed up. Nancy was the best. That showed how hard Roberta thought this mission would be.
Maybe I should back out. Let Nancy have it.
She was the mature one, the
together
one.

But then I thought of her seducing Luka, effortlessly and professionally, and...part of me didn’t want that.
Am I jealous?!
That’s insane!

“Nancy’s in Venezuela,” said Adam. “And Malakov doesn’t want
that sort of woman.
He wants Arianna.”

“You can’t do this, Adam! Why do you even
want
Malakov so badly? Let the Russians handle him!” Their voices were getting louder. I winced. I hated hearing them fight.

I heard Adam’s chair scrape the floor as he stood. “You need to back off. That girl works here and right now we need her and she’s stepped up to the plate. The only one who’s not on board here is you!”

“I’m the only one who’s thinking straight! Arianna is—” She must have realized she was shouting, because she lowered her voice.

A woman in a suit—someone from another division—chose that moment to walk by. She glanced at the closed door and raised voices and then at me, standing outside, and gave me a sympathetic smile.

“Arianna is
fucked up!
” Roberta hissed at that exact moment.

I did my very best to smile back at the passing woman, despite feeling as if I wanted to die.

“Sorry, Roberta,” said Adam. “You’re going to have to let go of your little pet. Now get out of my office.”

A moment later, Roberta marched out of the office. “
Follow,”
she snapped, without even looking at me. I scurried after her, despite being close to tears at what she’d said about me.

When we got back to our department, she took me straight through to her private office and closed the door. I’d barely ever been in there. She normally liked to sit out in the open office with the rest of us.

Today, though, she closed the blinds, nodded me to a chair and then leaned against the desk, gripping the edge of it so hard that her knuckles whitened. Her dark hair fell forward, hiding her face. I imagined her counting to ten in her head. Then she took a long breath and looked up at me. “Sorry, if you heard some of that.”

“It’s okay,” I lied. I’d been loyal to this woman for years, ever since she’d recruited me. Now I just wanted to be sick. Was that what she’d thought of me all this time? That I was
fucked up?!

Roberta caught my expression. “I was just trying to protect you. That’s all I want, Arianna—to protect you.”

I swallowed, thinking of Adam and how he believed in me. “I know. But I want to do this.”

Roberta sighed and sat down heavily in her chair. “It’s my fault,” she muttered. “I should have let you move into field work.” She opened a filing cabinet and, from the very back of the drawer, pulled out a bottle of Scotch.

Roberta
drank?!
During the day?

She must have seen my look. “Only on special occasions,” she said. And she poured two glasses, handing me one.

I stared at the amber liquid. My brain was still trying to catch up. “You’ve been a great boss,” I said truthfully.
Until today.
And maybe she had just been trying to protect me. And what she’d said was true—I
was
fucked up. But I hadn’t wanted her to tell Adam that and I hadn’t wanted to hear her say it. Hearing that conversation had made me want to prove her wrong and impress Adam even more.

“I know you want to get out of here,” Roberta said despondently. “I just—You’re so good
at what you do, Arianna. I need you
here.
And I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
She looked me in the eye. “Russia’s nothing like America. It’s hard. Brutal. Adam should know better—he worked over there for years before he got moved up the ladder. I can’t believe he’s even
thinking
of sending you. I don’t even understand why he wants to do this op in the first place.” She shook her head. “Look—don’t do this. Not Malakov.”

“I can do it,” I said, with a certainty I didn’t feel.

“Can you? Really?” She sighed. “This sort of man can be charming, but underneath he’s pure ice. He’ll kill you if he finds out. He won’t hesitate. Mafia guys are all about loyalty. You’ll be violating that in the worst possible way. And if you
can
keep him fooled, you’ll have to be with him.” She sipped her Scotch. “God knows what he’ll want in the bedroom. A man like that, Arianna, he’s not going to be…” She sighed again. “He’s not going to be like one of your boyfriends.”

A chill went through me. A chill that changed to heat when it hit my groin.
God, what’s wrong with me?
I flushed.

When I met Roberta’s eyes again, she was staring right at me, a worried look on her face.
She can’t know how I feel about him...can she?

“Arianna, reconsider,” she said. “You’re about to get into shit you can’t handle.”

I took a deep breath...and shook my head.

Airports all look the same. That’s what my dad used to tell me, when he returned from a business trip. But Moscow was utterly, terrifyingly alien.

There was something in the air, as soon as I stepped outside the terminal building. It felt harsh against my lips, as if they were being scoured. It wasn’t just the cold, although it was snowing and a long way below freezing. It was the rawness of the air. It made the air back home seem warm and perfumed and soft as satin.

Behind me, the terminal building was like a long, green bottle on its side, all clean lines and elegant curves. Beautiful, but uncompromising. And on top of it, in huge metal letters, a sign in Cyrillic that looked straight out of the Cold War. I spent all day listening to Russian, back home, but to see the unfamiliar letters was still a shock. Your brain gets used to the alphabet, ever since you were a kid watching Sesame Street. Stumbling over letters again is like suddenly forgetting how to swim.

I hadn’t been ready for customs, either. It wasn’t that it had taken a long time, or that they’d asked all that many questions. It was just something in the look the officer had given me, the way he’d almost flung my passport back to me. Travelling from the US to Mexico or Canada—the only other countries I’d ever been to—I’d always felt welcome, or at least accepted. Here, I was tolerated.

Maybe it was the jet lag but, when I climbed into a cab and heard Russian pop music on the radio, I almost wanted to weep. I just longed for something familiar.

Pull yourself together! You wanted this!
I asked the driver to take me to my hotel and we set off.

I couldn’t wear an earpiece because, if things went well—my heart missed a beat—Luka would be getting close enough that he’d spot it. I could call Adam on the brand-new cell phone they’d given me, but even then the presumption was that the authorities might be intercepting foreigners’ calls. I’d have to pretend Adam was my dad.

I’d never, in my whole life, felt so alone. There was a big part of me that wanted to tell the driver to turn around and take me back to the airport, then get the next plane home and quit the CIA. Get a normal job where I didn’t have to lie to everyone I met.

But then I’d never see him again.

***

My reunion with Luka was meant to be accidental, so it had to be thoroughly planned.

We knew he had a thing for ice hockey—one of his few indulgences beyond women. He’d played, when he was in his teens, and in the winter he still liked to smack a puck around each weekend at Gorky Park.

Gorky Park is the Russian equivalent of Central Park. In the summer, it’s full of joggers and couples pushing baby strollers. But each winter, all of the paths are deliberately iced over to create Europe’s biggest ice rink. You can skate around the entire park on the paths, or there’s a separate area for dancing and another for ice hockey.

Our agents in Moscow had reported that Luka usually showed up early, before his friends, and hung around near the ice hockey rink, watching the skaters. The idea was that I’d be skating and he’d see me and approach. I’d tell him how I was on vacation, starting off in Moscow before maybe taking in Rome, Paris and Venice. The team at Langley had carefully set me up with an itinerary that would give him a sense of urgency—
I’m only in Moscow for a few days—
while also leaving the door open for something to happen—
but my tickets are flexible…

It was brilliant and ridiculous. Would he believe it was just a coincidence? My heart started thumping. Would he
want
to believe enough that he’d buy it?

And there was another problem: I can’t ice skate. I mean, I might be able to stumble around with some friends, all holding hands, and the falling over would be part of the fun. But who goes to an ice rink on vacation on their own when they can’t skate? I was going to look like the world’s most stubborn woman.
I bet Elena and Natalia and Svetlana could skate.
During my briefing, I’d seen some long-lens photos of Luka with his last few girlfriends, finally putting faces to the voices I’d listened to for months. All of the women had been just as gorgeous and slender and blonde as I’d feared.
Why the hell is he interested in me?!