The Traitor's Story (31 page)

History—the present

Sergei saw her come out of the building and walk toward him across the quad, and he knew the intelligence was good and that this trip up to Harvard hadn’t been in vain.

He studied her as she walked—it was obvious the girl didn’t have a clue about what the future might hold for her. She was dressed casually but expensively for the late fall in New England, she was tall and fair and beautiful, with the telltale cheekbones, but this was not where she belonged.

He looked briefly at the other people traversing the quad, in and out of the college buildings, but his eyes quickly darted back to her. She was almost on him now.

The key would be in the first contact—he had to pitch it just right. He knew her name of course, but wondered whether he should use it or begin by calling her “Miss.” No, that would show him up as a creep, and calling her Katerina would at least grab her attention, stall her long enough for him to strike.

She was only a few paces away now, and he stood and reached inside his jacket. She spotted the movement and looked at him, smiling—in his head he repeated his earlier observation, that she didn’t have a clue.

“Hi, hello, it’s Katerina, isn’t it?”

She stopped, puzzled, but looked relaxed and didn’t clutch her bag any more tightly, as some people did. All those books, thought Sergei, and yet she carried it effortlessly.

“Do I know you?”

“No, Katerina, but I know you.” He brought his hand back out of his jacket and handed her the card. “My name’s Sergei Baum and I work with Stein Model Agency in New York City. I’m sure you’ve heard of us.”

She nodded and laughed, finding some amusement in the card or in him, he wasn’t sure which. Maybe she was just nervous.

“Katerina, you’re tall, you’re beautiful, and most importantly, you have
it
. I have an instinct for these things, one that’s never let me down yet, and I know we can make a star of you at Stein. How would you like to be a model?”

“I’m flattered, Mr. Baum, but—”

“No, you’d be perfect, just perfect, and it needn’t interfere with your studies, not at all. A lot of our girls study at the same time as launching very successful careers.” He thought he could see her wavering and said, “I’ll even make a wager with you, Katerina, and you don’t have to decide right now—call me once you’ve had a think about it—but I’ll make a wager that you’ll be on the cover of
Vogue
within one year. One year! I guarantee it.”

She smiled, looking genuinely flattered, but just as he was beginning to think he’d reeled her in, she handed the card back, so decisively that he found himself taking it.

“Thank you so much, Mr. Baum, but no thank you.”

With that she moved gracefully on, walking away from him with such poise, such effortless beauty, that he couldn’t resist one last desperate gambit.

“I can make you a supermodel, Katerina!”

She stopped long enough to turn back with another bright laugh as she said, “But I don’t want to be a supermodel—I’m going to be a historian.” Her eyes seemed completely alive to the absurdity of it, but he saw now that there would be no persuading her.

And with that she was gone, disappearing among her fellow students. His phone buzzed in his pocket. He took it out and glanced at it—the office—then looked up again, feeling the pressure he was under, thinking it wouldn’t hurt to try one more time. But she had vanished, slipping seamlessly back into her own life.

And as hard as he stared at the sea of students moving purposefully about the campus, as striking as she was, still he could not see her. Her name was Katerina, and he’d spoken to her just moments before, but already her disappearance seemed total, almost as if she had never been there at all.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Deborah Schneider and her team at Gelfman Schneider/
ICM. Thanks to Emilie Marneur, Victoria Pepe, and all at Thomas &
Mercer. And finally, thanks to Juri Nummelin and Harto Pasonen,
who took me for a drink and inadvertently helped me to plan a kill
ing—just another day in Helsinki . . .

About the Author

Photo © 2015

Kevin Wignall is a British writer, born in Brussels in 1967. He spent many years as an army child in different parts of Europe, and went on to study politics and international relations at Lancaster University. He became a full-time writer after the publication of his first book,
People Die
(2001). His other novels are
Among the Dead
(2002),
Who is Conrad Hirst?
(2007), shortlisted for the Edgar Award and the Barry Award,
Dark Flag
(2010), and
A Death in Sweden
(2016). His novel
The Hunter’s Prayer
, originally published as
For the Dogs
in 2004, has been made into a film directed by Jonathan Mostow and starring Sam Worthington and Odeya Rush.