Undercover (10 page)

Cleaning up didn’t take long. Both work and vodka waited for him, and the combination would keep his mind away from everything else. He kissed her absent-mindedly on the cheek, and headed out of the kitchen.

“Wait!”

He turned around and was surprised when she threw her arms around him, burying her face against his chest. He could feel her shiver and scolded himself for being egotistical. After dragging her across the world, caring for her should be a priority. Running a hand over her hair, he murmured, “You’re tired.”

She nodded and he whispered, “You should go to bed.”

Feeling her shake her head made him smile. “Why not?”

His smile widened when she babbled, “I’ve been to the bedroom, it’s not exactly intimidating, but I don’t want to go there alone. I don’t think I can sleep there alone, please come with me.”

He wanted to drink the misery of the day away, forget about it all at least for a few hours until morning came and it all started over again. She seemed so small and fragile, and she was his responsibility. He said, “Okay,” and scooped her up in his arms.

Jenny yelped and laughed, “Alex, I’m much too heavy for this, you’re going to hurt yourself.”

“No. I am very strong, and you are not as heavy as you think.”

A minute later, he put her down on the bed and sighed. “It’s been a long day.”

It was an understatement; their day had literally gone on for days. Jenny drifted off to sleep in his arms within minutes. He couldn’t relax at first, but feeling her weight rest against him, and her warm and even breath against his skin helped.

Chapter Twelve

Jenny woke from Alex mumbling in Russian in his sleep. She didn’t mean to wake him, but when she moved ever so little his eyes popped open and he gasped for breath. “Lover, it’s alright. I think you had a nightmare.”

Alex rubbed his eyes and answered with a sigh, “No, it’s not alright. And you shouldn’t be so nice to me, I don’t deserve it.”

She didn’t know what to say, and he added in an even lower voice, “I want to tell you something, but I’m afraid you won’t like me very much afterwards. I don’t like myself very much right now.”

She thought dryly, “Really. What can you possibly have been up to that’s all that bad?” Pressing her lips against his arm, she said, “Try me.”

He sounded tired when he answered, “I will. I’m just going to get a glass of water.”

She didn’t expect him to come back; she expected him to disappear out somewhere, or maybe seek out some more vodka, but he returned within minutes, muttering, “I cannot believe I’m about to tell you this.”

Seeking out his hand in the darkness, she gave it an encouraging squeeze and felt hurt but not too surprised when he pulled his back.

“I can’t tell you the whole story, you can’t know the details, but that’s not important. Today, I shot three men from my crew. They weren’t my enemies and we weren’t in battle. I put a gun against their necks and executed them. I had known them all for years.”

He must be joking, but the joke didn’t seem his style. It couldn’t be true, it
must
not be true, but it was. Should she leave? It might be prudent to run away and never look back. Still, this was her lover, a man she knew to be kind and considerate. No matter what might have happened, no matter how different their cultures might be, he didn’t go around killing people for fun. She leaned on her elbow and asked with all the calm she could muster, “Why?”

“There’s this old man on the base. I don’t know who he is. I’ve never seen him before.”

The answer didn’t answer anything. She wanted to squirm, but forced herself to lie absolutely still. Alex was silent for a long time, and then he sighed. “They say something happened while I was away, that they were traitors, but I don’t believe that. I had the choice to kill them myself, or have the entire crew executed.”

The words were too strange, it was too hard to understand. She should have stayed in the real world where things like these only happened in books and on TV. Did all this have anything to do with her? Was it about him finding a new life? She had a very dim idea of what he really did, but maybe they wanted to test him, to see if he could do it.

One part of her thought these were delusions of grandeur. Having a relationship with her couldn’t possibly entail a punishment that severe. Another part thought it seemed perfectly reasonable. That voice suggested a change in the line of thought too, claiming the words should be, “To see if he was
still
able to do it.”

“I have killed people before, but never members of my own crew.”

She winced. Maybe she should have given the words “bad man” some more attention instead of shrugging them off. Still, the words, “How many people have you killed” aren’t usually what you ask on the first dates.

The reasonable, civilized part of her screamed she should leave the apartment this very minute, go back home, find a nice American man who liked to drink Budweiser or Coors, eat burgers, and watch football. A part deeper within, hopelessly in love with Alex, claimed she wouldn’t be able to go back to that kind of life. Maybe she had never been able to truly live it.

It couldn’t have been an easy thing to tell her.  Executing friends in cold blood wouldn’t be an easy thing to
live
with. She wondered if they had families, but was afraid to ask. Maybe he would be scarred for the rest of his life, and maybe it was her fault. He
had
asked her to come, but if she had gotten him into trouble, she couldn’t shun him for it. She gathered courage to lift his hand up and kiss it, and when she rested it back down, he took hers between his and squeezed it.

His voice drifted over to her across the abyss of darkness. “You can leave if you want to. I will call you a cab and get you a nice room somewhere. People in the hotels speak English.”

Whatever she said and did during the next few minutes would choose her future path irrevocably, for better and for worse. She didn’t know what she was going to say when she opened her mouth, and was a little surprised to hear the words, “No. When we go, we go together.”

Being afraid of him seemed prudent, but even when she tried, she couldn’t feel it. She turned over on her side and made him wrap his arms around her. Everything became better when she could rest her head on his shoulder. He kissed her hair and whispered, “You are crazy.”

The statement seemed reasonable. The normal reaction would be to run away, screaming. A question was burned in her mind, and she couldn’t hold it in any longer. “How many people have you killed?”

She felt him sigh. “I don’t know. Many.”

It was as much of the subject as she could take, for the time being. She shuddered, suddenly feeling cold, and pressed herself closer, yearning for physical comfort and warmth. Seeking these things from someone who might be a mass-murderer might be bizarre, but he was the same man he’d been when they left her house. She loved him then, and she loved him now.

*****

Alex and Jenny were under constant surveillance. Hopefully, they were just making sure his allegiance hadn’t changed during his time abroad. It had, but that seemed beside the point. Every day was surreal and he should stop drinking, but it was too hard to face the mess of his life sober. It would be nice to be able to tell Jenny how happy he was she stayed, but the words wouldn’t come out.

She was leery to go out by herself, and it was for the best. Following her took time away from other things he needed to do, but also kept him from brooding over bigger problems. He no longer thought someone would kidnap her if she went out without him, but the world was a strange place and one could never really know. She was too precious to risk anything. He must be difficult to live with. How did she put up with him?

Every day when he came home, she met him inside the door, and he clung to this thought during difficult moments. One day she did more than meet him; she came running up to him dressed in her sexiest lingerie, and he was more than happy to oblige when she demanded to be carried to bed.

He undressed her feverishly. The tiny pieces of fabric that covered her body couldn’t come off quick enough. He wanted to kiss every inch of warm and soft skin, just to make sure she was really real. When she arched her back against him, the pleasure of his mouth too much to take any longer, he realized he hadn’t even taken off his coat, so urgent was his need to touch her. She undressed him a few minutes later, returning the favor eagerly, and they stayed in bed until the next day.

There was a garage in the basement of the large building, and he did have a car, even though he rarely used it. A driver took him to and from the base every day, and it usually seemed easier to take a taxi if he was going somewhere else. It wouldn’t hurt to take it out and let it have some fresh air. Jenny needed to get out of the apartment, of this, he was certain.

When he came home from work, he pulled her close and murmured, “I have an idea, my darling. Do you want to come with me for an… excursion?”

She nodded, and he leaned against the wall with a smile playing on his lips as she scurried around to do all the things she thought she needed to look pretty. She looked gorgeous either way, but he knew the ritual was important to women. She was always quick about it, and they were soon headed down the stairs. Jenny took a step towards the entrance, but he shook his head and tugged her towards another staircase.

One level further down, a thick metal door opened up to a brightly lit garage. He led the way through a maze of pillars and vehicles, and smirked when Jenny’s head spun around, taking in the colorful blend of luxury cars. She stared even more when he stopped next to a sleek, black Audi TT. He pressed a keychain into her hand. “I’m drunk, you drive.”

Little details like that never stopped him before, but now it wasn’t just his life on the line.

Jenny shook her head, “Oh no, outside is so icy I’ll drive us right off the road in a car like that.”

He shook his head and chuckled. She wore an adorable little frown when she fumbled with the seat in order to even reach the pedals. “I can’t even remember the last time I drove a stick.”

Alex leaned back in the seat and pointed to the side, making a point of looking relaxed. “Out is that way.”

She backed out, very carefully, and stamped on the brake so the engine almost choked. He pretended not to notice.

“Aren’t you afraid I’m gonna wreck it?”

He looked at her and smiled, “You are just too cute.”

Jenny lifted an eyebrow, and he realized his answer didn’t really answer anything. He winked and tried again. “It is just a car. I will buy ten of them if it makes you smile.”

She reached over to kiss his cheek, “And you say I’m crazy.”

It took a few minutes before she figured out how to use the clutch, but once she got going she seemed to enjoy it, and he liked just sitting there, not having to worry about anything besides telling her where to turn. When they pulled into the parking lot, he pointed towards a bright neon sign. “We are going over there.”

A woman with platinum blond hair, wearing too much make-up, handed them a cart, and Alex leaned against it, pushing it through the store. He didn’t like shopping, but put himself in a frame of mind where he would be able to spend the rest of the day in the mall if it made her happy. Jenny looked around at the incredible mixture of products from all over the world. Going to the mall was a good idea. He
finally
managed to do something right.

She scurried over to the side, and he found her giggling at a can of Pepsi with Italian writing. He hadn’t heard her giggle for days. The cart soon filled up with things they wanted or needed, or just looked funny.

*****

A couple of days later, Jenny sat on the sofa with Alex’s arm around her. They watched a British movie and he fed her candy, teasing her with pulling it away every time she tried to take it. A heavy knock on the door interrupted them, and in this setting, anything out of the ordinary was unnerving. No one ever knocked on the door before, and it had to mean trouble. Alex kissed her softly and went to open it.

When three men entered, she realized why he told her to ignore the door. They were all old, but had hard eyes and set off all the alarms in her mind. No one needed to tell her they were dangerous.

Could one of them be the old man Alex mentioned a few days earlier? She kept her eyes away from them and tried to disappear into the hard sofa. Merging with the thick leather so they couldn’t see her would be most excellent. It didn’t work well. Alex made a gesture towards his office and winked at her, but he still looked grim.

This visit couldn’t be anything good, but there wasn’t anything she could do about it, and she hid in the kitchen with a cup of tea. The voices coming from the study were getting gradually louder, and she was both curious and afraid. She wished she understood at least a little, but she didn’t know a word of Russian. For a moment, she even considered using the translation software in the iPod, but she couldn’t even begin to spell the words she heard. Then, something shattered against the wall, and she winced.

*****

In the back room, one of the men said, “Mister Roshenko… Alexei… We have decided to fulfill your wishes and let you resign from your position on the base. We want you to move to America, to the land of freedom, to be with this woman you so desire.” The man tilted his head to the side. “Under one small condition.”

He illustrated with a thumb and forefinger just how small the condition would be, and Alex shook his head; he didn’t have a good feeling about this. Most officers were excellent, but some merged with the mafia, and others had problems with the concept of no longer being a superpower. The navy was, of course, building as many ships now as in the time of the Soviet Union, but that didn’t mean the old methods weren’t obsolete.

One of the others filled in, “You will easily blend into their society. You already have friends there, maybe an American wife, and you will be considered harmless.”