Unforgettable - eARC (7 page)

“Just look for the file folder.”

It always took Edward a few minutes to get his bearings.

“How do I know you’re really Nat?” he said, as usual.

“We have an authentication protocol,” I said. “It’s on a bright yellow sheet of paper.”

He riffled through the folder. “Batman,” he said.

If his word was a superhero, mine needed to be a classical composer starting with the same letter. “Beethoven.” Starting with a different letter would mean I was under duress—he would pretend the authentication had worked, but would know something was wrong.

“Okay, son. Why’d you call in?”

“You up-to-date on my mission now?”

“Have you found Yelena Semyonova?”

“Not yet, but I have a number for her I need you to trace.” I gave him the number.

“Um,” he said. “Can I put you on hold while I get someone to track this down?”

“No, you’ll forget the whole conversation,” I said. “But you can conference someone in.”

“Right, good idea.”

Fifteen minutes later, I had the billing address for the cell phone Yelena was using.

* * *

One taxi ride later, I stood at the entrance to Yelena’s new apartment building. This was a more upscale place, with a nicely decorated lobby and a doorman—her life of crime must be paying pretty well.

I asked the doorman to ring Yelena’s apartment. She was there, so I walked out and stood across the street to wait for her to leave.

Darkness had fallen by the time I spotted her coming out the glass doors of her building. She paused on the curb and scanned the street. She looked right past me without showing any sign of recognition, of course.

Yelena was every bit as beautiful as I remembered. She wore a silver-sequined top and a black miniskirt, which meant she was probably headed to Klub Kosmos, run by the Bukharin syndicate.

She might have the prototype in her purse, ready to hand it over to Jamshidi. I had hoped my warning about the Iranians might delay her. If I followed her to the club, I just might be able to swap out the prototype there, but if she didn’t have it with her I would miss a chance to burglarize her apartment.

She hailed a cab and I jaywalked across the street in time to hear her tell the cabbie to take her to the Hard Rock Cafe. That gave me time. I’d search her apartment first, and if I didn’t find anything I’d track her down at the Hard Rock.

I sauntered over to the doorman and pulled a hundred-ruble note out of my wallet. “I want to surprise a friend,” I said in stilted Russian.

He shook his head.

I pulled out two more notes. This time the head shake was slower in coming. Another two notes earned me another shake, so I started to walk away.

“Okay,” he said.

I handed him the money and he opened the door for me.

Sometimes it was easier just to ignore my talent and use the standard methods. I smiled as I rode up the elevator, thinking about how the doorman would puzzle over the five hundred rubles when he found them in his wallet later.

My lockpicks got me into Yelena’s apartment. To my surprise, there was hardly any furniture. She certainly hadn’t spent much money decorating the place. But I couldn’t complain, as it made my job easier.

I started in the master bedroom. A systematic search of the closet and dresser revealed nothing unusual. Lifting up a rug, I spotted the faint outlines of a trap door in the floorboards. I pried it open and found a box of bullets and an empty holster. No sign of the prototype, but wherever Yelena was going, she was armed.

Behind me, I heard the unmistakable click of a revolver being cocked.

Chapter Nine

Careful not to make any sudden moves, I raised my hands. “I surrender.” If I just played along, my chance to escape would come. I rose from my knees and turned to face my captor.

It was Yelena.

The circle of the gun barrel glinted a steady silver. “What do I do with you?” she said, in English.

“Let me go? I promise never to do it again.”

She chuckled. “I am to believe that?”

I backed away a little, in the direction of the bathroom. I’d read her file. She wasn’t a killer, so she probably wouldn’t shoot if I ran for the bathroom. Probably. And she would think she had me trapped. Then if I could just keep the door closed long enough, I would have a chance.

“Really,” I said, “you don’t want to shoot me. You’d have to clean up all the blood, and disposing of a body is a real hassle.”

She shrugged. “No hassle. I call police, say I shoot burglar. They dispose of body.”

“Well, then, think of all the annoying paperwork.” I tensed myself, preparing to lunge for the bathroom. I would do it in the middle of my next sentence, to catch her as off guard as possible.

“I do not want to kill you, Nat,” she said, “but I must have prototype.”

I started to speak, then just stood there with my mouth open as the full impact of what she had said hit me. She had called me Nat.

“What did you call me?” I finally asked, not sure I believed it.

“Nat,” she said. “Is name you give me in Barcelona. You have different one now?”

My heart raced. “You…can remember me?” Had my talent stopped working? No, people still forgot me after Barcelona. What was going on?

Yelena raised an eyebrow. “How can I forget my handcuff partner? When I see you across street, I know you plan to search for prototype, so I come back.”

Obviously, she remembered. Was she just naturally able to block my talent? No, she had forgotten taking the prototype from me at gunpoint the first time we met. This made no sense. How could she remember me now, when she couldn’t before?

Since she could remember me, my talent was useless in trying to escape from her. But I didn’t want to escape—I wanted to find out why she hadn’t forgotten me. Could it somehow be the result of the magnetic lock in the handcuffs?

It would be really stupid to get myself killed the first time I met someone who could remember me. I had to gain her trust somehow.

I wouldn’t be able to try multiple approaches with Yelena, so honesty was my only option that could work in the long term. “My name is Nat Morgan. I’m a CIA officer. My assignment was to steal back the prototype and switch it with a fake. The fake is in one of my pockets. Is it okay if I take it out very slowly?”

She nodded, so with deliberate slowness I unbuttoned the pocket and withdrew the fake prototype. I turned it so she could see both sides.

“Why switch?” she asked. “Why not just steal?”

“Because the fake has a tracking device—”

She swore in Russian. “Drop it on floor and destroy.”

“Wait,” I said. “The CIA isn’t after you. We just want to track where the prototype goes. We know you’re selling it to Jamshidi, and we want to track it to his lab.”

“Very nice plan for you,” she said. “And when Iranians find prototype not work and has tracking device, not so nice plan for me.”

“You’re right,” I said. “I hadn’t considered what might happen to you if my plan succeeded.”

Everything was spinning out of control. I had to find some way to make things work. Jamshidi was a priority for the CIA. I could use that. “If you help me locate Jamshidi’s lab, then I can protect you, give you a new identity in the United States. For your mother and sisters, too.” I was pretty sure Edward could swing that, if the need arose.

Yelena stiffened. “What do you know of my sisters?”

Maybe mentioning her sisters had been a mistake. But I couldn’t restart the conversation, so I had to make the best of it. “I know they’re with their father, when legally they should be with your mother. But maybe the chance to move to America would tempt them away from their—”

“I not move to America,” she said. “I must work for the Bukharins.” She almost spat that last word.

On the plane, I had been puzzled by Yelena’s willingness to work for the mob. But from the hatred in her voice I realized they were forcing her to work for them, probably through blackmail or extortion. “Have they threatened your family?” I asked. “If we can get your family out—”

“Is too late,” she said. “Bukharins take my sisters last year and sell them. High price for twins on sex slave market.”

“Oh.” I didn’t know what the proper response to that was. “I’m sorry. The CIA file said they were with your stepfather.”

“They leave note, but I know is lie. They hate him—they never go live with him. Then I find picture of them for sale by Bukharins. I quit SVR to infiltrate syndicate and find where they sell my sisters.”

During the course of her explanation, her hand holding the gun lowered. The gun now pointed at the floor instead of me. I could have run, but instead I sat down on the edge of the bed.

“And have you found where they were sent?” I asked.

“No.” She sniffled. “Ten months I work for them, but they not trust me yet. They not give me access to files.”

“But you’re a great thief,” I said. “Why haven’t you broken in to steal the files?”

“Too dangerous. If anyone without proper authority steal or look at files, then maybe they move or kill my sisters.”

I nodded. “So you’ve been trying to work your way up in the organization until you’re authorized to access the files, including your sisters’.”

“Yes. But may never happen.” Frustration filled her voice.

“If I could get the information on your sisters without tipping off the Bukharins, would you help me get the location of Jamshidi’s lab?”

“You ask me to betray my country?”

“No,” I said. “I’m asking you to betray the Bukharins, which you’re already planning to do, anyway.”

She shook her head. “Too risky. If Bukharins find out I work with CIA agent, they kill me.”

“I can access their files without them knowing. I can get the information on your sisters.”

Pursing her lips, she looked me up and down. “You are hacker?”

“When it comes to leaving no trace, I’m the best there is.” That was probably true, but I was worried it came out sounding cheesy rather than confident and reassuring, so I added, “Let’s just say I have a talent for it.”

“Their data is stored in computer not connected to Internet. You cannot hack from remote.”

“If you can get me into their facility, I can get the information.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You think to get location of lab from their computer. You do not care about my sisters.”

I blinked. I was so focused on helping Yelena in order to keep interacting with her that getting the location of Jamshidi’s lab directly had not crossed my mind. “Well, I can kill two birds with one stone. But I’m happy to help you if you help me get in.”

“What if I tell you that Bukharins do not know location of lab, that Jamshidi keeps secret even from them?”

“Well, then I’d still get the information on your sisters if you promised to then help me track the prototype back to Jamshidi’s lab. That way, we both win.”

She looked puzzled. “You will help me first?”

“Of course.”

“Why do you take risk for me and my sisters?”

Maybe because she was the one person who could remember me. Maybe because saving girls in trouble made me more like the hero my mother wanted me to be. But I couldn’t say that.

So I shrugged and said, “How could I desert my handcuff partner?”

* * *

After a casual surveillance stroll around the block that housed Klub Kosmos and the Bukharin Syndicate’s headquarters, Yelena and I sat in a booth in a bar in downtown Moscow to plan our operation.

“Once inside club,” she said, “I get guard to let us into private rooms in back.”

“How did you get them to trust you that much even though they kidnapped your sisters?”

“My sisters have different last name. Bukharins don’t know their relation to me.”

“Okay. So, you get us into the private rooms and we go see Dmitri Bukharin.” I had a sudden moment of doubt. In the past, forgetfulness about me had always spread from the people I met to include the people they talked to about me. But since my talent didn’t work on Yelena, maybe it wouldn’t extend to the people she talked to about me. That would make my plan unworkable, because I was relying on her to talk me past the guards, who would then forget me.

“Before we plan any further, we need to test something,” I said. “Introduce me to someone.”

“Who?”

“Anyone.”

She stood and beckoned me to follow her to the bar. “Vasilyi!” she yelled, and one of the bartenders came over. They exchanged some words in Russian.

Vasilyi leaned over the bar to me and said in English, “What can I get you, bubba?”

“Diet Coke,” I said.

He poured me one. “On the house.”

“Thanks,” I said. I took a sip, then put it down. “Let’s go,” I said to Yelena.

“Where?”

“Somewhere he can’t see us.”

She rolled her eyes and took me to the back of the bar near the restrooms. “Good enough?”

I looked back and couldn’t see the bartender. “Good enough.”

“What is this about?”

“I’ll show you in a minute.”

She heaved an exaggerated sigh. As we stood there and my mental clock ticked off the seconds, I felt foolish—here I was with a beautiful woman who could remember me, and all I could do was annoy her.

“Okay,” I said. “Take me back to Vasilyi and ask if he remembers me.”

“Why?”

“Please, just humor me.”

Back at the bar, she summoned Vasilyi again and asked him something in Russian. He sized me up, then shook his head. They talked a little more, with Yelena looking more and more puzzled as the conversation progressed. Meanwhile, I grew more and more relieved. My talent still worked on everyone but Yelena.

Finally, Vasilyi leaned over the bar to me and said in English, “What can I get you, bubba?”

“Diet Coke,” I said.

He poured me one. “On the house.”

“Thanks.” I picked up the drink and motioned toward our booth.

“He say I must be drunk,” said Yelena, “because he never meet you before. How do you make him forget?”

“I’m very forgettable,” I said. “It’s a talent I have.”

“Talent?”

“It’s happened ever since I was a baby. No one can remember me for more than a minute after they don’t see or hear me.”

A cute wrinkle appeared in her brow as she looked at me skeptically.

“I’m serious,” I said. “You’ve seen it work twice now.”

“Twice?”

“Remember the guard who locked us up in Barcelona? I was able to surprise him because he didn’t remember I was there.”

“But…how is such thing possible?” There was still an edge of incredulity in her voice.

I shrugged. “I wish I knew. I used to think maybe it was some sort of pheromone I give off, but since it works against computers, that can’t be it. Now I think it’s something to do with quantum mechanics.”

“What do you mean, works against computers?”

“Information about me just disappears from anything electronic. That includes any computer logs of my actions, which is why I can be so sure I can find the info about your sisters without leaving a trace.”

She remained quiet for several seconds, but I could tell from the concentration on her face that she was thinking things through, so I waited for her to ask more questions.

“I chose this bar,” she said. “But I come here many times. You could know that. I chose Vasilyi, but he is bartender, so he is most likely person I know in here.”

“You think I’m setting you up, that I arranged something with Vasilyi to pretend to forget me.”

Yelena shook her head. “No. Is possible, but I do not think Vasilyi lies so good. I just look at other possible explanations.” She pulled her cell phone out of her purse, opened the back, then removed the battery and dropped it in her purse. Rising to her feet, she said, “Wait here.”

She walked to a table a few yards away where three guys in their twenties were drinking. After a brief conversation, during which she showed them her dead cell phone, one of the guys handed her his phone.

On returning to our table, she handed me the phone and said, “Show me how this forgets you.”

I pressed the phone symbol, which brought up the number dial pad. “What’s your phone number?”

As she said each number, I punched it in. It started ringing, and I hung up. I handed the phone back to her. “Bring up the call log.”

She did. Her number was at the top.

“Okay,” I said. “I’m just going to sit here quietly, and in about a minute, your number will disappear. There will be no trace of my having made a call.”

We sat and waited, and the number disappeared right on schedule.

“Is incredible,” she said, but her tone conveyed acceptance. She went and returned the phone to its owner, then came back. As she replaced the battery in her phone, she said, “You have always been like this?”

I shrugged. “I’ve learned to live with it. Use it to my advantage—it really helps when I’m on a mission.”

“Make you sloppy,” she said.

Now it was my turn to be puzzled. “Sloppy?”

“You expect me to forget you—that why you not hide your face outside my building. I not like working with sloppy people. The plan is too risky.”

“Yelena,” I said, “you are the first person in my life to remember me when seeing me again. The first person ever. I wasn’t sloppy—I didn’t even know it was possible for someone to remember me until you said my name. We’re connected somehow, and that’s why I want to help you find your sisters. Trust me, I can do this.”

She studied my face for a few seconds, then said, “I will trust you.”

* * *

Even outside Klub Kosmos, I could feel the bass beat in my chest. Yelena bypassed the line and walked right up to one of the bouncers, with me right behind her. The bouncer, a barrel-chested man wearing a black suit and black tee-shirt, unhooked the velvet rope to let Yelena in.