Laserka took a damp kerchief and pressed it to her eyes to lessen the bloodshot qualities of her whites. The cool water from her glass helped to ease the burning irritation behind her lids, but not the irritant that now started to fester under her skin, the irritation of Batroykin. She frowned, looking at her eyes in the small mirror she kept in a drawer. They still looked reddened, but there was no sign that she had been crying. It was more as if she had just suffered a small allergy attack. Many of the things in her office, from the hand-sanitizing gel to shavings from her pencil sharpener could have given her eyes her current amount of discoloration.
She gathered her nerves, then walked into Batroykin’s office. The bald, pasty gnome glanced up at her, his beady eyes looking at how her skirt hugged her athletic but still curvaceous hips, eyes lingering down to her feet clad in short-heeled pumps.
Laserka cleared her throat. “You called me, sir?”
“Have a seat, Kaya,” Batroykin offered, waving his hand to a chair in front of his desk. He made no bones about the leer he directed at her toned, muscular calves.
Laserka took the offered seat, in no mood to raise a fuss over his obvious sexual harassment. In fact, she was hoping to capitalize on it to keep her out of trouble. For the man-blob’s sake, she even crossed her legs to give him a good show. It was callous to appeal to Batroykin’s lechery to lessen any harsh punishment she may have incurred by snooping online for news about Vitaly Alexandronin and his wife, but surviving in a Russian bureaucracy was a deadly chess game. “You sent a warning to me about a news article I looked up? The murder of Vitaly Alexandronin?”
“Actually, it was the article about the brutal attack on a defected reporter in London,” Batroykin said. “A hyperlink in an e-mail you opened today.”
“Oh, because I had done a little digging. Alexandronin was found dead earlier this morning,” Laserka replied.
Batroykin showed interest in the form of a worm-like white eyebrow arching on his puttylike brow. “So you weren’t contacted by the traitor? He didn’t try to ask for your help in determining the assassination of his wife? After all, you had been his partner for the first year of your career.”
“My training officer, not my partner, sir,” she lied. “How would you like being condescended to every day for eight hours?”
“How am I sure you’re not talking down to me right now?” Batroykin asked.
Laserka sighed, letting her so-called superior get a look at the low neckline of her blouse, purposefully unbuttoned to reveal her freckled cleavage. She caught a glint of delight in the old gnome’s eye, his pink, slug-like tongue glistening as he licked his lips. She spoke again, drawing his attention back to her face. “Because, sir, we have always had a good relationship. Or your approval of my performance has lead me to believe.”
She threw in her best seductive smile, then gave her lower lip a light bite.
Batroykin watched her with rapt appreciation, then cleared his throat. “So, do you know who had sent you the article about Catherine Rozuika?”
“I had asked when he first started these updates, but he evaded the question,” Laserka continued to lie. Having had over a decade and a half to develop a good cover story for the mystery e-mails, should they have been discovered, gave her more than sufficient practice to let the misinformation roll off her tongue. She hated to be duplicitous about her connection to Alexandronin and his wife, but the truth might cost her more than a paycheck.
She could always get another job, but she only had one brain for an irate hard-liner to put a bullet into.
“Any suspicions?” Laserka asked.
“Many loyal agents were purged from Russian Intelligence in the wake of Alexandronin’s exile,” Laserka said. “I have a list of four possible former operatives who would rightfully bear a grudge against him. It’s on my computer.”
“You mean this list, Kaya?” Batroykin asked, handing her a slip of paper. He had likely hoped to surprise her into revealing any inconsistencies in her story, but Laserka had purposefully constructed the list and her notes to maintain her secrecy with Alexandronin. “It is a very thorough research on your part.”
“I wanted to be able to present the bona fides of these e-mails if they resulted in something important,” Laserka explained. “I know how you prefer to have solid intelligence from reliable sources. Your thoroughness is legendary, sir.”
Batroykin showed a flash of ego gratification at her statement. “You are an excellent agent, my dear. I’m certain that I can make your inappropriate Internet usage into some vital information that I required. After all, what is your job?”
“Intelligence agent, sir,” Laserka answered, putting a small tinge of bubbliness into her voice.
Batroykin nodded, the magnanimous king of this particular cubicle farm, passing his approval down to a loyal serf. “Precisely, my dear.”
He got up, waddling around the desk to rest his plump hands on her shoulders. Laserka tried not to laugh at the similarity of this situation to western “sexual harassment training” videos. He gave her shoulders a squeeze that was likely meant to be soothing and seductive, but it was more like a mentally challenged farm boy trying to cuddle a kitten and crushing it inadvertently to death. She winced and restrained the urge to rake his face with her fingernails. For all his apparent softness, the squat gnome of a man had a grip like a vise.
“Why don’t you take the rest of the day off, Kaya?” he suggested softly. “Perhaps go shopping for something nice to wear this weekend.”
“Why? What’s happening then?” Laserka asked, genuinely curious.
“I have to attend a formal gala for a ranking party member,” Batroykin replied. “It’s mostly an official invitation. I’d prefer to have a winsome, but skilled operative with me than my wife. In case the Chechens decide to cause unnecessary drama at the event.”
Laserka resisted the urge to roll her eyes. She and other female agents had been on these “escort missions” before, and they always ended up with skimpy dresses and unwanted gropes under their skirts. “I’m honored, sir. But my paycheck has already been spent.”
Batroykin returned to his seat behind the desk, pulling out a small plastic card. “Since this is an official sortie, you can use an agency purchase card.”
Laserka raised an eyebrow, taking the plastic.
“Dismissed, Kaya,” Batroykin said. “Oh, and my preference is for red, backless dresses. And make it a good one. These are important people, and they’ll know cheap off-the-rack crap at first blush.”
“Thank you, sir,” Laserka replied, wondering how she could get out of attending the function.
T RYING TO FIND A TRENDY and affordable backless dress in Moscow was hardly something that Kaya Laserka was familiar with. She would have had better luck locating a five kilogram package of Afghan Black Tar heroin or a cache of smuggled Heckler & Koch submachine guns. She sent out a few calls to friends on her cell phone, but the circles she ran in on the few brief moments she spent off the job were equally clueless about where to find something scarlet, slinky and fashionable. Finally, her friend Bertie gave her a suggestion that bordered on life saving.
“Why not give one of your informants a call? They should know where to find at least knockoffs of big-name dresses,” Bertie said. “Your boss wants skin and curves, not a label. He wouldn’t know Dior if the designer himself bit him and sang a chorus of ‘I’m a fancy dress I am!’”
“My hero,” Laserka said.
So here Laserka was, standing outside a warehouse that was a covert marketplace for smuggled goods from outside