Undercover (13 page)

Her own passport had been unused before this trip, and she opened it to look at the stamps. Alex bent over to kiss her on the cheek. He knew her well enough already to know what was on her mind. “Don’t worry, I do this all the time.”

The comment distracted her, and she thought he probably did it on purpose. She wanted to ask a million or so questions, but didn’t even lift an eyebrow. “I can’t wait to be home.”

Once they reached the counter, the woman sitting there hardly even looked at the photos. She threw one glance at their documents, gave them back, and yelled, “Next!”

They waited for the luggage for an eternity, and Jenny was nervous all the way through customs. She relaxed a little once they were well into the large airport, surrounded by Americans hurrying in all directions. The protection of being in the country was more imagined than real, but she was still happier. They walked slowly hand in hand with the suitcases rolling behind them like obedient dogs, and just seeing the crowds made her heart lighter.

She wondered if her lover would miss seeing and hearing his own language, and if he would miss his own people. He was stranded in a foreign country and culture with nothing but her, with an axe hovering over his head, and all this after knowing her for just a couple of months. Thinking about it made her feel incredibly guilty, and telling herself she couldn’t have done anything about it didn’t help at all.

Eventually, Alex stopped and pulled their bags up next to a wall. “Are you up for the drive home, or do you want to stay in a hotel tonight?”

She kept going because he did, but now when he said it, she was very tired. “I don’t know. It would be good to be home, but it seems so far away. What do you think?”

“Oh, I want to go somewhere and take all your clothes off, but what I want is not important. Your wish is my command, my sweet.”

It made her laugh. “So, a hotel it is.”

When they walked towards the exit, past one of the cafés, she saw a familiar face turn towards them. A smile played on the man’s lips. She had seen him not all that long ago, on the other side of the world, in Alex’s apartment. He met her eyes, and she said, “Ignore him.”

They walked right past the old man. “They’ve been with us all the way. One would think people would have something better to do.”

She hadn’t seen anyone else, but if he said they had been there, they were there.

*****

Once inside the room, Alex frowned and put the security chain on. It was a small protection against the big world outside, but better than nothing.

Jenny kicked off her boots and tossed her coat over her suitcase, and didn’t realize at first that her lover just stood in the middle of the room, looking pale and tired. When she wrapped her arms around him he hugged her back, but still seemed to see another world. She stood on her toes and pressed her lips against his.

“That was nice.”

The comment made her smile. He had been cheering her up during the entire journey, and it was time to return the favor. “It is, isn’t it? You know, whatever you’re worried about, I think we should cross that bridge when we get to it. Let’s go to bed.”

“I need to brush my teeth. And shave. Shaving would be good.”

He looked incredibly sexy with the stubble. “I don’t know about the shaving, I kind of like it like this… You also need to take your coat off. It’s been a long day.”

He rested his head against hers. “It’s been a long week. I feel almost dead, and this is still an improvement.”

Jenny peeled off his coat and tossed it to the side. He didn’t object, and when she started unbuttoning his shirt, he put his hands on her hips, inching her a little closer. The way he looked at her gave her butterflies. “I like these clothes. They make you look like a dangerous gangster.”

He still wore the black suit from Moscow, and she wondered how he managed all that travelling without getting wrinkly. A bright blue shirt made his eyes seem even browner, and all in all, she wanted him very much.

He answered, without even blinking, “A gangster, you say.”

“Mm-hm.”

Still staring into her eyes, he smirked and answered in his usual calm and slow voice, “If it is a gangster you want, my sweet, I can be that.”

In the morning, she would wonder how her bra ended up over the lamp and her panties by the door, but at this point, when he was lifting her up on the desk and kissing her neck, working his way into her clothes with hungry determination, she couldn’t care less.

It was just afternoon local time, but they soon fell asleep in each other’s arms, happy to be together, and for the moment too tired to think about what the future might hold.

*****

It was almost noon when they picked up the car. Their little vehicle looked like a mound of snow. Jenny muttered, “I hate snow,” and started to brush it off, but Alex took the broom away from her. “You do not have to do that yourself. It is my job now.”

It started like a good little car, and they were soon on their way home. They drove in silence at first, and only stopped once for a quick food and bathroom break. As they headed back out from the gas station, Alex said with a lot of self-irony, “You know, this is the first time in a week I’m not drunk or hungover. You’ve really found yourself a fine specimen of man.”

“And just think, you’re an angel compared to some of the others.”

He chuckled and shook his head, and in the next moment, Jenny stepped on an icy spot. Her feet disappeared under her. Alex caught her in his arms, murmuring, “Careful there, dearest.”

She held on to him and let him carry her weight, like he did the first day they met. It would be so easy to get used to him being there for her, catching her.

It was just a coincidence, but it still seemed symbolic to her that he drove on the way there, going away, and she brought them home.

Coincidence or not, it was good to pull up in front of the house, and she exclaimed, “Yay, we’re home.”

“And now you’re never getting rid of me.”

“Sounds good. I like it.”

Once they got out of the car, he gestured to her to stand still. He stared at something, and she raised an eyebrow when she saw what it was. It snowed during their absence, and the white cover was completely smooth and undisturbed, except for the tracks of the car and two deep footprints right in front of the porch.

It might be possible that she ruined any other tracks with the car, but she didn’t think so. She knew the ground was treacherous in winter, and she paid attention. If there were footprints, she would have seen them. “Oh, that’s weird.”

Alex made a little gesture, almost shrugging it off. “They’re sending us a message. They want to let me know they’ve been here.”

“But how…”

It was impossible, unless someone flew there, dropped from the sky, landed on their feet and flew off again. Or had an army of little elves, straightening the snow out.

While she flipped through images in her mind, one more absurd than the other, Alex went back to the car. He pulled out a large pistol hidden under a seat. Where did he get it? How long had it been in the car?

He motioned to her to stay back. “It’s probably nothing, but I want to take a look, just to be on the safe side. Stay right behind me, okay.”

He seemed like an impenetrable fortress no evil could touch, and she had no thoughts of going anywhere except for right behind him. He’d be just as hurt by a bullet as anyone, but he seemed so big and secure, surely nothing could happen to him. She followed him to the front door, intrigued with the way he took command of the situation and of how natural the large weapon looked in his hand.

He glanced back quickly and winked. The gesture reassured her, but her heart still skipped a beat when she expected the door to slide open. It was locked, just as it should be.

They searched the house thoroughly, but no one was there. Someone
had
been. Alex found a number of microphones, placed almost visibly, meant for them to find. Jenny grumbled, “I can’t believe they’ve been in our house.”

Someone had also helped themselves to coffee in the kitchen, and placed the cup neatly in the sink without rinsing it. Jenny shuddered, not just from the cold in the house. “Well, if they were here, couldn’t they have lit a fire in the furnace too?”

They had a couple of electrical radiators running while they were gone, but the large rooms were still cold and inhospitable.

Alex smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “I’ll be happier if they didn’t touch it. This was just to leave us a message. They want us to know they can do it.”

*****

As days went by and turned into weeks Jenny’s fears lulled to rest. The environment and their routines were so peaceful it was nearly impossible to think about bad things. No one even questioned the fact that Alex was back to stay, or asked
how
he was able to stay. Jenny was grateful; Google taught her getting a green card was almost impossible, and acquiring a citizenship even worse.

The house slowly became theirs instead of just hers. It didn’t happen suddenly; they didn’t drag all the furniture out just for the sake of rearranging together, but she made sure he had a say in how things should be, and it grew into a home for two.

He often muttered about getting out of shape, and they built a gym in the basement. She was as completely uninterested in physical activity as she’d always been, but he attacked the weights and machines with great energy. A part of a room turned into a bar with a pool table and a dart board, and another room turned into an office for him, more because she wanted him to have some space than because he did.

Both knew the phone call could come any day. A man bringing bad news could turn up suddenly. Jenny knew when Alex began to let his guard down. His nightmares returned, and she sometimes heard him mumbling in Russian in his sleep, but she never asked him about it.

She expected them to get into fights eventually, but nothing seemed important enough to argue.

*****

During the next couple of months, Jenny changed jobs within the company. Earlier, contact with the customers and sales offices had been a way of escaping reality; if she came home exhausted enough she wouldn’t know she was lonely. Now, she wanted time and energy for her wonderful Russian man. She was a little sad when she moved out of the small red building that housed her office for so long, but all her friends were still just a few steps away.

She forgot there had ever been a life without Alex. The very concept of life without him by her side seemed alien, and her existence up until the moment they met turned into a distant blur.

If he ever longed for home, he never told her, and she never asked.

Chapter Sixteen

Winter turned into spring and spring became summer. Alex knew Jenny’s fears were wooed to rest. He was happy for her; he didn’t want her to spend her life worrying about things that might never happen. He, on the other hand, was superstitiously afraid she would be snatched away by someone every time she was out of sight. Every morning when she went to work, he thought she would never come back. He couldn’t follow her everywhere, but he constantly struggled with himself not to appear completely paranoid.

He had too little to do, and often muttered to himself, “I need to get a job.” Mark had mentioned getting him a job at Specialty Steel Associated, close to Jenny. He would have to call their friend and take him up on the offer.

The longer it took before he got some form of mission the worse it would be, and once the phone rang, he was relieved for a chance to get something over and done. It sounded easy enough too. He needed to drive to Boston, liberate some blueprints from their current owners, put them in the mail, and return home. It was a reminder not to get complacent.

If he planned it carefully, he should be able to pull it off in one day when Jenny was at work. He didn’t want her to know anything about it.

He planned, did his homework, and rented a car under a false name to be conveniently delivered to a gas station along the way. He was too big to hide, so he decided to dress up as an electrician instead. People usually don’t question service personnel; everyone wants the power to stay on, water to keep coming out of the tap, and TV and Internet to work. He shouldn’t have to say much. No one would remember his accent if they never heard it.

As easy as the mission might seem, there was always a risk of something going wrong. He kept a calm façade, but found it difficult to pretend everything was normal. He might be caught, in which case he would never see Jenny again. He wanted to hold her too hard, tell her how much she meant to him, and it took a great effort to be casual.

He made Jenny breakfast and kissed her tenderly when she left. He watched her drive down the road from an upstairs window, and didn’t get going until the car went around a bend in the road and he couldn’t see it anymore.

He took off in her old Chevy, heading for his rental. Both driving to the city and getting into the building was almost suspiciously easy. He did thorough research and knew where all the cameras were. Having his picture taken would be bad, but the back of his head or the brim of the baseball cap on his head was the only things caught on tape.

Almost everyone in the building was on lunch, and avoiding the few people there was easy. He was good with locks, had always been good with locks, and the technology able to keep him out was yet to be invented. It was too easy. He didn’t think he was careless, but it was a possibility. Either way, a guard discovered him when he leafed through a pile of documents stolen from a newly broken into safe.

The man seemed to be at least a hundred years old. He clearly took pride in his work, and held a gun with quivering hands. Alex raised his hands up over his head and smiled, trying to look friendly, but knew he would have to move. The guard would be able to identify him, and no matter how careful he was, it would be very possible to trace him back to Jenny. He could live with being in prison as long as he could at least imagine she was safe and not suffering for his crimes in any way, but that was just a fantasy. If he was caught, people would blame her.