Black And White Ops

“We might as well ask why the Neva river freezes up every year,” he laughed in response. “Or why Russia lacks a warm water port to the sea. It’s just the way of the world.”

They stood silently holding each other for a long time. But the sound of footsteps alerted Rick they needed to keep moving. Other tourists were entering the section where they found themselves. They separated, but continued to hold hands like a high school boy and girlfriend as they walked among the aisles. Monique would occasionally stop and read the title cards, while Rick continued to look for his contact. He was being quiet about who he was searching for, but he seemed to think his contact would be in this part of the Hermitage.

“How many times have you been here?” he asked her.

“This is the first time,” she told him. “I just never had the opportunity. Not enough money or no one to go with.”

“You must have been awful lonely these past three years,” Rick commented. “What did you do to occupy your spare time?”

“I read a lot,” she said. “Russians do like to read, so no lack of books or novels. You can get tired of the same ones after a while.”

“But you never read Crime and Punishment?” he told her. “One of the greatest books of the nineteenth century.”

“I didn’t read everything,” she explained. “I read a lot of Tolstoy. I read Lost Souls. And a lot of the newer writers. They still discuss Solzhenitsyn around here, did you know that?”

Monique slipped her hand into his jacket to feel Rick’s firm chest. He leaned over and gave her a light kiss on the lips before pulling back. She knew he wanted to kiss more, but they had to be careful. She didn’t care; Monique was spending time with a man who had just expressed his love for her. She wanted to believe him, but couldn’t give her heart away this early. Here they were, having known each other for a little more than twenty-four hours and already discussing marriage. Life was too strange.

“So what did you like to read, Rick?” she asked him. “Action books? I can see you reading all those military books I used to see at the airport. The Executioner? The Destroyer? Maybe a Doc Savage fan?

“Westerns, believe it or not,” he said, running his hand through her hair. It felt so soft and he loved the way it curled on her. “Louis L’Amour, Max Brandt, the classics. Pretty standard stuff.” Her leaned over and put his lips to her ear. “My favorite was one where a cowboy rides up to a house and finds a school teacher living by herself. He stays around to help her on the farm, chops wood and gets a fire going. She makes him dinner. Later that evening he takes her upstairs and makes her count the beams on her bedroom ceiling.”

A chill went through Monique again. What was he doing to her? Rick was making her wet again. She needed to be worrying about their situation, not how quickly she could find an alcove to take him. He had to be doing this on purpose; she could find no other reason. Even if she was increasingly becoming turned on by what he was doing.

“When are you going to find your connection?” she said to Rick. “We can’t stay here all day, as much as I’d like a whole night in that amber room. Is it someone who works here?”

“It’s someone I had to put out a call for when I was on the computer,” he told her. “They’re the station chief for the agency in St. Petersburg. I don’t trust this whole trip to Archangel plan they gave me. I want to talk to someone and find a way out of here. I’ve never met the station chief for this city before. You don’t usually get that opportunity unless there is some kind of emergency.”

“I thought the master spies all worked out of the embassy?” she asked him.

“You watch too many movies,” he told her. “They can be just about anyone who has good connections with the city. They can work in some import office or a trade delegation. You want people who can move around the city without trouble. The SVR watched the embassy to see who comes in and out. So it would be the last place you’d want a filed agent stationed. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s someone who works nearby.”

The other tourists continued to move around the exhibits. Rick was keeping a close tab on what time it was as he searched for something. Monique asked him what we was looking for and he told her a panel made of Jade from nineteenth century China. It was where he was supposed to meet the contact, but only at a set time. Five minutes in either direction would be useless.

“So we don’t even know who we’re looking for,” Monique said to Rick later on.

“No,” he told her, “but the time is getting close. I figure he or she will be early, but you can never be sure about these things.”

“How will you know who they are?” she asked. “You don’t know what your contact even looks like.”

“We have a series of conversational signs and countersigns to use,” Rick told her. “I know it sounds so corny, but it works when you need to meet someone in public you don’t know. I have the first part memorized, but the final sections I received when I was on the computer.” He turned and looked at the big clock on the top of the arch in the hall they were in. “It’s just about time, so we need to find the exhibit I’m supposed to meet them at.”

They wandered around until finding a bronze Buddha from the early fourteenth century from Japan. Rick stopped, looked at it and turned his head sideways. “This is it,” he said. “It fits in with the description I was given years ago. Now all we have to do is wait.”

Ten minutes later a small pretty brunette with dark Italian features appeared and began looking at the Buddha as well. She was fashionable dressed in heels and wearing a white leather jacket over her outfit. She had long black hair tucked under her cap and turned to face them while they were standing next to the statue. Rick frowned; she looked no more than twenty years old. Couldn’t be the person they were waiting to see. He turned away from her.

“Did you see the moon last night?” she asked Rick.

Stunned, Rick turned back and said. “I wasn’t outside last night. What did it look like?”

“It was a dark phase,” she told him, “so we didn’t get to see it.”

“I need to get out more often,” Rick said to her, trying to figure out if she was really the contact, “but it’s been a bad year.”

“It’s been a lousy year for me as well,” she replied.

“Black bear,” he said to her.

“Night hawk,” she replied again.

“You’re the station chief?” he asked her. “You seem so…”

“Young?” she said in a voice which was very soft and feminine. “I’m thirty-five, but thanks for the compliment. People say I look a lot younger. Comes in handy at times. People don’t suspect a little girl and will say just about anything around me.”