Page 41 of Gryphon

You never hit me that night, Pavle. I made you so angry, yet you never lashed out at me.

How low a standard was that? He’d never given such things any thought. The mere idea that a woman like her had been reduced to such a basic criterion filled him with a rage like no foreign aggressor.

He asked who had hit her. She only shook her head, but rested a palm over her heart. Someone had hit right there—from the inside. Who was an easy guess: her father. Never violent, but a man given to dark depression. At heart, Elene was a gentle woman.

Father had never attacked Mother. They’d raged at each other from time to time, occasionally slept apart for a few nights, once for a whole month that had struck terror into his young boy’s heart. But afterward? He’d learned to make himself scarce when the make-up sex kicked in. Pavle still blushed at the memory of the sounds coming through the bedroom wall despite his headphones cranking Phil Collins, Foo Fighters, or whoever was hot that week.

He should have been a drummer like Collins. Sexy groupies, road tours, drunken camaraderie of the band. Except he’d never seriously thought about music when he was young. Instead of rhythm he’d had a gift for languages. Instead of his father’s path, teaching science at the university, he’d followed in Mother’s footsteps—straight into the intelligence service.

That had been one of Elene’s other revelations during her week gone.

I followed you to work one morning after you threw me out. I’d never done that before.

She didn’t mention why or that it was probably to slash his tires or cause him trouble at the office.

Then I saw what building you went into.

The Service’s triangular building stood inside its own, high-walled compound with heavy security at either gate. The only sign was the blue-and-white 51 of the street address screwed into the face of the concrete wall topped with razor wire. Everyone knew what lay behind that wall and no one talked about it.

She’d waved off his protests that he couldn’t explain. She’d always hated that he wouldn’t tell her about his work.

I understand that now. I thought you were a lowly office worker or something, ashamed of what you did. So low that you didn’t want to talk about having such a pitiful job with all your brains.

At least she hadn’t equated him with being an often-out-of-work steelworker like her father.

I thought you’d put away your head. I don’t want a man with no ambition who never tries for more. Again her father. But you aren’t, are you, Pavle?

He’d shaken his head. He’d always liked the way she said his name. And he knew exactly what she’d been referring to.

She wanted to marry up. Almost anyone would be a step up from her father on the ambition scale. Her father didn’t care about anything other than his dinner being on time and ice hockey or football depending on the season. He wasn’t cruel, at least not that Pavle knew about, but he certainly thought no honest work ever came from being educated. Refusing to support his daughter’s wish to go to the nursing school she so desired fit him to the bone.

Ever since her return, they’d simply fit together. He didn’t think she was shamming. It wasn’t some great love, but…they were good together. She liked working with the preschool kids and was finally talking about starting on a nursing degree with a specialty in pediatrics. Plenty easy to read what that meant about his own future after he married her—he’d need to think about a bigger flat.

Last night when she’d asked if he’d propose to her again, he’d seen such hope that he couldn’t say no. Her bright squeal of joy as she’d launched at him finally made him appreciate the passionate bursts of noise his parents had always made when they made up after a fight.

Talking about his job remained out of bounds. They didn’t have security clearances for girlfriends. Or fiancées for that matter. He wasn’t ready to ask about wives.

Besides, even if he did talk about how he’d spent this year, he certainly wouldn’t want to. How many lies could one man live? Apparently a lot of them.

Senior analyst on special assignment to the chief’s office. With the raise they’d given him, he could send Elene to nursing school without worrying about her bringing in even part-time daycare income.

And reporting directly to the service’s chief offered immense cachet at the office. People now came to him with their operations proposals for vetting and advice. The teacher, so recently the underling, now pretending wisdom. And the pretense often proved sufficient to make the ideas roll until a solution was found and fine-tuned.

He wished he had someone to take his plan to. Someone to ask for advice without sabotaging his whole future.

A trap of his own devising. Become the acknowledged expert, founder and manager of a key intelligence initiative—with no measuring its true worth.

Or morality.

He’d wanted to ask Elene about that. But he didn’t dare, not even late at night whispered under pillows.

The whole operation was out of his control now. For the timing to work, the escalation that was Phase Three had been initiated days ago.

Just like his marriage to Elene, he knew it was too late to stop it. In her case he hoped it would be a good thing. In the operation’s…

33

Kapten Arne Sorenson fired the engine on his Saab JAS 39E Gripen fighter jet. Three minutes from alert to departure didn’t happen by chance, it took constant practice by the whole team.

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