Page 88 of Two is a Pattern

“Oh, that’s a load of total bullshit,” he said. “With a brain like yours in that hot little body? Any police force or private sector business would hire you. Shit, I’d hire you.”

“I think there was a compliment buried in there somewhere,” she said. “Somewhere deep.”

“I mean, more power to you, getting the government to fund this little detour—”

“You think this was my idea?”

“—but I really think you’re doing yourself a disservice,” he said, ignoring the interruption. “Wasting away in LA.”

“Well, thank you, sir. Your opinion is noted.”

He slowed down to turn in to a neighborhood with big houses and well-manicured lawns, then flicked his cigarette butt out the window. He drove down half a block. “This house is4572.”

She looked at the house and waited for him to say more, but he simply drove deeper into the neighborhood. He slowed again. “This one is2381.” And again. “And that one is6714.”

They circled out of the neighborhood and back onto the main road that would take them back to the freeway and downtown. “Tonight,” he said, “you’re going to meet someone at the south entrance of Griffith Park to collect what you need. By the end ofthe week, you’ll have implanted listening devices in all three of the houses we visited today, as well as two others.”

“Not a lot of prep time.”

“You’ll get some background along with your bugs.”

“You know, my specialty is really interrogation,” she pointed out. “Working for the CIA doesn’t automatically make me James Bond.”

“You’re saying you can’t do it?”

“No,” she said. “I’m saying there’s no way I’m the most qualified person in Los Angeles, though.”

“Well, sweetheart,” he said, “you’re the most qualified one that works for me.”

She sighed. “What time tonight?”

* * *

She arrived an hour early, parked a few blocks away, and headed to the meeting place. Found an obscured place to wait, pulled out her binoculars, and made herself comfortable. In her work and her travels, she found that things always went better when she had sufficient information. Espionage wasn’t about elaborate outfits or code words or guns with lasers; it was about patience. It was about listening and waiting and watching.

So she listened and waited and watched, munching through a bag of peanut M&Ms until, finally, a car pulled up and parked. The engine cut off, the lights went out, and then a man got out and looked around.

That was likely her guy.

She approached cautiously, moving through the dark easily enough that she startled him and he swore. In Russian. And it wasn’t anything like her Russian. As fluent and proficient as she was, she would never sound like a native speaker.

Why was this man, obviously a native speaker, helping the United States government? A defector, maybe. That hadhappened a lot during the Reagan administration and just after as Soviet spies realized that life was better in America. They defected for money, promising Soviet secrets to maintain their Western lifestyles.

She reached out for the envelope he held and said,“Eto vse?”

“Da,”he said.

She turned around to head back to where she’d left her car.

“Wait.” His accent curled around the word.

She turned to look at him.

“You are just a girl,” he said, scanning her up and down. “How can you be the spy I am to meet?”

She turned away from him. “That question is annoying every single time,” she muttered.

* * *

---