Page 73 of A Spy is Born
Natalie’s brows raise. “I’ll do my best,” she says. The driver closes the door and bows to me slightly before heading back to the front seat. I stand there in that hot, harsh, smoky wind and watch the sleek black car pull away.
If her best isn’t good enough we are all screwed.
A black shoppingbag hangs on my doorknob. I pause when I see it, my heart rate picking up speed. I glance back toward the elevator doors; they are closing quietly on the empty chamber.
I’m alone in the hall.
But is someone inside my apartment? I pull my phone out of my bag as I approach my door and cue up Temperance’s number.
The bag is small and slick, shining in the hall’s bright lights. I peek into it without touching and see pink tissue paper and a business-card-sized note. It is embossed with the initials VS. Flipping it over, I see a note in tight black script.This is the book I told you about. I think you will like it. -Vlad.
The card trembles in my fingers.Vladimir is alive and giving me gifts.Pulling the bag off the doorknob, I swipe my fob and push into the apartment. I flick on the lights and find the place as I left it…or at least I think it’s the same.
Archie gives a bark from his crate in the bedroom.
My gun is stashed in the first drawer of the entry table, and I check the chamber and the safety before moving further into the apartment, leaving the black bag by the door. Sweat trickles down my back as I move toward the kitchen, my gun gripped in both hands.
The kitchen is empty, the door to the balcony locked.
Blood rushes in my ears, and I force myself to breathe evenly as I head to the bedroom. I left the door open, and the bathroom light on. It spills into the dark space, splashing across the made bed, throwing dark shadows into the corners. I flick on the lights, illuminating the room. Archie barks again, a high, happy sound from the far side of the bed where his cage sits.
It’s just the two of us.
I check my closet and the shower stall before letting Archie out onto the balcony to do his business. My dog back inside and the balcony door locked, I return to my living room and the waiting black bag.
It looks like it should hold jewelry or lingerie, not a book. Placing my gun on the table I pull out the tissue paper and unwrap a worn paperback. The cover features the Soviet sickle and a pistol resting on a spread of hundred-dollar bills.The Twentieth of January.
I thumb through the paperback, the yellowed pages releasing a fragrance I adore—old books.Nothing like it in the world.I take my pistol and the paperback with me. Archie follows climbing into his cage and circling twice before settling.It’s late, after all.
I put the book and gun by the sink as I take off my makeup and wash my face. Keeping them with me, I return to the bedroom and slip out of the dress, pulling on a nightshirt and climbing into bed.
Leaving the lights on in the living room and kitchen, as if electric bulbs can keep the bad guys at bay, I settle into the pillows, my gun next to me on the bedside table, and begin to read the thin volume.
The last pagecrinkles between my trembling fingers as I turn it.I finished the book in three hours.
The swirling rumors about Russian interference in the election, and the acknowledgment from the intelligence agencies of that reality, storm my brain.
The Twentieth of January, published in 1980,is a classic spy novel with a Manchurian candidate—except this one is the presidential candidate himself, not the brainwashed assassin. The book weaves a tale about an American businessman from a wealthy East Coast family who, with very little political experience, and spouting populist rhetoric, manages to win the presidency against far more experienced opponents.
A CIA operative discovers the plot and realizes that the Kremlin is in control of the president-elect. This creates a crisis for the intelligence agency: let a man with hidden ties to the Soviet Union become president, or create a possible Constitutional crisis by exposing the plot?
A no-win situation.
The book, however, has a satisfying ending. The President-elect’s wife is shown the compromising materials being used to blackmail her husband and confronts him. Overwhelmed with shame, he commits suicide before inauguration.
Why did Vladimir send me this?
I reach for my phone on the bedside table and call Temperance. It’s two in the morning, but I don’t care. Temperance picks up, his voice smooth—he wasn’t asleep or is excellent at faking wakefulness.
“Have you readThe Twentieth of January?” I ask.
There’s a brief silence, behind which I hear the shifting of bed sheets followed by the sound of a door closing.He was in bed with someone.
“Yes,” he answers. “How did you hear about it?”
I pull off my own blankets and begin to pace. “Vladimir Petrov first mentioned it to me in Shanghai—”
Temperance cuts me off. “What did he say?” His voice is like a laser, so hot and intent I stop walking, standing still in the middle of my bedroom.
