"What about this?" She held up a soft blue sweater.
"Beautiful. It matches your eyes," he said without thinking. "But don't forget that the summer where we are going is not a Finnish summer. You won't need this in the village."
"True." She added it to the pile anyway.
He was wise enough not to ask why.
They found two rolling suitcases, and Carol discovered a face cream that wasn't French, but it made her happy nonetheless.
"Five minutes to spare," she announced, checking her watch. "Time to get food."
The grocery store was small but well-stocked. They loaded a cart with fresh produce, bread, cheese, and wine.
"Frozen pizza for Dougal." Carol added several boxes to the cart. "And beer. We've all earned it."
"We have." Lokan selected a bottle of whiskey that was basic but would do.
They were heading for check-out when Carol suddenly stopped, her hand tightening on his arm. "Lokan."
He followed her gaze to the newspaper rack. The headlines were in Finnish, but the photos were unmistakable—their faces, clearly taken from some identification database, stared back at them.
"International business couple missing," Carol translated with the help of her phone. "Feared kidnapped."
"Well," Lokan said, "that's not ideal."
"You think?" She pulled him away from the papers. "We need to go. Now."
They weren't famous or important enough to appear in a Finnish newspaper, so it was obviously Gorchenco's doing. He must have bribed the editor to run the story so that they would be easier to locate.
They checked out quickly, the teenage cashier barely glancing at them as she scanned their items. Still, Lokan felt exposed, watched, even though logic told him no one here would connect them to the newspaper photos of a cosmopolitan-looking couple.
Loading the car felt like it took forever, every passing stranger a potential threat. Only when they were back on the forest road did Carol relax.
"I'm so glad that I changed my hair color." She cast him a sidelong glance. "You shouldn't have shaved."
He lifted his hand to rub his jaw. "Yeah, I shouldn't have. Too late, though."
"We look nothing like the business executives in those photos." He gestured at their casual clothes. "Someone would need to pay close attention to recognize us from those."
They drove in tense silence for a few minutes before Carol spoke again. "You know what the funny thing is?"
"What's that?"
"Six months ago, seeing our faces in a newspaper would have been good for business. Now it's a disaster."
"Our definition of success has changed," he agreed.
"For the better, though." She squeezed his hand. "We are finally going home."
They pulled up to the safe house as the sun was setting. Grant met them at the door.
"Any problems?" he asked.
"Define problems." Carol handed him grocery bags.
Lokan showed him a photo of the newspaper on his phone, and Grant's expression darkened. "That's not good."
"Every intelligence service in the world will be looking for us," Lokan said.
