The Sparrow School was not a totally unforgiving place; everyone was allowed one failure on the test nights, just one. A week after the disaster Svetlana had again been taken into Moscow, to a club popular with the capitols young and rich, and visiting western businessmen who came to ogle at young, scantily clad bodies on its dance floor. There was a book running amongst the staff of the school, and the odds lay against Svetlana’s ‘disappearing’ after this night was high. The tutor with the task of selecting her partner for the night had a week’s wages bet on her failing, and she selected for Svetlana an overweight German businessman in his late thirties, with halitosis and impressive clusters of ginger hair sprouting from each nostril and from within each ear. If she had expected Svetlana to balk at the task then she was disappointed, for from the moment she left the tutors sides she was a different person. With steadily falling spirits the tutor had observed her charges manner on the dance floor as she’d gone about catching the targets attention, this was definitely not the pitifully pathetic teenager who had sobbed quietly on the journey back to the school a week before. Six hours later the unconsciously pronounced swing of Svetlana’s hips as she’d left the hotel room, and the twinkle in her eyes had confirmed what the tutor and her colleagues had witnessed on the hotel room monitors, a star had been born.
So here I am again, she thought as she stepped from the bath to wash her long hair in the basin. I have come full circle, and it is almost time to wear… no, to become that other person once more.
Patricia had found Caroline’s sketches and was looking through them when she heard the bathroom door open; she hurriedly tucked them away behind Caroline’s armchair and went upstairs. In the room the Russian girl used, tucked away on its own at the rear of the house, she found Svetlana sorting through the contents of a trunk brought from Moscow by their contact on the first night. She knew for a fact each item fit her; she just needed something for the American. She smiled widely at Patricia when she appeared, Svetlana’s characteristic exuberance had returned and she hissed triumphantly.
“Yessss!” when she found what she had been seeking. Dropping her towel she extracted a pair of suede leather thigh length boots, before pulling on a matching number that tied up down both flanks. Its designer had intended it to be a top, to go over a blouse, skirt or jeans, but the Russian girl wore it on its own as a mini dress and as anyone observing from the side could see, she wore nothing beneath it.
“Whoa there, honey!” a laughing Patricia exclaimed as the Russian bent over to adjust the fit of her boots, and reached into the trunk to extract a g string which she tossed to Svetlana.
“You are showing way too much territory, if you know what I mean… you’ll catch your death!” The tiny item was wiggled into before a very short skirt was passed over to Caroline.
“These are all mine, my… former tools of the trade. I left a lot of stuff in storage when I left, and as I’m still the same size, and you’re a ten as well, so we should make a convincingly hot pair.”
Caroline first held it at arm’s length, and then against her hips. The filmy silk skirt barely covered her buttocks and was also see-through.
“No way ‘lana!”
“It will be curfew by the time we get to where we are going, and that is to the dacha’s owned by very important people. The only people who go there at night are people on urgent official business… and very expensive hookers. Although most of the owners are conspicuously absent, the area is patrolled by the militia and we could be stopped at a mobile checkpoint.”
Both Americans had been supplied with Swiss passports and visas in Scotland, which described them rather vaguely as being in the entertainment business, and both spoke some German from their frequent postings to that country.
“If we are stopped, leaving the talking to me, don’t say anything, don’t even acknowledge their existence… in fact your whole attitude should be arrogant and one of you can’t afford me, ok?”
Caroline felt butterflies start playing bumper cars with her stomach lining.
“Er, I’m not a spy, I fly advanced aircraft to far flung exotic climes, often populated by strange, yet interesting peoples, and I bomb the shit out of them with pinpoint accuracy… but Lara Croft I ain’t!”
“I need you because the old lady’s bum would look big in that skirt I just gave you… Caroline, your job will be to stay with the car and watch the clock, if I’m not back within ninety minutes you drive back here, collect Patricia, get to the Nighthawk, and get the hell back to the West.”
“Do you know who it is you are going to meet?”
Svetlana levelled with her, telling as much as would be safe for the American to know.
“I know who the meeting is for the benefit of, but there is a chance that they cannot be there and a proxy will be waiting instead. The proxy will be someone in a position to know the information we need, and in a position to deal.”
Patricia picked up on that last word.
“Deal?” Her own profession dealt with more black and white issues, cloak and dagger wasn’t the norm for aircrew. “So this isn’t one of our guys working undercover, or a CIA mole then?”
“No, this is someone who has always worked for the state, and has now reached lofty heights… ” Pat’s mouth opened to protest, but Svetlana continued.
“You won’t know this, but there is currently a high turnover of people filling the top slots of the new Soviet Union, and they have to be feeling pretty damned worried that they don’t screw up. Giving one of them the option to cut and run could seem extremely attractive about now.”
Patricia mulled it over in her head for a moment.
“You know these guys personally, like on friendly terms?”
“Yes, I know the one the contact was made with; I doubt we could exactly be termed as friends though.”
Caroline was as much unhappy with the situation as Patricia, and she shook her head.
“So if there is bad history there, then why you… I mean why not send Constantine, or even one of our spooks?”
Svetlana couldn’t tell her it was because they wanted something from her personally; she certainly couldn’t state that an element of revenge was possibly a motive, so she told a half-truth. “They know me from before, and I made the initial contact… so when I’m talking immunity and several million in cash, to see out their days in comfort, it will come across better than from a totally unknown face.”
“Are they trustworthy though?” Caroline’s butterflies were not getting any better with what Svetlana had told her up to now.
The Russian almost pulled a face. Trustworthy? It wasn’t the first word that jumped to mind. Ruthless, controlling, perverse and morally corrupt were certainly the lasting impression she had, but before, once quid pro quo had taken place to the satisfaction of all parties, they’d kept their word.
“Providing they get what they want… yeah, they’ll do their part.”