Kara glanced around the bar and saw her assignment in the lobby still talking on his phone. Kornev looked back in her direction and waved, which was a positive action. That acknowledgment indicated he did not want her to leave. But then who would? Kara had never met a man that wanted her to leave, which was both a blessing and a curse. Her looks had opened many doors, but now, as she watched this Russian scumbag negotiate a meeting with the North Korean scumbag, she understood just how many doors her looks had closed.
Kara’s father was an international Banker and she was a rich spoiled socialite that fluttered along beside her father, wherever his business journeys took him. Of course all of that was a lie. That was the life of Tonya Merkulov, her fictitious cover. But all her papers, passport, visa, all her background cover story was in place and even searchable on Google. Tonya had a Facebook page that showed all the wonderful places she had been and all the wonderful people she had hobnobbed with. Dozens of dresses, scores of fake parties, fancy cars, stunning people, amazing nightclubs and exotic beaches. All of that had all been photographed and photoshopped in a single day. Some of it was shot in front of a green screen and the people and places had been added into the background, and the other photos were real of Kara being Kara. The CIA had the staff to turn a no-one into a someone in a matter of twenty-four hours. They worked with Google to directly seed Google’s powerful search engine with all sorts of links that pointed to Tonya’s past. Her fake Dad’s history, her fake Mom’s social events, but nothing about fake brothers and sisters. Why make more work for the agency than was absolutely required? No, Tonya was an only child. An only beautiful child. An only spoiled beautiful child that didn’t think any more of taking a lover for a night, than she would a cold remedy.
Kara saw her new acquaintance click off his phone and begin walking back toward her. She sat up rail straight and rolled her shoulders back and pressed her chest out. This beautiful stuff was for the birds, she thought as she held out her hand like a princess, waiting for it to be kissed by her returning Russian target.
“Я надеюсь, что я не оставлю вас слишком долго?” Kornev said, taking her hand into his and softly touching his lips to her skin.
“Мне было интересно, если вы когда-либо собирались вернуться,” Tonya responded, flashing what looked like an annoyed smile.
It was all a game. All acting. And there was no award based on the performance. No Oscar or Emmy. If she was perfect, executed her role marvelously, then the payoff would be information that the CIA could use to save millions of people’s lives. If she was having a bad day and her acting was not on point, then her award would not be a Golden Globe, but more in the shape of a lead bullet. It would be presented to her while she was sleeping via a high-powered hand gun with a silencer. Double-tap to the head. A high-class whore wrapped up in bloody silk sheets and found by the morning hotel staff. The Nizhny Novgorod police would chalk it up to another woman who played too close to the fire and got burned. Things were dangerous in the reformed USSR. Her fictitious father and mother would probably not make a big stink about it and therefore the police would not work themselves to death figuring out the who and the why.
But Kara had no intention of ending up as a silk mummy. This wasn’t her first rodeo. Victor Kornev was a dangerous man, but he was just a man. And men were her specialty. They always had been. As early as she could remember, boys were just big hairy goofballs that melted in her hands. Life was simple when you were beautiful, because men were simple. Since men ran most of the world, then the logic was easy. If you owned the men, then you owned the world.
Kornev released her hand and said, “Я извиняюсь, но мой бизнес очень требовательны. Я надеюсь, вы понимаете.”
Kara quickly translated the Russian in her mind, which equated to, “I am sorry, but my business is very demanding. I hope you understand.”
She calculated her response and said in Russian, “I don’t like business. I like to have fun. So are you all about business or do you like to have fun too?”
Tonya’s Russian was satisfactory. There were inflections of German, English and even a little Australian in her pronunciations of the hard-edged language. Kara was a language major in college. She had a knack for it and didn’t know why. Neither her real mother or father spoke any language other than English; however, her father was proud of the fact that he spoke a little Pig Latin. Some people were great at math, it just clicked for them, and the same could be said for Kara when it came to languages. By the time she had left college and had joined the CIA, she could speak more than six languages conversationally and understand many others, which made her even more desirable as a spy.
Kornev switched to French and asked, “Que pensez-vous de venir jusqu'à ma chambre pour un peu de champagne. Peut-être avec peut regarder un film à la télévision.”
Yeah right, Kara thought to herself. An invitation to go up to your room to watch a movie and drink some champagne. The French language was a nice change from the stilted Russian. French had a mellifluous and wonderful softness that few other languages possessed. French had lyrical phrasing and a sophisticated elegance, but still, Kornev was saying basically the same thing in any language. I want to take you up to my room and fuck you. It didn’t matter what language he used or how the offer was phrased, it still meant that same thing.
Unfortunately, sex was part of the job. Not part of the old CIA, but it was part of the new CIA. The bad guys vetted women by bedding them. It was good security craft. Certainly no foreign agent would get paid for having sex with their quarry, but again, that was the old CIA and the bad guys must have never got the memo. If you wanted to be a woman spy and work in close, undercover, then you had to work under the covers. It was simple as that, and the CIA had told her as much before she had signed on the dotted line. Straight up, her job was seduction in all its shapes and forms. Hell, the new CIA authorized their agents to snort drugs and drink and have sex. It was a regular sorority party. But Kara had always been a free thinker when it came to sex. She enjoyed sex and if the target was good looking, as was Kornev, then all the better. What she didn’t like was the postcoital intimacy and therefore she played that for all it was worth. Her assignments could get into her pants, but if they wanted to get into her heart, then they would really have to work for it. They would have to spoil her. They would have to make time for her. They would have to discuss their lives with her. She would insist on traveling with him. She would meet his friends and his business partners. She would be in his bed, in his bathroom and have access to his laptop and cell phone. He would have to offer up a big part of himself to woo her. A chunk big enough to loosen that rusted key on her heart, else she would treat him as if he were a one-nighter. And that drove most of her assignments crazy. So close, but so far. They could have all of that lovely outside, but all that wonderful and fulfilling affection, the gooey inside filling, well that was off limits and had to be earned.
Kara considered Victor’s invitation for sex and booze. She would be surprised if the TV was even turned on. There was a time element involved with this assignment. From the briefing she had received from her handlers, Kornev was always on the move. It was uncommon if the man spent two days in the same country. So the timetable had to be advanced. She didn’t want to come across as an expensive prostitute, but on the other hand she didn’t want him getting bored and frustrated and moving on. In a perfect world, she would do what she needed to do tonight and be out of the country before he awoke in the morning.