Shaken, Not Stirred (The Spy Who Vanished) by Alma Katsu

Author:Alma Katsu [Katsu, Alma]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Amazon Original Stories
Published: 2024-07-18T00:00:00+00:00

THREE MONTHS LATER

Today is the first snowfall Yuri has seen since coming to the United States. He stands at the window in his modest dwelling and worries as tiny snowflakes fall to the ground. How will he get around out here in the country? Will he need skis? A snowmobile or, at the least, a four-wheel drive? Ren assures him that the snow won’t be bad in the middle of the Virginia countryside. It’s nothing like Russia.

Langley has moved him into a cabin on the far reaches of the Farm. His debriefings continue in the main building there, Ren coming down every week or so to talk to the evaluation team and spend time with him.

“I think this might be the very cabin where they put my father up when he first came over,” Ren says when she visits for the first time. She walks around the dark little chalet, touching the outdated fixtures and thrift store furniture with something like reverence.

“It suits me,” Yuri says. He lives like a monk, takes his meals in the cafeteria in the main building and uses the spartan gym in the basement, alongside the new hires sent there for training.

“They let me talk to the new ones. The baby spies,” Yuri says as he hands Ren a mug of tea. “I’m a ‘guest lecturer.’”

She beams at him. “Just like my father.”

He asks when things will change for him. He doesn’t think he is being impatient, but he feels something warring with this new zen-like attitude he is trying to adopt.

Ren blows over the mug. “Patience, Yuri. These things take time. In the meantime, Jack says everyone back at headquarters is very happy with what you’re giving them.” Yes, it is nothing like those days at the safe house, when he was deliberately trying to confuse everyone. He’s been forthcoming, giving them names, dates, full accounts of his operations. It’s felt good, like he’s purging his soul. This atonement has contributed to his monk-like attitude.

“How is Jack?” Yuri asks. Since Montego Bay, Jack has stepped back from the operation. Yuri cannot blame him: he took a nasty blow to the head and is still recovering. He’s been given a desk job at Langley, but he hasn’t come out to the countryside to visit Yuri.

“He’s doing better. Still getting dizzy spells.” Ren almost spills her tea as she bolts upright. “I almost forgot to tell you—Jennifer Grayson has been kicked upstairs. She’s head of the clandestine service now. The rumor is she got promoted for the way she handled your case.” Does Grayson deserve credit for getting him to come clean? He doesn’t think so—Ren should get the promotion, to his thinking—but that is how it goes with bosses, whether in America or Russia.

“They’re working on your case,” Ren says, settling back into the chair. The Justice Department, she means. He’ll be processed through the witness protection program, be given a new identity and a new home in another part of the country. CIA will send him money to live on.

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