Careful not to make any sudden moves, I raised my hands. “I surrender.” If I just played along, my chance to escape would come. I rose from my knees and turned to face my captor.

It was Yelena.

The circle of the gun barrel glinted a steady silver. “What do I do with you?” she said, in English.

“Let me go? I promise never to do it again.”

She chuckled. “I am to believe that?”

I backed away a little, in the direction of the bathroom. I’d read her file. She wasn’t a killer, so she probably wouldn’t shoot if I ran for the bathroom. Probably. And she would think she had me trapped. Then if I could just keep the door closed long enough, I would have a chance.

“Really,” I said, “you don’t want to shoot me. You’d have to clean up all the blood, and disposing of a body is a real hassle.”

She shrugged. “No hassle. I call police, say I shoot burglar. They dispose of body.”

“Well, then, think of all the annoying paperwork.” I tensed myself, preparing to lunge for the bathroom. I would do it in the middle of my next sentence, to catch her as off guard as possible.

“I do not want to kill you, Nat,” she said, “but I must have prototype.”

I started to speak, then just stood there with my mouth open as the full impact of what she had said hit me. She had called me Nat.

“What did you call me?” I finally asked, not sure I believed it.

“Nat,” she said. “Is name you give me in Barcelona. You have different one now?”

My heart raced. “You … can remember me?” Had my talent stopped working? No, people still forgot me after Barcelona.

Yelena raised an eyebrow. “How can I forget my handcuff partner? When I see you across street, I know you plan to search for prototype, so I come back.”

Obviously, she remembered. Was she just naturally able to block my talent? No, she had forgotten taking the prototype from me at gunpoint the first time we met.

Since she could remember me, my talent was useless in trying to escape from her. But I didn’t want to escape — I wanted to find out why she hadn’t forgotten me. Could it somehow be the result of the magnetic lock in the handcuffs?

It would be really stupid to get myself killed the first time I met someone who could remember me. I had to gain her trust somehow.

I wouldn’t be able to try multiple approaches with Yelena, so honesty was my only option that could work in the long term. “My name is Nat Morgan. I’m a CIA officer. My assignment was to steal back the prototype and switch it with a fake. The fake is in one of my pockets. Is it okay if I take it out very slowly?”

She nodded, so with deliberate slowness I unbuttoned the pocket and withdrew the fake prototype. I turned it so she could see both sides.

“Why switch?” she asked. “Why not just steal?”

“Because the fake has a tracking device—”

She swore in Russian. “Drop it on floor and destroy.”

“Wait,” I said. “The CIA isn’t after you. We just want to track where the prototype goes. We know you’re selling it to Jamshidi, and we want to track it to his lab.”

“Very nice plan for you,” she said. “And when Iranians find prototype not work and has tracking device, not so nice plan for me.”

“You’re right,” I said. “I hadn’t considered what might happen to you if my plan succeeded. But if you help me locate Jamshidi’s lab, then I can protect you, give you a new identity in the United States. For your mother and sisters, too.”

Yelena stiffened. “What do you know of my sisters?”

Maybe mentioning her sisters had been a mistake. But I couldn’t restart the conversation, so I had to make the best of it. “I know they’re with their father, when legally they should be with your mother. But maybe the chance to move to America would tempt them away from their—”

“I not move to America,” she said. “I must work for the Bukharins.” She almost spat that last word.

On the plane, I had been puzzled by Yelena’s willingness to work for the mob. But from the hatred in her voice I realized they were forcing her to work for them, probably through blackmail or extortion. “Have they threatened your family?” I asked. “If we can get your family out—”

“Is too late,” she said. “Bukharins take my sisters last year and sell them. High price for twins on sex slave market.”

“But I thought they were with your stepfather.”

“They leave note, but I know is lie. They hate him — they never go live with him. Then I find picture of them for sale by Bukharins. I quit SVR to infiltrate syndicate and find where they sell my sisters.”

During the course of her explanation, her hand holding the gun lowered. The gun now pointed at the floor instead of me. I could have run, but instead I sat down on the edge of the bed.

“And have you found where they were sent?” I asked.

“No.” She sniffled. “Ten months I work for them, but they not trust me yet. They not give me access to files.”

“But you’re a great thief,” I said. “Why haven’t you broken in to steal the files?”

“Too dangerous. If anyone without proper authority steal or look at the files, then they maybe they move or kill my sisters.”

I nodded. “So you’ve been trying to work your way up in the organization until you’re authorized to access the files, including your sisters’.”

“Yes. But may never happen.” Frustration filled her voice.

“If I could get the information on your sisters without tipping off the Bukharins, would you help me get the location of Jamshidi’s lab?”

“Is finding lab so important?” she asked. “There must be easier way. Why risk for me and my sisters?”

Maybe because she was the one person who could remember me. Maybe because saving girls in trouble made me more like the hero my mother wanted me to be. But I couldn’t say that.

So I shrugged and said, “How could I desert my handcuff partner?”

* * *

After a casual surveillance stroll around the block that housed Klub Kosmos and the Bukharin Syndicate’s headquarters, Yelena and I sat in a booth in a bar in downtown Moscow to plan our operation.

“Once inside club,” she said, “I get guard to let us into private rooms in back.”

I had a sudden moment of doubt. In the past, forgetfulness about me had always spread from the people I met to include the people they talked to about me. But since my talent didn’t work on Yelena, maybe it wouldn’t extend to the people she talked to about me. That would make my plan unworkable, because I was relying on her to talk me past the guards, who would then forget me.

“We need to test something,” I said. “Introduce me to someone.”

“Who?”

“Anyone.”

She stood and beckoned me to follow her to the bar. “Vasilyi!” she yelled, and one of the bartenders came over. They exchanged some words in Russian.

Vasilyi leaned over the bar to me and said in English, “What can I get you, bubba?”

“Diet Coke,” I said.

He poured me one. “On the house.”

“Thanks,” I said. I took a sip, then put it down. “Let’s go,” I said to Yelena.

“Where?”

“Somewhere he can’t see us.”

She rolled her eyes and took me to the back of the bar near the restrooms. “Good enough?”

I looked back and couldn’t see the bartender. “Good enough.”

“What is this about?”

“I’ll show you in a minute.”

She heaved an exaggerated sigh. As we stood there and my mental clock ticked off the seconds, I felt foolish — here I was with a beautiful woman who could remember me, and all I could do was annoy her.

“Okay,” I said. “Take me back to Vasilyi and ask if he remembers me.”

“Why?”

“Please, just humor me.”

Back at the bar, she summoned Vasilyi again and asked him something in Russian. He sized me up, then shook his head. They talked a little more, with Yelena looking more and more puzzled as the conversation progressed. Meanwhile, I grew more and more relieved. My talent still worked on everyone but Yelena.

Finally, Vasilyi leaned over the bar to me and said in English, “What can I get you, bubba?”

“Diet Coke,” I said.

He poured me one. “On the house.”

“Thanks.” I picked up the drink and motioned toward our booth.

“He say I must be drunk,” said Yelena, “because he never meet you before. How do you make him forget?”

“I’m very forgettable,” I said. “It’s a talent I have.”

“Talent?”

“It’s happened ever since I was a baby. No one can remember me for more than a minute after they don’t see or hear me.”

A cute wrinkle appeared in her brow as she looked at me skeptically.

“I’m serious,” I said. “You’ve seen it work twice now.”

“Twice?”

“Remember the guard who locked us up in Barcelona? I was able to surprise him because he didn’t remember I was there.”

“But … how is such a thing possible?” There was still and edge of incredulity in her voice.

I shrugged. “I wish I knew. I used to think maybe it was some sort of pheromone I give off, but since it works against computers, that can’t be it.”

“What do you mean, works against computers?”

“Information about me just disappears from anything electronic. That includes any computer logs of my actions, which is why I can be so sure I can find the info about your sisters without leaving a trace.”

“Is incredible,” she said, but her tone conveyed acceptance.

“I’ve learned to live with it. Use it to my advantage — it really helps when I’m on a mission.”

“Make you sloppy,” she said.

Now it was my turn to be puzzled. “Sloppy?”

“You expect me to forget you — that why you not hide your face outside my building. I not like working with sloppy people. The plan is too risky.”

“Yelena,” I said, “you are the first person in my life to remember me when seeing me again. The first person ever. I wasn’t sloppy — I didn’t even know it was possible for someone to remember me until you said my name. We’re connected somehow, and that’s why I want to help you find your sisters. Trust me, I can do this.”

She studied my face for a few seconds, then said, “I will trust you.”

* * *

Even outside Klub Kosmos, I could feel the bass beat in my chest. Yelena bypassed the line and walked right up to one of the bouncers, with me right behind her. The bouncer, a barrel-chested man wearing a black suit and black tee-shirt, unhooked the velvet rope to let Yelena in.

“He’s with me,” she said in Russian, jerking a thumb over her shoulder in my direction.

The bouncer gave me a nod and let me pass.

Once inside the door, we had to pass through a metal detector. Yelena handed her purse to another bouncer, who took a casual look inside. The gun didn’t faze him — he closed the purse and handed it to her on the other side. The Bukharins trusted her to be armed in their club, which meant they didn’t know she knew what they’d done her sisters.

The closest thing I had to a weapon was the carbon-composite lockpick set I had stowed in the waistband of my underwear, so I made it through the detector without setting off any alarms. Taking my hand, Yelena guided me through the mass of gyrating bodies on the dance floor to the rear of the club.

I couldn’t help worrying that she would feel the sweat on my palms. Maybe she would think I was too nervous about the operation and would abort. I was nervous, I realized, even though missions like this were almost routine for me. The difference was that this time I had an audience I needed to impress, and who could remember if I messed things up.

After Yelena vouched for me, the guard let us into the private rooms. As the door closed behind us, the club’s sounds faded to only mildly ear-shattering. Yelena led me up a narrow flight of stairs, then knocked on a door.

We were admitted by another guard. Thick red carpet — just the right color to hide bloodstains — muffled our footsteps as we entered the office. A silver-haired man sat behind a large glass desk. From the file I’d read on the Bukharin syndicate, I recognized him as Dmitri Ivanovich Bukharin, one of the three brothers in charge.

When he saw us, he rose.

“Yelena, it is always a pleasure,” Dmitri said in Russian. “I just wired payment for the Barcelona job to your account.” He glanced at me and added, “And who is your guest?”

“His name is Nat Morgan,” she said. With one quick movement, her gun was out of her purse and shoved into my ribs.

“Yelena!” I said. “What are you—”

“Shut up.” Her voice was all business as she backed away, keeping her gun aimed at me. She continued in Russian, “He’s the CIA officer who interfered with me during the Barcelona job. He tracked me down, so I pretended to let him convince me to help find the Iranians’ lab.”

Dmitri chuckled, then spoke in English. “You should be more careful who you trust, Mr. Nat Morgan of the CIA.”

“Obviously,” I said.

 

 

Careful not to make any sudden moves, I raised my hands. “I surrender.” If I just played along, my chance to escape would come. I rose from my knees and turned to face my captor.

It was Yelena.

The circle of the gun barrel glinted a steady silver. “What do I do with you?” she said, in English.

“Let me go? I promise never to do it again.”

She chuckled. “I am to believe that?”

I backed away a little, in the direction of the bathroom. I’d read her file. She wasn’t a killer, so she probably wouldn’t shoot if I ran for the bathroom. Probably. And she would think she had me trapped. Then if I could just keep the door closed long enough, I would have a chance.

“Really,” I said, “you don’t want to shoot me. You’d have to clean up all the blood, and disposing of a body is a real hassle.”

She shrugged. “No hassle. I call police, say I shoot burglar. They dispose of body.”

“Well, then, think of all the annoying paperwork.” I tensed myself, preparing to lunge for the bathroom. I would do it in the middle of my next sentence, to catch her as off guard as possible.

“I do not want to kill you, Nat,” she said, “but I must have prototype.”

I started to speak, then just stood there with my mouth open as the full impact of what she had said hit me. She had called me Nat.

“What did you call me?” I finally asked, not sure I believed it.

“Nat,” she said. “Is name you give me in Barcelona. You have different one now?”

My heart raced. “You … can remember me?” Had my talent stopped working? No, people still forgot me after Barcelona.

Yelena raised an eyebrow. “How can I forget my handcuff partner? When I see you across street, I know you plan to search for prototype, so I come back.”

Obviously, she remembered. Was she just naturally able to block my talent? No, she had forgotten taking the prototype from me at gunpoint the first time we met.

Since she could remember me, my talent was useless in trying to escape from her. But I didn’t want to escape — I wanted to find out why she hadn’t forgotten me. Could it somehow be the result of the magnetic lock in the handcuffs?

It would be really stupid to get myself killed the first time I met someone who could remember me. I had to gain her trust somehow.

I wouldn’t be able to try multiple approaches with Yelena, so honesty was my only option that could work in the long term. “My name is Nat Morgan. I’m a CIA officer. My assignment was to steal back the prototype and switch it with a fake. The fake is in one of my pockets. Is it okay if I take it out very slowly?”

She nodded, so with deliberate slowness I unbuttoned the pocket and withdrew the fake prototype. I turned it so she could see both sides.

“Why switch?” she asked. “Why not just steal?”

“Because the fake has a tracking device—”

She swore in Russian. “Drop it on floor and destroy.”

“Wait,” I said. “The CIA isn’t after you. We just want to track where the prototype goes. We know you’re selling it to Jamshidi, and we want to track it to his lab.”

“Very nice plan for you,” she said. “And when Iranians find prototype not work and has tracking device, not so nice plan for me.”

“You’re right,” I said. “I hadn’t considered what might happen to you if my plan succeeded. But if you help me locate Jamshidi’s lab, then I can protect you, give you a new identity in the United States. For your mother and sisters, too.”

Yelena stiffened. “What do you know of my sisters?”

Maybe mentioning her sisters had been a mistake. But I couldn’t restart the conversation, so I had to make the best of it. “I know they’re with their father, when legally they should be with your mother. But maybe the chance to move to America would tempt them away from their—”

“I not move to America,” she said. “I must work for the Bukharins.” She almost spat that last word.

On the plane, I had been puzzled by Yelena’s willingness to work for the mob. But from the hatred in her voice I realized they were forcing her to work for them, probably through blackmail or extortion. “Have they threatened your family?” I asked. “If we can get your family out—”

“Is too late,” she said. “Bukharins take my sisters last year and sell them. High price for twins on sex slave market.”

“But I thought they were with your stepfather.”

“They leave note, but I know is lie. They hate him — they never go live with him. Then I find picture of them for sale by Bukharins. I quit SVR to infiltrate syndicate and find where they sell my sisters.”

During the course of her explanation, her hand holding the gun lowered. The gun now pointed at the floor instead of me. I could have run, but instead I sat down on the edge of the bed.

“And have you found where they were sent?” I asked.

“No.” She sniffled. “Ten months I work for them, but they not trust me yet. They not give me access to files.”

“But you’re a great thief,” I said. “Why haven’t you broken in to steal the files?”

“Too dangerous. If anyone without proper authority steal or look at the files, then they maybe they move or kill my sisters.”

I nodded. “So you’ve been trying to work your way up in the organization until you’re authorized to access the files, including your sisters’.”

“Yes. But may never happen.” Frustration filled her voice.

“If I could get the information on your sisters without tipping off the Bukharins, would you help me get the location of Jamshidi’s lab?”

“Is finding lab so important?” she asked. “There must be easier way. Why risk for me and my sisters?”

Maybe because she was the one person who could remember me. Maybe because saving girls in trouble made me more like the hero my mother wanted me to be. But I couldn’t say that.

So I shrugged and said, “How could I desert my handcuff partner?”

* * *

After a casual surveillance stroll around the block that housed Klub Kosmos and the Bukharin Syndicate’s headquarters, Yelena and I sat in a booth in a bar in downtown Moscow to plan our operation.

“Once inside club,” she said, “I get guard to let us into private rooms in back.”

I had a sudden moment of doubt. In the past, forgetfulness about me had always spread from the people I met to include the people they talked to about me. But since my talent didn’t work on Yelena, maybe it wouldn’t extend to the people she talked to about me. That would make my plan unworkable, because I was relying on her to talk me past the guards, who would then forget me.

“We need to test something,” I said. “Introduce me to someone.”

“Who?”

“Anyone.”

She stood and beckoned me to follow her to the bar. “Vasilyi!” she yelled, and one of the bartenders came over. They exchanged some words in Russian.

Vasilyi leaned over the bar to me and said in English, “What can I get you, bubba?”

“Diet Coke,” I said.

He poured me one. “On the house.”

“Thanks,” I said. I took a sip, then put it down. “Let’s go,” I said to Yelena.

“Where?”

“Somewhere he can’t see us.”

She rolled her eyes and took me to the back of the bar near the restrooms. “Good enough?”

I looked back and couldn’t see the bartender. “Good enough.”

“What is this about?”

“I’ll show you in a minute.”

She heaved an exaggerated sigh. As we stood there and my mental clock ticked off the seconds, I felt foolish — here I was with a beautiful woman who could remember me, and all I could do was annoy her.

“Okay,” I said. “Take me back to Vasilyi and ask if he remembers me.”

“Why?”

“Please, just humor me.”

Back at the bar, she summoned Vasilyi again and asked him something in Russian. He sized me up, then shook his head. They talked a little more, with Yelena looking more and more puzzled as the conversation progressed. Meanwhile, I grew more and more relieved. My talent still worked on everyone but Yelena.

Finally, Vasilyi leaned over the bar to me and said in English, “What can I get you, bubba?”

“Diet Coke,” I said.

He poured me one. “On the house.”

“Thanks.” I picked up the drink and motioned toward our booth.

“He say I must be drunk,” said Yelena, “because he never meet you before. How do you make him forget?”

“I’m very forgettable,” I said. “It’s a talent I have.”

“Talent?”

“It’s happened ever since I was a baby. No one can remember me for more than a minute after they don’t see or hear me.”

A cute wrinkle appeared in her brow as she looked at me skeptically.

“I’m serious,” I said. “You’ve seen it work twice now.”

“Twice?”

“Remember the guard who locked us up in Barcelona? I was able to surprise him because he didn’t remember I was there.”

“But … how is such a thing possible?” There was still and edge of incredulity in her voice.

I shrugged. “I wish I knew. I used to think maybe it was some sort of pheromone I give off, but since it works against computers, that can’t be it.”

“What do you mean, works against computers?”

“Information about me just disappears from anything electronic. That includes any computer logs of my actions, which is why I can be so sure I can find the info about your sisters without leaving a trace.”

“Is incredible,” she said, but her tone conveyed acceptance.

“I’ve learned to live with it. Use it to my advantage — it really helps when I’m on a mission.”

“Make you sloppy,” she said.

Now it was my turn to be puzzled. “Sloppy?”

“You expect me to forget you — that why you not hide your face outside my building. I not like working with sloppy people. The plan is too risky.”

“Yelena,” I said, “you are the first person in my life to remember me when seeing me again. The first person ever. I wasn’t sloppy — I didn’t even know it was possible for someone to remember me until you said my name. We’re connected somehow, and that’s why I want to help you find your sisters. Trust me, I can do this.”

She studied my face for a few seconds, then said, “I will trust you.”

* * *

Even outside Klub Kosmos, I could feel the bass beat in my chest. Yelena bypassed the line and walked right up to one of the bouncers, with me right behind her. The bouncer, a barrel-chested man wearing a black suit and black tee-shirt, unhooked the velvet rope to let Yelena in.

“He’s with me,” she said in Russian, jerking a thumb over her shoulder in my direction.

The bouncer gave me a nod and let me pass.

Once inside the door, we had to pass through a metal detector. Yelena handed her purse to another bouncer, who took a casual look inside. The gun didn’t faze him — he closed the purse and handed it to her on the other side. The Bukharins trusted her to be armed in their club, which meant they didn’t know she knew what they’d done her sisters.

The closest thing I had to a weapon was the carbon-composite lockpick set I had stowed in the waistband of my underwear, so I made it through the detector without setting off any alarms. Taking my hand, Yelena guided me through the mass of gyrating bodies on the dance floor to the rear of the club.

I couldn’t help worrying that she would feel the sweat on my palms. Maybe she would think I was too nervous about the operation and would abort. I was nervous, I realized, even though missions like this were almost routine for me. The difference was that this time I had an audience I needed to impress, and who could remember if I messed things up.

After Yelena vouched for me, the guard let us into the private rooms. As the door closed behind us, the club’s sounds faded to only mildly ear-shattering. Yelena led me up a narrow flight of stairs, then knocked on a door.

We were admitted by another guard. Thick red carpet — just the right color to hide bloodstains — muffled our footsteps as we entered the office. A silver-haired man sat behind a large glass desk. From the file I’d read on the Bukharin syndicate, I recognized him as Dmitri Ivanovich Bukharin, one of the three brothers in charge.

When he saw us, he rose.

“Yelena, it is always a pleasure,” Dmitri said in Russian. “I just wired payment for the Barcelona job to your account.” He glanced at me and added, “And who is your guest?”

“His name is Nat Morgan,” she said. With one quick movement, her gun was out of her purse and shoved into my ribs.

“Yelena!” I said. “What are you—”

“Shut up.” Her voice was all business as she backed away, keeping her gun aimed at me. She continued in Russian, “He’s the CIA officer who interfered with me during the Barcelona job. He tracked me down, so I pretended to let him convince me to help find the Iranians’ lab.”

Dmitri chuckled, then spoke in English. “You should be more careful who you trust, Mr. Nat Morgan of the CIA.”

“Obviously,” I said.


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