Tatyana climbed the stairs and then collapsed onto the bed. She fell asleep for a few hours and when she woke up, the streets outside had come to life. Market stalls, hawkers, hookers, dealers of every type. It was a good place to lie low.

She had work to do but she was exhausted. She went into the bathroom and had a shower. Then she dressed her wound and changed into some fresh Target clothes. It felt good to be clean. She went down to the ground floor and asked the girl at the desk to order her some Chinese food.

Then she went back to the room and turned on the television. She sank into the bed and watched some people bid on the contents of a storage locker in California. It was surprisingly engaging.

When the knock on the door came, she took the gun from her backpack and slipped it into the back of her jeans. It was the girl from the lobby with her food. Tatyana tipped her well.

Then she sat on the bed and ate three times her normal meal, the food sprawled out on the bed like a picnic. She watched to see if the guy who’d won the auction made a profit on the storage locker’s contents. It had contained some valuable baseball cards that saved him.

All the time, she mulled over a single question.

Who’d found out she was leaking to the Americans?

And how?

She pulled out the laptop she’d bought and tethered it to the cell phone. Then she downloaded the Tor browser and began setting up a VPN.

49

Igor stood by his office window, his forehead resting against the cold glass, and wondered what to do.

He reached into his pocket and felt the crumpled, blood smeared piece of paper. It was still there. Wishing it away did no good. He pulled it out and looked at it. On it, in Agniya’s handwriting, was the name of a high-level database, and her access password.

He thought back to her final moments.

He’d been so blinded by rage. By betrayal. He’d never fully trusted her, but he’d wanted to. There’d been moments when he’d thought maybe she was the one person on earth that he’d be able to let his guard down for.

He could still feel the structure of her throat as it collapsed under the pressure from his thumbs. The memory of it made his stomach turn.

She’d told him that this database was the only reason she’d ever been assigned to his desk. She was a spy, a mole, and she’d been planted so that the top floor could have complete access to all Tatyana’s movements and operational communications.

They’d been watching Tatyana all along.