Free The Coil by Gayle Lynds Page A

her. “Yes, thirty. It’s time to quit acting like a boy, Simon. You’re too handsome for your own good. Too charming, and too cocksure.” Her small upper lip curled with distaste. “One wonders whether being in dark undercover with a bunch of borderline hoodlums is the only kind of assignment you’ll ever be good at.”
    He closed his mouth before he uttered one of his whiplash retorts, settling on, “I don’t suppose I should thank you for that.”
    â€œWrong. Thank me. I doubt anyone’s bothered to tell you the truth about yourself. Or maybe you just never listened.”
    She stopped the car at the waterfront, parking the nose downhill, toward the river. She turned off the engine and lights, and they sat in the dusky silence, alone in the parking lot, where no one would overhear their conversation or see through the darkened windows. To the left and right stretched the Danube—in Slovak, the Dunaj—magnificent and dark, tipped with mercury ripples, thanks again to the bright moon. To their left was the futuristic SNP Bridge, which stretched south from the old city to the sorry concrete-slab high-rises of Petralka, where Bratislava’s suicide rate was the highest. Those apartment buildings and all the other ugly, boxy projects on the outskirts of Old Town had been thrown up by the Communists—a stark cement legacy of the former Soviet Union.
    â€œI mean no disrespect, Ada,” he said, “but I shouldn’t think it’s the end of the world. I’ll talk to Stanford Weaver whenever he likes. Name the time and place, and I’ll be there. You know that.”
    She glared from the shadows. “It’s too late. He’s gone.”
    â€œAlready?”
    â€œThe Americans got him out fast. But then, embarrassment’s a great motivator. Viera Jozef’s theatrical death is going to be the top news story at daybreak. It’s duck-and-cover time for both the Yanks and the World Bank. Listen to me, Simon. Hear me clearly. Your behavior wasn’t part of the plan. Tonight you were supposed to have had a very important conversation with a very powerful new ally for Britain. Not only did you basically flip him off, you created an additional mess for him and the Americans. Dressed in that tux, you stood out in that motley crowd like a robed priest at an orgy.”
    There was something to her complaints, but in the high-stakes world of MI6, both in the field and in the office, you could show no weakness, reveal no doubts, or you were dead—sometimes literally.
    â€œWhat I learned tonight needs attending to,” he insisted. “The police, the media, and the public always know in advance when there’s going to be a big demonstration, because organizers abide by the laws and register. At the same time, they’re usually so excited they can’t keep their mouths shut anyway. But not last night.”
    â€œI’m listening.”
    â€œSomehow, more than five thousand protesters got past Slovakia’s border guards. I heard not a whisper ahead of time, and neither did the authorities or anyone else. Add to that tonight’s self-immolation—the first one, thank God, but you can bet it won’t be the last. Viera was no religious-based extremist. No al-Qaeda killer in the making. She was a young schoolteacher who donated her free time to hospitals and soup kitchens. Her whole life was ahead of her, and she had the face of an angel. Perfect for front pages and the top of the news. She’s a poster child for martyrdom.”
    â€œThere’s a point to this?” Ada said coldly.
    â€œThe point is, I may not have been holding some cheeky banker’s hand, but I was doing my job. I was assigned to be a penetration agent because we were worried the antiglobalization movement could breed soldiers for terrorist groups. Right?”
    She shrugged. “That was one reason.”
    â€œA bloody damn large