Page 75 of Winterveil

JULIAN JOYCE-YOUNG III: I assume you’ve never tasted unlabeled Macallan.

DET. MAHONEY: So it was all for the expensive booze, then? Not the girls?

JULIAN JOYCE-YOUNG III: Trust me, I don’t need to pay for companionship.

Flush rising to her cheeks, Klaudia briskly set his file aside.

And then Giselle. Her file was shockingly thin, with only the sheet of basic biographical details, a few report cards, and a pageant questionnaire. Of course, Klaudia thought, with a twinge of something that was almost jealousy. Of course she was a pageant queen. For one of the open-ended questions, Giselle had written about her little sisters and her pet beagles. It was all so mundane. Klaudia could not imagine how Dr. Iver had even found her. Did he normally peruse West Virginia local papers?

The first scientifically verified eidetic memory, her biographical data said. Even if Klaudia believed it, how did that fit into their mission? She could see the ability being helpful in a number of general cases, but it elucidated nothing specific. She put Giselle’s file aside.

At last she picked up Nadiya’s. It was also surprisingly sparse. There was a newspaper article about a Dr. Alexander Karam—her father—who had been killed, along with her mother, in a mysterious double homicide nine years ago. The sheet with Nadiya’s biographical data stated that Dr. Karam had worked for the CIA, but any information about what he had done there was redacted.

With a sigh, Klaudia dropped the paper and let it flutter to the ground.

By the time Klaudia returned to the main room, the others were awake. Julian, Giselle, and Crispin were sorting through the food Deckard had left them—all canned, as if to further dispel any notion they might’ve had that spy work was glamorous. Nadiya was seated on one of the couches, intently watching the dated, black-and-white television.

Klaudia approached. The television was tuned to a news channel, the image rippled with static. Chancellor Hauke was giving a speech from behind a podium. His German was subtitled in Russian.

Slowly, Klaudia lowered herself onto the other end of the couch, causing Nadiya to look up.

“Do you speak German?” Klaudia asked. “Or Russian?”

“Not even a little bit,” Nadiya said. “I was hoping I could pick something up through context clues. Do you think it’s a real speech?”

If Deckard could produce such convincing holograms, surely CIA technology was advanced enough to fake a news broadcast. Klaudia squinted for a moment at the subtitles.

“He’s talking about the kidnapping of the East German scientist by the Soviets,” she said. “Moritz Satow. Dr. Iver sent us the article about him a few weeks ago.”

“A real speech, then.” Nadiya regarded the screen, brow furrowed. “But nothing especially helpful to us.”

“Maybe, maybe not.” Was it all tied to Satow somehow? If so, what was the point of Deckard’s caginess? Satow’s disappearance was not a secret; it had made the front page of the New York Times. “I went through all the files again this morning.”

“Of course you did.” There was a note of both teasing and genuine admiration in Nadiya’s voice.

That made it all the more awkward for Klaudia to transition to the next part. “Something stood out to me, in your personal file.”

Nadiya shifted away from the television, so that she was fully facing Klaudia. “What is it?”

“It was about your father.” She tried to keep her tone serious without becoming grim. “It said he worked for the CIA before he was—”

“Murdered.”

“Yes.”

A moment of silence passed. This sort of conversation was not within Klaudia’s skill set. It required an elegant manipulation of language she was incapable of. Perhaps it was better suited to Julian’s talents—notwithstanding the fact that Nadiya seemed to openly despise him.

Maybe Klaudia needed to let her guard down in order to convince Nadiya to do the same. She cast about for a personal anecdote of her own.

She could have made something of her deprived Russian childhood, she supposed, though in truth she hardly remembered it. What she did remember was their first apartment in America, a two-bedroom Brooklyn walk-up, which didn’t have a doorman but was hardly the fare of a sob story.

Besides, Klaudia didn’t relish playing the role of noble Soviet. Long-suffering, bestowed of an ethereal wisdom borne of their oppression under communism. She was not so guileless as to allow herself to be used as an instrument of facile Western propaganda. Her father had been sure to impress that upon her. If you must be a piece in their games, make sure you are an indispensable one.

From what Klaudia knew of Nadiya, she operated under a similar worldview. Maybe that was her way in.

“I think this might be crucial to completing the mission,” said Klaudia carefully. “Understanding the reasons each of us were chosen . . .”

Nadiya’s jaw was taut, but she nodded.