Berlin
Nadya pushed through the crowded dance floor of the club, discreetly pocketing the injection pen. She exited before her work was noticed and joined the flow of drunken clubbers streaming along the sidewalk. A few blocks away, she ducked into another bar, found the bathrooms and locked herself in a stall. The costume was simple enough to remove. She put the wig and glasses in her shoulder bag. The brown contact lenses went into the toilet. She used makeup remover to return her face to its standard clean state. The cleaning wipes joined the contacts and she flushed. With a change of shirt and shoes, she completed the transformation of her look from club princess to college student. Emergency vehicles passed as she made her way to her rental car. She drove to a hospital and tossed the injection pen into a bio-hazard bin. On the way to the airport she stopped several times to dispose of the rest of her costume and the shoulder bag. She dropped off the rental, retrieved a suitcase from the trunk, and checked in for her short flight back to London.
***
Nadezhda Petrovna Morozova grew up in a run-down neighborhood in Moscow. Her father worked in a factory until an injury permanently sidelined him. Her mother was a clerk in a local market. They both drank heavily and fought frequently. They loved her, in their way, but did little parenting. This only troubled her a little. She wanted a very different life and devoted herself to school. They were proud when she was accepted into a top university as a seventeen-year-old. She was in her second year of study in St. Petersburg when a police officer visited her tiny shared flat to inform her of their deaths in a traffic accident. She allowed herself a day to grieve them and then threw herself completely into her studies. The dread of a return to poverty kept her focused. She felt entirely alone. Enrolling in martial arts classes gave her a sense of strength, and left her physically exhausted for sleep each night.
Nadya excelled at languages, psychology, and athletics. In her final year, this attracted the attention of security service recruiters. The FSB was a romantic dream job for the 21-year-old. She was thrilled to work for her country. Her first three months of training gave her the sense of belonging to a new family. She was assigned to a counter-terrorism unit as a junior officer.
Her first job was tracking Chechens in Moscow, ferreting out the separatists, and cataloging their trivial offenses to threaten them into confessing to larger plots. Her talent lay in building trust. She was young and attractive, to be sure, but it was her charisma that made her a great interrogator. In fact, she felt little empathy for anyone, but could convince them all that she only wanted to help.
The FSB rewarded her with an undercover assignment. They sent her to Ingushetia, another troubled republic in the Caucasus. She traveled with a group of aid workers, to do medical outreach in the farming villages outside the Capitol, Magas. Her real job would be to uncover the networks that supplied weapons and other aid to the separatists. She was excited to go to the war zone, to fight for her country.
Nadya arrived in Magas late at night. The morning was a revelation. She stepped outside and breathed air sweeter and cleaner than she'd thought possible. She'd never ventured outside of large metropolitan areas. Magas was the tiny capitol of a sparsely populated republic. She walked past several low apartment blocks to a street that ended at fields. Before her was a plain dotted with farms and villages amid agricultural tracts, stretching away and up toward the snow-capped teeth of the mountains. She felt exhilaration and unease at the unfamiliar open space.
The clinic they opened treated mostly farmers but also victims of the violence. Locals helped with translation. One of these translators completely unwound her moral compass.
Laisat Dimayeva came to the clinic on a warm spring day in Nadya's second week. She was young, perhaps 20, and ethereally beautiful. She wore western clothes, pants in fact, but also the traditional scarf. The locals were Muslim, but the women didn't wear hijab, instead tying the beautifully patterned scarves like caps. Laisat had brown hair and hazel eyes dotted with specks of green and gold. Her face was soft, but defined with high cheekbones and full, pink lips. She spoke a heavily accented hello in a honeyed voice and Nadya was momentarily speechless. She recovered quickly while the girl introduced herself. By the end of the day, Laisat was employed as Nadya's assistant and translator.
That evening Nadya couldn't concentrate during the local intelligence chief's daily report. She was still agitated when she retired for the night. She tossed about in bed, unable to sleep. Every time she closed her eyes she saw Laisat's face, heard her voice, imagined her body. She opened the window, hoping the cool air would calm her. When the sky began to lighten, she fell into a fitful sleep, dreaming, of course, of Laisat.
Nadya was no stranger to sex. She'd had many lovers in Moscow, all older women. All in the strictest secrecy. The FSB would never tolerate these assignations. She wasn't ashamed. The risk was almost as thrilling as the sex. But she'd never felt anything like what she was feeling now, for this innocent country girl.
That was the week new bombings started. Nadya spent her days in the clinic, ordering supplies and assisting the medics, who were overwhelmed with treating the victims. Laisat was a valuable assistant, fluent in Russian as well as many local tongues. She had a quick mind and a flawless memory. Nadya knew she was falling for the girl, but had no time to entertain fantasies. Every night now found her in dark basements, interrogating prisoners. These were tough men, resistant to her charms. She was frustrated and tired and began to take pleasure in watching the torturers inflict her will.
Nadya took a night off from interrogation to inventory the large influx of medical supplies. She inspected every parcel while Laisat recorded the quantities. Laisat was uncharacteristically quiet, and seemed distracted. She looked worried, and had dark rings below her eyes. When Nadya reached past her for a box, Laisat froze. Nadya looked into her darkening eyes and was momentarily speechless. She smiled, patted Laisat's arm reassuringly, and stepped away. They finished the inventory and Laisat left for home, leaving Nadya unsettled and bemused.
Laisat seemed to withdraw in the following days. Twice, Nadya felt her staring at her. She did nothing, not wanting to frighten the girl away. Nadya continued to lead her double life, saving people by day and brutalizing them by night. After one hellish, bloody interrogation she came home exhausted. She'd just stepped into the shower when she heard a light tapping from her back door. She dressed quickly and drew her gun from its holster. She stood to the side of the door, unlatched it, and kicked it open. She nearly dropped her gun when Laisat stepped inside. She'd been crying. Nadya set down her weapon and pulled her into a hug. Laisat held her for a moment, then sighed.
"What is troubling you, sweet girl?"
Laisat didn't answer but stared at Nadya's mouth.
She reached up to touch Nadya's lips and it was all Nadya could do to stay standing. She kissed Laisat, as light as a whisper, and smiled, trying to reassure her. The girl was almost trembling with nervousness.
"I want...," she said.
"Come with me," Nadya said, and offered her hand. She felt a shiver of pleasure when Laisat held it. She led her to the bedroom and coaxed her to sit next to her. Laisat kissed her then, so gently and tentatively that Nadya thought her heart would break from the tenderness of it. She lay back on the bed and drew Laisat next to her for more soft kisses. Laisat grew bolder as they continued, deepening the kisses. Nadya let her lead. They kissed until their lips were swollen and then Laisat hugged her, snuggling close. Nadya held her, burying her face in her neck, inhaling her sweet scent as they both fell asleep.
Nadya woke alone, covered with a blanket. She grinned, happier than she could ever remember being.
Nadya couldn't focus at work the next day. Laisat usually arrived in the early afternoon, after she'd seen to her daughterly duties at home. That left Nadya with four hours of nervous anticipation. She didn't know if Laisat would even show up after their intimacy. When she finally entered the clinic, Nadya could feel her from across the room. She looked up to see Laisat smiling back at her. Laisat was busy that day, translating for the family of a young woman and the medical staff who helped her give birth to twins. Nadya was deep in her own work, writing up supply orders, when she felt Laisat beside her.
"Good job, today," she told her.
"Thank you," Laisat replied.
Nadya looked around the office. No one was looking their way. She took Laisat's hand. "Thank you for visiting me last night."
