Blowback

Emmy Curtis

New York

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CHAPTER ONE

There was nothing like floating into an exclusive European cocktail party dressed in a beautiful Marchesa dress and borrowed Jimmy Choos, looking and feeling like someone in a James Bond movie.

Unfortunately, Molly would never know what that felt like. Still clutching the lost-baggage receipt the airline rep had given her, she shook her head and looked at her scuffed sneakers. Why, oh why, had she dressed like a bum to travel? She knew the answer. Archaeologists never wore anything they didn’t mind getting ripped and dirty—too many excavation directors made people work as soon as they arrived—it had just been force of habit. At least her nails were clean this time.

The Athens-bound taxi bounced over a pothole, and Victoria Ruskin, a stringer for some East Coast channel who Molly had been sitting next to in the plane, bashed her head on the roof of the cab.

“Sonofa…”

“Seatbelt?” Molly said pulling at her strap and raising her eyebrows.

Rubbing her head, Victoria said, “I think you should just skip the cocktail party and come hang out at the Media Club. At least jeans are the norm there. And the dirtier they are, the more hardcore you look.”

Molly didn’t know what to say. She wanted to go to the Media Club with her new friend and forgo the embarrassment of turning up at a black-tie event in jeans, sneakers, and a HISTORY ROCKS T-shirt she’d picked up at a geology conference. But she couldn’t. She was on a mission.

Not like a mission to seduce or a mission to stun. A real mission. A government-requested goddamn mission that she was about to completely flunk.

“I can’t. I have to at least show my face,” Molly said, staring out at the city lights wondering how everything could have gone so wrong so quickly.

“Seriously, you do not want to miss the war stories of the guys at the Club. And besides, there’ll be plenty more cocktail parties to go to during the endless freaking weeks of the G20 meetings. At least two every day. You’ll have plenty of time to wear your fancy dress.”

Molly sighed. She was only supposed to be in Athens for a few days, but it felt futile to explain. “I know.” She changed the subject. “So how long are you here covering the G20? What’s your main event?” Most of the week was boring meetings of international rules regarding antiquities, energy development, and banking. Nothing, Molly imagined, that made for exciting TV. Oh God, was she trying to think like a spy now? She mentally rolled her eyes at herself.

“Oh…I’m here for the fracking discussion in the energy development sessions,” Victoria said. “Three scientists are speaking for the first time about measured effects on the environment, and because we’re just about to do a major vote on it in our viewer area, my channel wants me here to see if someone’s actually figured out whether or not fracking is safe. Glamorous, right?”

Molly wiggled her toes in her shoes. “We sure are living the dream, aren’t we?” She gave a rueful smile. Victoria seemed nice, and she was happy to have met her on the flight and to have figured out that they were both heading for the same fancy hotel. She just wished that she could get this stupid mission-slash-favor out of the way so she could go back to panicking about the speech she was scheduled to give at the antiquities meeting. And since that wasn’t happening until Thursday, she also had plenty of time to hang out with Victoria at the Media Club, wherever that was. It sounded fun.

“So, the Media Club?” Victoria asked again, as the taxi ground to a halt outside the huge hotel opposite the government palace.

“I’d love to later in the week. Maybe I’ll catch up with you at breakfast tomorrow and we can compare our schedules?”

Victoria looked disappointed. “Sure, maybe I’ll see you later.” She slipped Molly some euros for the taxi and said, “It’s on me. I bet I have a bigger expense account than you.”

“That wouldn’t be hard, because I don’t have even a small one.” Molly laughed and watched as the journalist followed the porter carrying her bags into the hotel. She paid the taxi driver, hauled her paltry duffel bag on to her shoulder and walked into the ornate hotel. She had to learn to pack better. Jimmy Choo and Marchesa deserved carry-on baggage status, at the very least.

She checked her phone again, hoping she’d messed up on her time zone calculations. No, unfortunately not. And still no text. She bit her lip. Dr. Doubrov, the Russian antiquities minister, was only at the meeting for this one day. It had been made very clear to her that this cocktail party was going to be her only opportunity to slip him the note that she’d been given. And she was already two hours late.

She still couldn’t believe she’d agreed to do this. When Brandon had first called her a week ago, she’d thought he wanted to ask her for a date. After all, he’d spent a lot of time with the team that had debriefed her for the State Department’s official report on her last trip to Iraq. But no, turned out he wanted a different kind of favor. Just a small task, he’d said. One that would help her country immensely.

Of course she’d said yes. After her time with various military and ex-military people the previous year in Iraq, she’d been proud to be asked. Of course, the only answer had been yes. They met on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, where he gave her a message to pass to Dr. Doubrov. “What on earth? Can’t you just send him an email?” she’d asked.

“The Russians moved back to paper and ink about five years ago to ensure none of their secrets could get hacked,” Brandon had explained. “The KGB—or the SVR as they are now—almost exclusively use typewriters now. He’d never take a thumb drive or anything that could compromise him. The only way for me to reach him is through you. You already know him, and you’re already scheduled to attend the only party he’s attending. No one will get suspicious about old friends chatting.”

“So what’s the message?”

He slipped her two plain, small envelopes, one with her first name on it, and one with her last name on it. “I’ll text you with one word before you get there. Just open the corresponding envelope, read it, and recount it word for word to Doubrov when you see him. Then destroy both the envelopes afterward.”

It all seemed so…Bourne Identity-ish.

But exciting though.

“Make sure no one overhears you talking to Doubrov. He usually has bodyguards, so get close enough for it to be a private conversation.” His voice was getting tighter and more clipped the more he spoke. He seemed stressed to her. A single drop of sweat trickled diagonally across his temple. It was warm, but it wasn’t that warm. His fingers danced on his leg as if he were playing an imaginary piano.

“Are you okay?” she asked in a low voice. “You look…tense?” Her mind raced, wondering what was so important that he would ask someone who could only really be described as a remote acquaintance to help him out.