General or not, Sofiya levelled him with a cold stare as she replied, “I’m an FCD agent, not a prostitute.”
A sneer that was full of contempt stretched the man’s lips, and he reached a hand forward to grab at her right breast. Blood rushed through Sofiya’s cheeks as an impulse to punch him thrummed through her entire body. Reality checked in just in time to remind her that she was nothing more than a field agent and that Igorov was a high-ranking officer and war hero. The hand on her breast tightened before letting go.
“Really?” he said. “You could have fooled me.”
With that, he was gone, climbing into the back of a sleek black car that hadn’t been there when Sofiya entered the flat earlier. She swallowed hard as she watched it disappear at the end of the street.
She had better pray the current situation would keep the general too busy for any kind of distraction, or else she’d have a hard time telling him no if he ordered her to come and see him for a private meeting.
High-ranking officers taking advantage of subordinates, though illegal, wasn’t unheard of within the ranks of the KGB. And such situations were especially frequent with Department K agents. Sofiya had always managed to evade cases like this, but she’d heard the rumours, same as anyone else. And she knew that if it were to befall her, there’d be nothing she could do about it. Taking the matter to court would only result in a nasty game of ‘he said/she said,’ and women were well known to lose at that game very often.
Bloody hell, she needed out of this life—like yesterday.
FRIDAY, MAY 9, 1986.
Sofiya had never been to the island of Södermalm before. The southern district of the same name was said to be the home of bohemian, alternative culture and a broad range of cultural amenities, and she had to agree with that statement. On her way down the street, she’d walked by two record stores—one that blasted Jamaican music and one that offered more of a Latino vibe—and she now stood in front of a glitzy afro hair salon.
Though it was nearly four in the afternoon, the sun was still high in the sky. A soft breeze blew in from the lake, but it wasn’t enough to force her into a coat. Sofiya stopped for an instant to enjoy the feel of the sun and fresh air on her bare legs before turning her back on the small boutique. Then she crossed the cobbled street and entered the art gallery on the other side.
A welcoming, open concept entrance showcasing a few signature pieces greeted her past the door. Further inside, she found a sparse reception desk and plain white walls that ensured the visitors’ focus remained on the art. Strategic lighting and room dividers encouraged patrons to wander through the space, and Sofiya counted a dozen men and women spread about the gallery.
The art currently exhibited was from a local artist who was—according to the pamphlet Petrov had given her—modern, audacious, and a worthy successor to the likes of Warhol, Lichtenstein, and Haring. Though she had no idea who these artists were, Sofiya liked the canvases on display—with their provocative metaphors and neon-bright colours.
The upscale crowd attending the showing flowed around her, filling the air with expensive perfumes, and their murmured words of appreciation for the art on display. Sofiya rearranged her hair before joining the ebb and flow. She had parted her long brown strands in two and tied them in twin pigtails with pink ribbons. Both rested on the front of her thin cotton-white blouse to help perfect the schoolgirl outfit she’d been going for. She wore a low-cut, checked skirt and a pair of knee-length white socks in polished black shoes.
The crowd of art enthusiasts might wonder what a teen like her did at an art show, but a second glance at the woman’s shapely hips and well-developed breasts would reveal that she wasn’t all that young after all. A closer inspection would uncover that she was bra-less and that, in the right light, her white blouse was rather see-through.
It took the young spy little time to identify her mark, and she zeroed in on him like a missile on a target: Erik Nilsson, cabinet member, and Speaker of the Riksdag. Holding the second-highest-ranking public position in Sweden, in terms of protocol, after the Monarch, Nilsson was the head and presiding officer of the national legislature and the supreme decision-making body of Sweden, the Riksdag.
Currently, the unassuming politician was busy staring at a portrait of a naked woman’s torso. The fifty-two-year-old man had a round face and a thick nose. There were tufts of grey hair on either side of his head, but the ones on top had long since pulled a vanishing act. A painting stood in front of his plump belly, and Sofiya feigned interest in it as she moved closer.
“Kinky,” she said with a girly giggle. “But I love his use of colours. That vibrant red really highlights her curves, doesn’t it? But I wonder what those neon cyan splashes over her torso are supposed to represent?”
“Well yes, it’s a nice piece. As for the—uh—the splashes, they—uh,” Nilsson’s face turned red as he struggled to finish his sentence. “Well—the artist’s—uh—content perhaps?”
That was a rather mild way of putting it, thought Sofiya. But she acted as if the truth hadn’t been staring her in the face the whole time and she’d just now understood what the myriad of dots on the woman’s breasts represented. She gaped and brought a hand up to hide her mouth.
“Oh my,” she said, with a nervous giggle. “Do you think that it’s his—?” she giggled some more, acting as if she was too prudish to say the word ‘sperm’ out loud.
“I rather think so, yes,” said a very flustered Nilsson. “Modern art, you know. It’s very daring.”
She reached a hand to him and offered him a smile that was all teeth and dimples. “Malin Waldenström.”
Turning to face her, the elder man shook her hand with a warm smile of his own. His eyes settled on her face as he introduced himself, and then lowered to take in the rest of her.
Sofiya had positioned herself to catch some of the lights aimed at the painting, and her white blouse had become but a thin veil over her naked skin. Nilsson had obviously found something more interesting than paintings to look at, and though he seemed to make an effort to try and focus on the woman’s face, his eyes kept darting down every few seconds.
“Do you like art, Erik?” Sofiya asked, batting her eyelashes at him. “I love it myself.”
“Oh yes,” he replied, “I love looking at nice things.” His gaze darted down once more, making it obvious what he thought was ‘nice’ in that moment, but the young spy pretended not to have caught the innuendo. She pushed her shoulders back and arched her back, and her nipples pressed against the thin material.
“I’m a sculptor myself,” she said, bringing both of her hands up, fingers wriggling. “I love working with my hands.”
There was a catch in the man’s voice when he said, “I’m sure you’re—uh, very good.”
Sofiya kept moving her fingers up and down, as if she were trying to create something out of thin air. Her voice had a husky quality to it when she explained, “It’s all about how much pressure you apply, you know? It can’t be too much, and it can’t be too little. Finding the right balance, that’s the difficult part.”
Erik Nilsson nodded with a faraway look on his face. Sofiya could easily guess at what the politician had in mind, and what he wanted her hands to apply pressure to. She played into his fantasy and started moving her hands more suggestively, cupping and jerking thin air.
Middle-aged men like Nilsson were easy to figure out, and the outfit itself would probably have been enough to lure him to the restroom. But Sofiya was a perfectionist, and she made sure there was no room left in his brain for anything other than sex before she took his arm to guide him to the back of the gallery. She pushed him into the men’s restroom, and his eyes grew comically wide when he found himself face-to-face with Petrov’s cold, calculating eyes.