“What about you?” she asked, not giving him a chance to question her further. “Why does a high-ranking member of the Nomenklatura become a career diplomat? Bored of playing with your silver spoons, were you?”
He grinned at the mention of his debatable ancestry. At the time of the Tsars, people like Petrov held society in the palm of their hands, but now that the masses had turned to communism, they had lost most of their power and influence.
“My mother made sure I received a long and inclusive education, but one does grow bored of tutelage after a while. When the opportunity to try something else presented itself…” He let his sentence hang. “Turns out that my ancestry is an advantage today, as the Swedish Royals prefer to deal with someone of the same rank as themselves.”
Sofiya smiled at him, though his words chafed on her nerves. She hated people who thought of themselves as superior purely because they were born into the right family. They were all about enjoying the fruit of the labour of the workforce, without ever lifting a finger to help with the harvest.
They kept moving from buffet to buffet and from acquaintance to acquaintance. Petrov never bothered to introduce his date to the men and women he ran into, and the silences between encounters and bites of food were filled with meaningless chatter.
When the evening ended, the young woman was no closer to ensnaring the diplomat than when it had started. Though he seemed to enjoy her company, Petrov hadn’t given her a single opening. Keeping a reasonable distance at all times, filling his hands with either a glass or a plate, he’d made sure she couldn’t get promiscuous. Moreover, he’d made sure their discussion topics remained vague and punctuated by long silences.
As he led her to his car, she couldn’t tell if he’d enjoyed himself or not. On the one hand, he’d looked at ease during the gathering, smiling throughout and politely greeting the guests he knew. But a part of her couldn’t help but think that the diplomat’s smiles were as empty as her own.
Petrov’s black car turned left at the Kremlin Palace exit and followed the Moskva River south. At eleven-thirty, the streets were deserted, and the man drove away at high speed. Though she had never given him her home address, Sofiya noted that he’d taken the right direction to drive her home.
When the crude concrete block of flats where she lived loomed in the distance, Petrov surprised her by taking a left turn in a small, unlit, back-alley. She sat straighter in the leather seat but chose to remain silent as she waited to see what he was playing at.
The diplomat parked the car at the end of the road before exiting the ride without a word. He’d left the engine running and the headlamps on, a silent invitation for her to join him in the cold night.
A scent of musky fabric and motor oil hit her when she stepped outside, and she looked around to orient herself. She easily recognised the area; her escort had parked in front of the entrance of a textile factory.
At this late hour, the place was deserted, and Sofiya knew that if she were to scream her lungs out in this place, no one would hear her. That being said, it also meant no one would witness it if Petrov took her hard on the hood of his car. Thinking that she may have misread the signals and that the diplomat was interested in her after all, she slowly sashayed over to him.
In the harsh light of the headlamps, the man looked pale as he turned to face her. “Don’t bother,” he said in a cold-as-ice tone that froze Sofiya’s blood. His smile was gone, as were the kind, amiable manners he’d used with her all evening. “Did the old fool really think I would fall for that? Our chance encounter at the archive this morning, and then you acting like the perfect potential girlfriend all evening?”
Once more, Sofiya was faced with the cold, calculating man she’d met in Sweden. She hadn’t fooled him, but he had fooled her. Why? she wondered. Why had he wasted his time toying with her like that?
“They still don’t trust me,” he continued, “even after what I promised them?”
“They doubt your allegiance and question some of your acquaintances,” Sofiya confirmed, seeing no reason to lie to him at this point. “Perhaps if you delivered on that promise?”
“I need more time,” Petrov said darkly. “And the right person to do the job.”
Having no idea what they were talking about, the young woman could offer no insight. She surmised this had to do with the mysterious TJ–9 operation he’d mentioned in Sweden, but no one had bothered to clue her in about the details. But whatever it was, it hadn’t been enough to quell the head of Directorate K’s doubts.
Sofiya held the man’s gaze as she considered which approach to take. He had her at a total disadvantage. Unarmed, in a remote location, she had no choice but to win the game if she wanted to make it out of that alley alive. If only she could understand how this man worked. Earlier, she’d thought she had him figured out, but she’d been wrong on all accounts. Even now, with his controlled, expressionless face, Viktor Petrov remained a mystery. His features were schooled into a perfect picture of placidity; he was a frozen pond in a dead forest on a continent where no one lived.
“I don’t know what you’re looking for,” he said. “But you won’t find the answer on my face.”
“You had spy training, didn’t you?” she asked, coming to the only possible conclusion.
Petrov straightened up and looked down at her. A manufactured smile appeared on his lips, but it held no warmth. It was merely the result of flexed muscles, and it made her think of an automaton who’d just been fed a coin.
“And it took you this long to figure it out?” he questioned. “I would have thought the KGB trained you better than that.”
Sophia felt stupid. Why had she assumed that with him being part of the Nomenklatura, he would have stayed away from the army?
“A lot of diplomats receive basic training. The fact that I come from wealth hasn’t allowed me to escape that,” he said, as if reading her thoughts. “Actually, I quite enjoyed my time there and asked for the full package.”
“Time well spent, I imagine,” Sophia said, not surprised he’d enjoyed learning how to mask his emotions and deceive people.
“Indeed. Unfortunately, I cannot carry out field missions,” he continued. “With my past, were I to be caught, the consequences would be terrible—politically.”
Or rather you don’t like to get your hands dirty, thought Sofiya. “That’s too bad; with those sharp cheekbones, you’d have made a fine raven,” she remarked, hitting a nerve.
Petrov’s voice darkened, the only sign that her words had affected him. “I doubt it. I’m not good at pretending, and I care little for these deceitful games.”
“Then why become a diplomat? With the money you have, you could move anywhere and live a quiet life.”
Another empty smile bloomed on his lips. “If I told you that it was out of patriotism and devotion to my country, would you believe me?”
Sofiya gave him a mock smile of her own. “No, I wouldn’t.”
“It is, however, the case,” he said.
Silence fell on them again. Aside from the car’s engine purring at their side, there was no other disturbance in the small back-alley—not even a stray animal scavenging for food.