Karl smiled and locked arms with Maya as they started walking back toward their apartment building on the edge of campus. Nearly everyone in their master’s degree program lived in the old five-story complex that looked like a massive gray brick pockmarked with windows — an uninspired reminder of Soviet central planning, where architects were given no allowance for creativity. Karl guessed their designs were fueled by vast quantities of vodka, with a large sprinkling of indifference.
After a couple of blocks, they crossed the street near the Murmansk Train Station. Karl had planned to fly the drone in the main city soccer stadium, but that had been locked up tight this evening. Of course, he knew this would be the case, which would force him to fly over the nearby harbor and Kola Bay, the nearly 60-kilometer fjord leading to the Barents Sea. More importantly, some 20 kilometers up the bay was the headquarters of Russia’s Northern Fleet, which housed countless nuclear-powered subs with Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles aboard. Karl had taken a number of trips north to Severomorsk to get a look at that fleet, but there wasn’t much he could see that the Agency, the Air Force, and other organizations couldn’t capture from satellite images. But Karl had a feeling something wasn’t right about what he had just seen and video recorded with his drone camera at the Murmansk harbor. He needed to get word to the Agency to take a look at his recordings, assuming they had saved properly.
Karl had been somewhat distracted crossing the street, but once they entered the park that led to their apartment building, the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. Part of that, he knew, was the fact that a car had stopped in front of the train station. But instead of going into the station, two men had gotten out of the old car in a hurry and started heading toward them.
He stopped and turned so he could still see the men coming their way over Maya’s shoulders. “Maya, why don’t you go directly to the bar,” Karl said. “I’ll bring my things to my apartment and meet you there.”
“I can go with you,” she said. “It’s a short walk.”
Grasping her sleeve, Karl said, “I’ll just bring this to the bar with me.” They cut through the three inches of fresh snow toward the bar a couple of blocks away.
Glancing back, Karl could see that the two men had split up. But where was the second man?
By now they had nearly gotten across the expansive park and Karl could see the bar down a side street ahead. He heard the threat before he saw any problem. Footsteps squeaked quicker in the snow from behind him.
Karl turned just in time to deflect the man dressed in dark wool clothing, dropping his drone in the process. The larger man slipped on the snow and fell to his back with a crash.
Maya let out a little flurry of swear words.
Swiveling around, Karl finally saw the second man, who had vectored around in front of them. This man, smaller than the first, rushed toward them now.
The first man got up and swung at Karl, who easily blocked the strike and snapped a punch into the man’s jaw. But the big guy just shook it off and came at Karl again with a series of punches.
Karl snapped a side kick and hit the man’s forward knee, buckling him until Karl caught the man with a hook behind his head and drew the guy’s face into Karl’s knee.
But then as Karl twisted to the next target, the second man was on him, hitting him hard in the side of his head. The only good thing was the wool cap Karl wore suppressed some of the power. Still, Karl was stunned, drifting backward, his backpack hanging from one arm. Karl threw the pack into the snow.
The second man took advantage of Karl’s blurry vision, hitting him with an American-style football tackle. The man landed on top of Karl and the two of them scuffled around in the snow. Karl wound up on top and landed a number of strikes to the man’s face, until he felt the sticky moisture that had to be blood.
Maya screamed and Karl turned to see her struggling with the larger man over the drone.
Karl said, “Let him have it.”
But Maya continued to pull on the drone, kicking the man in the shins with her leather boots. She swore at this man again. Finally, the large man let go and Maya fell onto her back in the snow, bringing a laugh from the big guy. Now she let go and the man picked up the drone, shuffling off through the snow and yelling that he got it over his shoulder.
The Russian below Karl gave a thrust and Karl fell to one side. Long enough for the smaller man to jump up and run away. But he also grabbed Karl’s backpack.
Maya got to her feet and yelled at the two men.
She was feisty, Karl thought as he got up and brushed off the snow from his jeans.
“They stole your drone and your backpack,” she said. “We should go after them.”
Karl shook his head. “No. They have a car across from the train station. They’ll be long gone.”
“But that has to be expensive,” Maya pled.
“It was a gift from my parents,” he said, sticking with his lie. “It didn’t cost that much.”
Maya considered this and said, “What else was in your backpack?”
Almost nothing, he thought. “My phone,” he said. “But I can get another. It’s not worth dying over. Are you hurt?”
She shook her head. “No. Are you?”
He rubbed the left side of his head. “I’ll have a bump for a while. But I’ll live. Nothing a few beers won’t fix.”
Maya nuzzled closer and kissed him on the lips. “Nico, we deserve something stronger than beer. It’s a cold vodka night.”
Karl couldn’t argue with her. “You talked me into it.”
She smiled. “And then you make love to me.”
2
Karl and Maya had spent a few hours drinking at their local bar, getting more than a little inebriated. Vodka wasn’t his favorite unless it was mixed with something more palatable. While Maya took a bathroom break, he pulled out his Agency SAT phone and sent a quick encrypted text, saying he had lost the drone and his other phone. He was asking for confirmation that they had gotten his video. But he knew it would take a while for a response. After all, he was not officially on any mission, other than immersing himself in Russian language and culture. Drinking a lot of vodka and getting in a fight with a couple of douche bags in a snowy park above the Arctic Circle checked those boxes.
Karl’s dad had told him to never believe in coincidences, especially when it came to the spy game. Those two men who had fought him over a drone and a backpack were not just random assholes. They were Russian intelligence assholes. Probably FSB or GRU. Somehow, they had observed him flying the drone over the rail car and the ship and then tracked them down. He wasn’t sure how they had done so, but that had to be the truth. Karl wasn’t really concerned about what they would find on the phone or the drone. The phone was highly encrypted. Even if the Russians could somehow break the security on the phone, they would find nothing of importance. The videos simply flowed through that phone to his Agency SAT phone and then to a CIA server, assuming the uplink had worked. But his father, the legendary former spy, Jake Adams, had also told him to always keep a CYA backup. At least with unclassified data, which he had to believe his video was still, since he was the one who had taken it and his bosses at the CIA had not yet classified it. What else could the Russians find on his phone? His phone log, perhaps. But those only included texts and a few calls to Maya. Maybe a couple of calls to non-existent parents in Spain.
Maya came back from the bathroom and smiled at him. She reached out her hand and Karl took it. “Let’s go. You promised me something.”
It was after midnight by the time the two of them reached their apartment building a few blocks from the bar. Since it was Friday night, they didn’t have to worry about getting up for classes in the morning. Maya lived on the third level and Karl on the second, so they decided to go to his place this time.