cabana. All I could make out was a single leg, which was all I really needed to see anyway.
'There you go again,' I said.
'Just let him in,' came an exasperated voice from inside the cabana. It had a British accent, which was new, but not unexpected. The guard gave me a little glare-not enough to actually cause me any offense, but enough to inform me that he didn't know what a verb was and therefore thought I'd really insulted him-and then swept open the rest of the thin curtain to reveal Ms. Copeland sitting aside the bed on the small sofa.
Except that it wasn't Ms. Copeland.
Oh, it was Ms. Copeland as Joanne knew her and as the meat standing in front of the cabana knew her, but to me she was Natalya Choplyn. The last time I saw her was in Bulgaria.
She tried to poison me.
'What a surprise,' I said.
'Is it really?' Natalya said.
'No,' I said. I was still standing in the entrance to the cabana, trying to figure out where I was going to sit. It was either unfold myself on the bed, which seemed not only compromising but presumptuous, or sit directly next to Natalya on the couch, which was really more of a love seat, which, really, is just a fancy name for a big chair not made for two spies who've slept with each other and tried to seriously hurt each other. I decided just to stand.
'I don't bite,' she said, patting the space next to her.
'You do stab,' I said. Natalya shrugged. Not much you can do with the truth but accept it. 'I like the accent. Let me guess: Sandringham, Norfolk?'
'Conveys a sense of elegance, don't you think?'
'It's so simple,' I said. 'Where's the challenge?'
'Worked for Princess Di, didn't it?'
'I suppose,' I said, 'though I've always thought of you more like Camilla. Maybe move across the country, say you're from Wales. Thicken your vowels a bit and aim for more of that singsong style and you'll have it nailed.'
'Do I not sound convincing?'
'It will work here,' I said. 'But I doubt it will fly in an interrogation. A couple of well-placed electrodes and you'll be screaming Nyet! Nyet! in no time.'
'Is that what you'd do to me, Michael? Electrodes? I don't believe that's covered by your Geneva Conventions.' Natalya stood then and walked a few steps to the marble nightstand beside the bed, where there was a silver teakettle and two cups. She was taller than I remembered, though the last time I saw her we were stooped over in a cave, which always makes everyone seem slightly more diminutive than usual. Her hair then was short and black and likely still was, since her hair on this day was shoulder-length and deep red, which made me presume it was a wig. An expensive wig, but a wig no less. She wore a perfectly tailored black Gucci suit, alligator and lambskin Chanel pumps and had tasteful diamonds on each ear, around her neck and, notably, on her wedding-ring finger.
'I'm not exactly covered by the Geneva Conventions, either,' I said. Natalya's back was still to me as she poured the tea, but I thought I saw something slacken in her posture. There was no use lying to Natalya, since she thought, for some reason, that she needed to see me, which likely meant that she thought I'd crossed her in some way and was giving me the professional courtesy of asking me about it before she blew up my car with me in it. Telling her I was out of work would likely cause her to reevaluate whatever her specific beef was.
'I heard you were still under contract,' she said.
'I got burned,' I said. Natalya dunked a cube of sugar into each cup of tea, turned back around and offered me one of the cups. 'The last time I saw you, you poisoned me.'
'You didn't die.'
'I spent three days in a hospital,' I said.
'Suit yourself.' Natalya stepped past me, her shoulder brushing my chest, instructed her security guard to pin both sides of the curtain up so we could have a view of the dance floor and then handed the guard the second cup of tea and told him his services were no longer needed. As he walked off, he sipped absently at the tea and didn't once convulse. 'Now,' she said, settling back down on the sofa, 'where were we?'
'You were just about to explain to me why you used Fiona and two dozen armed agents to let me know you were in town,' I said.
'I never understood what you saw in that terrorist,' she said.
'She's not a terrorist,' I said. 'Not even an enemy combatant. Not technically.'
'Oh, that's right,' Natalya said. 'The IRA is a peaceful, nonviolent organization. Like Amnesty International, only with car bombs.'
'Just like the KGB was,' I said. 'And we're no longer dating, so there's that.'
A smirk danced around the edges of Natalya's mouth. 'Really?'
'Really.'
'And yet here you are,' she said.
'That's a nice ring you have,' I said. 'Did you and the president of Albania finally make it official?'
Natalya lifted her hand and made a show of the diamond. 'A prop,' she said. 'Just like your precious Fiona.'
'What are we doing here, Natalya?'
'Catching up,' she said. 'Reviving an old friendship.'
'You could have sent me an e-mail,' I said. 'You didn't need to set up Fiona.'
'Yes,' Natalya said, 'I'm sorry about that. But she's a smart girl, that Fiona. I knew she wouldn't get caught. I didn't realize you and your lovely mother would be there, too. She seemed to be having a splendid time. Shame she didn't get to enjoy her lunch. I oversaw the preparation of her salad myself. And I think you would have enjoyed your egg whites.'
You always want to put your opponent on edge, thinking their very next step might be their last. People don't want to die. People who want to die are mentally ill, sociopaths or think a heaven of milk, honey and countless ready-for-hot-sex virgins awaits them. People, normal people, will opt to live. People, normal people, who try to kill themselves, will often receive an involuntary physical override via the human reset button known as blacking out. Above all else, people don't want to die. So they give up information. They say things to save themselves. They put faith in the humanity of others in hopes of being spared. The trained eye will see the truth. The trained eye will watch for tells, for shimmers that seep out involuntarily, things said to make a person worry.
Bringing in family is generally considered poor form, particularly if you're doing sanctioned work, since killing civilians is frowned upon.
That Natalya brought up my mother was a tell.
That Natalya brought up my mother was also a bluff.
First problem: Natalya Choplyn isn't a normal person. Dying to her would probably be considered upsetting but expected. After spending two decades working first for the KGB and then later the FSB and then, well, whatever agency Putin had her fronting in, occupational hazards are fairly terminal.
Second problem: If Natalya Choplyn really wanted me dead, as seems to be the case more and more frequently with people I encounter-a disturbing trend, certainly-she could have done so that morning as I sat with my mother, my guard whittled down by the persistent gnaw of my mother's voice.
Third problem: All of this had transpired in public. Natalya needed something. Maybe she wanted something, too, but above all else, there was need.
'I'm leaving,' I said. 'See you at your war crimes trial.'
'Please wait,' Natalya said. She reached out and grabbed my arm. Not hard. Not insistent. Softly.
Need it was.
I looked at my watch. 'Five minutes,' I said.
Natalya nodded slightly. 'Will you sit?'
History told me that I shouldn't trust Natalya. We were both sent to Bulgaria to take care of the same problem: Vitaly Sigal. Sigal was a low-level administrator at the Kremlin when the Russians entered Afghanistan in 1978, but since he spoke Farsi he ended up getting a cushy assignment in the country, which he turned into an even cushier black market career that extended to buying and selling large arms and propellants throughout the Middle East during the nineties. When the building blocks of the Iraqi Tammuz-1 missile were traced to a few key
