probably come up here… Could I get a word with you?'
Lucas said to Reasons, 'This guy's a fed. Get a booth, I'll be with you in a minute.'
Lucas and Harmon drifted toward the windows facing the lake, away from other patrons. Harmon looked too young for a serious federal job; if he was not exactly apple-cheeked, the apples had only recently departed. 'She give you anything interesting?'
'She said America has a lot more signs than Russia,' Lucas said.
Harmon pulled at his lower lip for a couple of seconds, and then said, 'That's true.'
'Other than that…' Lucas shrugged. 'We went over to the medical examiner's office and took prints off the dead guy, Oleshev. She had a fingerprint kit that makes it easy to digitize prints. She gave one of the pickup sheets to the ME and told him where he could order some more in St. Petersburg.'
'Mmm.'
'She's not a cop,' Lucas said. 'She's probably from one of the intelligence agencies that doesn't deal with bodies.'
Now he was mildly interested. 'How do you know that?'
Lucas explained and Harmon nodded. 'We never really thought she was a cop,' Harmon said. 'Something happened here, and they don't know exactly what it was. She's supposed to figure it out before we do.'
'Think she will?'
'She will be smart,' Harmon said.
'She might be smart, but if we see everything she does, how does she plan to stay ahead of us?' Lucas asked. 'There's gotta be something else.'
'Mmm. She's probably got a shadow operator.' He said it deferentially, as if talking to a moderately slow child.
'What's that, in English?'
'She's out here in the open, picking up everything you get. Then, even though they don't know exactly what's going on, they've probably got some ideas of their own-some conjectures, maybe some contacts who might know something. So she sends everything she gets from you back to the embassy, and her controller bounces it back to the shadow op. So he's got everything they know and everything we know… and maybe he stays a few steps ahead.'
'What does he do if he figures it out?'
Harmon shrugged. 'Takes care of it himself. Or maybe, if it doesn't jeopardize whatever they're doing here, Nadya feeds the information back to you and you make the bust.'
'Well, Jesus.' Lucas had never encountered anything like it.
'As for us… We'd like to know if they've got an organization here and what it's been doing. It could be completely commercial-tracking grain prices, that sort of thing. Then… maybe not.'
'And I just ride along,' Lucas said.
'Don't worry about it,' Harmon said. 'This dead guy, nobody will miss him much, except maybe his old man. He was an idiot. That's what people say…'
Lucas interrupted. 'What people?'
Another shrug. 'People. Anyway, I don't think it counts for much whether or not you get the killer. What really counts is that there might be an organization here that we should know about. The fact that she's from the SVR suggests that there is.'
'The SVR is…'
'The Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki, their foreign intelligence service. The FSB, the Federal'naya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti, is the national police force. That's what she says she's from.' He pronounced the Russian names with relish and a sputtering dampness. 'She might be quite… immoral, I suppose you'd call it, in your terms. If she thinks you're getting somewhere, and you're not keeping her up with it, she might try to initiate a sexual relationship with you. They're very, very well trained.' Harmon's thin tongue, looking a little like a Ritz cracker, flicked over his lower lip.
Lucas nearly laughed, but suppressed the impulse and said, solemnly, 'I'll take care.'
'So she had nothing else? Nothing relevant, other than the signs?'
'No, we were mostly setting up a schedule. We'll show her the files when she's finished transmitting prints, and gets cleaned up. She's said she's jet-lagged and she's gonna crash pretty early.'
'All right.' Harmon eased away. 'We'll be in touch.'
'I just can't figure out…'
'What?'
'I can't figure out why you guys don't seem to care. I mean… people are getting killed.'
'Honestly? Catching spies for the former Soviet Union is not exactly a good career move anymore. Costs a lot of money, disturbs the relationship, and nobody cares. So, catch a spy, you get an atta-boy and transferred to Boise, where you'll be less expensive.'
'That's really… fuckin' great,' Lucas said.
'Call me if you need anything,' Harmon said. He turned away. 'Anything that we got, that doesn't cost too much.'
'Hey,' Lucas called after him. 'How was the 'signs' thing relevant?'
'Might mean she's never been here,' Harmon called back. And 'Good report, Davenport.'
Lucas slid into the booth across from Reasons. Since the hotel was a cylinder, the restaurant, naturally, revolved. When Lucas and Harmon started talking, they were looking at the lake; when they finished, they were looking south, at right angles to the lake. When Lucas joined Reasons, they were looking down at the Civic Center complex, which included the federal building, the county courthouse, and the city hall; the port and the lake were coming up. Lucas settled into the booth and ordered a Diet Coke. 'Another spy?' Reasons asked.
'Yeah, one of ours.'
'Is ours better than theirs?'
Lucas waited as the barman put a glass of Coke in front of him, and then said, 'I don't think so. The guy says, 'She might be immoral, in your terms. She might try to initiate a sexual relationship with you.' '
'Really?' Reasons was impressed. 'If she does, will you tell me about it? I mean, the details?'
'I'm more married than you are,' Lucas said. Imitating Harmon's voice, Lucas said, 'They're very, very well trained.'
Reasons laughed merrily. 'You're shitting me.'
'That's what the man said.' Lucas shook his head. 'He also said, 'Good report, Davenport.' '
'That rhymes.'
'Brilliant observation.'
Reasons said, 'If she can't get to you, maybe she'll try to fuck me. I'm a good American. If my country calls, I'd have to answer the call.'
'Just don't tell her any military secrets,' Lucas said. 'Andy Harmon will be all over your ass.'
'Maybe I couldn't help myself,' Reasons said, 'If she's that well trained.'
As they left the restaurant, on the way back to Nadya's room, Lucas excused himself, took his calendar and his cell phone out of his pocket, and looked up a St. Louis phone number. He needed help.
A man answered on the third ring.
'How many Italians does it take to screw in a lightbulb?' Lucas asked.
After a moment, the man said, 'You sound like a fuckin' Canadian. Is that you, Davenport?'
They talked for five minutes. When Lucas hung up, he felt a little like a spy himself.
Chapter 5
Nadya was looking good.
She'd changed into a dark blue suit that went well with her blond hair and showed off her figure; she'd added
