Death of a Spy Read Online Free PDF Page B

back of the classroom, next to a young Russian woman.
    Katerina Kustinskaya was her name—she’d given it when attendance had been taken at the beginning of the class—and at first, Marko had judged her to be out of his league.
    He wasn’t ugly, but was self-aware enough to know that he wasn’t exactly a knockout either. He was of average height, strong but not outwardly muscular, and had an angular face that some women found attractive but that most found easy to ignore. So when he felt Katerina’s eyes on him as he sat down, his first thought was that he probably had something stuck to his shirt, or between his teeth; maybe the remains of the pork dumplings he’d eaten before class? Could she even see his teeth? He hadn’t been smiling.
    He felt his teeth with his tongue, wiped his hand across his lips, and casually glanced at his shirtsleeves and pant legs. Nothing out of the ordinary.
    And yet he could still feel her eyes on him. She was trying not to be obvious about it, but Marko had always been adept at noticing things in his peripheral vision.
    The professor lectured with his head down, his eyes focused on his prodigious notes, which he’d placed on a podium in the front of the room. Every so often, in between taking a drag off his cigarette, he’d rub his nose. Behind him hung a blackboard and several musty old maps of medieval Georgia.
    Marko turned toward Katerina, and met her gaze. She registered surprise, then embarrassment, and turned away.
    Marko wasn’t as enamored with beautiful women as some men were. He’d discovered that, when naked, he was as attracted to plain women nearly as much as he was to the beauties, and often the plain women were just nicer people. Still, for the rest of the class he was aware of her to his side, aware of her movements. Her eyes were blue, her Slavic cheekbones high, and when she pursed her lips, as though privately questioning something that the professor had said, Marko found it hard not to turn and stare. Every so often he got a whiff of something that smelled like lilacs. He wasn’t sure whether it was her perfume or her shampoo, but he wasted quite a bit of time trying to sort it out.
    Halfway through the class, he realized that all of his fellow students were scribbling madly in their composition books. All except for himself, and Katerina.
    She was dressed in layers of loose bohemian clothing; it was a look that, along with her drowsy eyes, Marko found intriguing.
    But she’s a Russian, he thought; that much he could tell from her name.
    He didn’t have anything against Russians. Ethnically, he was a quarter Russian himself. But when it came to communists—many of whom happened to be Russian—that was another matter.
    At the end of class, the students began to stand. Marko hesitated, then stood himself. Katerina closed her composition book, prompting Marko to glance at it. It was the same thin-papered hundred-page bound book that most students carried, that Marko himself was carrying. They sold for a single ruble down at the university store. Katerina had drawn some frivolous doodles on the gray cover—flowers and trees and a horse carrying a long-haired girl that bore some resemblance to Katerina herself. But in the left-hand corner she’d taped a picture of Saint Ilia, a man revered by modern Georgians because, in the 1800s, he’d pushed for Georgian independence from the Russian Empire. Now, with the Soviet Union teetering, Saint Ilia had become a symbol of modern resistance against the communists.
    Considering that sufficient evidence that she wasn’t a communist, Marko turned to face her. At first she turned away, but when he persisted, she met his gaze.
    “Tea?” he asked.
    What he really wanted was a strong cup of coffee, but that was a luxury he couldn’t afford and Katerina, being Russian, probably didn’t want to drink.
    A pause, then a smile, and a tip of the head. “Da.”

8
    Tbilisi, Georgia
The present day

    Mark had come back to