Chapter 25 Will
Will
The Café Sélect was a quiet place on a side street near the university.
Littered with wooden tables and lace curtains, the shop was filled with the heady aromas of fresh bread and strong coffee.
It was the kind of establishment where professors graded papers and old men argued about politics, not the kind of place you’d expect to find American spies.
Which, of course, was exactly the point.
Thomas waited in the car parked in a lot two blocks away.
The note had suggested only one of us should attend, and we’d agreed it was safer this way, with one person inside while one person watched the exits.
If something went wrong, he could get word back to the Baroness.
If nothing went wrong, I’d be out in thirty minutes.
I arrived at five minutes to two and took a table near the back with a clear view of the door. Per the note, I ordered a Café Americana from the waiter. He gave me a curious look. American coffee wasn’t a common order in Bern, but the man said nothing.
Then I waited.
The café was quiet.
An elderly man in the corner worked his way through a newspaper.
Two young women chatted over pastries near the window.
A professor type scribbled notes in a leather journal, oblivious to everything around him.
None of them looked like operatives, but spies rarely wore dark coats and black hats.
At 14:05, the door opened.
The shape that filled the doorframe was not what I’d expected.
Tall, dark-haired, with the kind of striking features that made heads turn, the woman wore a blue dress beneath a cream-colored coat and moved through the café with the easy confidence of someone who knew exactly how beautiful she was—and exactly how to use it.
Her eyes swept the room, found me, and immediately lit up with what looked like genuine joy.
“Hans!”
Before I could react, she was across the room.
Before I could speak, she was in my arms.
And before I could think, her mouth was on mine.
She kissed me like a woman who had been waiting months for this moment. The kiss was deep and hungry, the kind that made the elderly man look up from his newspaper and the two young women stop mid-conversation, their mouths agape.
When she finally pulled back, I was fairly certain I had forgotten how to breathe. My legs were a bit wobbly, too.
“God, I have missed you so much,” she said, loud enough for the room to hear. Then, softer, her lips brushing my ear: “Play along, handsome. We’re being watched.”
She pulled me back down into my chair and slid into the seat beside me, close enough that our thighs touched. With little more than a wink, she grabbed my arm, tossed it around her shoulders, and nuzzled into me. Her hand found its way to my thigh and began stroking up and back.
“You—” I started. “You’re . . . I . . . what . . .”
“Cat got your tongue?” She smiled, and there was mischief in her eyes. “Don’t tell me you’re not used to pretty girls with brains.”
“I’m not—I mean, I am—” I stopped, aware that I was stammering like a schoolboy. “Fuck me.”
She laughed—a warm, genuine sound that made the professor glance up from his notes.
“You should see your face right now.” She leaned closer, her perfume was intoxicatingly floral and expensive. “Relax, love. I don’t bite. Unless you ask nicely.”
Heat flared into my cheeks.
I opened my mouth, but words refused to come out.
This was not how I had expected this meeting to go.
“You missed me?” I managed, though it came out more strangled than lovesick.
“Of course, I did, silly. You know I love you more than breathing.” She squeezed my hand, still playing the devoted lover for anyone who might be watching.
The waiter delivered my coffee and took her order, struggling to lift his gaze above her ample bosom. Once he’d vanished again, she leaned in and nibbled my earlobe.
“Ow! What—”
“You really aren’t very good at this, are you?” She whispered between nips. “Just pretend you’re in love with me so we can talk. It’s not hard.”
She chose that exact moment for her hand to wander a bit too high up my leg.
“Oh.” She giggled with glee. “It is that hard.”
I nearly leaped up from the table.
“Oh, Hans. I really have missed you,” she said, loud enough for our audience. Everyone—including those working in the café—was failing to hide just how rapt their attention was on our little act. I didn’t think I’d ever been so embarrassed or uncomfortable.
“Now,” she crooned in my ear, this time licking rather than biting. “What can we do for you? I have two beefy men and one skinny one who can shoot the eyes out of a hawk from a thousand yards.”
When her tea arrived, she blew the waiter a kiss and took a dainty sip. I used the moment of aural freedom to wipe away the remnants of her love, then grab her offending hand and raise it to my lips. “We need protection for a meeting two days from now.”
“Who’s meeting?”
I hesitated. Compartmentalization was basic tradecraft. She didn’t need the full picture, and we were sitting in a public café. Still, she also needed to understand the stakes.
“A Swiss asset who has information that could prevent a significant . . . event. She needs to get that information to a general who can act on it.”
“An event.” Her eyes sharpened. “Care to be more specific?”
“No.”
She studied me for a moment, then smiled. “Fair enough. I respect a man who knows how to keep his mouth shut.” She leaned closer, her fingers forming legs and walking up my chest. “Where and when?”
“The location is still being arranged. The general is cautious. He won’t commit until he’s sure it’s not a trap. It’ll be somewhere in Bern, sometime in the next forty-eight hours.”
“That’s ominously vague.” She cupped my cheek, then reached down, lifted her cup, and pretended to take a sip while speaking over the rim. “And you need us to make sure your asset gets there and back alive.”
“Yes.”
“How many hostiles are we talking about?”
“Unknown, but they’re well resourced, well organized, and they’ve already killed multiple people connected to this asset. If they find out about the meeting, they’ll try to stop it.”
The woman nodded slowly, processing. “That’s not a lot to work with.”
“It’s what I can give you.”
“And if I need more?”
“Then you’ll have to trust that our mutual friend sent you here for a reason.”
One of the girls rose and began walking our way. As she reached our table, I met my counterpart’s eyes and said, “Do you know what I want to do to you right now? The ways I have missed you? The parts of you I haven’t seen in so—”
The girl’s giggles could be heard until the restroom door clicked shut.
Amusement filled the woman’s eyes. She was actually enjoying this.
“I can’t tell you everything, but I can tell you that if this meeting doesn’t happen, people will die, a lot of people.”
She held my gaze for a long moment. Whatever she saw there must have satisfied her, because she nodded once.
“Fine. My team is the best. We’ll keep your asset safe. Anything else?”
I thought about the infrastructure targets, the night of the 14th, but that was too much—too specific, too operational. If Manakin wanted his team involved in that, he could authorize it himself.
“That’s all for now. If things change, I’ll be in touch.”
“We check the locker every six hours,” she whispered.
“I can’t wait for your next love letter. The last one smelled like you taste,” I said, loud enough to make the passing waiter blush.
She smiled and leaned closer. For a moment, I thought she was going to kiss me again. Instead, she murmured: “Drop the location as soon as you have it.”
“Understood.”
She smiled again. “You and your partner have stirred up quite a hornet’s nest.”
“That’s for sure.”
“Reckless, unauthorized, career-ending work, from what I hear.” She squeezed my leg one last time, then stood and gathered her coat. I hopped up and helped her put it on.
She craned her head back, curls falling across my shoulder.
I leaned down and kissed her neck, earning a sound that had the girls tittering again.
She turned to face me as she straightened her coat.
Her lips grazed mine—brief this time, almost chaste, the kiss of a woman saying goodbye to a lover she would see again soon.
“One more thing,” she murmured against my lips. “Manakin wanted me to pass along a message for your partner.”
“What message?”
She pulled back, her eyes dancing. “‘Stop getting shot’ was an order, not a suggestion.”
Despite everything—the tension, the stakes, the weight of everything riding on the next five days—I laughed.
“I’ll tell him.”
“Do that.” She touched my cheek, a gesture that looked tender from across the room. “Stay safe, my love. I can’t wait to make you blush again.”
The door chimed softly behind her, leaving me standing there alone, staring after her, with the entire café gaping at me and the scent of her perfume drifting up from my coat.
I returned to the table and sat there for a few minutes, letting my heart rate return to something like normal.
The elderly man went back to his newspaper.
The young women resumed their conversation.
The professor was still scribbling. None of them had seen anything but a woman reuniting with her sweetheart.
That was the job.
That was the mask.
And that woman wore it better than anyone I’d ever met. It was only then that I realized I hadn’t gotten her name, not even a false one.
I left money on the table and walked out into the afternoon sun. Thomas was waiting in the car, his expression somewhere between curious and amused.
“Well?” he asked as I slid into the passenger seat. He sniffed and wrinkled his nose. “Why do you smell like flowers?”
“Later,” I groaned and shook my head. “They’re in for the general’s meeting.”
“What did you tell her?”
“Only what she needed to know. A high-value asset will be meeting with a Swiss general, unknown threat level.” I shrugged. “Compartmentalization.”
“Good.” Thomas nodded approvingly. Then his eyes narrowed. “Why are your ears red?”
I felt my face warm. “She kissed me.”
Thomas stared at me. “She what?”
“Kissed me. A few times, actually. In between ear nibbles and grabbing my crotch.” I could feel my cheeks warming again. “It was all very . . . unexpected.”
A slow grin spread across Thomas’s face. “William Shaw, are you blushing?”
“No.”
“You are. You’re absolutely blushing.” He laughed, the first real one I’d heard from him in days. “Oh, this is wonderful. Wait until I tell the Baroness.”
“You will do no such thing.”
“Oh, I absolutely am!” He started the car, still grinning. “So, let me get this straight. A pretty girl kisses you, and you forget how to function. It’s good to know the great William Shaw has a weakness after all.”
“I didn’t forget how to function. I was just . . . surprised.”
“Uh-huh.” Thomas pulled out of the lot, his eyes on the road but his smile fixed in place. “Did she at least give you her name, maybe a phone number? Did you get a second date? Or were you too busy being surprised?”
“Oh, piss off.”
“Was she really that pretty?”
“I was flustered, not blind.” I nodded. “She’s a pinup, seriously.”
“You’re so easily flustered. It’s kinda cute.”
“I am not easily flustered.”
“Will, your ears are still red.”
I didn’t have a response to that, so I sat in silence while Thomas drove us back toward the farmhouse, his chuckles filling the car like music. It was good to hear him laugh, even if it was at my expense.
We had four days until the 14th. Five until February 15th.
The final week was moving fast.
But for one brief moment, in a car driving through the Swiss countryside, things almost felt normal.
Almost.