23. Katya
Katya
Pavel snaps his notebook shut, and my spine straightens before I can stop it.
“Mrs. Kozlov, I need to assess your vulnerability to potential security threats.” Pavel takes the chair across from me on the porch.
Something in his posture displays authority; I’ve wanted to salute the man since he arrived.
“Your husband’s business attracts attention from people who might target family members. ”
Dmitri drops into the seat beside me and rests his hand on my thigh. His thumb brushes against the inside seam of my jeans, and the contact sends heat sliding up to settle between my legs even as my brain tries to focus on Pavel’s words.
“What kind of targeting?” I ask.
“Well, kidnapping, as you’ve already seen. Extortion. Sometimes recruitment if they think you have access to useful information.” Pavel pulls out a pen and clicks it open. “Has anyone contacted you claiming to be from your former workplace?”
I blink a few times and respond, “No. Should they have?”
“It wouldn’t be that unusual for coworkers to want to check in on you,” he points out. “Someone might attempt to reconnect during your recovery period.”
Dmitri’s fingers tighten on my leg, and without thinking, I rest my palm on the top of his hand. “No one from the gallery has made contact,” he tells Pavel. “I’ve made sure of that.”
“Good. Such contact could destabilize someone in Mrs. Kozlov’s condition.” Pavel makes a note in his book. “Now, I’d like to test your current awareness levels. Can you describe what you observe about this property from a security perspective?”
The request should confuse me, but instead, my brain kicks into analytical mode without conscious direction. I squint and look out at the property, noting details that shouldn’t matter but somehow do.
“Single road in and out. Woods give cover but kill the sight lines. Too many windows for snipers, and the backup generator’s an easy target.”
Pavel’s pen stops moving across the page, and Dmitri whips his head to look at me.
“Mrs. Kozlov, have you noticed any unusual physical responses since your accident? Automatic behaviors that seem to come from nowhere?”
“What do you mean by automatic behaviors?”
“Checking exits when you enter a room. Positioning yourself to observe potential threats. Moving in ways that minimize your visibility to outside observers.”
Every example he gives describes things I’ve done since I woke up in the hospital. Habits I’d written off as survival instincts.
“I check exits,” I admit. “After being kidnapped, who wouldn’t?”
“It is reasonable. But the way you check them isn’t. You evaluate them tactically, like someone trained to plan escape routes under hostile conditions.”
Dmitri’s hand moves from my thigh to my lower back, and he slides his fingers along my spine. I latch onto that contact to ground myself and arch into his touch. The way my body responds to him is the only thing I’m sure of anymore.
“Where are you going with this?” Dmitri asks.
“I’m trying to determine whether Mrs. Kozlov has been exposed to intelligence training. If she has, some people will eventually come looking for her.”
“That’s ridiculous.” Dmitri snorts. “My wife is an art curator, not an operative. The idea that she has intelligence training is absurd.”
“Is it? Her responses suggest otherwise.”
“She’s observant, not trained. Trauma makes people see threats everywhere. That doesn’t make her a spy.”
Pavel eyes Dmitri. “You seem very certain about your wife’s background.”
“I am certain. I know who I married.”
“People with intelligence training are taught to maintain convincing cover identities. Even spouses can be deceived.”
“My wife isn’t deceiving anyone,” Dmitri says. “She’s recovering from a head injury that has left her confused and frightened. Your theories about spy training are conspiracy nonsense.”
My throat goes dry. “You think I’m a spy?”
“Pavel,” Dmitri warns, “you’re upsetting my wife with ridiculous theories.”
“Just humor me,” Pavel tells me, and again, something in my body wants to comply. “If Mrs. Kozlov has no intelligence background, the assessment will confirm that and put the matter to rest.”
Dmitri opens his mouth to object again, but I cut him off. “It’s fine. If it will settle this ridiculous theory, I’ll take the test.”
Though even as I say it, part of me wonders if I want to know the results.
The scenarios include things like eliminating a hostile target in a crowded environment, maintaining cover identity under interrogation, and extracting intelligence from unwilling subjects.
“What kind of questions are these?” I draw my eyebrows together.
“They’re assessment tools used to evaluate operational readiness in intelligence personnel.”
“Why would you have assessment tools for intelligence personnel?”
“Let’s just say I have my sources.”
I stare at the assessment form, wanting to fill it out. My body is familiar with these scenarios, even if my brain doesn’t understand why. But when I glance over at Dmitri, the obvious discomfort on his face makes me not sure it’s a great idea to keep poking this bear.
Dmitri wraps his arm around my shoulder and pulls me against him. His breathing has changed, only subtly, but enough to make me take notice.
Why does this line of questioning bother him so much?
Pavel pulls out another form, this one covered with symbols and hand gestures illustrated in detailed diagrams. “Recognition test. Tell me if any of these images seem familiar.”
I look over the page, and several of the symbols make my pulse pick up. Hand positions that look like random gestures but trigger automatic responses in my nervous system.
“A few,” I admit.
“Which ones?”
I point to three hand signals, and Pavel makes notes beside each one.
“Those are FSB operational signals,” he tells me. “Used for covert communication between agents in the field.”
“FSB?”
“Russian Federal Security Service. Domestic intelligence and counterintelligence operations.”
My world tilts sideways, and I force out a breathy laugh. “This is impossible.”
Pavel reaches into his briefcase again and pulls out what appears to be a standard smartphone. But when he activates the screen, it displays a complex interface.
“Final test,” he says. “I’m going to show you an operational interface. Tell me if you understand what you’re looking at.”
The screen fills with tactical data: coordinates, target profiles, and mission parameters laid out in a format that should be foreign to me. Instead, I find myself processing the data like I’ve seen it thousands of times.
“Elimination mission,” I blurt. “Primary target’s a financial crimes investigator. Backup plan: Take the family. Extraction at 0300, waterfront.”
Silence. They stare at me like I’ve just confessed to murder.
“How did you know that?” Pavel asks.
“I don’t know. I just… understood what I was looking at.”
“That interface is used exclusively by FSB operational?—”
Dmitri stands abruptly, pulling me with him. “That’s enough testing for today.”
“Mr. Kozlov, we haven’t finished the assessment. These results are crucial for determining?—”
“She’ll finish the forms when she’s ready,” Dmitri’s voice is cold enough to bite. “Now leave.”
“Mr. Kozlov, you’re making a mistake. If your wife is what I think she is?—”
“She’s exactly what I know she is.” The temperature in Dmitri’s voice drops by several degrees when he adds, “My wife. Nothing else matters.”
Pavel gathers his materials with obvious reluctance. “Mrs. Kozlov, please complete the assessment forms I’ve given you. Review them carefully and honestly. Your safety might depend on understanding what you’re capable of.”
“She’ll review them when she’s ready,” Dmitri says before I can respond.
Pavel heads toward his car without another word, but I catch him glancing back at me once before he climbs inside.
“What was that about?” I ask once his sedan disappears from view.
“Overzealous consultant overstepping his boundaries.”
“He seemed genuinely concerned about my safety.”
Dmitri turns to face me, framing my face with his hands. “You know who you are, Katya. Don’t let some stranger convince you otherwise.”
But watching his face when Pavel challenged him, I realize there’s more to this confrontation than professional disagreement.
Dmitri isn’t just protecting me from Pavel’s theories.
He’s protecting something else, and I need to find out what the hell that is.
Later that evening, alone in the bedroom, I try to make sense of what happened today. When Pavel showed me those hand signals and symbols, my body had an automatic response that felt as natural as breathing.
FSB. The acronym has lodged itself in my mind like a key turning in a lock. Russian Federal Security Service.
I close my eyes and let my mind drift, not fighting the fragments that want to surface. A voice calling out coordinates. The weight of a weapon in my hands. The satisfaction of a mission completed successfully.
Agent Sidorov, report to briefing room three.
The words materialize from nowhere, spoken in a voice I almost recognize. My eyes snap open, and my heart pounds.
Agent Sidorov.
Not Katya Kozlov. Agent Sidorov.
I press my fingers to my temples as more pieces try to break through—a training facility, the smell of gun oil and leather, and the feel of tactical gear against my skin. Everything feels so familiar.
Whatever Dmitri has told me about my past, whatever story he's constructed about our marriage and my supposed career as an art curator—none of it explains why I know things I shouldn't know.
None of it explains why I feel like I'm finally waking up from a dream I never knew I was having.