Answering God's Call - Chapter 12

“Even if we’re quite behind schedule, we should still eat while we work. Anything you want in particular?”

“As long as it fills me up, anything’s fine.”

“Good.”

Ruslan stood and held out his hand.

“There’s a decent place nearby. Let’s go.”

Picking a fight out of nowhere, then holding a grudge, then being kind…. Tatyana looked at his outstretched hand as if it were a difficult math problem, and in the end, she got up on her own without taking it. She didn’t want to readily accept the goodwill of a man whose intentions she couldn’t read. And….

No matter how little they believed in God, a nun couldn’t just grab a priest’s hand.

***

“This is a decent restaurant?”

It’s just a common diner. Mixing water into the coffee the waiter poured, Tatyana asked in a low voice.

“It’s decent. The menu’s varied, and the prices are reasonable.”

“Oh, you must come here often?”

“It’s my first time.”

“…?”

What is this? He brought me here like he knew the place, and now it’s his first time. As Tatyana stared at him in disbelief, Ruslan filled her glass with lukewarm water.

“You’ll bore a hole through my face.”

As if I’ve been staring that much. Ignoring Ruslan’s teasing remark as if it were only natural, Tatyana changed the subject so the conversation wouldn’t turn personal.

“Is it fine not to investigate Mrs. Gilmore? While you keep her occupied with Easter eggs, I’ll take the chance to search the house.”

They’re separated, but since the wife was the one who filed for divorce first, she might know something Military Intelligence doesn’t.

“Good. As it happens, Mrs. Gilmore came to confession last weekend. I saw her leaving the confessional. I’ll use that as a pretext to approach her.”

Tatyana, who had been about to nod without thinking, frowned.

“…There must’ve been a lot of people coming for confession with Easter right around the corner. You remember all of them?”

“I have a better memory than I look. I only learned today that the woman was Mrs. Gilmore.”

If that’s true, his memory is remarkable. It means he can recall even what he only glanced at. Of course, her memory was good too, but…. Tatyana, clicking her tongue inwardly, paused.

Suddenly, she recalled the man’s face from before, when he had bluntly asked if they had met somewhere and couldn’t hide his surprise. Then was that question not a ploy, but something he genuinely wondered about?

For a moment, she wondered if he had mistaken her for someone else, but she didn’t bother to ask. If Ruslan, who holds grudges for a long time, wanted to bring it up, he would. She didn’t want to make a misstep by bringing it up herself.

Ten days, at most half a month.

It’s a connection that will end with the Easter Mass. Easter is the most important feast in Catholicism, even more than Christmas, so even a small church on the outskirts will be crowded. It’s the perfect chance to disappear as if she had never existed in the confusion.

As Ruslan had said, since they’re both Military Intelligence Directorate operatives, they might run into each other again someday, but that wasn’t a reason to get to know him. Whether it’s another operative or a civilian tied to her through an intelligence operation, nothing good comes from getting too close beyond what’s necessary.

This is a life where you don’t know when or how you’ll die unless you bite down on poison and end it yourself, and even when you die, you’re lucky if your limbs are still intact. Even if none of that applies, you’re alone when you die anyway.

It’s not like you’re only alone when you die.

She didn’t think she had survived by her own strength alone, but her parents, her fiancé, her friends, her informants… there wasn’t a single person around her who had managed to stay alive. Not even the neighbors who had once filled her surroundings.

If she was only going to lose them again, it was better to have nothing at all.

If you hold nothing in your hands, there’s nothing to lose in the first place. Having shaved down and pared away the feelings that only brought unpleasant thoughts, Tatyana drank the watery coffee like liquor and looked out the window. Whether the conversation broke off awkwardly or not, she acted as if she would just eat in silence and leave unless it was about work.

The man sitting across from her watched her quietly, but he didn’t speak until the food they had generously ordered arrived.

That was a relief.

***

Under the red safelight of the small darkroom, Ruslan’s eyes moved slowly as he examined the developed photographs. Then, as his gaze fixed on one photo, his eyes narrowed sharply. With a look of surprise, he quickly flipped through the remaining photos to check them, then hurried out of the darkroom. This wasn’t the time.

“You’re out fast. Did you finish developing all the photos?”

“Yes, for now, but….”

Tatyana was sitting on a sofa in the corner of the studio, reading a newspaper. After a full meal at the diner, her languid posture made Ruslan stop in his tracks. The shabby space, with dust piled here and there, seemed comfortable to her, her guard completely down, and for some reason, it felt familiar.

Wanting to see up close the expression that reminded him of that particularly cold autumn day, Ruslan resumed his steps after a brief pause. Pretending not to be paying attention to Tatyana, feigning indifference.

As he spread all the developed photos across the table, Tatyana let out a long yawn and straightened up. Quickly scanning the photos arranged in chronological order, she muttered blankly, “…This wasn’t something investigated for just a day or two.”

Half of the developed photos were filled with Samuel Gilmore. Like the ones stuffed into Fleming’s mouth, or ones she had never seen before, Gilmore leaving suspicious marks on mailboxes, Gilmore secretly meeting someone, Gilmore spending intimate time with a woman who wasn’t his wife….

“But….”

Fleming hadn’t only been investigating Gilmore. The photos, which started about half a year ago, at some point began to focus not on Gilmore, but on the woman he met. There were quite a few photos clearly taken with persistence, targeting the woman, but only one showed her face. Even that was a side profile, not a frontal shot. After studying the woman carefully, Tatyana let out a hollow laugh.

“Gilmore aside, this woman knows how to avoid cameras. She noticed she was being followed long ago. This isn’t the skill of someone trained for just a day or two. Father, this woman—”

“I know her.”

“…You do? Father?”

Startled, Tatyana snapped her head up. The moment their eyes met, she immediately held out the photo that barely showed the side of the woman’s face.

“You know this woman?”

“Not personally. I just know her face, her name, and where she works.”

As if asking whether that was enough of an explanation, her emerald eyes flicked quickly between Ruslan and the photo. Her gaze, curious about how he knew the woman presumed to be Gilmore’s affair partner, gleamed with interest. Meeting that gaze, Ruslan slowly parted his lips.

“…You probably know this already, but before I was demoted, I was one of the operations officers responsible for managing southwestern Lytton and its borders.”

“I know.”

He had monitored and managed countless domestic and foreign agents operating throughout southwestern Lytton. Supporting agents in the field and recruiting local informants to gather intelligence were also among an operations officer’s primary responsibilities.

“If the mission was important enough, I’d handle it myself.”

Like in late autumn two years ago, when he moved to obtain Lubyanka’s list of agents. Without needing to say more, Tatyana, who had anticipated what followed and understood, gave a small nod.

“So, who is this woman?”

“Rebecca West, twenty-seven. A Lytton national, born in Eckland. She works in the civil engineering department at Vandenberg City Hall.”

“…An agent?”

An intelligence agent, or more specifically, an operative. It referred to those who carried out secret, unofficial missions under orders from the state without their existence ever being acknowledged. In a broader sense, however, the term also included diplomats working at embassies and consulates. In other words, those with diplomatic immunity.

“One of the highest priorities for illegal agents is infiltrating public institutions under cover, so we investigated all employees of government organizations like the city hall and the police department. At the time, there were no notable suspicions, so she was classified as low risk….”

“If she’s an operative, then I guess that classification needs to be revised.”

“So it would seem.”

Tatyana glanced lightly at the man who accepted her point without objection. Ruslan gathered the scattered photos and stood up. Tatyana’s gaze followed him upward.

“Where are you going? City hall’s civil engineering department? Even if we go—”

“She’ll be absent without leave. If she’s an operative, she wouldn’t have left traces in the office. Either way, we’re going straight to West’s house. It’s quite a distance from here, so let’s move now. We can put Mrs. Nicole Gilmore on hold for the time being.”

Springing to her feet, Tatyana brushed the dust from the back of her skirt. Jennifer Fleming, who had been murdered. Samuel Gilmore, who was still missing. And Rebecca West, his affair partner and a suspected illegal agent…

Tatyana’s gaze followed the woman in the photos as if chasing her. Did that woman leak classified information together with Samuel Gilmore? If she traced the trail step by step, could she reach information about the Cherkubo Gulag survivor?

She couldn’t be certain of anything, yet an inexplicable sense of anticipation welled up inside her. Tatyana hoped with all her heart that Rebecca West was an illegal agent sent by Lubyanka. Because if Rebecca was one of Lubyanka’s operatives, she could obtain the information she needed through Svetlana Belov.

Suppressing the anticipation that welled up like spring water, Tatyana erased any trace of their presence and left the photo studio.