The Spy Who Came for Christmas Read online

  After he freed the cord, he tied it to the leg of a chair and stretched it calf-high across the office, securing it around a heavy box on the bottom of a shelf. Fortunately, the cord was dark. If an intruder broke through the window and shoved past the obstacles on the table, he’d be so fixated on the open door to the living room that he might not notice the trip cord in the shadows.

  “Meredith, you said there was a back garden?”

  When Kagan heard her voice in the kitchen, he was relieved to know that she’d remained in the house.

  “A small one. The dry air at this altitude makes it difficult to grow things without a lot of water.”

  “Is the garden easy to get to? Are there gates to the side?”

  “No. Someone could just walk around to the back.”

  “Or climb a neighbor’s fence?” Kagan grasped at a thought. “Maybe the neighbors would notice a prowler and call the police.”

  “Not tonight,” Meredith said. “For Christmas Eve, the family to the left is visiting a sick relative down in Albuquerque. The couple to the right loves to play blackjack. They went to one of the Indian casinos.”

  Kagan remembered driving north to Santa Fe from the big airport in Albuquerque. It had seemed that there was an Indian casino every twenty miles.

  “The blackjack dealers are probably dressed as Santa Claus, but somehow I doubt the pit bosses think it’s better to give than to receive,” he said.

  He hoped the attempt at a joke would help calm Meredith’s nerves. Then his concern about the garden in back made him remember his hallucination when he approached the house.

  “Meredith, I thought I saw a flower growing in the snow outside.”

  “You did see a flower.”

  “In winter?” Kagan worked to keep his tone casual, to relax her. “How’s that possible? Why didn’t it freeze?”

  “It’s called a Christmas rose.”

  “I never heard of it.”

  Feeling pressure in his temples, Kagan crouched, stepped from the office, and turned to the left, shifting along the hallway. He passed a bathroom on the right. Then, opposite Cole’s room, he entered the master bedroom.

  Despite the darkness, he managed to see two windows, one straight ahead above the bed, the other to the right of it. The curtains were closed.

  Shadowy suitcases lay on the side of the bed.

  “Planning to go somewhere?” Kagan asked.

  “Away from my husband, as soon as Canyon Road was opened to traffic tonight.”

  “I bet you wish you’d gone earlier.”

  “Then I’d have missed all this Christmas Eve fun.”

  “Yeah, this is quite a party.”

  He set a chair on the bed, then put a side table and two lamps next to the suitcases, adding obstacles that might holdback someone who broke through the window above the bed. He pushed a high bureau in front of the other window, partially blocking the glass, making it difficult for someone to climb through. Next, he went to the remaining lamp, unplugged it, and sawed its electrical cord free. He attached it to the leg of a cabinet next to the door and stretched it across to a dressing table, rigging another trip cord.

  In a bathroom off the bedroom, a night-light revealed a pressurized can of hairspray and another of shaving soap. Leaving the bedroom, he set the cans at the end of the corridor.

  When he crept into Cole’s room, a small television showed Bing Crosby crooning “White Christmas” to soldiers at an inn while a back wall opened and snow fell on a bridge across a stream. A horse-drawn sleigh went past. Everyone looked happy.

  Kagan switched off the television.

  Cole’s room had only one window, facing the front of the house. Kagan pushed a bureau in front of it, but the bureau wasn’t as tall as the one in the master bedroom, and he needed to put the television on top in order to block the window.

  He rigged a third trip cord. Then he pulled drawers from Cole’s bureau and set them along the bedroom floor. He took the drawers from the bureau in the master bedroom and did the same. He took the drawers from the dressing table and placed them along the hallway in an uneven pattern.

  Kagan’s gun dug harder into his side. As he crept back into the kitchen, the flame under the pot of water provided a minimal amount of light.

  “You said it was a Christmas rose?” Approaching the limits of his strength, Kagan eased onto a chair and took several ragged breaths.

  “Are you all right?” Meredith asked.

  “Couldn’t be better,” he lied. “Tell me about the Christmas rose.”

  “You really want to know?”

  “Believe me, I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t.”

  “Well, it’s a type of evergreen,” Meredith said.

  Kagan nodded, encouraging her to continue.

  “In Europe, some areas grow it easily in winter. It adjusts to the cold and often blooms around Christmastime. Clumps of large white flowers.”

  “Then I wasn’t hallucinating.”

  “There’s even a legend about it.”

  “Tell me.”

  “A little girl saw the gifts that the wise men had given the baby Jesus: gold, frankincense, and myrrh.”

  “And?” Kagan wanted to keep her talking.

  “The little girl wept because she didn’t have anything of her own to give. Then an angel appeared, brushed snow from the ground, and touched the exposed soil. The little girl noticed that where her tears had fallen, white flowers grew. Now she had something to give the baby: a Christmas rose.”

  Kagan gathered the energy to stand. Keeping a careful distance from the kitchen window, he looked for shadows moving in the falling snow.

  “White flowers. That’s what I saw.”

  “In Los Angeles, I liked to garden,” Meredith continued. “I’d heard about Christmas roses, but I’d never been able to grow them. When we moved here, that new start I told you about was on my mind, and I decided to try again. A clerk at a local plant nursery said I was wasting my time because they’re not suited for the thin, rocky soil we have here, but I guess I thought that if I could get one to grow, it would be a sign, something to show that Ted and I really had put our troubles behind us. Not exactly a miracle, but kind of, and the Christmas rose really did bloom. It . . . ”

  Meredith’s voice dropped.

  “I’m sorry,” Kagan said.

  “I guess it’s just a stubborn flower. Tomorrow, Cole and I will move out.” The significance of the word seemed to strike her. “Tomorrow.”

  Allow her to hope, Kagan thought. “In the morning, I’ll help you.”

  * * * * *

  AS SNOW kept falling, Brody bent forward and used a gloved finger to draw the diagram of the house. “Cole’s room is in front on the right. There’s a bathroom next to it.” He indicated a door in a hallway. “Then there’s the living room.”

  Andrei, Mikhail, and Yakov stood next to Brody, studying the shadowy lines in the snow.

  “And in back?” Andrei prompted him.

  “Master bedroom on the right,” Brody said. “It has a bathroom you can reach only from the master bedroom. Then there’s my office—in back of the living room.”

  “The kitchen’s on the left as I face the house? What’s behind it?” Andrei asked.

  “A laundry room and another bathroom.”

  Lots of bathrooms, Andrei thought. Even after having lived in the United States for ten years, he still hadn’t gotten used to all the bathrooms. When he was a boy, he and his mother had shared one with six other families.

  “Show us where every window is.”

  Brody did so.

  “In the back,” Andrei said, “is there anything one of our team can stand on to look inside the house? He might be able to get a sense of what’s happening in there.”

  Brody indicated the middle of the back of the house. “There’s a brick patio with an overhang. We have a barbecue grill and a metal table with metal chairs. Someone could easily move a chair to a window and stand on it.”


  “Good. Now show us where every outside door is.”

  Brody added to the diagram. “When the SWAT team gets here, they’re not just going to charge in, I hope. If there’s shooting, Meredith and Cole might—”

  “Don’t worry. Our men are professionals. They don’t shoot randomly. They make sure they’ve got the correct target, and even then, they don’t shoot unless it’s absolutely

  necessary.”

  “If anything happens to my wife and son . . . What did this guy do?”

  “He held up a liquor store.”

  “You mean he’s got a gun?”

  “Please keep your voice down, Mr. Brody. Yes, we suspect he’s armed.”

  Brody groaned. “If I hadn’t lost my temper—if I hadn’t left them alone . . .” A thought made him straighten. “Maybe he’ll listen to reason. Maybe you can negotiate and stop this from getting out of control.”

  “That’s hard to do without a phone. But there might be another possibility . . .”

  Brody stepped toward him. “What?”

  “It’s risky.”

  “Tell me what it is.”

  “It could be that I was wrong,” Andrei began.

  “What do you mean? Wrong about what?”

  “Not letting you go inside.”

  Brody shook his head in confusion. “But you said that if I went in there, I wouldn’t do any good. I’d just become another hostage.”

  “That was before you told me the phones aren’t working. We need to negotiate with him, and you’re the perfect person for that. You’ve got every reason to walk up to the house. When your wife explains who you are, the gunman won’t suspect you’re working with us. Detective Hardy will equip you with a miniature microphone and earbud.”

  “Earbud?”

  “A tiny earplug that works as a radio receiver. The microphone will allow us to hear everything you say in there, and maybe what the gunman says. Through the earbud, I’ll be able to give you instructions.”

  “About what?”

  “Things I want you to notice. By now, he probably rigged some kind of defense system. Booby traps. It would be natural for you to show surprise if you saw anything unusual. Your questions wouldn’t arouse his suspicion. That’ll give the SWAT team an idea of what to expect if they need to go in.”

  “Go in?” Brody looked alarmed again. “You mean they’ll break down the doors and—”

  “Maybe it won’t come to that.” Andrei spread his hands in a reassuring way, seeking to calm him. “You’re a smart man. You might be able to persuade him to allow you and your family to leave.”

  Brody let the thought work on him.

  “Yeah.” He sounded hopeful. “I can try to make him listen to reason.”

  “Exactly.”

  “But what if he won’t agree?”

  “I always have a backup plan. In that case, if he won’t let you and your family go, the microphone and the earbud will give me a chance to negotiate directly with him.”

  Brody seemed paralyzed by the dilemma. Finally, he asked, “You really think this can work?”

  “The suspect has numerous arrests for robbery, but he’s never shot anyone. I don’t know why he’d be stupid enough to start now. There’s a good chance to bring this to a successful conclusion. The question is, are you willing to do your best to save your wife and son?”

  “My best to save them? Hell, I’m the reason they’re in danger. If I hadn’t gotten drunk and lost my temper, we’d all behaving a good time at a party.”

  Andrei put a consoling hand on Brody’s shoulder.

  “Then maybe it’s time to make things right.”

  * * * * *

  “PYOTYR, THE DAY after Christmas, Hassan, his wife, and his newborn son will use a private jet to fly back to the Middle East.

  “As a present to his wife, though—the last luxury she’ll have for a long time—he’s arranged for his family to spend four days in a suite at a hotel on Santa Fe’s Plaza. The baby has three bodyguards and a nursemaid. With the child well protected, the wife will perhaps feel less nervous about leaving the hotel and going out to view the famed seasonal decorations in the city.

  “Santa Fe is the capital of New Mexico. At eight P.M. on Christmas Eve, Hassan and his wife will be driven to a reception at the governor’s mansion fifteen blocks away. There, amid numerous television cameras, he’ll make an impassioned speech about his goals in the Middle East.

  “Even though he’s a Muslim, he’ll use Christmas Eve to argue for mutual understanding and tolerance. He’ll use his exceptional speaking ability to talk about the child of peace, who happens to be his son but who represents every Palestinian child. He’ll tell the world that he’s taking the newborn baby back to the Middle East as a symbol of his hope for the future of all children in the region. He’ll argue passionately that if people truly love their children, they’ll do everything possible to demand a lasting truce.

  “Pyotyr, what Hassan doesn’t realize is that, although the infant’s bodyguards are loyal, the nursemaid works for his rivals, who haven’t the faintest interest in peace. All they want is to stay in the violence business that makes them so very much money—more than you or I could ever imagine.

  “At 8:05 tomorrow evening, the nursemaid will free the dead bolts on two of the suite’s doors. She’ll tape a strip of plastic against the side of each door so that the latches can’t seat themselves in the door frames and act as further locks. While Hassan and his wife are away at the governor’s mansion, we’ll enter the suite, shoot the guards, and grab the baby.”

  * * * * *

  KAGAN GRIPPED the kitchen table and pushed himself to his feet.

  “Cole, I’ll take your place now.”

  He drank more of the mixture that Meredith had prepared, tasting the salt and the sugar. The now-tepid fluid trickledown his dry throat. His stomach absorbed it without the nausea he’d experienced earlier.

  Just give me enough strength to keep functioning, he thought, not sure to whom he directed the words.

  In the dark living room, he crept to the leather chair. When Cole’s thin form slid away, Kagan eased into it, the leather creaking. He set the pistol on his lap, felt its comforting weight, and studied the window.

  The Christmas lights over the wreath outside the front door illuminated some of the area. Beyond the two leafless trees, the coyote fence was vaguely visible, its waist-high cedar posts contrasting with the snow, but past it, the lane was hard to distinguish. If not for the threat that lurked out there, the view would have been comparable to what Kagan had noticed a little while ago on the television in Cole’s room: Bing Crosby singing “White Christmas” while snow fell on a beautiful scene.

  He suddenly realized that the boy had remained standing beside him. Is he staring at the gun in my lap? Is it making him more afraid?

  “I need . . .” The boy sounded self-conscious. “. . . to go to the...”

  Kagan relaxed slightly, thankful that the boy wasn’t panicking because of the gun.

  “Better use the toilet near the laundry room,” he said. “I booby-trapped the hallway. It might be hard to get to those other bathrooms.” Kagan couldn’t remember when he’d last relieved his bladder. That he didn’t feel pressure in it troubled him. His wound had dehydrated him more than he realized. “When you’re finished, come back to the living room, okay?”

  “You bet. The last thing I want is to be by myself.”

  “Bring your baseball bat. Hang on to it.” Kagan noticed a big-screen television cabinet in the left front corner. Cole had referred to it earlier. “Keep imagining how you’ll crawl behind that cabinet and stay low if anything happens.”

  “Maybe I won’t need to,” Cole said.

  “That’s what I’m hoping. Things are beginning to look in our favor. But as I said, spies never take anything for granted.”

  “It could be ...”

  “Could be what?”

  “I don’t think I want to be a spy,” Cole said.
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  “At the moment, I don’t want to be one, either.” Kagan listened to the sound of the boy’s uneven footsteps as he went across the brick floor and entered the kitchen. “Meredith?”

  “Yes?” Her voice came softly through the archway.

  “Please bring the baby in here and sit on the floor next to him. Be ready to rush him into the laundry room if you hear anyone trying to break into the house.”

  “If,” she said. “But maybe they won’t come.”

  “That’s right. Maybe we’ll have just a quiet Christmas Eve.”

  All the while Kagan spoke, he kept his gaze on the view beyond the window, concentrating on the fence and the lane.

  He thought of the man out there with whom he’d pretended to have a friendship. Did I fool you, Andrei? Are you searching for me near Canyon Road? When you don’t find me, will you return here to take another look?

  I was a frequent guest in your home. Many times, I ate dinner with your wife and daughters. You invited me to help celebrate your wife’s birthday. Once, when you were drunk, you called me “brother.” Even the guns we carry are identical: 10-millimeter Glocks that were part of a load of weapons the Pakhan sent us to pick up from a gun dealer in Maryland. We test-fired them at the dealer’s range. We kept tying each other for the number of head shots we scored.

  Because I betrayed you, because I made a fool of you, I know you’ll never stop hunting me. If not tonight, then tomorrow or another day, you’ll find me. That much I’m sure of.

  Kagan remembered the many missions he and Andrei had conducted. With renewed self-loathing, he recalled the violence he’d been forced to inflict on his victims in order to win Andrei’s confidence. Because of the secrets he’d learned and the plots he’d uncovered—missile launchers, plastic explosives, infectious materials, and other terrorist weapons being smuggled into the country—he’d saved many innocent lives.

  But he couldn’t shut out the memory of the clatter of the teeth he’d pulled from the restaurant owner and dropped on the floor, of the homes he’d burned, of the women he’d beaten while Andrei and the Pakhan had watched.