The Oslo Affair (Shadows of War, #2) CW Browning (sci fi books to read TXT) 📖

much slower than he was expecting and so now she knew he was here. There was nothing to be done it now. It made things more difficult, but not impossible.

Between the Englishwoman and Comrade Lyakhov, he felt like he was on a wild goose chase. He was growing more and more convinced with each passing hour that there was nothing here. Lyakhov hadn’t been anywhere near her since she arrived, and she hadn’t made any attempt to contact him that they could tell. Yakov had assured him that absolutely no messages had been delivered to Lyakhov’s hotel the previous day, and Grigori himself had bribed one of the employees of the hotel to alert him to any messages the Englishwoman sent out. In an effort to make a good impression, his new friend had discovered that she had sent two messages out yesterday: one to her editor in London and one to the British embassy here in Stockholm. Neither of them could have made their way into Lyakhov’s hands. No. Comrade Grigori was confident that there had been no contact initiated between them.

He crossed an intersection and continued to trail the elegant blonde woman ahead. Unless Yakov turned up something today, or he himself observed something irrefutable, Grigori was going to call this whole thing off. It was a waste of time and resources when he could be tracking down the real traitor.

He watched as the Englishwoman paused on the sidewalk and looked into a shop window before she continued on. This one may be slippery and may possibly even be a British agent, although he had his doubts, but she’d shown no interest at all in the Soviet comrades in Oslo. In fact, she seemed far more interested in the German scientists. That made perfect sense if she was indeed an agent, but Grigori would be impressed if that was the case. She was clearly from aristocratic breeding. She held herself in a manner that bespoke privilege, and her clothes looked as if they had been tailored just for her. He would place her more firmly in a category with rich, bored socialites than with intelligence agents.

He was still mulling over this two blocks later when she paused once again on the sidewalk before going into a shop. Glancing at the oncoming traffic, Grigori jogged across the wide road to the other side and moved along until he was parallel with the store. It was a woman’s clothing store. He looked at his watch, then looked at the little bakery behind him. After one last glance at the store across the street, he turned and went into the bakery. It would be easier to watch from inside than out, and as he stepped into the shop the sweet, warm smell of freshly baked breads and pastry assaulted him.

Watching out of the corner of his eye through the front window, he turned to look at the rows of baked goods on display behind the counter. The Englishwoman would be a while. She would want to try clothes on. They always did. He had plenty of time to select something to ease his hunger while he waited.

After purchasing some pastry and half a loaf of brown bread that looked very similar to his favorite loaf in Moscow, he turned to leave the bakery. He had taken his time and spent over twenty minutes in the shop, but there was still no sign of her.

He stepped outside with the bag in his hand and frowned, looking at his watch again. He turned to walk to the next shop and went in, still keeping an eye on the store front across the road. Looking around, he found himself in a tobacconist. Ten minutes later, he emerged with a selection of cigarettes and one cigar, but still no sign of his quarry.

His lips tightened and he was debating the risk of going across the street and looking into the store window to see if he could see her when the door to the shop opened. He turned to walk a few steps, looking sideways under his hat. The customer exiting the shop was not the Englishwoman. She was a working girl, dressed in an ill-fitting skirt and shabby sweater with woolen stockings and very dull, sensible shoes. She carried a large handbag over her arm that looked as if it had seen better days, and clasped a newspaper in one hand. This woman was a far cry from the elegant, perfectly tailored woman he had been following for four days. After pausing outside the shop to straighten her hat, she turned to stride down the sidewalk. As she did so, Grigori noticed that the hand carrying the newspaper was covered with a soft leather glove.

His lips pursed and his brows snapped together as he turned to walk in the same direction, glancing at the shop once more as he did so. The woman who came out of the shop was about as far removed from Maggie Richardson as was possible, and yet something made Grigori turn his gaze back to her.

It was the gloves. The entire outfit was sensible, warm and completely unremarkable, but she was wearing leather gloves that were at complete odds with the rest of the clothing. Another gust of wind tore down the street and the woman raised her free hand to hold a plain brown hat on her head as she walked. The wind grabbed a lock of blonde hair and whipped it out from under the hat, and Grigori stared.

It couldn’t be her. And yet...something told him that it was. The gloves, the hair, they both were compelling reasons to risk losing his quarry and follow her instead. And yet, that wasn’t what made Comrade Grigori continue down the opposite side of the road, his eyes fixed on the woman. It was the clenching in his gut. Something wasn’t right with this new development.

And Comrade Grigori had learned long ago not to dismiss that particular feeling.