Page 81 of Cruel Demands

I read the same paragraph for a fourth time. This is becoming inconvenient.

18

MIKHAIL

Arkady gives me the file on the way to work. I open it before I even get into the car. A thin gray folder. The first page contains the photograph attached to Taylor’s visa application. Her hair is pulled back. She’s not smiling. The lighting is flat and unkind, but her green eyes are still bright, her skin still warm with color. She looks younger somehow. Excited to leave the country even while someone has apparently instructed her not to smile.

Taylor Morgan Hayes. Twenty years old. Born in Wyoming. American citizen. Political science and Russian double major. Student visa converted to a limited professional placement authorization through the university’s international fellowship program. Valid through the end of the academic year, with the possibility of extension upon review. No irregularities. No criminal record. No political affiliations of concern. No known connection to foreign intelligence.

I already knew most of this. I had her official documents reviewed before she began working in the building. That was standard procedure. Necessary procedure.

This is different.

Pavel opens the rear door for me, and I slide into the car without looking up from the report. Arkady gets into the passenger seat, turning slightly so he can see me as Pavel pulls away from the curb.

This report includes Taylor’s residential address.

A fourth-floor apartment in a Soviet-era building she shares with Anya Sokolova, another student at the university. The rent is modest by Moscow standards and high by Taylor’s. The building has a coded entrance, an unreliable exterior camera, and a rear courtyard accessible from an alley.

I pause over that detail. “Unreliable how?”

Arkady crosses one ankle over his knee. “The camera cuts out in cold weather.”

“It’s always cold.”

“Then perhaps unreliable was generous.”

I make a note in the margin.

Arkady watches my pen move. “Are you planning to repair her building?”

“I’m identifying a vulnerability.”

“In the municipal surveillance network?”

“In her security.”

He smiles.

I ignore him and continue reading.

Her university records are excellent. Better than excellent. Top marks in political theory, Russian language, and international relations coursework. High marks in economics, though one professor describes her as argumentative. One disciplinary warning for publicly challenging a guest lecturer during a seminar.

I read the attached summary. The lecturer claimed Western sanctions affected only oligarchs and political elites. Taylor cited three economic studies, disputed his methodology, and asked whether he had visited any region outside Moscow in the past five years.

She was removed from the lecture.

I read the paragraph twice.

Arkady leans slightly toward the back seat. “Something interesting?”

“No.”

“You smiled.”

“I did not.”

“You nearly did.”