Cristelle Comby - Red Lies

Sofiya noticed two men waiting for her there; one of them was sitting with a clutter of documents in his hands, and the other was standing a little to his right. From where he stood, Mikhaïl Serov gave her a curt nod of acknowledgment. The man seated behind the desk, the head of Directorate K, didn’t lift his head.

Sofiya stood straighter as she waited to see what fate would befall her. The Comrade Director had only ever talked to her once—the day she joined the ranks of Directorate K—and now, there she was, summoned to his office. Taking in a deep breath, the young officer saluted, introduced herself, and came to stand two feet from the wooden desk.

“You’re going on a long-term mission,” the balding man told her without looking up.

Sofiya swallowed, hard. A dozen questions burned her tongue: What kind of mission? Where? And for how long? She silenced her thoughts and kept her mouth shut.

“Your target,” the director said. With a wrinkled hand, he pushed forward on his desk the photograph of a man. From where she stood, Sofiya couldn’t make out the person’s traits.

“It seems that despite his apparent cooperation, he continues to hide things from us. Some of his associates are questionable, and there are money deposits we couldn’t trace.” Nose still in the documents, the director paused to flip a page. “We do not know if he’s acting alone, or if he has allies within the embassy. Directorate K is counting on you to find out.”

Without moving from where she stood, Sofiya leaned forward to better see the photograph; she was surprised to recognise Viktor Petrov.

“You’ve been trained for this,” the director continued. “Make him fall in love with you; play the part until his suspicion evaporates. Insinuate yourself in his life and send us detailed summaries of his activities. Record every conversation you can.” The list went on.

Though she knew the only thing they expected from her was her obedience, Sofiya asked, “How long will my infiltration last?”

That got the director’s attention, and he looked up from his file for the first time. His bushy grey eyebrows narrowed as he fixed her with a stare that could have made the sun shiver. “Indefinite duration.”

Sofiya closed her eyes for a short moment, the breath caught in her throat. Indefinite—it could last ten years or more.

“The Swedish Prime Minister is staying in Moscow for a couple of days, and Petrov accompanied him. Comrade Serov has arranged for you two to meet again. The Soviet Union thanks you for your service.”

The director looked down at his file again, and Sofiya knew a dismissal when she saw one. She saluted and headed out of the door without another word. The walk from the corridor to the stairs seemed longer this time, and all the way down, she had to hold on to the staircase railing to not lose her balance. Echoes of the director’s words rang loudly in her ears.

Indefinite duration.

Nursing a drink at her favourite bar, she forced herself to remember such things happened. A long-term assignment had always been a possibility; hell, in her line of work, it was a matter of ‘when’, not ‘if’. And she’d reached the right age for that, too.

She was getting too old to bait dignitaries into compromising one-night stands. But she was the right age to settle down and start a family while she played the long game.

She’d heard the stories of agents who had created a whole new life for themselves in the West, getting married and bearing children to their targets to better cement their new identities. She’d also heard the stories of the Communist Party later converting these children to the cause.

She emptied her glass and signalled the bartender for a refill.

Paperwork was one aspect of her job Sofiya never cared much about. The thorough post-mission reports she’d been required to write every time she returned home always felt like a punishment—the last unenjoyable part of an overall questionable occupation. But paperwork was another cog in the machine, a task she was required to perform—and so she did. Her reports were meticulously drafted and forgotten the instant she left them in her superior’s in tray.

She’d never given much thought to what befell those loose A4 sheets of paper after she’d parted with them. For her, they ceased to exist the instant they left her hands. Little did she know that that was not the end of their journey; they continued to exist for quite some time, never actually disappearing.

As she stood in front of the entrance to the non-descript building that served as the Komitet ’s centralized archives, with a bundle of documents tucked under one arm, Sofiya wished she’d remained in the dark about the paperwork’s final destination.

Pushing the large oak door open, she entered with her head held high and a neutral expression on her face. She was dressed in her uniform and removed her cap when she reached the security desk.

The young man seated there asked for her credentials with a warm if droopy smile. Sofiya had the feeling his position required him to be more alert than he was, but then again, given where he was stationed, she could see why boredom could be tempted to settle in.

He let her in, no questions asked, and Sofiya took the elevator up to level three. There were five floors to choose from that were above ground, and another three that were below ground, housing the more sensitive data. Eight floors of archives; eight floors of shelves and boxes and dust. Eight floors of dead silence and immutability where nothing ever happened. She’d just found her personal hell.

The elevator dinged and opened its doors, and the smell of old paper and dust made her cough in surprise. Predictably, there was no one in sight, and she let her displeasure show on her face as she entered the archive.

She found a cart and unloaded the files on top of it. Then she started walking through the sections, looking for the final resting place of the reports she’d been given.

This wasn’t the FCD section—these were stored below ground—but contained rather more innocent matter, such as international relationships, trading, and economics. These were not subjects that could have ever interested a counter-intelligence spy like Sofiya. But she could see how these could appeal to a man such as—Viktor Petrov, for instance.

That she knew his superior had asked him to carry out some research on the possibility of broadening the gas trade in Scandinavia, and that a particular report had been drafted on the subject two years ago, by an analyst, was fortuitous. That she knew he’d been asked to fetch this report before flying back to Sweden tomorrow, and that he hadn’t yet—so it was obvious he would drop by sometime today—was just Sofiya being good at her job.

Sofiya was down to her last file and contemplated taking all the documents she’d archived out of their boxes again to re-start the whole process when suddenly, the sound of the elevator doors opening and closing interrupted her.

It was soon followed by the tip-tapping of footsteps on the cold hard floor. The gait was hard and rhythmic, masculine. The sound grew closer to her, and she readied herself for the task she had really come here to perform.

Feigning indifference, she reached for a random box on the tallest shelf. Standing on her tiptoes, she leaned forward and held the position until she caught movement in her peripheral vision. Sofiya resumed her motion, taking down the box before crouching to place it on the floor.