Death of a Spy by Dan Mayland

Russian without sounding like a fool, and all the funny and not-so-funny stories that they’d told each other about what it was like to grow up as a kid in Tbilisi, Georgia, or in Elizabeth, New Jersey—like when Katerina, as a three-year-old, had released the parking brake on the family car and crashed it into the neighbor’s fence, or the time Mark had gotten into trouble for climbing onto the roof of his duplex and throwing rocks at a neighbor’s window, this when he was six. Katerina liked U2 and Madonna and REM. She’d wept when she’d told Marko about the death of her father. He couldn’t believe that she could have been that good an actor.
    Larry said, “If I were you, I’d leave Georgia tomorrow. The Soviets have been playing nice with you up until now, but now that they know you’re a conduit for resistance money, there’s no guarantee they’re going to continue to play nice. I’m telling you this because you’re an American citizen, and even though you completely botched my operation, I kind of like you, and I don’t want to see you get hurt.”
    The van came to a stop.
    Larry added, “If you don’t leave and things go south for you, I can’t protect you, your government can’t protect you.” Larry handed him a stack of 100-ruble bills. “This was supposed to be for the Press Club. Use it instead to buy a ticket home. Pretend you got sick, I’ll make sure the Fulbright people don’t screw you over.”
    “I didn’t ask you to protect me.”
    “We won’t see each other again.” Larry pulled open the cargo bay door, doing so in a way that allowed him to stay hidden behind it. “Now get out.”

    After walking the streets for an hour, Marko came to a decision. He called Katerina from a pay phone.
    “What’s wrong?”
    “You know your favorite place to paint?”
    “You mean—”
    “Don’t say it! Just meet me there.”
    “When?”
    “Now. Can you go now?”
    “Yes…OK, yes, but what’s wrong, Marko?”
    “I’ll talk to you soon.”

    Marko climbed the hill that rose up behind the old city, past the tiny crooked homes and little churches, until it became too steep for buildings and was just overgrown grass and rocks and garbage.
    It was dark now, ten o’clock in the evening. The lights of the city twinkled below him, and the sky above was a strange shade of violet. A gentle breeze blew waves through the scrub grass. To his right rose an enormous aluminum statue of a woman who in one hand held a sword and in the other a bottle of wine: treat Georgians well, you will be welcomed with wine; if not, then you’ll be fought with a sword. Well, thought Marko, that would be his motto too from here on out.
    He climbed until he got to a paved footpath that traversed the top of a long ridge. He turned left, passing the funicular, which had been shut down for the night, and walked until he reached the entrance to the botanical gardens.
    Tucked away on the back side of the ridge, in the shadow of a medieval fortress, the gardens of Tbilisi were a welcome refuge from the city. It was a wild place, crisscrossed by little dirt trails and crumbling stone walls. Because the city was on the other side of the ridge, the sound of cars was barely audible, and he could hear little but the wind rustling through the leaves.
    During the day, the price of admission was just a pittance—twenty kopeks, payable to a gnarled old woman who, if she was lucky, collected enough over the course of a day to justify her pittance of a government salary. Now, the gardens were closed for the night, but there was no gate. Just beyond the entrance, Marko veered off the path and hid in the woods.
    Katerina walked by him twenty minutes later, traveling quickly down the steep gravel path. She wore designer jeans—American style, but made cheaply in East Germany—that Marko had given her. Her loose white poet shirt had frilly flounces at the wrists and reflected enough moonlight that she seemed to glow amidst the