My Dangerous Valentine by Carolyn McCray

Chapter 1
    CIA operative Valentine Rutger rushed down the snow-slicked sidewalk. Her heels clicked along the pavement, punctuating the urgency of her mission. Finally, she reached her location. The local mall. She opened the glass door and was hit by a wave of warm air. The place was hopping. Actually the place was crammed. With Christmas Eve shoppers.
    “How’s Operation: Desperation going?” Trinka, her tech support, asked in her ear.
    “Just fine,” Valentine tapped the bud in her ear to turn on her mic, and answered.
    There really wasn’t any other option. She’d been in Madagascar until last night and was heading out to Belarus in the morning. This was her window. Her one and only window.
    Val passed by a short older woman dressed in a dark blue cloak, ringing a bell. “Care to donate?”
    Val shook her head. “Sorry, I’m here to pick up a present for my daughter. Maybe later.”
    The woman, probably used to the answer, simply nodded, ringing the bell again. Val hurried away from the woman and her guilt. Then she saw the long line snaking out of the toy store. The staff had posted on Facebook that they had received a shipment of the Baby Gaga dolls. Apparently, every desperate parent in the tri-state area had descended on the store.
    Val walked up to the back of the line, right behind a woman with three toddlers. The Mother looked about as tired as Val felt. The youngest one was trying to throw herself from her mother’s arms, wailing as she did so. The other two boys were wrestling on the floor. And they looked like they were fighting pretty dirty. Hair-pulling was on the table.
    Val had survived torture in Micronesia that was not as painful as the children’s screams. But Val was on a mission, and she would not be undone by some rambunctious toddlers.
    Trying to tune out the pre-school war in front of her, Val glanced around the mall. The place looked like Christmas had hurled on the mall. There wasn’t a square inch of wall, ceiling, or railing that wasn’t covered in red or green. Apparently, poinsettias were in fashion this year. Along with gold bows. And angels. Angels were big, too.
    Even someone from Tunisia would know it was Christmastime. The season was burned into your retinas.
    Val’s eyes scanned over to the only other store with a line to challenge the toy store’s. It was the only coffee shop in the mall. Tired mothers and jonesing teens lined up to get their caffeine fix.
    A tall, dark-haired man gathered his drink and turned toward her, blowing on his latte. Val stiffened. She knew that dark, handsome face. Ukav . He looked up and gave a sad smile.
    “Be careful,” he mouthed.
    No shit. “Trinka, what the hell is Ukav doing here?”
    “What do you mean?” the young tech asked. You could hear her chair swivel around—the girl was at the ready at her keyboard.
    “Ukav, at the mall, Trinka. Why didn’t we have an alert he was in the country?”
    Val looked back over to the coffee bar to find him gone. She was sure he had been there and had warned her, but how, and more importantly, why?
    “I don’t know. We’ve got all of his aliases flagged,” Trinka reported. “I’m bringing up the mall footage now.”
    “Where did he go?”
    “Oh my god,” Trinka said. “It is Ukav.”
    “Yes,” Val said, waiting for the tech to catch up. “Now, I need to know where he went.”
    It wasn’t everyday you found a KGB officer in the mall. Actually, technically, he was SVR, but that was the modern day equivalent of the KGB and there were still old-school KGB operatives running off-the-books missions. Ukav ran with the movers and shakers.
    Even though tensions were not nearly as high as they were during the Cold War, that did not mean the two superpowers were buddy-buddy. As a matter of fact, in regards to any of the hotspots around the world— Iran, Syria and North Korea in particular—the USSR and the USA were on opposite sides of the negotiating table.
    But why was Ukav here at the