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  The kitchen, just to the left of the living room, which was lined with avocado green cabinets and held a large brown refrigerator, clearly hadn’t been redecorated since the seventies. Tatiana walked over to the pantry and checked inside. The shelves were stocked with canned soups, pasta sauces, packets of instant oatmeal, and cans of soda and juice.

  She walked back across the living room to the bedroom, which took all of three steps, and flicked on the light. Two twin-size beds, draped with blue blankets, stood on either side of a single nightstand. Inspection of a small dresser against the far wall revealed drawers filled with plain underwear, bras, T-shirts, and sweaters in Tatiana and Natasha’s sizes. The closet held a few pairs of jeans, assorted footwear, and two heavy winter coats. On the top shelf was a wide array of wigs, hats, and sunglasses. Tatiana pulled down a long, dark wig with natural-looking waves and smiled morosely. Her mother had certainly been prepared.

  Still fingering the coarse hair of the wig, Tatiana sat down on the closest bed and tried to remain calm. She tried not to let herself picture the events of the evening over and over again. Reliving the nightmare was not going to help her deal with it. It wasn’t going to bring her mother back to her. There was only one thing that would. She had to make Gaia talk. Gaia was the only person who knew where her mother was—who the men were that had taken her.

  From their uniform fighting tactics, it was clear they belonged to some government agency, and considering Tom Moore’s affiliation with the CIA, Tatiana assumed it was them. But that meant nothing to her. It wasn’t as if she was privy to all the CIA’s secret interrogation facilities. As much as she hated to admit it, she needed Gaia. Unfortunately, she knew that the self-righteous, egotistical bitch-on-a-mission was never going to help her.

  What Tatiana needed was a plan.

  Taking a deep breath, Tatiana gathered her blond hair on top of her head and pulled the wig on over it. It was tight, but all the better. She tugged at the temples, then walked over to the full-length mirror that was attached to the back of the door, suddenly hyperaware of the cold steel against the skin of her back. When she saw her reflection, she smiled slowly. It was perfect—a total transformation.

  Tatiana pulled her gun out of her waistband, hoisted it, and aimed it at her reflection, her arms straight and locked at the elbow. She barely even recognized herself. Whatever her plan might turn out to be, Gaia would never see her coming.

  So Blind

  GAIA KEPT HER HEAD BENT, EYES focused on the grimy sidewalk as she emerged from the subway station on East Sixty-eighth Street. It was rush hour, and she was bombarded on every side by harried commuters, juggling their coffee cups and briefcases and reeking of musky aftershave and freshly sprayed perfume. Gaia’s intention had been to remain inconspicuous, but among this crowd there was no way to keep from sticking out like a prune in a bushel of apples. She stepped to the corner and looked left and right, trying to pick out anything suspicious. Any signs of Tatiana.

  The three guys who always hung out by the tiny newsstand across Lexington were there as usual, checking out the latest issue of Boobs magazine and sneering as they hovered over the centerfold. Mr. Han, the Vietnamese grocer, stood outside his shop, guarding his fruit with a watchful eye. A bus zoomed by, kicking a cloud of exhaust directly into Gaia’s lungs. Yep. Everything was status normal.

  The light changed and Gaia crossed the street, fully aware that she was taking her life in her own hands simply by appearing in this neighborhood. It was the one thing, besides school, that she and Tatiana had in common. The girl would have to be an idiot not to look for Gaia here. If Tatiana knew anything about her mark, she had to know that Gaia would come back to the apartment to look for clues. And as a morning breeze tossed a tangled clump of hair across Gaia’s vision, she almost hoped she would bump into Tatiana. It would be nice to get this over with.

  When she arrived at her building, Gaia nodded quickly at Javier, the doorman, then hopped into an open elevator. As she slowly made her ascent, she wondered exactly how long it would take the CIA to break Natasha. They were probably using all the standard tactics—sleep deprivation, starvation, threats against her daughter—to try to get her to talk. But Natasha was trained by some of the best in the world. She could cope with torture. Gaia knew it could take days, weeks, months before the government was able to get the information Gaia needed. She didn’t have that long.

  The elevator pinged and the doors slid open. Gaia cautiously peeked into the hallway and found it deserted. She crept along the wall to the apartment she had been sharing with Natasha and Tatiana for so many weeks. Pressing her ear up against the door’s flat surface, she heard nothing but merciful silence. Gaia slid her key into the lock and opened the door.

  The moment she stepped inside, she knew instinctively that the place was deserted. It felt cold and still, almost as if no one had inhabited its rooms for years. As she stood and looked around at the living room she’d kicked back in and the kitchen she’d snacked from, Gaia was filled with a hot, suffocating shame. How could she have let Natasha and Tatiana fool her into thinking they cared? How could she have been so blind?

  She thought of all the times Natasha had scolded her for being late, of the concern she’d shown for her and her father. But suddenly she saw the bigger picture. Natasha had laughed at her in these rooms. She’d manipulated her and had enjoyed doing it. Poor little Gaia. Poor little naive daughter of Tom. And all the while Tatiana had been in on it. Tatiana had been laughing at her, too.

  Gaia hated that she’d allowed it to happen. She hated that she had been so gullible. But not anymore. She was in control now. Now it was her turn to laugh. Gaia locked the door behind her and set to work.

  And just as she had done earlier, when she’d been looking for clues to the attempts made on her life, she turned the apartment inside out. She started with Natasha’s room, ripping through the clothes in the closet and checking every nook and cranny for hidden compartments, false walls. She knocked along the surfaces, searching for hollow spaces, but there was nothing. The shelves were stacked with shoe boxes and bags. Gaia pulled every one down and emptied them on the floor in a pile, but the search revealed nothing except the fact that Natasha was clearly obsessed with her feet.

  Frustrated, Gaia checked under the bed, pulling out every single drawer and overturning them, emptying silky nightgowns, cashmere sweaters, and slippery scarves onto the bed. She could vividly see Natasha in this room, getting dressed, smirking her triumph in the full-length mirror, thinking of how easily she’d seduced Tom Moore. Gaia felt hot tears spring to her eyes. This was the first woman her father had trusted since her mother had died. How was it that her father, who had been a spy for over twenty years, was so damned gullible? How could he have let her mother’s memory be marred by someone like Natasha?

  A sliver of anger worked its way into Gaia’s heart, but she wiped her tears and tried to suppress it. This was not her father’s fault. There was no use wasting time wishing things were different. Wishing he hadn’t let his guard down. Gaia herself had mistakenly trusted many an enemy.

  She dropped the last empty drawer on the bed, then checked under each one for documents that might be taped there and inspected lamps and phones, looking for wires. By the time she was done, the bedroom was chaos, the bathroom a total wreck of smashed eye shadows and broken bottles.

  But there was nothing. If Natasha had been hiding anything in this room, she was damn good.

  Gaia rushed into the hall and paused for a moment, listening for any sign of life, but didn’t hear a sound. She attacked the room she shared with Tatiana with the same ferocity, ripping her precious clothes from the hangers and pawing through her school-books. She yanked bags and boxes out from under Tatiana’s bed and emptied her CD collection onto the floor. But again there was nothing.

  Gaia sighed and pressed her palm into her forehead. Maybe this was pointless. Maybe she was just wasting her time. Her blood rushed through her veins as a little voice in her
mind taunted her for being so stupid. Natasha wasn’t an amateur. She wouldn’t keep the secrets of her master plan right under the nose of one of her primary targets.

  Still, Gaia wasn’t quite ready to give up. Her father was depending on her. Alive or dead, she had to find out where he was, and as far as Gaia knew, Natasha and Tatiana were the only ones who had that information. She hit Natasha’s room again, and the moment she walked in, she realized she hadn’t checked the nightstands. She dropped to her knees in front of the closest one and yanked the small drawer out. It flew open and then stuck stubbornly. As much as Gaia jimmied and tugged, the drawer wouldn’t come free. Gaia pulled out the paperback novel, the pad of paper and pen, and the sleep mask inside, dropping it all to the floor at her knees. She shoved her hands into the empty drawer and felt along the plywood surface.

  “Come on,” Gaia said under her breath, starting to feel desperate. A trickle of sweat ran down from her temple along her cheek. “Come on . . . .”

  And then her fingertip hit something. Something sharp. Gaia’s heart leapt into her throat. She ran her fingertip along the slim edge of what had to be a small envelope, from the feel of it. She pulled out her hands and crouched, tilting her head to one side and trying to see into the back of the drawer. Sure enough, she spotted the folded edge of a brown envelope that was wedged into the seam between the back of the drawer and the bottom. Gaia reached into the drawer again, grasped the envelope with both hands, and yanked as hard as she could.

  The envelope came free and Gaia tumbled backward into the pile of shoes and boots behind her. Her heart slammed against her rib cage in excitement as she looked at the envelope. Across the front five capital letters were printed: ABCSH.

  There was something heavy inside. Gaia tipped the envelope over her hand, and into her waiting palm fell a single brass key. It lay there, cold and unhelpful, but Gaia felt like she’d achieved a small victory. It was a clue. It had to be. The key had been just hidden enough and the message on the front of the envelope was just cryptic enough to reassure her that she was on to something.

  Gaia slipped the key back into the envelope and stuffed it into her back pocket. She returned to her room, grabbed her duffel bag from under her bed, and stuffed some clothes into it at random. She slung her messenger bag over her shoulder, took one last look around at the destruction she’d caused, and headed for the door.

  She had no idea where she was going, but she couldn’t stay here. Aside from the possibility of being murdered by Tatiana in her sleep, this place had too many bad memories. Memories of how for weeks on end, she’d been sleeping with the enemy.

  It was time to start over. Something Gaia was growing more and more accustomed to.

  Another Enemy

  ABCSH, ABCSH, A . . . B . . . C . . . S . . . H.

  Gaia stared at the corner of the chessboard, the squares and playing pieces blurred before her. She’d come to the park hoping that a nice solid trouncing of Mr. Haq would help calm her nerves, help her focus, but all she could think about was the letters. They danced in front of her mind’s eye like one of those animated lessons from Sesame Street, but they refused to form themselves into any kind of order that would yield an answer.

  ABCSH . . .

  What did it mean? And what did it have to do with her father?

  “Girlie?” Mr. Haq said. “Girlie? Your move!” He snapped his stubby, calloused fingers in front of Gaia’s dazed face.

  She blinked, and her eyes settled on the board.

  “I got you this time, eh, girlie?” the old man said gleefully, rubbing his palms together. “You not yourself today. I on top of my game.” He snickered and Gaia sighed. She could take him in five moves, no problem, but she couldn’t see the point. This was totally useless. The game had done nothing to calm her down. She had to get out of here. She had to go . . . somewhere, she just didn’t know where. All she knew was that she felt like she had millions of tiny little Ping-Pong balls dancing around under her skin. She couldn’t just sit here any longer.

  “I have to go,” she said, standing up.

  Mr. Haq’s tiny, dark eyes widened as he tilted back his head to look up at her. “You forfeit? You can’t forfeit! You never forfeit!”

  “First time for everything,” Gaia said flatly.

  “But I have you! I have you!” Mr. Haq wailed in protest, gesturing wildly at the board. “You can’t just leave because I have you!”

  “Sorry,” Gaia said. She shouldered her messenger bag, grabbed her duffel, and hurried away, followed by the continued sounds of Mr. Haq’s protesting wails.

  Gaia crossed over to Waverly and started to walk east with less than no clue as to where she was headed. She immediately regretted forfeiting her game. At least as long as she was sitting there, she was somewhere. Somewhere familiar. Now she was headed right back to nowhere.

  If only she knew what her next move should be. If only she had some idea of where Tatiana was. But by now she could be in another state. She could be in another country. Gaia had waited too long. With each passing moment Tatiana gained an advantage. She was slowly slipping through Gaia’s fingers.

  Gaia continued to wander, letting the Walk and Don’t Walk signs define her path. When she hit the corner of Second Street and Second Avenue, she heard the sharp start of a scream that was quickly cut short. Gaia’s senses went on the alert as she looked around, searching for something amiss, wondering if she’d just imagined it. But then something caught her eye. A few figures struggling right in the center of the ages-old cemetery across the street.

  Gaia dashed into traffic, ignoring the angry horn of a large meat truck that had to skid to a stop, and tossed her bags over the iron fence that surrounded the cemetery. She scrambled up and over the barrier. As she ran toward the fray, she saw that two average-size men were trying to pull the purse off a middle-aged woman who was struggling on the ground. The strap was wrapped around her body and under her arm, making it difficult for the guys to get it free. But they soon would, and who knew what they would do to the woman once they had what they wanted?

  “Hey!” Gaia called out, bending at the waist.

  The two men looked up in surprise, and Gaia used the moment to rush straight at the slightly taller guy, shoulder first. He didn’t even have a chance to throw out his arms. Gaia hit him hard, and he let out an “Oof!” before tumbling to the ground with her in a mass of tangled limbs. Gaia was just getting her bearings to pummel the crap out of him when his buddy came up behind her and got her in a headlock. He yanked her away from his friend, and Gaia felt her eyes bulge as her windpipe was cut off. She choked and sputtered, grasping at the guy’s arm with both hands.

  “Don’t go nowhere,” her assailant said to the woman on the ground.

  Gaia tried to shoot her a look, telling her to run, but she knew that her widened eyes, probably just made her look panicked. The woman wept and pulled her leg toward her. It was twisted unnaturally and was probably broken. So much for running.

  “Yo, Tino, we got a spark plug here,” the headlock guy said.

  Tino, who had a nice scar that cut from the corner of his eye all the way down to the corner of his mouth, scrambled to his feet and fixed Gaia with a menacing glare. He slowly cracked his knuckles, then came at her, fast. But at the last second Gaia pushed her feet off the ground, used every muscle in her abs to bring up her legs, and double kicked Tino right in his nasty face.

  The force of his momentum worked against him, and Tino crumbled to the ground, knocked out. The guy behind Gaia loosened his grip in surprise and she ducked out from under his arm, turned, and landed a nice right hook across his nose. His hands flew up to cover it, and she punched him once in the gut and kicked him in the groin. When he fell to his knees, she finished him off with an elbow jab to the back of his neck.

  He hit the ground in a fetal position, unconscious. Gaia looked down at her handiwork—two knocked-out thugs in short order—and waited for a nice sense of satisfaction to come over her, but it
didn’t. She was still antsy. She was still made up of Ping-Pong balls.

  “Are you okay?” Gaia asked the woman, who was now leaning back against a headstone.

  She turned amazed eyes on Gaia. “I need to take a self-defense class,” she said.

  Gaia frowned. “I think your leg is broken. I’m gonna go get some help.” The woman eyed her two attackers warily. “Don’t worry about them,” Gaia assured her. “They’re down for the count.”

  She jogged over to her bags, grabbed them up, and this time found the open gate to exit the cemetery. A block and a half away she spotted a parked patrol car and told the officer behind the wheel that there was a woman hurt back at the graveyard and that the two guys who’d hurt her were still there. He picked up his radio and called it in.

  “Don’t move,” he told Gaia as he turned on his siren. “We’ll want your statement.”

  “Right,” Gaia said. And the moment he peeled away, she took off in the other direction.

  ABCSH . . . ABCSH, her brain started up again. What was it? What was it? She wished she had someone to talk to—someone to bounce this clue off and see what they came up with. Someone to brainstorm with. But there was no one left. Ed hated her. Sam hated her. There was no one else who knew about her psychotic family—her psychotic life. And there was certainly no one she knew who was up on espionage. No code crackers in her immediate acquaintance.

  Except, of course . . .

  Gaia stopped in her tracks so fast, the woman behind her walked right into her.

  “Excuse me!” the lady snapped as she righted her bags and shuffled around Gaia.

  But Gaia was in the midst of an epiphany—a bona fide brainstorm. Loki. As long as Gaia had lived, every awful thing that had ever happened to her had been perpetrated by Loki. Gaia had always thought it was just a little too weird that her father had fallen into a random coma the same day Loki had become comatose himself.