Love Is for Tomorrow by Michael Karner, Isaac Newton Acquah Page A

anything?” Major Norin asked.
    “No thank you sir,” she replied. “I will come back to you if I do.”
    “Then I say we close this meeting,” Norin said. “Keep this between us. Next time Kovalenko, let me know about threats of this nature.”
    “Yes sir.”
    “Well then this meeting is closed. Olga report to me directly on any updates,” Dimitri said.
    Olga left her seat and went outside with the others. Hands were shook and courtesies given. She ducked out as soon as possible and headed to the roof of the building.
    She took out her phone and called a number she had reserved for emergencies only. 
    “Tanya, I trust you are not double playing me. If not, there might be some people who are onto you.”
    She paced the roof, waiting for Tanya’s reply. Maybe she couldn’t talk at the moment.
    “I haven’t told anybody,” she continued. “I’m hoping Khabib is keeping his mouth shut.”
    She looked around to make sure nobody followed her. She kept her voice low.
    “There is a lot riding on the raid now. All eyes will be on me and I need to feed information to Dimitri.”
     
     

CHAPTER ELEVEN
     
    BANG AND BURN 
     
    “Invincibility lies in the defence; the possibility of victory in the attack.” - Sun Tzu
     
    Vienna, Austria
     
    All of her closest loved ones had come. It was rare that every one of them had time to sit down at one table and have a meal together.
    Rose took her son and daughter by the hand. She gazed at her husband Derek across the table.
    “Before we pray today, an old proverb,” Rose said. “From our ancestors. It goes like this: When there’s no enemy within, the enemies without can’t harm you.”
    “And whatever you might think, your own worst enemy is yourself,” Derek added.  
    Rose nodded. Today she would clear her conscious.
    “I’m praying for help to withstand a big threat,” she began.
    Her family probably wondered about the particular words in her prayer. Rose had always tried to keep family and job separate. Now the past had caught up with them. Rose continued to listen to her children’s life and issues at school. They finished their meal and while her children had dessert she excused herself with her husband.
     
    They walked to a side room and when they were a safe distance away Rose turned to her husband and said, “Tanya Sharipova. She has returned.”
    Rose glared. Her husband cleared his throat, then composed himself.
    “I thought we would never hear that name again,” he said. “All our leads ran dry, especially after you left.”  
    Rose thought back to her time when she headed up the task force to hunt down Tanya after Tanya’s assassination mission in the UK. They never got her and Tanya got away with it.
    “Let’s just say, without her, our careers would have gone better,” Derek said.
    “I never seemed to be able to get into her mind.”
    “You also never seemed to get her out of your mind. Promise me one thing, you will not obsess after her. With the MI5 full resources it was not enough and you cannot stretch your manpower too thin.”
    “I have an agent who is friends with Death himself, another finer than any double O we had and hackers that make CIA firewalls look like first year school assignments.”
    “I do not doubt your staff’s ability. I am concerned about chasing multiple targets. Yes, whatever Tanya has planned is probably not good, but there is still a bomb on the loose. And we do not know how she thinks. Evidence showed she was the one responsible for the transport of nuclear material in our plutonium case in two thousand nine.” 
    “After that, she disappeared.”
    “Until now,” Derek said. “You’ll find her.”
    Rose felt him hold her trembling hands and relaxed. With her husband’s support, she could face her nemesis.
    Rose looked at her watch.
    “My love I have to go. We have a mission starting soon. It’s our last lead on Tanya.”
     
    ***
     
    Belgrade, Serbia
     
    Under the cover of the night,