Spy to the Rescue by Jonathan Bernstein Page B

open the can and take a drink. It tastes amazing.
    â€œWhat is this place?” I ask.
    â€œMy changing room,” she says. “For when I need to grab a few things and go.”
    â€œIt’s nice.” I smile. “I like the color.”
    â€œButternut orange,” she murmurs. “But that’s not what you want to talk about.”
    â€œNo.” Now that I’m alone with her, now that I can ask her anything, I don’t know where to start.
    â€œMy name is Irina Ouspenskaya,” she says. “I was born in the Chechen Republic.”
    â€œCommonly known as Chechnya,” I break in, eager to display my global knowledge. “Situated in the southernmost part of Eastern Europe, within a hundred kilometers of the Caspian Sea.”
    â€œGood Googling.” She smiles. “Bad place. My family sought asylum in America in 1997. We moved to New Jersey. I went to high school and worked part-time for the King of Shish Kebab. Not the real king, the takeout one.”
    â€œBut that was your cover, right?” I say. “You were a Chechen secret service agent?”
    Irina grins and takes a gulp of Sprite. “Sometimes, a girl has to say things that aren’t a hundred percent true to make herself seem interesting to a guy. This is very bad advice, by the way.”
    â€œThanks, but—wait, you weren’t an agent in high school?”
    â€œI didn’t fit in at John F. Kennedy High in Paterson. My English was not so good. The words made sense in my head but not when they came out my mouth. The other kids imitated me.”
    Like Brendan Chew! I seethe in silent sympathy for the young Irina.
    â€œAt home, my mother looked more like my grandmother and my grandmother looked like a pile of old dirty laundry; sorry to say, but it’s the truth.” She takes a sipof Sprite and looks lost in the memory. After a moment, she returns to her theme. “At the King of Shish Kebab, all I heard was, Asylum Girl, get me baba ghanoush. Asylum Girl, thicker slices. Asylum Girl, don’t skimp on the hummus. Not the America I’d seen in the hip-hop videos. But one night, a boy comes into the King and he’s different. He doesn’t call me Asylum Girl, he doesn’t throw money in my face or try to rob the cash register.”
    I see the connections forming. I know the guy.
    â€œAnd he was thinner in those days,” I say.
    â€œNo. Still fat. But funny and charming. And intriguing. Sometimes he’d come by two, three days in a row, then he’d be gone for weeks. One time, I ask him what he does for a living. He says, I’d tell you but I’d have to kill you.”
    â€œHe’s corny,” I say, delighted at the image of Strike trying to act like he had any game.
    â€œQuick as a flash, I tell him I know a lot more ways to kill than you do and I’ve got a lot more secrets.” She gives me a shrug. “I have no idea where that came from.”
    I let out a Sprite-flavored burp, such is my shock. I see the connections forming and they’re insane.
    â€œSpies don’t trust anyone,” I yelp. “You made up something no one would believe, except the one guy who only believes the unbelievable. Why wouldn’t the AsylumGirl who worked for the King of Shish Kebab be undercover? Weirder things have happened.”
    Irina nods. “One minute I had the most boring, most miserable, smelly life; the next Carter Strike was trying to get me to defect to his side and tell him all the dirty secrets I knew.”
    â€œWhich you didn’t,” I say.
    â€œWhich I didn’t.” She agrees. “But he told me what an asset I could be to the CIA. He took me on missions. He taught me to fight, to shoot, to blend in, to observe, to vanish. And Irina Ouspenskaya, the asylum girl playing at being a spy, evolved into Irina O, real, actual spy.”
    She’s a bigger liar than I am! I feel a lump in my throat.