Chapter Text
3 AUGUST 1977 – NASSAU, BAHAMA ISLANDS
Valentina looked out over the harbour as the last fringes of the sun fell below the horizon. It was good to know that there were still some selfless people in the world, she thought. Devon had been as good as his word; he had taken her by boat from Highbourn Cay to Nassau, the islands’ capital. He had given her some civilian clothing to replace her ripped and stained air force coveralls, and he had even given her a small sum in Bahamian dollars, even though she could see it was money he probably really couldn’t spare. When her world stopped being crazy, she promised herself, she would send that money back to him tenfold.
But it still wasn’t all that much, and she had to make it last while she figured out how to get from here to America. Miami wasn’t that far – less than a day by sea. A thought of her trying to charm her way aboard a rich man’s yacht amused her for a moment. She still had charms, she wasn’t stupid about that, but she was still forty and that was a game for girls half her age. Cruise ships were commonplace here, though. Stowing herself away or stepping in as a short order cook in a galley. A fair number of Cubans worked those boats – fugitives from Communism, like her. Perhaps she could find some sympathy.
Valentina was just beginning to turn over what minimal options she had to eat when something caught her attention. A young couple was walking towards her down the main harbour walkway. A tall woman with a mass of wavy brown hair, walking with a bold, confident carriage – much more so than the smaller woman alongside her, who looked enough like her that Valentina guessed them to be sisters. Almost certainly American. Well dressed. Expensively so, she judged. Their sundresses each would have cost more money than was in Valentina’s pockets right now.
And they seemed completely oblivious to the two young men who were following them and watching them intently. Local fellows. She knew the type. The kind of opportunistic minor predators which tended to gather when rich people came to poor places. Valentina’s spy-craft was overwritten by common-sense Muscovite street-smarts. The Russian woman looked around. No policemen anywhere that she could see. She moved away from the balustrades, eased quietly into the men’s wake.
“And, oh my God, Anthony was just so damned boring!” The taller woman’s arms were almost waving; she was plainly warming to the coming evisceration of Anthony, whoever he was. “I mean, at some level it’s nice to hear about stock options and all, it shows he’s worth the consideration, but this was Ellsworth’s. for heaven’s sake! You do not disrespect the experience by droning on about money all the time.”
“Not when a girl’s got her own money, eh, Debbie?” The sister was smiling, but the voice didn’t quite live up to the promise of humour.
“Feh!” It was a dismissal, but there was a laugh behind it. “Cathy, there are principles to be upheld. The Domaines have standards, you know.”
The men were stepping up their pace, and Valentina adjusted to keep track. “Hey, hold up there, pretty ladies,” said the taller of them. A pleasant voice with an effort to dial back the local accent, the better to put the target at ease. “You sound like you’re in the mind for some good food. My pal and I know a great place not far from here, we’d be happy to show you.”
“Ah, well, that isn’t really…” Debbie began.
“It’d be a pure pleasure.” The other man loomed up past his partner. Bigger, darker-skinned, deeper voice and what looked like a slim knife in his hands. “We absolutely insist,” he added as he gestured and the two of them steered the American women into an alley off the main street.
Valentina glanced quickly around herself. Nothing remotely resembling police. Down to her, she decided. Truth, justice and the American way, then, even if she was Russian; she’d have stopped to laugh if things were not so dire. As she turned into the alleyway herself, the men were looming forward now, backing their victims into the wall. “Now that we have a little more privacy, we can talk some, eh?” Valentina may not have had English as her first language, but she could recognise a practiced approach. “Let’s take a look at that bag, maybe? Chanel, I see. Lady’s got taste, Eli, right?”
Eli didn’t look impressed. “Get this done, Jake. I’m tired.”
“Sorry about my friend. He gets grumpy when he doesn’t get enough sleep.”
“You keep your damned hands off me and my bag!” The tall girl – Debbie – didn’t quite keep the fear out of her voice, but she was trying. “You know who you’re talking to?”
“Don’t know, don’t care,” said Eli, letting the women see the knife. “Doesn’t have to go hard, sweetheart, just give us the cash and the cards.”
“Deb, don’t do anything stupid. We should be able to claim on insurance.” Her sister sounded almost pleading.
“See? Just be sensible, and everything will be cool.” Jake smiled; a mouthful of surprisingly good teeth – and those pearly whites immediately receiving a fist as Valentina stepped forward and swung a blow at his jaw.
Don’t stop! Don’t let him think! Valentina charged forward, trying to body-check the man. The shriek of the other girl, Cathy, rattled her eardrums and she lost a step. She was stronger than she looked, and she’d learned to fight in a hard school in the Soviet air force, but she couldn’t outfight a man in the long run. Surprise, and make it quick!
Jake staggered, and overbalanced enough that Debbie’s wild swing with her bag smacked him hard in the side of the head. Valentina took advantage, hooking a heel behind the man’s leg as he stumbled. He fell hard, and was scrambling to right himself as the Russian woman strained to overturn a collection of refuse bins onto him.
Another yell from Cathy, and a counterpoint in wounded baritone. Valentina could see the slim strip of metal in her hand. Not the man’s knife – although her blouse was slashed – but what looked like a nail file. Had she stabbed him? Eli turned. The element of surprise was lost. Time to run.
“Stop there!” Valentina shouted – and she slumped forward, almost falling onto Debbie, as the black thing from the crash site sprung from her. It shot along the alley with a crackling sound of living energy, like some kind of missile and hammered into Eli’s back. The man yelled in pain, fell to the ground writhing like he’d received an electric shock. The blackness stopped, turned in the air – was that expression a smile? – and dove back to resettle itself inside her body.
“Come on!” The voice of command came to Colonel Vostok easily after all these years. “Get away from here! Leave this scum to lie in the dirt.” The sisters snapped into place as Valentina shooed them back onto the main street and well away from this human flotsam.
o-o-o
Recovery from the shock, for the Domaine sisters and their new friend, involved a good meal and some large and powerful cocktails at a bar on the waterfront. Valentina wasn’t going to complain in the circumstances. Debbie was garrulous – maybe with the shock – but her sister was more inquisitive.
“If you just pitched up here, how are you going to get to America?” Cathy asked. “Midway City, you said.”
“I had not found out how to do that,” Valentina allowed.
“Well, that is not going to be a problem. We will just not allow ir.” Debbie was insistent. “Tomorrow morning, we are going to find a travel agency – there must be at least one here, the Bahamas lives on tourism – and we are going to get you onto a plane. I imagine there’s no direct flights to the back of beyond.” Valentina winced at the unconscious privilege. “But you can probably get a connection through Miami.”
“And probably change in Chicago, as well,” Cathy suggested. She fished around in her purse for a pen, and scribbled down something on a cardboard bar coaster. “If you need help from us, you can call us here. Whenever.”
“Thank you. I am hoping that when I reach Midway City, I can find the answers to the questions that I have, and work out what I need to do next. But I am thankful to you. You are too kind.”
“We are?” Debbie laughed. “You should talk to my mom. Deborah Domaine, you are a spiteful little bitch just like your aunt Priscilla. Go to your room right now until you learn to apologise.”
“That’s evil, Debbie.” But Cathy was still smiling. “But it’s Mom to the life.”
“Enough unpleasantness now.” Debbie sounded dismissive. “It’s been a ghastly few hours but we’re here and we’re going to have fun before dear Valentina flies off to meet her destiny.” She raised her glass. “Cheers!”
“Za drushbu! You would say, ‘to friendship’!”
“Absolutely!” And the sisters shouted together, “Za drushbu!”