Athena - Liaisons in Kremlin

Chapter 2 Old Friends

I hate travelling. Where are you? Civilian transportation, agent turned into bounty hunter, and no handler. This cannot get any better. Where are you? Handbag check, suitcase check, book check, and all the things that make me a trophy wife, check.

Dmitri!? I'll be damned. What's wrong with him, saw a Ghost? Okay Athena we have a cover maybe he's confused. I smile at him ear to ear.

"fais comme si tu ne me connaissais pas" French? Okay.

"Hello, darling." I give him a quick peck. What's wrong Dmitri?

"Amaira, chérie. Is that all your luggage?" I nod "Let's go then. Parking is that way." he says pointing to the elevator. We step inside and he closes the doors before others get in.

"Athena!!? What the hell are you doing here?" Why the hell is he shouting!

"I can ask you the same thing but since you are my handler, you clearly know it."

"Why did you take the stupid job?" Huh? Okay maybe he's worried.

"What's wrong with it? It's my work"

"Athena, it is suicide!" At least someone agrees with me. I hold my calm, and look at Dimitri. He's red, sweating, and nervous. What the hell are you hiding? Elevator door opens and we walk silently towards the parking lot.

"Why were you speaking in French?"

"GRU agents followed me here. I didn't know it would be you. You smiled at me; I thought you'd call me Dimitri and blow my cover."

"Dimitri, I smiled at my husband who was eagerly waiting for his wife to return." Dimitri is smart and an idiot. "What makes you think French won't be suspicious?"

"The file on your cover said francophone. Those agents speak German. Hence I took my chance."

"Let's go before your friends get icky"

"Who are you? Tell me and I won't blow your brain apart? And don't you dare call yourself the poor house help. Either you've never used dish soap or you have magic skin. So which one is it? I won't think for a moment before dumping your corpse." I smile at the memory of our first encounter.

In the car Dimitri is strangely silent. We start towards our destination and once we are out of the periphery of his friends he eases up. I fold my feet up and sit cross legged, playing with my fake engagement ring.

"Athena, have some respect for the leather."

"Alexander, how have you been?" I replied grinning at him.

"Here's the deal darling, I have no clue why GRU required an Indian to come all the way to Russia and find a person for them but I do know that I was asked to be your handler and leave you by yourself after the job is done." He says with regret laced around his words. "So this is what we are going to do; first, when we reach the apartment you are going to tell me that you want to sleep and are tired. We'll be reaching soon. Second, after you wake up I'm going to brief you about the job, I'll leave you alone for an hour and you'll start searching every corner of your room, we can't clean the entire apartment. Debug it and then we'll think of what exactly we have to do." Smart Dmitri and I smirk at him.

"Cool." He watches me through the mirror and I take a moment to study him. Tall and lean, His features are exactly how I remember them. Dark ginger hair pushed back with care, brown eyes with a hint of mischief, neatly shaved revealing his angular jawline, and a light tan. He's wearing an Oxford blue turtleneck, a woollen black trench, black jeans and brown boots. At first he looks like a young man with a wealthy lifestyle who has come to pick up his wife but up close you can see the stress lines forming on his forehead. His teeth clenched and restrained demeanour. He watches his surroundings silently like a hawk.