City Of Spies. Nina Berry

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СКАЧАТЬ pants, slightly scuffed brown leather oxfords on his feet. He was the picture of effortless summer sophistication, but he was not wearing a gray suit and hat. “That couldn’t have been you.”

      He frowned, leaning toward her subtly, eyes scanning the room. “Mercedes saw someone following you here?”

      “Yeah, but...” She was about to say Mercedes was being paranoid, but the look on Devin’s face stopped her. He dropped his paper on the table and signaled the waiter. “You think it’s true?” she asked.

      He was reaching for his wallet, pulling out paper Argentine pesos. “Buenos Aires is a hotbed for espionage, especially since the Israelis kidnapped Eichmann in ’60.”

      Pagan had a vague memory of hearing about Eichmann in the news—an infamous Nazi war criminal in hiding who’d been captured in Buenos Aires by Israeli intelligence agents and whisked away to be put on trial in Jerusalem. He’d recently been convicted of orchestrating the Nazi efforts to exterminate the Jews and sentenced to death. His capture had been daring and illegal. Because of it the little-known Israeli secret service, the Mossad, had emerged as bold and utterly ruthless. She had a vague memory of that caper causing a lot of tension between Jews and non-Jews in Buenos Aires when it was discovered.

      Devin was saying, “You know Mercedes’s background. She of all people would recognize a threat when she saw one. This man in gray must’ve realized she’d spotted him and may be gone by now. More likely, he got a follow-up man to take his place. I’ll meet you back at your hotel room. They’ll have finished sweeping it by now.”

      He was settling his bill with the waiter, so Pagan canceled the order for steaks and asked for her bill, as well.

      “Sweeping?” she said when the waiter had gone. “For dust bunnies?”

      “Every afternoon while you’re out, some friends of mine will sweep your suite for listening devices.” He took a linen jacket off the back of his chair and slid his wallet into the breast pocket. “That way we’ll always have a safe place to talk. So you might want to keep your unmentionables put away.”

      “What!” She managed to keep the exclamation low in volume and not to stare at him dramatically. The angle of his body and his gaze told her they were supposed to be acting as if they were in casual “we just met” conversational mode for anyone watching. “Every day? Is it really that dangerous here?”

      “Having fun yet?” He grinned, sliding his gaze back to her.

      There was an impact as their eyes met, like a meteor striking the earth. She was flushing again. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I am.”

      “I’ll meet you back at your suite.” He started to get out of his chair.

      “Wait!” She resisted putting her hand on his arm. They were still faking casual chitchat, acting as if they were strangers. “Shouldn’t you be staying to protect us from this guy?”

      “Fear not, fair lady. He’s got to be tailing you in these public places for information, not assassination,” Devin said. “And I don’t want him tailing me. So act as if you’re leaving because you changed your mind, and don’t let him know for sure you’ve made him.”

      “So we shouldn’t try to lose him?” she asked. “If we see him again.”

      “No. He probably knows where you’re staying by now. See you soon. Give my best to Mercedes.” And with that he was gone, weaving toward the back of the restaurant, no doubt to slip through the kitchen and out a back door the rest of the world had no idea existed.

      Pagan was finishing paying the bill when Mercedes came back, looking frustrated. Her eyebrows drew together as she saw the table being cleared and Pagan sliding her purse strap over her shoulder.

      “Devin sends you his best,” Pagan said. “I told him you thought someone was following us. He’s got a full file on you, so he figured you knew what you were talking about, but he says we’re not in any danger. I need to meet him back at the suite to talk.”

      “That explains the look on your face,” Mercedes said. “I couldn’t find the man in the gray suit again.”

      So her excitement at seeing Devin did show on her face. How aggravating. “Devin said he probably noticed you noticing him and left, or got replaced with a follow-up man. I wonder if that’s a technical term. Oh, and they’re sweeping our suite every day for bugs.” She put down a few pesos for the tip. “You’re probably hungry. Stay if you like.”

      Mercedes snorted and shook her head. “And miss a chance to finally meet Devin Black?”

      They caught a cab back to the hotel. Pagan tried not to keep glancing out the back window to see if anyone was following them, but she caught Mercedes looking in the driver’s side-view mirror more than once.

      “Anything?” she asked.

      M shook her head. “Hard to tell.”

      Devin was waiting in their suite. It was a little unsettling to walk into their private space and see him lounging in the side chair, reading the paper. He stood and held out his hand to Mercedes, smiling while she shook it. “I was going to introduce myself,” he said. “But I’m thinking that might be unnecessary.”

      “I might have heard a thing or two about you,” Mercedes said, taking her hand back. “But apparently nothing like the research you’ve done on me.”

      Devin gave a one-shouldered shrug. “It’s research like that which makes my job so interesting.”

      Mercedes’s lips pursed in an appreciative little smile. “A compliment that doesn’t sound like a compliment. Pretty smooth for an art thief.”

      “Former art thief,” Devin said. Pagan could see he was tickled by Mercedes tweaking him. “I never stole cars, but compared to taking a Picasso out of a guarded museum, it doesn’t sound that hard.”

      Pagan opened her mouth to shush him, and then shut it. As Devin well knew, Mercedes had stolen her share of cars, and other things. She was in reform school for armed robbery and extortion because she’d been one of the top enforcers for the Avenidas, one of the most powerful Mexican gangs in Los Angeles, a gang headed by her brother, who’d been shot and killed. A gang that still wanted her back.

      Mercedes’s eyelids dropped to half mast as she reassessed Devin. “It’s not hard,” she said, “unless Clanton 14 has six guys chasing you from both ends of Rampart Avenue and the only car you can get to has two more of them inside it.”

      Clanton 14 was the rival gang to the Avenidas. Reform school had taught Pagan a lot of things Hollywood could not.

      Devin lifted an impressed eyebrow. “I retract my statement.”

      “Look at us, three little criminals,” Pagan said.

      Mercedes and Devin turned as one to look at her, faces wearing identical looks of skepticism.

      “You think she qualifies?” Mercedes asked Devin, as if Pagan wasn’t standing right there.

      “As a criminal?” Devin shook his head. “She lacks the killer instinct.”

      Pagan blinked at them. “But I...”

      “She’s СКАЧАТЬ