Chapter 5

Torrington, Connecticut

Clara was frying bacon the next morning, when Georg entered the kitchen. He was attired, of course, in a gray, three-piece suit, white shirt and a striped tie – that Clara had never before seen. He seemed to have an unlimited supply of unseen ties to go with his ‘uniform’ of the gray suit. It was almost the same gray as the color of the Ukrainian intelligence service – the SBU.

“Miss Clara,” Georg nagged at her for perhaps the hundredth time, “cooking is something you must not do. Your hands are your livelihood. If an accident occurred, and burned your hands did become, inconvenienced most assuredly would you be.”

She smiled: his syntax became tortured when he was agitated. Or, ‘When agitated did he become, tortured would his syntax become,’ she thought. She wasn’t worried. Not once in her life had she sustained so much as a hangnail, a blister, or even a sun burn. The thought of damaging her hands or any other part of her body, never entered her mind. Well, it had happened once. She had cut her foot when she stepped on a sharp shell, but that was one time, long ago, and she never gave it a thought these days.

“Yes, Georg. I will be careful,” she said. “I’d like to get to Philadelphia a day early. I have some shopping to do.”

She’d normally be a day early, now she wanted to be two days early. Unheard of! Georg hid his astonishment by – what else? – methodically polishing his spectacles on a snow-white handkerchief. “Of course, Miss Clara. May I inquire what items you will seek to acquire?”

Clara ‘risked’ her hands and picked the bacon out of the pan with the cooking fork and carefully spread it all on a paper towel and then dropped a half-dozen eggs into the bacon fat. Quickly scrambling them with the same fork. She parceled out half to Georg and half to her own plate.

C: “Well, I’ve come up with a little plan.”

G: “You have, have you? A new interpretation of the Grieg Concerto?”

C: “Not quite.” She shoveled some egg into her mouth. “I found some phone numbers in Nin’s computer, last night. And I want to call MI6 in London, from an untraceable cell. Then I want to get some laser pointers, and something that will alter my voice, electronically.”

G: “Still planning to play at Miss Illya Kuryakin?”

C: “Who?”

G: “Illya Kuryakin. The spy who was played by David McCallum, long before he became Ducky on NCIS.”

C: “Really? He was somebody else? I’ll have to look that up. Sounds interesting.” She kept eating.

G: “Change not the subject, young miss. I have dealt with subject-changing snapper-whippers before, you know.”

C: “Whipper-snappers ... but ... yes, I’m going to dip my delicate toes into dangerous waters, and try to save Nin’s life.”

G: “You are still convinced he is in trouble, then.”

C: “More than ever.”

G: “Then you will need help. I’ve done this before, you know.”

C: “Rescue Nin?”

G: “Of course, not. I was an officer of S.B.U. for several decades. I can get the truth out of MI6 and do other useful things.” The SBU is the Security Service of Ukraine.

C: “Other useful things, eh?” She laughed. “Okay. You’re on my team. Or, I am on your team.”

G: “The former, I think. I do not develop the plans, I only make them work ... First issue: what budget do we have?”

C: “Budget?”

G: “Yes, budget. We have not the resources of a country. So we must husband our resources.”

C: “And we must conceal them too. After all this is over, I don’t want to be a target of anyone. As for the budget ... empty the pot. If I don’t have Nin, I’m nothing.”

G: “That’s a bad idea. Better to think of finishing a mission that is incomplete for unknown reasons. And we won’t need all the money... $4.5 million will not be needed.”

C: “We have that much?”

G: “You have made a considerable amount since you won the gold medal at the Van Cliburn Competition the year you left Julliard. Mr. Antonin has had a series of successful assignments, as you know from looking at the folders in the file. And I have had some modest success in dabbling in the foreign exchange markets ... We might use a fifth of the total available, but I think it will require less than a fiftieth.”

C: “Why did you ask me about the budget then?”

G: “The project leader must know the parameters of the project.”

C: “Okay. So, fifty thousand for an initial budget with a contingency of another hundred thousand. How will we arrange it?”

G: “WE won’t. I shall handle the details. You will have a black AMEX card in a corporate name – that means unlimited credit – and a small cache of diamonds worth about two thousand each. And a card in the name of your alias, if you need one ... Next, as of today, you have had an accident running. You will make an appearance with the press, to announce that you cannot complete your appearances for the remainder of the year ... Then...”

A press conference was duly called for that afternoon, in Hartford, with the major news services and voice hookups with significant music reporters in New York, Boston, and Chicago. Clara hobbled to the microphone with crutches and a cast covering her left leg below the knee. She announced that she had injured a ligament in her ankle running, and would not be able to play. No further description of the injury was offered. Her doctor was unspecified. The length of time she would be ‘out of service’ was unspecified. She was sorry to disappoint the wonderful audiences, etc. etc.

In and out in forty minutes. Georg drove them back to Torrington where Clara got all her hair clipped. “Henceforth, you are an auburn-haired American knockout, or a black-haired Hispanic chica, or a brunette Fraulein from Germany,” he commented while cutting off both the blonde’s shoulder length locks and her leg cast. “We have only to match your eyebrows to the color of the wig.”