The Spy Devils by Joe Goldberg (top rated books of all time .TXT) 📕

He could be visible and invisible.

Over time, as the Spy Devils confiscated the spoils from the targets they eliminated, they became a self-funding enterprise.

He picked up a chocolate and looked at the legend paper that told him what each treat was. Milk chocolate. Coconut filling. He put it back in the box in the “eat as a last resort” section.

Then he looked at his phone. He knew it was going to ping.

He always had them—what May called his special observation abilities.

When he was young, soon after his father’s death, they invented a game while walking on the busy streets in whatever country they were living in at the time. They called it “What’s Their Secret?”

They would eat warmed spiced nuts from circular cones of striped paper and declare the kerchief-covered German hausfrau waddling into the bakeshop in Berlin was worried about her children. Chocolate dipped churros meant the man in Madrid was cheating on his wife but was less concerned about her feelings and more concerned about juggling more than one mistress. Over Nutella-covered waffles in Brussels, they would proclaim the young teacher was smuggling drugs into France.

At first a childish activity to pass the time, it got more serious as he grew. His mother took delight, in her own way, of his budding aptitude. And on it went. Year after year.

Espionage was his life’s work and ingrained in half his DNA as much as the genetic code that assured him his hair was sort of blonde, or his eyes were sort of hazel. The other half of his DNA came from his father. That part, he figured, loved strategic thinking and golf.

From that point on, May brought him fully into her world. Whenever the opportunity allowed, she turned their son into an exploitable intelligence asset. Picnics in the park were enjoyable and good cover to service a dead drop. Trips through museums and back streets made him acutely aware of surveillance detection techniques. Dinner parties were perfect opportunities to practice elicitation techniques.

She made the time to enhance his game, turning it from passing fancy of youth into an exploitable adult skill. After each diplomatic dinner party at their home, trip to an embassy for a national day celebration, or wait in a train station, she queried him to report what he saw. The military general in Argentina was a sociopath. The Italian scientist was doing more than working on vaccines. The Slovakian businessman was an arms dealer. The cute Korean couple were spies.

Perhaps it was his moment of teenage defiance against his mother. A way to have his own identity. But mostly, he hated being called Trowbridge. He had eye-gouged and groin-kicked name-taunting kids in the ever-changing schools since he was eight years old. Trow was okay, and what most people called him in the real world.

He proclaimed that he was going to play spy and wanted a code name. She insisted on calling him by his given name, Trowbridge. But the nom de guerre he adopted was Bridger. He just liked the way it sounded.

Although he was expecting the phone to beep, he still jumped when the sound of three electronic chirps resonated across the room.

Bridger hesitated, then hit the answer button.

“Am I catching you at a bad time?” she asked like always.

“Would it make a difference?” he replied, as he bit his last good chocolate. Dark. With nuts. A favorite.

“No,” she said.

“Well, I am here, as requested,” he said, then licked the chocolate off his lips. “I don’t know why I am here, and that is disconcerting.”

“I know you have heard of Kirkwood International. They seem to have allowed a rather important piece of classified equipment to walk out the door. You need to help them retrieve it.”

“Hold the phone. Kirkwood? The U.S. company? That Kirkwood?”

“Yes, as I have already said. And yes, they are a U.S.-based company.”

“I seem to expressly remember a long conversation about not working in the U.S. Ever. True? It’s one of our rules—Spy Devils Rule Number Four. No working in the U.S.”

“Yes, but—”

“That if we were ever caught working in the U.S. we don’t have any cover, so we would go to prison for things like kidnapping, grand theft, breaking and entering, and half a dozen more state and federal laws…right?”

“Your operation will take place mostly in Europe. In Ukraine, specifically.”

“I don’t like it. This feels…off.”

There was a moment of dead air.

“That doesn’t matter, does it? The details are in the Dropbox. Keep me posted. Don’t make me check on your progress.”

Bridger’s eyebrows raised. He sat forward in his chair.

“Since when do you check on my progress?”

“Goodnight, Trowbridge.”

“Bridger,” he said. The phone went silent.

Bridger stood and walked across the room bent. He picked up a putter. A few golf balls were at his feet. On the carpeted floor, ten feet from him, was a glass on its side acting as the target hole. Bridger lined up his putt, glancing toward the glass, then back at the ball, then once more at the glass. Click. The ball rolled across the carpet. Clink. A miss. It hit the right side of the glass rim and ricocheted away.

“This rooms breaks to the right,” Bridger muttered, his mouth screwed across his face in disappointment.

He dropped the putter and sat back in the comfortable chair.

Closing his eyes, he visualized his golf ball cutting through a cloudless sky, landing safely in the middle of a green, and rolling toward the flag.

A one-foot putt for birdie.

23

Anna Malinov

Odessa, Ukraine

Early the next morning, Anna Malinov, the lead prosecuting attorney of the Primorsky District Court representing Sergei Pavlenko, Ukraine’s new General Prosecutor in charge of anti-corruption, walked toward a row of low buildings in the Prymors'kyi District, Port of Odessa. Inside the buildings were the offices of Ukraine Bondar Shipping and Transport.

Overhead, the sky was confused if it was still winter or if it was time to become a Ukrainian spring. A mix of clouds and sun hung above them—brilliant rays broke through like a