A few weeks after they met, Konstantin had taken her on a business trip to Monaco. I’d watched through the security cameras as Christina strutted empty-handed through the airport while one of Konstantin’s maids struggled along behind her, pushing an overloaded trolley filled with her luggage. Christina had kept turning around to snap at her to hurry up and the poor maid had almost been in tears.
“Correct, Hailey.” Carrie grinned. “About two hours ago, while Christina was on a shopping trip in Milan, this happened.”
The picture changed to show a wrecked sports car, its hood wrapped around a lamppost.
I drew in my breath. “Oh my God! Is she okay?”
Everyone else around the conference table stared at me, startled. Christina was the enemy. Then Carrie softened and gave me one of those Oh Hailey looks I get a lot. “She’s fine,” she said. “Bumps and scrapes.”
I flushed again. I can’t help it. I’m just a surveillance geek, not a field agent, and I’m not hardened like the others.
“What this gives us,” said Carrie, leaning forward over the conference table, “is a unique opportunity. I managed to pull some strings with Interpol and they’ve told Konstantin that Christina’s injured. Nothing life-threatening, but she’ll need a series of operations. He’s not expecting her back in the US for three weeks.” She walked over to the door and showed in a man in his fifties with curling silver hair and a shiny bald pate. “This is Doctor Franklin. He runs the plastic surgery team who assist with our witness protection program. He’ll explain.”
Doctor Franklin took up position beside Carrie. “We’re going to take one of our female agents and use plastic surgery to make her the exact double of Christina. Then we’re going to send her back to Konstantin in Christina’s place.”
There was total silence for maybe five seconds. Then the table exploded into a chorus of disbelieving what’s?!
Calahan’s bass rumble drowned out the others. “That’s insane! You can’t make her look exactly the same!”
“Actually, we can.” Doctor Franklin had the excited grin of a child unpacking a new toy. “As long as the subject has suitable bone structure and she’s the right height and build, she can look identical. And the beauty is, Konstantin’s been told that Christina’s sustained facial injuries. He’s expecting her to have had plastic surgery. That’ll explain any minor differences.”
My head was spinning. Would someone actually do that? Change their whole face? And then strut straight into the life of one of the most terrifying men in the world and... Jesus, she’ll have to sleep with him! My mind snapped to a very specific, graphic image: some nameless female agent on her back, legs open, with Konstantin’s muscled body pinning her to the bed, his ass rising and falling—
Just as my face went hot, Calahan spoke again. “Who?”
“Me,” said Alison from further down the conference table. “Carrie briefed me before the meeting. I’ve already volunteered.”
I twisted around to look at her. Alison is like my cooler, prettier, older sister. She has long, shining black hair and is so good at martial arts, the FBI uses her to help train new recruits. If anyone could impersonate Christina and come out alive, it was her. But the idea of my friend in that sort of danger made me go cold inside.
Calahan agreed. “It’s way too risky. Alison would have to mimic Christina perfectly. Voice. Walk. Everything.” His voice rose. “If one thing goes wrong, she’s dead!”
“I know it’s dangerous,” said Carrie. “But just think what Alison will be able to accomplish. All criminals confide in their girlfriends—in a few weeks, she’ll know every detail of his business. And she’ll be right inside his home: she’ll be able to get into his paperwork, his laptop... we’ll get all the evidence we need to bring him down.” Her face turned grim. “And we need this. We’re running out of time. Every day, Konstantin takes over a little more of this city.”
She brought another image up on the screen, a map of New York with neighborhoods drawn in three colors: blue were controlled by Luka Malakov, a rival Russian mafia boss. Green were controlled by Angelo Baroni, an Italian Mafioso. And black were controlled by Konstantin Gulyev. At first, the three colors were roughly equal: the three powers had been in an uneasy truce that had kept the violence to a minimum. But as Carrie fast-forwarded through the last twelve months, the black expanded like a shadow falling across the city, squeezing out the other two. “We’re at crisis point.” said Carrie. “Another month, maybe two, and Konstantin’s expansion will force the other two into an all-out gang war. We cannot let that happen!”
Calahan and I nodded grimly. Hundreds of innocents would die in the crossfire.
And for Carrie, this battle was personal. Konstantin might wage war with the other crime lords, but as the head of the FBI in New York, she was his real enemy. The two of them had been locked in combat for years: she’d make arrests and gather evidence and raid properties and he’d trot out alibis and expensive lawyers and slip free every time. When we interrogated one of Konstantin’s men, sometimes he’d deliver a message, always scrupulously polite, usually gently mocking. Mr. Gulyev says: you’ll have to try harder than that. Rumor had it, they’d actually met face-to-face once, at a cocktail party, and exchanged words. I would have loved to be a fly on the wall for that.