The Oslo Affair (Shadows of War, #2) by CW Browning (read after .txt) 📗

towards the lift. As he went past the column, Anna moved around it, keeping the column between them. She didn’t know if he ever noticed her in the restaurant in Oslo, but she wasn’t about to take any chances now.

When he had gone, she walked towards the entrance of the hotel, bending her head to pull on her gloves as she walked. Her heart was pounding and it took everything she had not to look back over her shoulder to see if someone was watching. Keeping her gaze on her hands, she finished buttoning her gloves and looked up to find herself at the door. With an exhale, she pushed it open and stepped out onto the street.

A gust of wind smacked her in her face and she shivered, burying her hands in her pockets. She glanced to the right and her eyes went to the vendor where she bought the paper yesterday. He had two customers buying papers and her gaze went beyond him, looking for the mysterious Otto. She was just turning to walk in the opposite direction when she spotted a man in a dark coat sitting on a bench across the street, near the water. He had a paper open before him, but he didn’t seem very interested in the news. He was looking at the hotel.

Anna walked away, her head spinning and her breath coming short and fast. Who was Herr Renner? And what did he want with Maggie? It wasn’t a good thing, that much she was sure of. The Germans weren’t in the habit of following women over two hundred miles into another country unless that woman had something they wanted. And now they had the hotel surrounded! There was no way Maggie could get back in without being seen, and it was only luck and timing that had allowed her to get out when she did. She must have left the room while the short one was still arranging for it to be watched. Talk about a perfect window of opportunity! And she hadn’t even been aware of any of it!

Biting her lip as she turned the corner, Anna forced herself to try to think clearly. Maggie was in serious trouble, and she didn’t even know it yet. As far as Anna could see, she was the only person capable of standing between the Germans and Maggie right now. But how was she going to warn her when she didn’t even know where she’d gone?

Her step checked and her lips parted on a quick inhale. Of course! She did know where she went. She didn’t know the exact location, but she knew the street and the neighborhood. That would be enough to make it possible to head her off before she went back to the hotel and into the Nazi trap waiting for her.

Looking both ways, Anna spotted a break in the traffic and ran across the road quickly to a cafe. She would ask for directions to Gamla Stan and hope for a bit of luck.

Vladimir looked at his watch and stifled a yawn. He’d been up and out of the hotel just as dawn was lightening the sky, leading his tail over half the city. Comrade Yakov really was slipping. He used to be invisible. He was the one they called when they absolutely could not let a subject know they were being watched. They called him The Ghost.

Well, he wasn’t anymore. Now he was more like an ox.

He had spotted him on the first day in Oslo, almost as soon as he got off the train. It had been a few years, but he recognized him easily. Aside from more gray hair and a new set of jowls, Yakov looked the same as he always had. As soon as he saw him, Vladimir knew he was under investigation. He’d been waiting for it. It was inevitable. They would all be investigated until the traitor passing secrets to the British was found. It was a witch hunt, and the Soviets were very good at witch hunts.

Pulling a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, he gazed out of the window at the building across the street. Den Gyldene Freden, or The Golden Peace, was a tavern that had been serving food and drink to the people of Gamla Stan, or the old city, since the 1700s. Named for the Peace of Nystad between Sweden and Russia in 1721, it had withstood the tests of time, age, and the decline of the area around it. When Niva agreed to meet with the British agent to discuss the situation along the border of Finland, Vladimir had suggested the tavern as a possible meeting place. It was deep in the narrow, winding streets of the old part of the city where they were very unlikely to run across anyone from an embassy or consulate. The neighborhood was slowly rotting, the ancient buildings having fallen into decay over the centuries as the bustling medieval center turned into overcrowded streets and the noblemen moved their residences to other sections of the city.

Vladimir lit a cigarette and watched as Risto Niva approached the tavern. He looked around the street before disappearing inside and Vladimir blew a stream of smoke out of the side of his mouth. Niva was in place. Now he had to wait for the girl.

Evelyn Ainsworth was not what he had been expecting. He had seen photographs, presented by a proud father, and heard stories about the young woman, but he had somehow been expecting someone rather ordinary. Oh, not in appearance. Her beauty had been evident in every photo he looked at. But rather in demeanor. It was one thing for a proud father to expound on his daughter’s intelligence and quickness of wit. It was to be expected. But the reality very rarely lived up to the accolades, at least in his experience. In Evelyn’s case, though, it appeared that perhaps her doting father had been modest in his