His Wife

20

"We're striking at Alexander in several weeks. We'll be in Japan then, and as far as we know, Alexander hasn't really been influencing Japan much. He won't expect us there, because our first attack will be in Egypt." I heard the muffled voice of Stephan.

We were on a plane ride to... India, I think. I had just woken up from my deep sleep but decided not to fake sleeping once I heard the conversation.

"Shurik, you'll need to somehow get Jordan out of the way, using..." Stephan said, but Shurik interrupted him. I couldn't quite make out what he was saying, but the rest of the gang seemed to like it.

"What will we tell Maria?" 

It was Misha.

"Nothing, aboltus," Eugene commented, calling Misha an idiot.

"We're going to India for a few weeks first. You know you're going to be distracting her the entire time there. While in India, the rest of us will be keeping an extremely close eye on Cairo, New York City, and Tokyo, to make sure all of the cities remain stable. No surprises."

"I hate lying to her. She doesn't deserve it. She's been a good woman, obeying our commands and she hasn't been fighting back. I hate lying to her." 

My heart melted a little at his words. I liked how caring Misha had gotten towards me, and I was glad that he wasn't just faking it when he was with me. 

But I was very concerned about what exactly he was lying to me about. 

I heard a deep sigh from Stephan. "I know, I know. We'll tell her soon. We still have a few more countries to visit; we've got to be on the move all the time. Alexander got very close to finding her in Cairo, and he's been trying very hard to find her. Our men are doing all they can, but it's not long before he starts suspecting something really awful."

"Remember, men. If we pull off this attack at Cairo, we've got one country down, and we're closer to our goal." 

They all murmured in agreement.

"It's just I feel a little bad," Misha said, "She needs to know that we actually-"

His voice was cut off by the pilot announcing that we will be landing shortly. The lights turned on and the men silenced themselves and so I pretended to just wake up. I rubbed my eyes and yawned.

"Hey, sleepyhead," Misha smiled. "We're almost there."

I smiled back at him. I trusted him, even though they were hiding something big from me, he wanted to tell me. That made me really trust him.

"We're staying at a friend's house," Misha explained to me as we left the airport.

"Where exactly are we?" 

"We're in Agra. India. We're staying here a week or two, for some business matters." 

I nodded. "What are we going to do all this time?"

He kept his eyes fixed on me. Sometimes, his gaze would send a rush of goosebumps through me. It was this little characteristic he had; his strong, intimidating stare.

"Well, we get to do whatever we please."

We were silent throughout the car ride, while the other men were bickering. We exchanged glances every once in a while, each of us knowing perfectly well what the other was thinking.

'When did we get so close?' I wondered.

We did spend a lot of time with each other, but surely not enough to get so close. However, I was with the boys for nearly two months now. That was a lot of time for us to get close.