Spies of Sochi

Chapter 9: The Mediocre Life

Chuck placed a card into a letter, the ID of a KGB operative. He knew that any moment, Holt would come down to see if Chuck was ready to go. They were to meet, not by appointment, with the two other operatives in downtown Sochi, who would get it back to Turkey, or if necessary, all the way to the United states, to get forgeries made for Holt and Chuck.

"Holt!" Chuck yelled, "I got it, let's go, we only have an hour until curfew, and downtown Sochi's twenty minutes away."

"We're not walking, are we?"

"No, that would be a solid hour." said Chuck with an informant tone, "We're taking a cab."

"I thought those were only for high party members." Holt said.

"No, they're just expensive, I guess they don't want people to move easily."

"That would explain the poverty too, make it too expensive, and they don't move."

The cab had no heater, making for a cold ride, and the lack of layers the duo wore in preparation for a heated cab helped very little.

The snow swirled in front of the windshield like an icy vortex, leading to the small apartment in the middle of the city. Upon arrival, Yuri walked quickly and inconspicuously, while Holt followed in his trail. The cold weather made it seem less suspicious. Yuri knocked. The door was answered, rather tiredly, yet still cautiously, by a single man of about Holt's age.

"What's your favorite hobbie?" A voice yelled on the inside.

Yuri tried to remember what the code was, but was interrupted.

"Golf, in the winter." Holt responded.

"Come in." said the voice.

"Ok, I'm not going to waste time. Here's the card, get it back to the eagle quickly, they have both of our photo's, and will make us forgeries." Whispered Yuri.

"Understood, now you should go, curfew is nearing."

Holt and Yuri walked out to the street, there were cabs here and there, though few and far between, on the side of the road, ready to pick up whoever came out first. They waved down the nearest one, which came quickly. The ride was considerably more comfortable than the previous one, not to mention, more expensive.

They arrived home as the sun set over the horizon, all they could do now was wait. Wait until the next party meeting. Which was on Sunday. Two days of stay at home work were ahead. A perfect break from the intense field work that had occurred over the last few days. For now though, Yuri simply slept. Holt meandered up to his room as well.

In the morning, they both slept in. Holt would have waken up before Yuri to avoid the burned food in the morning, but instead slept in, this was the one day where he could get more than seven hours of sleep, and the rest was worth the ashes Yuri called pancakes and bacon.

When he finally did wake up, he found that Yuri remained assleep, or at least, nowhere to be seen. Evidently the grueling night work had taken more of a toll on he than Holt. On account of this, Holt fried some eggs and made omelettes for breakfast, a meal that stuck out to Holt, due to Yuri's poor cooking skills. The rest of the day typically had no significance in the way of meals. After breakfast, Holt retired to the study where he went over the maps. He realized the lack of information he had. The plan was to track Yurtusk to see if there was a pattern. Just as he realized the utter lack of patterns, Yuri began to walk down the stairs in his pajamas. Holt quickly, full of frustration, invited him to go eat, he himself remained in the study, doing very little actual work.

Not much later, Yuri joined him. Holt commented on the uselessness of this information, not realizing how high in the chain of command he was. He came to admire Yurtusk's evident photographic memory. He was known to stop and look at certain things for five to six seconds, far quicker than the eight Holt required to take in a street scene. Holt had expected them to operate like more of a military organization, with a set chain of comand, standard operation procedure, and other such features. But they were more like a Mafia. Rutheless, playing by their own rules. They were not typically clever sleuths, but brutal criminals who happened to know how to pull strings. But this one was both. Holt asked Yuri when he had the time to acquire this information.