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averagejoesolomon · 5 months

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It's heeeeere! This one surprised even me, so I hope you're ready! I'm so stoked to share 1986 with you all. If you're new here, you can read Full Circle from the beginning on Ao3. Enjoy!

Chapter Three

In the white-steepled churches of Nebraska, Hell is said to be fire, and brimstone, and torture. Nine layers of labyrinthine stone cast in a heat so demonic that even a soul can feel it. There are stories devoted to its wrath. Songs written about its misfortune. Matt’s childhood church, situated on the far edge of Hay Springs, has an entire window dedicated to the fall of Lucifer, wings burning as the angel descends from clean, uniform strands of blue to the chaotic, shattered shards of red. He always wondered what would happen if he reached out and touched the glass—if he would feel the fire in his fingertips. He’s never had the guts to try.

And anyway, Matt knows better now. Hell isn’t hot embers and smoldering chains. Hell is a two-cushion loveseat in a Russian safe house.

He blinks awake for the sixth time in five hours, his right foot on the verge of total numbness. Last time, it was his left hand and the time before that it was his entire right shoulder. It seems every part of his body is keen to fall deeply asleep before he gets the chance. In a halfhearted attempt to soothe the prickling static, he throws his leg over the arm of the loveseat and sinks back into his drowsiness.

When his entire calf begins to buzz in response, Matt reckons this is some sort of karmic payback—for what, he doesn’t know, though he’s surely tallied up some serious ill will over the past few years—and he finally surrenders. With a sigh, he rolls to his feet and convinces himself that five hours of sleep is enough to run an op on.

This is Moscow, after all, and mornings always come early in Moscow.

It helps when the crisp, smoky scent of bacon wafts through the room. Matt latches onto it like a hound on a rabbit, shaking feeling back into his foot as he lumbers through the predawn darkness. With as little noise as he can muster, he cracks open the door and slips into the low, golden light of the living room, careful not to cross into any of the shadows Rachel still sleeps through.

“Morning, mate,” someone greets him. “You must be Matthew.”

Across the room, where carpet gives way to linoleum, a broad-shouldered brick of a man stands at the stove top. The glow of the range light outlines the stockiness of his silhouette as he scrapes a spatula against cast iron, dueling with the pops and sizzles of bacon fat. “Uh, yeah. Matt’s fine,” Matt mutters, softly shutting the door at his back. “You must be… the husband?”

At this, the man breaks out into a broad grin, as though the wind is at his back from here on out. It’s beyond endearing. “That I am, Matt,” he says. “Although most people call me Abe.”

Matt’s next words get caught up in a yawn. “Mighty nice to meet you, Abe,” he drawls, twisting sleep from his eye. “Don’t suppose you’ve got any coffee over there?”

“Tea?”

“Mm.”

Abe’s laugh, much like the rest of him, is a small but mighty sort of ordeal that’s perfectly suited to the ease of slow mornings. “Understood,” he says. “I did spot some grounds in one of these cabinets—ah, yes, the one with the map of the Moskva shoreline taped to it. How about I heat up another kettle and let you handle the rest?”

“Sounds awfully fair to me,” Matt agrees. “Thanks.”

“My pleasure.” Without breaking focus, Abe points the spatula toward the living room’s sole chair, just at Matt’s side. “Your bag, by the way. You’ll be happy to know it’s bug free.”

Sure enough, Matt’s backpack rests beside a lonely throw pillow. It looks pristine and untouched, but Matt knows better. Abe has been through every zipper, every pocket, every shirt, every sock, and every last bristle on Matt’s toothbrush. Probably for the best. A fella can never be too careful in Moscow.

“Thanks,” Matt says, grabbing the bag by its top and unzipping the main compartment. This early into an op, all of his clothes are still neatly folded and grouped by type, so it’s easy enough to rummage below his sole sweatshirt and slip into the concealed pocket sewn into the lining. The resulting device is no bigger than his palm, save the long rubberized antenna sticking from the top. He runs his thumbs against each ridged knob. Finds the hard plastic switch along the side. “D’you mind if I…?”

Abe eyes Matt just in time to see him gesture broadly toward the room. “Not at all,” Abe tells him. “Although you should know that I already swept the place last night. We’re clear.”

This is said with the sort of calm, reassuring tone that probably works wonders on assets and assailants alike, but it doesn’t do much to put Matt at ease. Not in Moscow. Not when he’s lost three guys in the last year, not when Langley won’t let him fly overseas without signing a half-dozen waivers, not when he’s only just learned Abe’s name. Rachel Cameron is one room over and Matt would prefer to live long enough to make things right with her.

“Sure,” he cautions, still sluggish from a night of sporadic sleep. “And I’m not looking to offend, but they do build bugs straight into the walls, here in Moscow.”

Abe nods, laying another few strips of bacon into his pan. “Yes, I’m aware.”

The part of Matt that was raised with Midwest politeness struggles against the part of him that’s trained to survive a volatile Russia. “Sometimes they’re remote activated,” he goes on, trying to keep his tone light. “And after your first sweep, once you’re sure you’ve got everything, they turn on a second batch.”

At Matt’s continued insistence, Abe finally glances up at Matt when he says, “Which is why I did another sweep this morning.”

This ain’t the first impression Matt likes to make, but he also can’t compromise like he’s used to. Instead, he holds his arms out to each side, trying to broker a little bit of peace on the subject. “It’s not you I don’t trust,” he promises. “It’s just the Soviets can be real bastards sometimes, is all.”

“Right.” Abe considers this and seems to take in Matt anew. Then, just as quickly, he drops his attention back down to breakfast. “Well, I’m told you’re the expert. Far be it from me to stop you. Do you want one piece of bacon or two?”

And that’s that. “Four, please,” says Matt. “If we can spare it.”

“Four it is,” Abe replies.

Matt’s stomach rumbles at the thought. “And eggs?”

“Of course,” says Abe. “I like to fry them in the leftover fat.”

“Good man.”

With breakfast on the horizon, they leave one another to work, descending into the sort of easy quiet that doesn’t feel like it needs filling. For his part, Matt searches the room the way he was taught, starting with the perimeter and spiraling inward. He has access to the kind of tech that Langley only spares for agents regularly posted in this part of the world—minimizing the risk of equipment being captured, reverse engineered, and shared among enemies—which might explain why he finds his first bug in five minutes flat. It’s a tricky one, tucked inside a hollowed door hinge, but it’s enough to keep Matt vigilant throughout the rest of his search. The scanner click, click, clicks in his hand as he goes. Goddamn Moscow.

He’s about halfway through his sweep, ruling out a potential false positive triggered by a wayward nail sunken into a crooked floorboard, when Grace makes her first appearance of the morning. She seems to have gotten no shortage of sleep, positively glowing as she joins Abe at the stove top with a soft, “Good morning, darling.”

He mutters his own sweet nothings in return, lends her a kiss on the cheek, and leans into the way her arms wrap around his waist. Something about the way they sway, and touch, and giggle sends a flush to Matt’s face. Even though he knows he ought to look away, he can’t seem to stop himself from stealing glances at their casual intimacy. The simplicity of her chin on his shoulder. The peace of his voice, kept low and rumbling so only she can truly hear. A calm and unbroken back-and-forth between two people who really, honestly love one another.

Matt turns his attention back toward the floorboards, lest his chest collapse under the weight of his own want.

He overturns every cushion, unscrews every light bulb, checks every outlet, and disassembles the entire phone, promising to piece it back together when he’s done. Meanwhile, Grace pours herself a cup of tea, props herself onto the countertop, and begins to debate the finer points of egg making with her husband. “Honestly, Abraham,” she says, taking a sip. “The yolks are meant to be runny.”

“That may be so, my love,” he allows, “but sometimes a yolk simply must be sacrificed for a crispy edge—I don’t make the rules.”

“Likely story,” she teases. Then, across the room, “What was that you said to me last night, Matt? The guy with the spatula makes all the rules?”

By now, Matt is standing on top of the dining table, combing through each component of the overhead lighting. He doesn’t break focus when he says, “Guy with the knife, I think is what I said.”

“Close enough,” Grace replies.

This prompts another one of Abe’s compact laughs. “Close enough,” he echoes, breaking away from a busy stove top to make a move toward Grace. “I ought to show you close enough.”

“I’d like to see you try—” But her words are interrupted by her own short squeaks as Abe pokes at her sides, her legs, and anywhere else that may cause her to squirm and smile. “Oh, you absolute beast of a man,” she says through a laugh like sunshine. “You stop it, stop that right now.”

Abe obliges, but not without trading ticklish teasing for an eager and earnest kiss. Grace meets him with equal enthusiasm, leaning in without another word. Her arms fall loose along his shoulders while her legs wrap around his torso. With no end in sight, Matt glues his eyes to the light fixture, focusing hard on each individual piece needed to reconstruct it. It takes everything in him not to clear his throat, as he wonders whether or not this is how the third wheel on his Radio Flyer trike always felt.

Thankfully, Grace has the good sense to break away in the presence of company. “You’re going to burn your eggs,” she tells Abe.

“Eggs?” Abe sounds like he’s never even heard of such a concept, still leaning in close to his beloved. “Who ever cared about eggs? Let them burn—let the whole world burn.”

“I would, darling,” she says. “Except I think Matt probably prefers his breakfast to be… well, eatable.”

Matt would do just about anything not to be included in this particular conversation, but this point does seem to slow Abe in his tracks. With a sigh, he gives up his hold on Grace and returns to the perfectly mundane task of frying eggs. “Yes, well,” he says. “You really ought to try sitting at the table, Matt, rather than standing on it. Really, breakfast will be ready shortly.”

Matt, glad to be back in more neutral conversational territory, screws the final piece back into the light fixture. “Just wrapping up,” he says. “Can never be too careful.”

“Even so,” Abe agrees, “nothing that can’t wait until after a good breakfast. Titanium locks, bullet-proof windows, sound-proof paneling in every wall—”

“Amen to that,” Grace chimes in, with a little more flirtation in her tone than Matt feels comfortable hearing.

“We’re safe for now,” Abe assures him. “So come make yourself some coffee while the kettle’s hot.”

Matt reckons they’re about as safe as mice running through a room full of spring traps, and it’s only going to take one wrong step to bring fury down upon their necks. Frankly, he’s a little concerned by the attitude in the room. He likes Abe. He likes Grace. He’d hate to see them end up dead before he really got to know them, so he channels the same energy Joe once gave him, when he needed a wake-up call of his own.

He climbs down to the ground, reaches into his pocket, and leaves six missed bugs at the center of the table.

Their eyes both go wide, and they’re not smiling anymore. “Look,” says Matt. “I’m sure you’re excellent agents. Rachel knows how to pick‘em—except maybe myself, as the one notable exception. And I don’t mean to be a buzzkill, but this ain’t a usual romp through western Europe. This is Moscow. When the agencies send us in, they immediately assume we’re dead until proven otherwise. We’re not safe here, and we won’t be safe anywhere we go.”

The pair of them take on the same look Matt’s teammates used to when his mama scolded them for playing ball in the house. It sends his insides twisting, because he’s never been good at this kind of thing. Maybe that’s why he lets them off the hook so soon. “Good news for us, though,” he says, crossing into the kitchen. “Those bugs are long dead, which is why we didn’t catch them sooner. No signal. Must’ve fried up years ago, and the Soviets didn’t want to risk retrieving them. Probably out of date, too, so they won’t tell us much—my guess is mid-to-late sixties. Completely useless, and if I’m remembering the specs right, they wouldn’t be able to transmit through our jammers anyway.”

He rattles this off during a thoughtless coffee routine, moving through mugs, filters, and grounds. “As far as live bugs go, you’re right. We’re clear for now,” he goes on, reaching for the kettle. The water steams as he pours it over dark roast. “Well done on that, Abe.”

Abe plates the last of his eggs, a little more life in him now that Matt’s scorn has been met with renewed reassurance. “Thank you.”

Matt’s well within his wheelhouse now and can’t stop himself from rolling onward. “We should keep up with regular sweeps, in case of sleepers. And we’ll need to sweep again every time we leave and come back—there’s no telling who can get in while we’re away, I don’t care how secure Langley says we are. The pencil pushers in charge of managing the safe houses aren’t the same people putting their ass on the line by staying in one, y’know?” Water trickles into his cup and it seems like a waste to get so little use out of these grounds. “And no matter how many times we sweep, don’t say anything you wouldn’t want to explain to a KGB agent after twelve-to-eighteen hours of torture—coffee for anyone else?”

He might be imagining the dumbfounded shock on Abe and Grace’s face, with the way they watch him, jaws dropped ever so slightly, as though they’re not quite sure if he’s some half-man-half-computer hybrid. It’s possible they just didn’t hear his call for coffee, but before he can offer again, a third voice answers.

“I’ll have one.”

The thing about Rachel Cameron is that she never looks out of place in a room. This is different from Matt, who sinks into the crevices of a crowd to go unseen—Rachel doesn’t go unseen, and she never will. She’s a lot like Abby in that way, wrapped up in enough beauty and stature that it’s impossible to miss her presence. But while Abby is the white-hot crackle of static over a signal, Rachel is the low and even buzz. She is the steady constant that’s always supposed to be there, acting as she’s expected to act, being as she’s expected to be.

Even now, buried somewhere in the backmost forests of Russia, she looks well and truly in her element. Gone is the heiress he last saw, replaced with someone who has spent the last two years getting her hands dirty and isn’t afraid to show it. She’s a mix of denim, and flannel, and a good night’s sleep, leaning in the doorway with an eye toward the entire room. “Now you see why I looped in a specialist,” she says, working her way toward the table. “And a coffee aficionado.”

When Rachel sits, the entire room follows suit. Abe and Grace bring plates to the table and Matt makes quick work out of pouring a second cup of coffee, delivering it, and taking the seat at her side. “He’s clever, Rachel,” Grace comments. She finds a seat in Abe’s lap, ignoring the table’s fourth and final chair. Abe doesn’t seem to mind. “You didn’t say he was clever.”

Rachel blows ever so slightly at the steam of her mug. “Sure I did.”

Abe, who has already cut into his eggs with the side of his fork, shakes his head. “I distinctly remember you saying trustworthy,” he says, one cheek stuffed. Matt finds this tidbit to be awfully interesting. “Reliable and trustworthy—”

“And good in a crowd,” Grace adds. Even more interesting.

“Yes, good in a crowd, thank you love,” he says. Then, back to Rachel. “But you never warned us he’d be clever, too.”

Matt does his best to bite back a creeping grin, glancing up at Rachel. There’s no sign of a crack in her usual cool demeanor, save the slightest purse of pink lips, but she swiftly covers this with her first sip of coffee. Like a barn cat with eyes on a field mouse, he can’t resist pouncing on the moment. “Reliable and trustworthy, huh?”

Her eyes flit toward him. “Careful, Matthew.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He hides the rest of his smile behind a sip of his own coffee and by the time he turns back to Abe and Grace, he’s got his grin reigned in. “In Rachel’s defense, I’m only clever on occasion. Y’all happen to have met me in my area of expertise—I’ve been in and out of Moscow so many times, they ought to give me a key to the city.”

Grace rips off a bite of bacon. “I’m surprised Langley sends you over that often,” she says. “Six only sends in agents as a last resort.”

A twinge of something sharp and electric zips between Matt and Rachel, because they both know Grace is onto something. More often than not, Matt is in the Soviet Union on his own orders, not Langley’s, and that’s the kind of thing that has all the makings of their usual fights. Rather than work their way toward an argument so early in the morning, Matt shifts the subject. “MI6?” he asks. “I didn’t realize this was a joint mission.”

Grace shrugs. “More like a tag-along, really,” she says. “You lot are running this one—Six just wants to know what you find.”

“Grace is being humble,” Rachel cuts in, apparently satisfied to skirt around the frustration, same as Matt. “We worked an extraction job in France a couple years back, and you’d be hard pressed to find someone more knowledgeable about escape and evasion tactics.”

Matt digs into his breakfast. “Useful skill set to have in this part of the world.”

Rachel joins him. “When they told me to put a team together, she was one of the first on my list,” she goes on. “And lucky for us, she was able to open up her schedule.”

“Yes, well,” says Grace, “I do still owe you one after Paris, and anyway you’re much better company than some of the stiffs at Six. Acting all high and mighty with their Windsor knots and their posh boarding school backgrounds.”

Abe is gentle in her ear when he reminds her, “Darling, you have a posh boarding school background.”

“Yes, but I don’t go around acting like it, do I?”

“Certainly not, you’re perfect in every way.”

This is said with another one of their sickly sweet kisses, which prompts Matt to fixate on his eggs as though they are the most interesting thing he’s ever seen. When they carry on a little too long for comfort, Rachel steps in. “You’ll have to excuse these two,” she tells Matt. “They’re still in their honeymoon phase.”

Grace breaks free with a doting glance toward Rachel. “You can hardly blame us.”

“That’s sweet,” says Matt, and he means it. “How long have you been married?”

The two of them turn toward one another, mentally running through the numbers. Grace hangs from Abe’s shoulders. Abe’s hand rests along her leg. Finally, Abe replies with, “Oh, probably, sixteen hours, by this point?”

Matt, who made the mistake of sipping his coffee again, chokes on the answer. “Sixteen hours?” he repeats through a cough. “You’re not in the honeymoon phase—you’re on your honeymoon.”

“Why travel on your own dime when your agency will pay the airfare for you?” says Grace, downright logical about the whole thing. “And this will be better than sitting on some boring old beach anyway.”

Matt’s morning starts to make more sense, given the context, and he’s glad to have a reason for all of the extra love going around. He’s not quite sure how he would have handled it, if Grace and Abe were like this all the time. Honeymoon is fine. Honeymoon is good. “I suppose congratulations are in order.”

Grace waves a hand. “We left our congratulations back in London where they belong,” she says. “I’m far more interested to find out what I’m supposed to be doing in Moscow.”

The table turns toward Rachel, who sits completely at ease as she finishes her last bite of eggs. Once again, she looks perfectly positioned to rise to this moment, as though she knew the conversation would lead this way eventually and all she had to do was wait patiently for everyone else to catch up with her brain. Matt wonders how many times she’s had to wait for the rest of the world to rise to her level. He’s not sure a number that high can be counted. “We’re confident there are no bugs?”

“As confident as we can be,” Matt confirms. “And if we’re wrong, we’ll find out soon enough.”

Rachel doesn’t seem especially satisfied with this answer, but she must decide to contend with it, because she goes on with a strong and easy cadence. “Right,” she says. “The details are need-to-know, but long story short, my last op uncovered a possible exchange happening in the city tomorrow.”

It’s like a switch has flipped in the room, and he’s now sharing the table with entirely different people.

Grace asks, “Two agents?”

Rachel answers, “As far as we know.”

Abe asks, “What agencies?”

Rachel answers, “Langley would very much like us to find that out.”

Grace asks, “What are they exchanging?”

Rachel answers, “Passports.”

Abe asks, “We’re in Moscow for a bunch of bloody passports?”

Rachel hesitates. The moment is brief, but Matt knows her well enough to spot it. He watches closely, looking for any of her usual tells. Chewing on her cheek. Jutting out her jaw. None of them come, which tells Matt that she’s trying very hard not to say something, and she’s trying even harder not to show it.

“We have reason to believe,” she starts, “that hostile agents have intelligence about select US operatives. Aliases. Cover legends. Official cryptonyms. And we suspect that once they get their hands on the passports, they’ll be able to confirm the real identities of everyone on that list—walk back every mission they’ve taken part in, target their families, target their allies, target them.”

Rachel speaks like stone. Sits like glass. She divides her eye contact in perfect thirds across each of them, as though she’s counting the seconds. Rachel is strict and disciplined by nature, but she is never rigid. Not like this.

Abe doesn’t seem to notice. “So these aren’t fakes,” he clarifies. “These are real, genuine passports—name, picture, birth date.”

“Correct,” says Rachel.

“And we need to intercept them,” says Grace. “Before our hostiles blow the cover of every US operative they have access to.”

Rachel nods. “They get the passports, some of our best operatives die,” she confirms. “We get the passports, those operatives get to live another day.”

It’s a continuation of the same dangers he’s been hearing all summer—agents selling out other agents for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Stolen identities leading to the very real executions of significant allies and informants. Ten dead last summer. Plenty more missing. Now Rachel’s gone and pulled him into a Moscow op, and there’s no such thing as coincidence.

So Matt asks, “You said select US operatives?”

And Rachel answers, “Yes.”

Matt asks, “How select?”

Rachel answers, “We think it’s between six and ten passports.”

Matt asks, “Who are they targeting?”

Her eyes linger now, no longer bouncing evenly between everyone and landing firmly on Matt. Rachel’s out-of-character reluctance reads a lot like her in-character stubbornness, but somehow Matt can spot the subtle difference. She’s nervous, which ought to scare the shit out of everyone else at the table. She’s nervous, which ought to tell them all everything they need to know.

Still, he needs her to say it. “Rachel,” he tries again. “Who are they tar—?”

“Soviet specialists.” It comes out fast. Cold. An icicle falling from a rooftop and shattering along the sidewalk. “US operatives with ties to the Soviet Union.”

Abe and Grace turn toward him, and suddenly everyone at the table is watching him like he’s a dead man walking. Logistically speaking, he doesn’t need to ask his next question. Everyone already knows the answer. But he still has to get it out, if only for the sake of his sanity. “Do they have my passport?”

Fire and brimstone have nothing on the look in Rachel Cameron’s eyes when she doesn’t seem to have an answer. “I don’t know… I tried to—” She takes a deep breath. Sets her jaw, the same way she always has. “I don’t know, Matthew.”

It’s his mama that comes to mind first. Then his pops. Joe, Joe, Joe. He’s always known the risks of this profession, but he’s always had a way of justifying them. Rationalizing them. Except now all he can picture is a Soviet bullet in his mama’s forehead and that’s a mighty hard image to wave away. Before he knows what he’s doing, he stands. Nods. “Excuse me.”

And then Matt bolts toward the sole bathroom, hunches over the toilet bowl, and hurls up all four pieces of bacon.

#Full Circle #Gallagher Girls #Ally Carter #Matthew Morgan #Rachel Morgan

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