The Spy Who Came for Christmas by David Morrell Read Free Book Online Page A

the gleam of stainless steel. A stove. A refrigerator.
    I'm in a kitchen, he realized. He tried to raise himself, but his strength gave out, and he sank back onto what felt like a brick floor.
    "You're hurt," the woman said. "Don't try to move."
    "The baby," he murmured anxiously.
    Even dazed, he was alarmed by the sound of his voice. For almost a year, he'd spoken so much Russian that his English had an accent. He worried that it would be one more thing to unsettle the woman.
    "Here. I have him in my arms," she said.
    The baby remained wrapped in a small blue blanket. Ka- gan's vision cleared enough for him to see the woman holding the infant protectively against her chest.
    From his perspective on the floor, the ceiling light shone down through her long blond hair, giving her a halo. She was in her midthirties. Thin, perhaps more than was healthy, Kagan noted, desperation focusing his mind. His life depended on what he could learn about this woman in the next few minutes. She wore a red flared satin dress, as if for a party, although it hung askew on her shoulders, making him think she'd put it on hastily. And there was something wrong about her face, which she kept turned toward Kagan's left.
    She stared at the crimson stain on the left sleeve of his parka.
    "Why are you bleeding?" she asked. Her forehead creased with concern. "Why were you carrying the baby under your coat? Were you in an accident?"
    "Turn off the lights."
    "What?"
    Kagan strained to minimize his accent. "The lights. Please ..."
    "Do they hurt your eyes?"
    "Phone the police," Kagan managed to say.
    "Yes. You need an ambulance." Holding the baby, the woman continued to tilt her face to Kagan's left, self-conscious about something.
    What's wrong with her cheek? Kagan wondered.
    "But I can't phone for help," she told him. "I'm sorry. The phones are broken."
    While Kagan worked to order his thoughts, melting snow dripped from his hair. He realized that the zipper on his parka had been pulled almost completely open. Sweat from his exertion soaked his clothes. Heat drifted up from the bricks, a sensation that made him think he was delirious until he remembered a bellhop telling him about the under-floor radiant heating--hot water through rubber tubes--that warmed the hotel where he was staying.
    "Broken?" He drew a breath. "The snow brought down the phone lines?"
    "No. Not the lines. The phones are . . ." The woman kept her face to the side and didn't finish the sentence.
    "Smashed," the boy said. Bitterness tightened his voice. He had a slight build, almost to the point of looking frail, but that hadn't stopped him from attacking Kagan with the baseball bat. He was around twelve years old, with glasses and tousled hair, blond like his mother's. Talking about the smashed phones made his cheeks red.
    The baseball bat, Kagan abruptly realized. Is he still holding it? With relief, he saw that the boy had leaned the bat against a cupboard. Kagan didn't understand why the boy had attacked him, but there wasn't time for questions.
    Dizzy, he tried to sit up. He remembered the microphone he wore. The woman or the boy might say something that would tell Andrei where he was hiding. Under the pretense of rubbing a sore muscle, he reached beneath his parka and turned off the transmitter. It was the first time since he'd taken the child that his hands had been free to do so.
    To his left, he saw the small window over the kitchen sink.
    "Please." He worked to neutralize the accent he'd acquired, his voice sounding more American. "You've got to pull the curtain over that window. Turn off the lights."
    The baby squirmed in the woman's arms, kicking, crying again.
    "Do it," Kagan urged. "Turn off the lights."
    The woman and the boy stepped back, evidently worried that he might be delusional.
    'As weak as I am, you can see I'm no threat to you."
    "Threat?" The woman's eyes reacted to the word.
    "Men are chasing me."
    "What are you talking about?"
    "They want the baby. You've got