Deception: A Short Story

By Eric Halpenny

Keep your friends close, your enemies closer. In Deception, the difference between friend and enemy quickly blurs. Dmitry, a hardened Russian spy in the Cold War, has no mercy for his adversary Olyesa in this spy thriller. Olyesa and Dmitry navigate their way through the murky waters of agents and double agents while simultaneously struggling against each other for survival. When their divergent plans collide, it threatens to destroy them both.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Apr 10, 2018
• ISBN: 9781543930450

Book preview

Copyright © March 2017 Eric Halpenny

ISBN: 9781543930450

Cover designed by MatYan

The truth may be stretched thin,

But it never breaks, and it always surfaces above lies,

As oil floats on water.

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

The soft click of a doorknob and the muffled swish of worn hinges shattered the stifling silence blanketing the basement. Dmitry’s eyes flicked up from the report he held under the glow of the yellow light emanating from the lamp on his desk, but he did not move his head. The dusty brass fixture of his desk lamp was dull in the dim light of the room. His eyes followed Olyesa’s movements as she carefully closed the door from Captain Syomin’s office behind her and took a few tentative steps into the main work-room. She held a file in her hands. Fidgeting with the slim sheaf, she appeared hesitant to deliver it. He supposed that meant it was for him.

Olyesa did not look towards him, nervously studying the floor instead, which made him smile inwardly. He would never let a smile show on his face, of course, but he enjoyed the sight of her in a state of discomfort. He cast his gaze past her hesitating form to the face of Yura, who sat at a desk identical to Dmitry’s, also with a brass light fixture dimly illuminating a deep stack of files. He, like Dmitry, spent the majority of his days sifting through file after file in search of information, some banal and some interesting, but all at the captain’s whim. Yura’s face was ever sympathetic to Olyesa, which Dmitry hated. He never let that show either, but it was inwardly motivating.

After a few more moments of hesitation, Olyesa visibly firmed her resolve, took a deep breath, and started walking toward Dmitry. He purposefully let his eyes linger on her body rather than her face all the way across the room until she stood directly in front of his desk. He knew she noticed where he was looking because she unsuccessfully tried to cover herself with the inadequately sized manila folder, holding it clutched against her with both arms. Dmitry reached for it with one hand, holding his hand out expectantly, just to force her to move it, although he normally would have waited until she put it on his desk before acknowledging its presence. Most of the time, he preferred making her feel insignificant by pretending to ignore her, but occasionally noticing her in certain ways was just as satisfying.

He took the folder from her—still not looking at her face but keeping his eyes fixed doggedly on her body—and placed it in his pile of assignments. As she turned away, he carefully glanced up at her, still keeping his head steady so she wouldn’t detect his change of focus. He could tell that her face was flushed. Embarrassing her was one of the pleasures he could enjoy as a diversion from that of his work. He watched her walk all the way back to Captain Syomin’s office and disappear behind the heavy door before he returned his eyes to the report he held in his left hand, the report he had been reading when Olyesa had entered the work area.

The new folder from Syomin would be about the traitorous Ukrainian that Yura and Maxim had flushed out last week. Supposedly, this Khokhol had told them some things, apparently secrets. But Syomin would be dissatisfied with results that came so quickly, because that undoubtedly meant there were real secrets being withheld while unimportant things were divulged. Information such as the Ukrainian must have known would never come readily. Dmitry knew he was always the one to have to extract the important information after the other two had put in their best efforts, which were grossly inadequate.

Besides tormenting Olyesa, obtaining secrets from spies was Dmitry’s other pleasure. Unfortunately, the pleasure of it was slightly tainted in that it was also part of his work.

Dmitry finished reading the report he had been working on. It was boring, really, simply a listing of popular American fashion styles of the previous six months. Even so, such information could be useful in unforeseen ways. He always read everything about everything that came to the office. He marked his initials on this report with his