Nick had never had an online romance, but he imagined meeting an online sweetheart in person would be much like this.
Facing each other, both struggled to maintain smiles, polite yet awkward, matching the person they had imagined to the one before them.
Watching through binoculars from across a distant gorge naturally felt entirely different from looking into each other's eyes at close range.
Dahlia was even more slender than Nick had imagined, but not frail, with the strength distinctive to Slavic women.
"Good morning, Nick. Please forgive me for coming uninvited." The girl now showed none of the decisiveness of her earlier leap. Her hands were behind her back, her fingers twisting until they turned white.
Nick gazed into her large, clear eyes, as translucent as emeralds. The way she did not know where to look was particularly adorable, like an innocent fawn in the forest.
"I think you've not only beaten me to what I wanted to do, you're also trying to steal my lines."
For some reason, he thought again of the girl who had shared his desk and secretly taken his hand during class. Her face had long since blurred in his memory, yet now it suddenly became clear again, overlapping with Dahlia's face before him, which seemed both coy and reproachful.
"I imagined countless times that we might meet in some more romantic way, but this seems better. Better than I expected."
Nick opened his arms and, under Dahlia's surprised gaze, stepped forward and drew her into his embrace.
The girl's body was slightly stiff at first, as though she was very unused to such intimate contact with another person, but she soon relaxed and even reached up to wrap her arms around Nick's neck.
"I just wanted to see you right away. Immediately. I didn't want to wait another second," she murmured in Nick's ear. Her voice was lovely, her contralto carrying a hint of huskiness.
The slight barrier between them that came from meeting for the first time was shattered by the initiative they had both taken.
Out of Nick's sight, Dahlia involuntarily lifted her right foot, clad in a snow boot, slightly behind her.
"Am I dreaming? How did you manage this?" Dahlia's red lips parted slightly, her beautiful eyes wide as she stared at the four dishes and soup on the table.
Steamed sturgeon, smoked venison, cold spinach salad, stir-fried cabbage with vinegar, and a pot of fragrant radish and salted pork soup, with a layer of finely chopped garlic greens floating on the surface.
"Hold on. There's one more good thing." Nick gave a mysterious smile, took out a large glass jar, and ladled out a generous scoop of crystal-clear vodka.
His only flask had been left by JD, and this girl had shot it to pieces earlier. He was not in the habit of drinking, either, so all the Potato Vodka he had saved up lately was stored in glass jars, prepared for his teacher, Ivanova.
Dahlia eagerly took the glass and sipped, her large eyes narrowing to slits at the fiery taste.
"It's so strong!" Only then did she notice that, besides knives, forks, and spoons, there was actually a pair of chopsticks on the table. She gave Nick a puzzled, questioning look.
"You didn't think I'd made American food, did you? Believe me, these days, even at a White House banquet, all you'd get would be burgers." Nick shrugged and courteously pulled out the chair in front of her.
Before sitting down, Dahlia took an exaggerated deep breath, her expression intoxicated yet a little hesitant. "Although I really like Chinese food, this seems a little different from what I had in Moscow."
After a pause, she hurried to explain, "Yours looks even more delicious."
"Yes, I know." Nick answered her with an extremely confident smile.
Never underestimate a PLA mess cook's ability to make delicious food with whatever was available. Caramelizing sugar in field conditions was merely a basic skill. Cooking had always been the area in which he had the most confidence.
Pouring himself half a glass of Potato Vodka as well, Nick raised it and clinked glasses with Dahlia. "To our first time together."
After a sumptuous lunch, the two sat on the west tower's observation terrace, gazing at the now-empty East Tower, and could not help exchanging smiles.
"So where exactly do you think this place is?" Dahlia took the initiative to start a conversation.
Nick shook his head and swirled the liquor in his glass in the early spring noon sunlight, his face slightly flushed. "No idea. Probably somewhere near the Black Sea or the Caspian Sea, in Eastern Europe close to the Middle East."
"Are you sure?" Dahlia looked at him with alluring eyes.
So Nick explained his reasoning about the season, temperature, and his sturgeon theory. "It's only a rough guess. Until they kicked me out of the plane, I was under the influence of sedatives the whole time."
"Same here." Dahlia continued, "So you're a soldier?"
Nick hesitated and suppressed certain thoughts. Now was not the time. He merely said vaguely, "I used to be, but only in an ordinary unit. Not the kind you served in."
The corners of Dahlia's lips lifted slightly. "Then what kind do you think I served in?"
"Vympel or Signal Flag?" Nick tried to find an answer in her expression but got nothing. He could only shake his head helplessly. "Looks like neither. I can't think of any Russian special forces unit that takes female soldiers.
"But you don't seem like an FSB agent or someone from another intelligence agency, either, so I can't figure it out."
Dahlia nodded slightly, her gaze wandering a little. "Actually, you guessed right. A long time ago, before I was even born, my father worked for the KGB.
"Later... you know, that country ceased to exist. He took my mother and left that life behind, living in seclusion in Lithuania until they had me."
Understanding dawned on Nick. No wonder this girl struck him as a little too innocent. It turned out she had been trained outside the system. "So you learned to shoot from your father?"
Dahlia's eyes held memories of the past. "Yes. When I was little, he often took me hunting in the forest. Later, Mom fell ill and died, and he took me back to Moscow...
"After that, I started doing work for the GRU, but I wasn't one of their people."
An off-the-books assassin, or rather, a "cleaner." Judging by Dahlia's almost miraculous marksmanship, she probably specialized in outsourced "cleanup" work.
"So do you know why you were sent here?" Nick continued.
"I don't know. Probably because I botched my last job. Supposedly, one of your American satellites caught me during the extraction, so the higher-ups wanted me to take some time off."
Dahlia leaned back against her chair, staring at Nick with interest. "So why were you sent here?"
"No idea. Maybe because I have no ties?" Nick suddenly felt that the man he had replaced seemed to have been even worse off than he himself was in this life. The man had been completely alone, without even a single friend.
He did not want to deceive Dahlia using Rivi's identity, but the trust between them had not yet reached the point where he could lay everything out. He could only rack his brains for a way to steer the conversation away from himself.
Fortunately, a topic was not hard to find. There was a ready-made one right beneath their feet.
Before you continue