Tyger Tyger, burning bright,

In the forests of the night:

What immortal hand or eye,

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

– William Blake, “The Tyger”

There’s always a mystery in the genre of spy novels, woven into intricate plot twists. Characters display the highest skill in cunning and stealth as they find themselves at the ground zero of the eternal struggle between the forces of order and chaos, friends and foes. A spy novel is always a vast geography and a chess match of two, with the fate of nations and all of humanity at stake. There’s no room for the unexplained in the game – because the secret always comes to the surface.

In the novel “Incredible Spy Detective” we not only see the rational side of the world through the canonical view of an MI6 agent, but also the irrational perspective of those who create their own universes. The method of active imagination, known from the works of Carl Jung, found its reflection in the detective story where characters travel not only across the globe (Moscow, London, Paris, Florence), but also between eras, drawing knowledge from the works of their predecessors. As soon as the key to understanding the unconscious processes is found, the irrational becomes the unique detective method and begins to supplement the strict and logical worldview of the agent.

Alchemy is an algorithm of inner transformation, the personal evolution of an individual that permeates the works of great artists throughout the centuries. In the novel, the reader will encounter the works of Dante Alighieri, William Blake, Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare, Sandro Botticelli, John le Carré, and will read the author’s translation and interpretation of famous texts and paintings – from a new angle.

“Incredible Spy Detective” is dedicated to all those who, midway upon the journey of life, began to find themselves, and to all poets, misunderstood and lone architects of their universes, serving the craft of the artist, composing sweet fruits of illusion with the precious core of truth inside – to be carried through centuries, passed on from generation to generation, against all odds.

“So you’re a pathological liar.”

“No, I am an MI6 agent.”

1. Take Your Clothes Off

[Russia, Moscow, Khamovniki District]

“So I go up to him asking who he is and what he’s doing in my home,” the female voice spoke from the stand, and from the audience, in the allocated logical pauses, delighted laughter sounded. “And he goes, ‘I am an MI6 agent’.”

The voice was deep, with a hoarseness common in sociopaths and artistic hysterics. There was no more microphone feedback noise, the other speakers at the table on the press-conference stage were silent in fascination and didn’t interrupt the monologue. The camera shutters occasionally clicked and the flashes whistled.

“I tell him to get the hell out – because I didn’t invite him,” the woman continued. “But he’s not leaving.”

She spread her arms theatrically – her nails were a bright neon green – and the pattern of a tattoo flashed on her open wrist from under the white jacket, it snaked up her forearm.

“So I tell him: ‘Take your clothes off, then.’ And he did.”

The audience roared, it was mostly the women who shrieked with laughter, the men were reacting more calmly. The other speakers clapped, bulged their eyes grotesquely, motioned falling from their chair – and the woman was satisfied with the effect she had, though she was simply giving an ironic and restrained smile.

It was impossible to tell if she was being serious.

Richard clapped, too – because he was supposed to, and because he recognized the glimmer of wit in all the absurdity of the joke.

The voice from the stand belonged to the writer under a pen name Stella Fracta, the author of the new detective bestseller ‘Cats Don’t Drink Wine’ about a murder on Italian vineyards. The story about an MI6 agent that she just told to the audience was a product of her psychedelic visions – an author’s method of applying the active imagination.

Richard read all of her books – more than once. MI6 ran a two-week intensive course on all her works, novels and otherwise, with detailed analysis and examples, methodical manuals on her system of symbols and historical notes.

MI6 has been in chaos for the last five months. An unprecedented case of the revelation of the secrets of the Poets, an alchemical society, was deemed a potential threat: that was normally the way that political secrets, stolen by hackers and spies, were exposed to the public eye, with a taunt and a pleasure of impunity.

Among the Poets were famed artists of different eras. The formulas of the Great Work encrypted in their art were passed onwards from chosen ones to chosen ones in forms inaccessible to the understanding of a layman – and the author of the novel that’s gained phenomenal popularity made a marketable detective plot out of it!

A good one – bright, colorful, with multi-layered subtext and deep conclusions … But it was a sensational upheaval, an explanation of the hardest instructions of the wise in simple terms – like a pie recipe on a television cooking show. There were no theories of the great conspiracies of humankind exploited in it, as it often happens in popular culture – there was simple naked truth. It was suspicious.

The alchemical society has existed for many centuries. The Poets didn’t interfere in the political conflicts, nor the economy, nor religion, the matters concerning them were not of paramount importance for intelligence and counterintelligence services – it was business of a different kind. The Poets kept their knowledge behind seven seals in heavy chests, piling up crafty constructions of defense on the surface – one more absurd than the other – as they followed their own data security.

Faustian bargains, the philosopher’s stone, turning metal into gold, water into wine … Vials and potions, Keys of Solomon, rituals for calling demons into service and other trappings of the occult were distractions from the real work of the Poets – and only the chosen few were privy to the true meanings of the metaphors and symbols that had nothing to do with magic.

Even MI6 didn’t teach alchemy. To outsiders, the entrance was closed.

That’s the way it would have stayed – if not for the thunder of the book that exposed what the Poets really do.

There was no doubt that Stella Fracta is a member of the alchemists’ society: she had the knowledge. The why of her exposing the secrets of her society was to be found out by the MI6 agents.

The incident became a matter of international significance: the books in English were spreading around the world like hot buns.

It wasn’t self-exposure – she was popularizing alchemy with a specific goal. Whether it was a call to action, a signal to other alchemists, it was, univocally, danger, because the knowledge supposed to be kept secret could end up in the wrong hands.

The fans, the journalists, artists of all trades – writing and theater and art – all gathered in the press center of Russia’s biggest media group on Zubovsky boulevard – they were dazzled by the hype and a hot newsbreak. Moscow was – as ever – a boiling pot with a fat broth of money, greed for entertainment, avarice for success, competition and vanity fairs.

For a month already Richard has been visiting all events with the author’s participation, for a month he’s been living under a new name. He introduces himself as an actor of the London troupe The Old Vic, often, mostly as a joke, apologizes for his intentionally broken Russian, makes new acquaintances. The fact that he’s in Russia for a project of the Moscow Satire Theater that conducts a series of master classes for the Shakespeare Festival was a cover that hitherto gave rise to no questions – only baffled awe.

In a month he’s not moved an inch forward, he found no new data, no disproof, no proof of the dangerous activities of the Poets – and he could find no way to approach this strange writer, it was as if she didn’t notice him. He was acting with a jeweler’s precision, he couldn’t attract suspicion, he didn’t intrude by acting as a fan or an interested party – and at the same time he had a specific objective: to enter her intimate circle.

The most intimate circle.

The official part of the press conference was over, the autograph session was coming to the end, the guests drifted into the hall with food and drinks. Stella Fracta was guzzling water near one of the tables on the sideline, Venceslav Renev, the literary agent, was whispering something in her ear, flailing his hands, she was staring off into space.

She resembled a teenager at times – with her nose piercing, tattoos all over the left side of her body, the fang extensions and a whimsical hairdo with bangs and two buns on her head made to resemble horns; she’s extremely serious at times – when she frowns, thinking about something, when she says complex things in a convoluted manner, but with racy, dirty jokes. She, too, lives under a pseudonym and wears social masks – even though she hates them, spits on them, as if she’s trying to scare the layman away with her grotesqueness.

Richard looked at her and didn’t understand anything. It wasn’t in his habit to anger at failure, but he did have a habit of never putting his guard down.

The joke about the MI6 agent who came to the writer’s home was forgotten, but in an incredible way described the extreme that Richard will have to go to, if need be.

He’ll have to get into her apartment and take his clothes off – if necessary. Such is his job.

2. Robot

[Russia, Moscow, Domodedovo]

“Excuse me. Would you mind switching seats with me? My seat’s near the emergency exit, 13C, there’s a lot more room there.”

The man whom Richard approached from the back was throwing his luggage up onto the rack. He turned around in confusion, his typically Russian sullen face didn’t smoothen even when faced with the stranger’s white-toothed smile.

“I’d really love to sit next to my girlfriend—” Richard motioned at the seats between them and smiled even wider. “Please.”

The head – with a messy chestnut-haired bun on top of it – didn’t budge, and the sullen man nodded after a second’s pause.

“Fine,” he grumbled and went to get his bag back down.

There was no catch – he would really be getting the better seat.

“Thank you,” sighed Richard with relief.

A few moments later, as if it was nothing, he took his seat besides the young woman in headphones who didn’t even raise her eyes at him, busy writing something into a red notebook.

Her handwriting was unintelligible, littered with crossings-out, but she didn’t mind. Richard’s eyes slanted to her hands, her face and bangs, the dark long lashes, the sharp nose with a ring between the nostrils. Stella Fracta looked different without makeup.

Her real name is Alexandra Stern, she’s thirty, her pen name is only for her books – and it, too, has special symbolism.

“Bad call,” she spoke. “It’s a four-hour flight, you’ll rue the day.”

She heard. Richard agreed with her – but appearing foolish was to his advantage.

His knees, spread to the sides, were pushing up against the back of the seat in front of him, he was uncomfortable already – and they hadn’t even left the airport yet … He was over six feet tall, he felt like he was in an incommodious dollhouse.

“An emotional call,” he said.

They crossed gazes. His eyes were blue, hers – brown.

Alexandra shook her head.

“You can always ask to switch back,” she smiled.

“Yes, I can, but I don’t want to. I’m Richard.”

She was looking at him closely: sculpted features, a clean-shaven chin, blue eyes, a long narrow nose and thin lips; dark brown hair, wide shoulders, a dark gray unzipped jacket, a blue jumper.

A fresh but unimposing perfume, even and calm breathing, a direct and open gaze, the iris – if looking at an angle – appears to be lit up from the inside.

“Alexandra,” she replied.

There were three kinds of her smile: just with her lips; with her lips slightly parted – but so that her fangs wouldn’t be visible; and with a fully open mouth, unashamed. Richard knew all of them – and now she had simply spread her lips.

He extended his hand for a handshake, Alexandra, in a returned gesture, gave him her hand – with long nails that resembled sharp claws.

Her hand was cold, his – warm, both had a firm handshake.

“The damn air conditioner,” noted Richard.

She laughed – and now he had time to see her fangs.

“My hands are always cold,” Alexandra shrugged, putting her hand over the closed notebook. “Even without an air conditioner.”

He could act out a fuss, try to turn the air conditioning off – despite the rules – he could even ask the flight attendant for a blanket … But something told him she wouldn’t fall for that.

He had a feeling she can see right through him – even though it was impossible.

“You’re going to London for work?” he inquired.

Alexandra looked at him again – on her face, he read faint displeasure: a stranger opting to distract her with idle chit-chat. She was still wearing headphones – though since the moment he approached her row, there was nothing playing in them.

“Yes,” she confirmed. “A meeting with readers.”

“Readers?”

“I’m a writer. I have books. Readers read books.”

“But ‘Cats Don’t Drink Wine,’” Richard smiled, putting on a show of bashfulness. “I’m sorry, I’m joking. I got it. I know you – I mean, I know your books.”

“Wonderful. I’m very glad.”

Her friendliness was neutral. It was a balancing act between indifference and gratitude, but it wasn’t arrogance or disdain for excessive attention. Before he had the opportunity to see how warmly she greets fans, readers, those wanting to take a picture with her or tell her their opinion – of any kind … And for some reason she didn’t react to him the way he’d anticipated.

He didn’t expect her to appreciate his attractiveness right away, but he assumed she’ll consider his attention appropriate – and that’s how he’ll start the conversation. She was open to dialogue – with all who approached her … And yet she’s barely looking at a blue-eyed dreamboat.

It wasn’t in his habit to reflect upon his attractiveness – but it was his habit to compare fact to consistent patterns.

Richard knew that at the moment she had neither a long-standing partner nor an object of romantic interest.

“I won’t distract you if it’s inappropriate, sorry.”

Richard breathed hard through his nose, tried to settle in the seat to get into a comfortable position, hugged himself by the shoulders, touching his elbow with his neighbor’s. He saw Alexandra smile from under his lowered eyelashes.

“It’s okay,” she said, and, after a pause, she added. “It’s just that I’m tired – so living humans – even cute ones – don’t ignite a desire for conversation.”

“Living?”

He passed off the statement that he’s cute. Of course, he’s cute – it seems he’s never smiled so ingratiatingly!

“Living. I prefer robots.”

Alexandra was being serious – she always was, even when she was making her odd – sometimes creepy – jokes. If this was the first time he’d met her – and if he was not an agent of MI6 – she would have succeeded in scaring him off.

She’s a misanthrope – she said that in both interviews and articles, and the characters of her books were mostly autistics, psychopaths, evil geniuses wearing masks and murdering people.

Monsters in human skin – and alternatively, humans in bodies of monsters.

“It’s a pity I’m no robot,” Richard complained almost in earnest, staring at the back of the seat ahead of him with loathing.

“You can still go back.”

The flight attendant’s voice began announcing that the plane was getting ready for take-off through the speakers. Richard clicked the safety belt.

“Not a chance,” he smirked.

Alexandra took off her headphones, switched the phone to airplane mode, leaned back and closed her eyes. He was glancing at her – nearly always voluntarily.

3. Habit

[Great Britain, London, Heathrow Airport]

The neighbor next to the porthole didn’t once get up during the flight, while Alexandra asked to be let out into the passage often – and Richard pretended that he was dozing off – so she would have to carefully touch his forearm.

She was the sort to opt to kick someone to wake them up, or smack them with the red notebook – and Richard knees were, seemingly, everywhere by now, appeared a shame to waste the opportunity.

For a part of the flight, Alexandra sat with her eyes closed – but wasn’t even napping, just enjoying the idleness – for a part of it, she listened to music, wrote something down in the notebook.

She wasn’t bored with just herself as company, she didn’t need an interlocutor to get through the four hours of the journey. Richard, too, was able to turn off the thought grinder, to value every opportunity of rest and recuperation, he didn’t rush the events – he simply observed.

After they safely landed, when they were leaving the plane cabin, he helped her get her things from the carry-on luggage compartment. She had a small mint suitcase – as heavy as Richard himself, who came in at around two hundred pounds.

He didn’t betray his surprise – but Alexandra smirked – a brief smirk that he’d already had time to get used to.

“Is anyone meeting you?”

Alexandra pulled out the handle of the suitcase, squeezed the red notebook under her arm and turned in the passage. Richard was a head taller than her, she had to tilt her chin up to look him in the eye.

“Yes.”

“I’d love to see you again. We could get coffee or take a walk or—”

“I won’t make any promises. I don’t even know how long I’ll stay here.”

She was smiling, but her eyes were serious.

“I understand,” Richard nodded and pretended to be interested in other passengers slowly making their way along the rows of seats to the exit. “It doesn’t have to be London. You’ll be back in Moscow eventually.”

He didn’t say who he was – and she didn’t ask. Alexandra raised an eyebrow.

“Text me on social media, we’ll figure something out,” she said finally.

“Of course.”

He didn’t pester her with questions anymore, he fell behind when they said a short goodbye in the airport building – and merely observed the silhouette from afar, black jumpsuit and white sneakers.

There were triangular fabric ears on the jumpsuit’s hood – like a cat’s. Alexandra’s gait was dancing, slightly nervous, she didn’t put her phone down and kept calling someone, the recipient kept not picking up.

They crossed paths again at the entrance to the building with glass panels that reflected the setting sun, Alexandra was squinting from the golden light, Richard approached her so that she would have time to notice his presence.

“We can take a cab together,” he said.

“Everything’s fine,” she shook her head. “I’ll call a taxi if anything goes wrong.”

“Alright.”

He wasn’t going to leave until a car came up. He was sure she would agree to go with him – if for some reason something didn’t go according to plan.

“No luggage?”

She gave him a short glance – and continued scrutinizing the cars fussing around in the parking lot.

“Yes,” Richard spread his arms. “Habit. London is my hometown, no need to overpack.”

“I see. Good habit.”

His cab was already waiting afield, but he pretended not to notice. The key thing is to not overdo it – and to not inspire rejection with his intrusive presence, but at the same time catch the opportunity to learn who was to meet her.

In the meantime, a Rolls-Royce leisurely strolled along the vehicular accesses of terminals, its polished black sides shone in the rays of the setting sun, Alexandra patiently watched its movement. When the car drew up with them, the driver’s door on the right side opened. The man who exited was smiling guiltily, Alexandra was curving her lips into a smile, too.

“I’m sorry!”

“You dolt!”

“The old man held me up!”

“You could have at least picked up the phone!”

They were speaking English and immediately forgot about Richard. The man was her age, in a black suit with no tie and a white shirt – the appearance of a typical driver, with an appropriate amount of polish and servility.

He embraced her, squeezing her into a hug, lifting her off the ground, then let her go, leaned down and took the suitcase. It was only then he directed his gaze at Richard.

“Remy, Richard,” Alexandra remembered suddenly, pointing with the notebook that she clutched in her hand first at one man, then at another. “Richard, Remy.”

“Charmed,” Remy nodded, extending his free hand.

Richard responded with a handshake. Right after that, the driver deprived him of his attention and headed to the car, opened the trunk.

“Goodbye, Richard,” said Alexandra, in English.

“See you.”

He followed them with his gaze until the car disappeared from view. A bit later – in the taxi – he will find out that the Rolls-Royce is from the fleet of a famous historian and religious scholar, a knight of the Order of the British Empire, Sir Leigh McKellen, and the young man that was late to the airport is his personal driver, Remy Adan.

McKellen is certainly from the Poets’ society – considering his field of work, his specialization in cults of female deities. McKellen has a mansion in the London suburbs – and they certainly went there, not to the hotel, as Richard had initially assumed.

He didn’t have a habit of trying to fill the blanks in prematurely – but he had a habit of picking up on every detail.

She never let go of her red notebook – obviously there’s something important in it.

12 Next

Incredible Spy Detective. Poets and Liars

Foreword

1. Take Your Clothes Off

2. Robot

3. Habit

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