section7mfu | In Plain Sight - Short Affair

Prompts – Stem/Navy Blue
Word Count (approx.) – 457

Glancing nonchalantly around the restaurant, April Dancer asked her partner how they were supposed to recognize their contact. There were at least fifty diners, a dozen wait staff and the Maitre d’. The contact, who was to give them a micro-film, could be anyone of them.

“No idea, love,” Mark Slate replied, as he thanked their waiter for the starters he’d brought to them. “All Napoleon would say was that we’d know them.”

The pair continued with their ‘couple on a date’ act, while surreptitiously scanning the room, yet neither of them recognised anyone. Just as the main courses were being delivered, which April acknowledged with a smile and a nod, a Spanish guitarist arrived and began to work the room. He played to every table, producing long stemmed roses from a pouch at his hip, and handing one to every woman.

“What about him?” April murmured, from behind a navy blue napkin.

“He stands out a bit don’t you think?”

“It could be a double bluff,” April stated. “Who would think someone that obvious would be involved in espionage?”

They deliberately ignored the musician until he came to their table, where April made a show of being coy. She shyly accepted the proffered rose, giggling slightly. Mark made a close study of the guitarist’s face, but did not see someone he knew.

The musician moved onto the next table, leaving Mark perplexed. Solo had said he would know the contact, yet the Brit was yet to see anyone he was even vaguely acquainted with. He looked to April, who was pulling the rose apart, in a seemingly absent-minded way.

“There’s nothing here,” she told Slate. “I don’t understand.”

“May I interest you in dessert, Madam? Sir?”

April looked up at the waiter, and had to force herself not to react. The black hair and moustache were not his own, but the wink the waiter was giving her could only come from eyes belonging to Illya Kuryakin. There was an amused twinkle in his gaze as he handed the dessert menu to April. The female agent, laid the menu down, and carefully slid the film from inside the menu, to underneath her napkin. She would wait a few minutes before moving it into her purse. She and Mark ordered a dessert each, and continued with their ‘date’. So as not to arouse any suspicion, they would complete the meal a normal couple would, and Illya would carry on waiting tables until the restaurant closed.

“He was waiting on us the whole time,” April finally commented when they arrived back at HQ. “How did we not notice?”

“It’s simple, he didn’t want us to,” Mark explained. “I honestly believe that Illya could conceal himself in an empty room.”