City of Spies by Nina Berry

went through the dance. She twirled around him, resentful planet to his glowing, annoying sun, yielding to his pull.
    The last flurry of intricate moves involved hooking her leg around his, then withdrawing, followed by a series of little flicks of her heel as she pivoted within his embrace. As they began, Tony shoved her this way and that.
    â€œAngle, angle your hips!” Jared shouted at Tony. That was how you guided your partner, not by force.
    But Tony wasn’t listening. The angry glitter in his eyes, the power in his grip, was frightening, as if he might throw her instead of dip. He pushed her hip too hard and squeezed her hand cruelly. Pain shot down her arm.
    She managed the first two kicks perfectly, anyway, but on the third she pivoted too far. The pointed heel of her dance shoe jabbed right into Tony’s groin. He let out a sickened grunt of agony and released her.
    She hadn’t meant to do it.
    Had she?
    Either way, his anguished grimace was very satisfying. She stepped back as he doubled over, hands clutched between his legs.
    â€œSorry,” she said, her voice calm, as if she’d stepped on his toe. “My fault.”
    Tony fell to his knees, sucking in air. “You bitch,” he said with a groan.
    Oh, yes, she was feeling better now. Amazing what a little accidental violence could do for your spirits.
    â€œYour face is purple,” she said. “You might want to change your tanning oil.”
    Jared rushed to Tony’s side, eyes wide. “Are you going to be able to keep dancing?”
    Tony shook his head. His lips completely disappeared as he pressed them together.
    Pagan gathered up her trench coat and purse. “Same time tomorrow?”
    Tony’s burning glare as he struggled to sit up was a balm to her soul.
    â€œI think tomorrow maybe we’ll go through your little rumba number with David instead,” said Jared.
    David was Pagan’s other costar, a dim, sweet boy she could wrap around her finger with one flutter of her eyelashes.
    â€œIf you think that’s best,” she said, and sauntered out the door, even as her spirits sank. Tony Perry and the terrible script were only the first challenges this movie was going to throw at her.

CHAPTER FIVE
    Buenos Aires, Argentina January 10, 1962
    CÓDIGO
    The code of behavior which governs the dance.
    Eight days of rehearsal and several grueling flights later, Pagan and Mercedes landed at Ezeiza Airport in Buenos Aires, rumpled and grouchy.
    Devin Black was not waiting for them.
    It was at a sunny eighty-five degrees as they made their way down the rickety metal stair onto the tarmac. A strong humid wind nearly snatched Pagan’s pillbox hat off her head and whooshed the skirt of Mercedes’s Zuckerman pink cotton piqué sheath dress so high her garters showed. The Pan Am stewardess in her chic blue uniform ran easily down the stairs after them to ask for an autograph for the captain, smiled her regulation Revlon Persian Melon lipstick smile and trotted back up the stairs.
    â€œHow does she look so unwrinkled?” Mercedes asked as they straggled into the terminal.
    â€œI know,” Pagan said. “My garters have found a new home, embedded in my thighs.”
    Inside they found a short, square man in a neatly pressed black uniform and cap holding a sign that said Señorita Jones.
    â€œMy name is like a terrible alias,” Pagan said to Mercedes. “Buenos días, señor. Soy Pagan Jones.”
    He blinked at her and Mercedes, then looked down at his sign and back up at them. “Buenos días, señoritas,” he said. Under his formidable black mustache, his uneven teeth flashed in a smile. “I’m sorry. They didn’t tell me you spoke such beautiful Spanish.”
    Pagan laughed and continued in Spanish. “Mercedes is the real expert. What’s your name?”
    â€œYo me llamo Carlos Cavellini,” he said, except he pronounced yo and llamo