by Pam Jenoff
But he looks directly at me, the shared space intentional. “Hello, Jordan.”
I freeze. How does he know my name? Alarmed, I pull the door handle but it is locked. I reach again for my nonexistent gun, looking desperately around the interior of the car, searching for a means of escape. I could kick out the window, I think, scream for help.
“It’s okay,” he says, his English surprisingly crisp and unaccented. American. But given my recent experience in London, the realization is of little comfort. The man’s left shoulder moves down, as though he is going for a gun or other weapon. I lunge forward to stop him, but he raises his other hand, warding me off. “Relax. Just getting some identification for you. I’m Tom Montgomery, from the Vienna station.” He hands me a card.
CIA, I realize, recognizing the seal. My heart pounds. “How did you find me? Did Mo send you?”
“Mo? I’m afraid I don’t know who you’re talking about.” His confusion seems genuine. But if Mo hadn’t sent him, then who? I don’t think Lincoln would have betrayed me, and even if he did, I hadn’t told him where I am. It would have been virtually impossible for him to triangulate my location so quickly. “I was sent by Paul Van Antwerpen.”
“The Director?” I sink back into the seat. “How do I know you’re telling the truth?”
“He said you’d be suspicious. Asked me to remind you that the office you occupied at State had the creaky chair he’d used twenty years earlier. And that you had a mutual friend in San Salvador named Margaret.”
I relax slightly. The chair was an inside joke between us, something only the Director would have known. And he would not have mentioned Margaret, a secretary at the embassy who was in fact an intelligence asset, to anyone who could not be trusted. “Why did he send you? What does he want?”
He looks uneasily out the window. “I’d rather not discuss this here. Do you mind if we go somewhere more private to talk?”
“I do mind, actually.” Isolating a witness is one of the oldest intelligence techniques in the book—the last thing I need is to be cornered somewhere alone with this guy, even if the Director did send him. And I have to get to Nicole before Ari discovers I’m gone and comes after me. “I have to meet someone in ten minutes,” I say, wishing I had not given my destination to the driver. “So we can talk here or I’m just getting out.”
Montgomery leans forward and says something in German to the driver, who turns off the engine. Then he sits back again. “You resigned your commission with State.” He does not overtly acknowledge my ties to his agency, the unique hybrid role I’ve played these past several years. “May I ask why?”
Part of me would like to tell him everything, to finish off Maureen and the others once and for all. But keeping their secret is the bargain I made with Mo in exchange for not disclosing my whereabouts. And though this man found me, he did so at the Director’s behest—Mo has not, as far as I know, broken her promise. No, my fate is inextricably linked to hers, at least for the moment, and so I have to remain silent. “It’s a long story,” I say at last.
“There’s out-processing that needs to be done,” he replies coolly. “A certain protocol. If we could just debrief you . . . ”
“The London embassy has all of the paperwork on my resignation.” But he’s talking about more than just some documentation for State. My intelligence work gave me a connection to the agency that is not so easily severed.
“Yes, however, the specifics were a little thin.” Guilt rises in me as I imagine the Director learning of my departure, trying to figure out why the protégé he spent so much time and energy grooming had left him without notice or explanation. Mo, his longtime rival, would not have provided him with the details of my resignation, even if they did not implicate her. No, I should have at least called him. I couldn’t face his questions, though, or bear to hear the disappointment in his voice. “Anyway, the Director was hoping you would reconsider.”
“Oh.” The notion that the Director would try to stop me seems at odds with his formal, detached style. I’m flattered, but it doesn’t change my decision, or the events that caused me to make it. “I’m afraid that’s out of the question. I’m not going back to State.” I look out the window at a deliveryman trying to navigate a hand truck piled high with boxes around the puddles on the sidewalk.
“We weren’t exactly thinking of State,” the man replies quietly.
I fight to keep my reaction neutral. “I-I don’t understand,” I say. Of course, in truth I know exactly what he is saying but I am buying time, trying to process the information.
“We’d bring you in with us this time, Jordan. Place you under deep cover. Your current status, a disgruntled former diplomat who has resigned, is the perfect story. We can set you up with a private sector job as a cover, or on your own, if you’d prefer . . . ”
He continues talking but I don’t hear him. My mind reels. Go back in, only deeper this time. He’s not talking about official cover, as Lincoln had when he’d posed as a diplomat. Agents like that were at least able to say that they work for the American government and enjoy the protection of diplomatic immunity if something went wrong. This would be something else entirely. Nonofficial cover, or NOC, as it’s known, with its lack of governmental acknowledgment or protection, is the most dangerous role an agent can undertake.
Yet despite the risk, the proposal has a certain attraction. I could do the work I loved independently, freed from the bureaucracy I found so frustrating, the deceit that made me flee in the first place. And though I wouldn’t be reporting to him directly, I’d be making good on my commitments to Van Antwerpen, not letting him down. But I can’t do it, not now, after all that’s happened. “I can’t,” I say finally.
A look of surprise flashes across Montgomery’s face. “You can name your terms,” he says, as though I had not responded and the matter is still up for debate. “I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how unusual this offer is, the lengths the Director went to to make it happen.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “But I’m not interested.” I force a false air of certainty into my voice, knowing that any hesitation on my part will only prolong the conversation.
He shrugs, gesturing to the card he gave me. “If you change your mind, you can reach me here.” I hear a click as the doors unlock.
I tuck the card into my pocket, then climb from the cab. Watching the car pull away, my legs wobble. The Director found me, wants me back, even after I abandoned my post. I will have second thoughts about refusing the offer, I am sure, many times in the days to come. But for now I have to get to Nicole.
Too nervous to try another taxi, I make my way to the U-Bahn station farther down the block, consulting the map on the wall downstairs before buying a ticket. I sink down onto the cracked plastic seat, still shaking from the encounter.
As the train clacks through the darkened tunnel, I consider the man’s offer to join the agency. I’d been given the chance once before to cross over in my first days at State, approached during a field trip to Langley with my orientation class. Lincoln brought me to a conference room with a window I could not see through, where two men in dark gray suits were waiting. Did I want to become a CIA agent under diplomatic cover? I hesitated, considering the offer. The idea of intelligence work appealed to me, but I declined, fearing the isolation, a life of lies, secrets kept from those closest to me.
Eighteen months later, in Warsaw, the agency approached me again with a different proposition: remain a Foreign Service Officer, become trained in intelligence. The hybrid concept was a new one, designed for just a handful of carefully selected individuals. Weary from nearly a year on the visa line, I quickly accepted. Within weeks, I had been extricated from my assignment under the pretense of a sick relative and sent to train at the Farm.
But even after that my status was never clear. I wasn’t true CIA, recruited from the agency by the outside world, then planted in the diplomatic service or elsewhere. I worked on my own, handling discreet assignment
s, dispatched as needed by the Director. I never checked in with a station chief or interacted with the rest of the intelligence community, except on a limited, need-to-know basis.
Do I want to go back inside? When I resigned from the government, betrayed by Mo and the others, I slammed that door hard in my mind. Now, with a couple of days and a few thousand miles of distance, I see that they were only one part of the system—a system of which I was once proud.
What would my career have been like if I hadn’t quit? Few agents, and even fewer women, spend an entire career in the field. But I couldn’t picture myself returning to Washington, growing fat and complacent at a desk job, telling war stories until colleagues had heard them so many times they became cliché. No, I would have kept going, taking assignments from the Director, though the nature and intensity of them would have changed, I am sure, with age.
Enough, I think, as the subway screeches to a halt at the Friedensbrücke station. I’m flattered that the Director had gone to such lengths to find me, but that chapter of my life is over.
I disembark, following the stream of travelers toward the exit. The passageway that leads to the street is surprisingly dirty for the otherwise pristine city, smelling of urine and garbage.
But this is not the Vienna I knew, I quickly realize as I step outside, following the street to a bridge leading over the canal. Brigittenau is an ethnic enclave, shop signs written in Cyrillic, foreign techno music thumping from an unseen source. It is a by-product of the European Union expansion; despite Austria’s draconian immigration laws, workers from the former Eastern Bloc countries have found their way here in droves, lured by the promise of higher paying wages in this closest of Western capitals.
Taking in the gritty, working-class district, I am reminded of Brick Lane, the area of London’s East End where I pursued Vance Ellis just weeks ago. I’d gone to Vance looking for Duncan, Jared’s college research partner. Fear had silenced Duncan, even before Jared’s purported death, and he and Vance were left to live their lives in peace—until I came back to England and started asking questions.
Terrified, Duncan fled the country and I followed Vance from the theater where he was performing to an underground gay nightclub in the Indo-Pakistani neighborhood to ask about Duncan’s whereabouts. Later that night, Vance turned up dead. Though it appeared a suicide, I knew he was killed for knowing too much—and for talking to me.
I push away my guilt. As I turn the corner onto Denisgasse, the commotion begins to fade behind me. The rain has stopped completely, small puddles on the pavement the only remnant of the earlier storm. The buildings here are more dilapidated, once respectable apartments deteriorated to little more than block flats, laundry lines strung across balconies, satellite dishes littering the façades. I pause, studying the street sign, wondering if I got the directions wrong. It seems impossible to imagine Nicole staying here. Does Jared know that his wife travels to places such as this?
Number 18 is a nondescript apartment building with an empty storefront on the ground level, indiscernible from its neighbors on either side. I reach for the door handle, then stop. I wonder if Nicole will actually be at this address, whether she will be alone. Perhaps I should text Ari now that I am here. But I cannot bring myself to admit that I stole the information he had and risked his investigation for my own selfish purposes.
Inside the building, the foyer is tiny, a bare lightbulb revealing water-stained walls and a gritty tile floor, a hallway with several apartment doors. Turn around, a voice inside my head says. I have no idea what I might find here. I can return to the hotel and pretend this never happened, just tell Ari I went for a walk and go with him later to meet Nicole as planned.
A piercing scream, high and shrill, cuts through the silence like a knife.
I leap back. The scream, which had come from the floor above, reverberates in my mind. It was Nicole’s voice, I am certain of it.
I freeze, uncertain what to do. It is madness to rush in unarmed, but if I go for help, it may be too late. I listen for further sounds. Hearing nothing, I start up the stairs, trying to move silently, staying low and close to the wall.
At the second floor landing, I see a door slightly ajar. I walk to it, trying without success to look through the narrow opening into the apartment. Taking a deep breath, I push the door slightly farther open, then stop, gasping.
A man lies motionless on the floor of the apartment, eyes open, a halo of blood circling his head and neck. Kneeling over him, clutching a knife, is Nicole.
“Nicole?” I say. She does not respond. I take a step into the apartment. Her arms and blouse are streaked with bright red. I move toward her, touch her shoulder gently. “Are you all right?”
Startled, she jerks upward, swinging wildly in my direction. I leap back, pulling my midsection away from the arc of the bloody knife, which misses me by inches. As she starts to slice back toward me from the other direction, I catch her wrist, holding her at bay. “Nicole, stop!”
She stares back, her eyes wild, too disoriented to recognize me. Behind her I notice a bottle of wine broken on the floor, its contents still dripping down the wall where it had smashed. “It’s Jordan Weiss. We met in Monaco, remember? I’m not going to hurt you.” Her eyes dart back and forth and she processes the information. Then her arm relaxes slightly beneath my grasp, but her distrustful expression remains. Her once well-coiffed hair is wild, her skin pale and clammy. “What happened?”
She does not answer. Her arm tenses once more and her eyes widen. But she is not looking at me, I realize, following her gaze over my shoulder.
Before I can turn, something slams into me with full force. I am thrown forward and Nicole jerks from my grasp, pulling away. As she does, the knife slices across my forearm. I scream as blood spurts from my wrist and I crash to the apartment floor, landing with a sickening thud on top of the dead man’s chest.
I try to get up, but a foot kicks me, sending me sprawling face-first onto the corpse once more. Searing daggers of pain shoot through my arm. I raise my head. By the door of the apartment, I see Nicole standing uncertainly, eyes darting from me to the hallway. “Nicole . . . ” I say, imploring her for help. But she takes one last look back at me, then disappears through the door.
“Nic . . . ” I start to call after her again. But before I can finish, hands grab me roughly by the collar, jerking me up. Out of the corner of my eye, I glimpse a large, swarthy man in a black leather coat.
Instinctively, I shoot my leg out behind me in a donkey kick, aiming for my attacker’s groin as hard as I can. My kick misses its target, landing on his inner thigh. Momentarily stunned, the man releases me with a grunt. I spin around, and as I do, an elbow smashes into my jaw and I fly backward, hitting my head hard against the floor. Fireworks of pain explode bright white in my brain. Then the man is gone, running after Nicole.
I struggle to my knees, gasping for breath. Hearing footsteps at the door, I try to stand up and defend myself. Someone grabs me from behind.
“Jordan, it’s me.” It is Ari, arms strong and reassuring around me. I relax slightly, inhaling his now-familiar scent. He releases me. “What happened? Are you all right?” His voice rises with concern.
I notice for the first time that I am sprayed with blood—mine as well as the dead man’s—making my injury appear much worse than it really is. “I’m fine,” I say, holding up my still bleeding wrist.
“Did you . . . ?” His eyes travel toward the dead man on the floor.
“No,” I reply quickly. “He was already that way when I arrived. But Nicole . . . ”
“You saw her? She was here?”
I nod. “I don’t know if she did this or not. There was another man. She took off and he ran after her.”
He opens his mouth as though he wants to ask me something else, then closes it again. “We’ve got to get out of here in case someone heard the commotion and called the police. The last thing we want is to be hung up in a murder investigation.” He stands and he
lps me to my feet before going to the dead man. Running his hands over the body, he pulls out a wallet and starts looking through it.
“Who is he?”
“I’ll explain later.” He returns the wallet to the man’s pocket. Then he reaches underneath the body and removes a gun, which he tucks in his waistband. “Let’s go.”
“But what’s going on?” I persist as I follow him into the hallway. “I mean, is it related to—”
“Shhh!” Ari hisses. He clamps his hand over my mouth, pressing me back against the wall. There are footsteps below, growing louder. He steps away, drawing his gun. Then he crouches low, gesturing for me to stay back as he advances toward the stairwell.
An apartment door closes and the footsteps fade to silence.
“We need to get out of here. Come on.” Not waiting for me to follow, he grabs my arm and pulls me toward the stairs.
Outside, he releases me and scans the street in both directions. He starts walking quickly away from the building, seeming not to care if I follow. I struggle to keep up with his long gait.
When we are several blocks away, he draws me into the doorway of an abandoned building. “Are you okay?” He runs his hands over my shoulders and torso. But his touch is impersonal, a medic checking for injuries.
“Fine, just this.” I hold up my arm.
He studies it, his brow wrinkling. “That’s a deep cut. You almost sliced the artery.” He pulls off his shirt, tying it around my forearm to stop the bleeding. Then he looks up again, concern replaced by anger. “Dammit, Jordan. What were you thinking?”
I bite my lip, dreading the inevitable confrontation, searching for a good explanation for my actions and finding none. “I wanted to get to Nicole right away,” I manage lamely.
“So you just stole my information and went on your own?” he demands. I do not answer. “You should have followed my plan and waited. Instead, you went in, unarmed and alone . . . ” He turns away. “You could have been killed.”