Fidelity

by Jan Fedarcyk

  Seated around the table were Kay and the rest of her squad, plus Andrew. Standing at one end and running the presentation, Jeffries looked as cool and unimpressed as ever. At the other end of the table sat Mike Anthony, who had caught the train up the night before. There was a feeling of hushed anticipation, one that Kay had not enjoyed since she left Baltimore. All that buildup, the endless hours with the matrix, the grim suspicion that her efforts would lead to nothing, but here they were.

  “Two months ago Agent Malloy identified Joseph Sadler as someone to whom we ought to be paying attention. Forty-six years of age, worked for the Agency for nearly twenty of those. His personnel files reflect competence but not brilliance, as well as occasional difficulties in his relationships with his colleagues: drunken misbehavior at the Christmas party, that sort of thing. He lives quietly in a house in Pelham Bay with his wife, Janet, two years younger. No children.”

  “So far I’m not hearing much justification for your suspicions,” Mike said.

  Jeffries continued without acknowledging the interruption. “This is Mr. Sadler visiting Tuscany, May of last year.” She clicked again. “This is Mr. Sadler in Vegas in January. We pulled these both off of social media.”

  “Facebook,” Andrew said. “A spy’s best friend.”

  Kay smiled but didn’t laugh.

  “You check into his financials?” asked Anthony, who found Andrew as funny as ever, which was to say not much.

  “With a fine-toothed comb,” Jeffries confirmed. “Nothing firm: his accounts don’t show any large payments, no obvious red flags. His wife’s were clean as well, though that’s not to say that Mr. Sadler couldn’t have an account in the Caymans or Switzerland.”

  “Or have a few hundred grand buried in the garden,” Andrew added.

  “Absence of evidence is not evidence, Susan,” Mike said. “In fact, it’s the opposite.”

  “This,” Jeffries continued, “is the hotel room that Mr. Sadler has occupied nearly every Thursday afternoon for, so far as we can tell, the last several years. This”—a picture of a pretty Eastern European woman taken with a long-distance camera—“is the woman he shares it with. Indre Askovitch is the name which she goes by towards Mr. Sadler, though we believe her name is actually Katarina Golov, formerly of St. Petersburg. We identified her years ago as a likely SVR Illegal and have been keeping tabs.”

  The room went quiet. As a practical matter, working in intelligence meant being the heir to an old-fashioned sense of morality. In a normal business, one’s sexual misbehavior was no particular source of concern for anyone. But in the spy game a personal sin could too easily be turned against you, a chink in the armor through which the enemy could strike. Sadler’s affair would have been enough to sink him even if the object of his affections hadn’t been working for the SVR.

  “Does he know it?” Anthony asked.

  “We think he does,” Jeffries continued. “We think that she’s part of his compensation, along with the money that he’s been using to finance these foreign excursions. We think that he was turned years ago and he’s been working as an active double ever since.”

  “Any firm proof of this?”

  “As it happens, there is,” Jeffries said, not quite smiling but happy to be laying down a trump. “We found bits of a dead-drop cheat sheet detailing where Sadler is to receive his cash pickups.”

  In fact, that had been Kay’s doing, a task that had tested the limits of her dedication to the Bureau and the mission by requiring her to drive out to the Bronx once a week to sift through eggshells and dirty newsprint (Sadler did not recycle) and rotting chicken carcasses. But it had not been in vain: after several months of trash covers, nestled in a bottom corner of a black Glad bag, she had found pieces of a map of Central Park with a number of black X’s marked on it—X’s that, upon investigation, turned out to be the locations of trash cans scattered around the park, trash cans that were far from any prying eyes and could be used conveniently as spots for leaving money.

  Anthony took off his glasses, cleaned them with a bit of cloth, put them back on. He bent his head over his hands as if seeking an answer inside his palms, then looked up. “Level with me, Susan,” Mike said. “You really think this is Black Bear?”

  Jeffries shrugged, ever cautious to commit. “It’s too early to make that assessment. I think he fits our profile.”

  “He’s getting that money from somewhere,” Andrew said, more confident. “And unless we’ve picked up something about Mr. Sadler having a burgeoning career as a professional model . . . No? Then I think it would be wise if we continue to take a good hard look at the man.” He turned to face Kay and the rest of the team. “This is great work, guys—really top-notch.”

  “So what happens now?” Mike asked. He had begun the conversation skeptical, but Jeffries’s explanations had swung him around. “Do we have enough to move?”

  Jeffries looked at Kay for a moment, the sudden attention—the implication that Jeffries valued her opinion so highly—­almost enough to make her blush. “He’s dirty,” Kay said. “There’s no doubt about it. But is he our Black Bear UNSUB?” She shrugged. “It’s too early to tell.”

  “My assessment as well,” Jeffries echoed. “Suspicion isn’t certainty: when we go at Sadler it needs to be airtight. We don’t want any wiggle room, and if he isn’t the Black Bear UNSUB, then we don’t want to spook our real target.”

  “He’s gotta be our guy,” Andrew insisted. “Fits too neatly into everything we know. He has means, he has opportunity. If he didn’t learn the identities of our doubles in his professional capacity, he’d know enough to game the system and find out on his own.”

  “Maybe,” Jeffries said, equivocal as always. “Maybe not. Either way, there’s no point in moving prematurely. We’ve got him under our thumb; he won’t be going anywhere. Once we’ve got the rest of the pieces together, we can snap him up whenever you want.”

  “This is excellent work, Susan,” Mike said. “You ought to be congratulated on it, and I don’t see any reason to be second-­guessing you at this point. But neither do I like the idea of leaving this . . . traitor out there to wreak any more havoc on our operations. Get whatever proof you need,” he said, “and get it quickly.”

  Jeffries nodded. “We’re on top of it,” she said.

  43

  SADLER WAS walking into work the next morning when he saw, in the window of an apartment building a few blocks from the office, a paper sign reading: LET’S GO METS! Not, in and of itself, particularly ominous, but noticing it, Sadler blanched white as bonemeal and stopped abruptly, earning for himself a shove and some uncomplimentary words from the pedestrians whose passage he had impeded. He ignored them: he had more to worry about just at the moment than the ill will of random strangers.

  It took him twenty minutes to find a functioning pay phone—these days everyone carried a cell, even the poorest and most miserable inhabitants of the five boroughs had one; Sadler had once been asked for change by a homeless man holding an ­iPhone series 3—and then dialed a number to a cleaning service in Chelsea.

  “This is Mr. Kosczyisko,” he said. “I was wondering if Mr. Simon is available to speak?”

  A brief pause from the other end. “He’s out on a delivery right now,” the voice said. “I can have him call you back at the usual number.”

  “As soon as possible,” he added, then slammed the phone back onto the receiver.

  The LET’S GO METS! sign was part of the elaborate code that Sadler had worked out over the years with Pyotr. So long as it wasn’t in the window, as it had never been these five years that Sadler had been working for the SVR, everything was fine: he could head into work as normal. But if it was there, then that meant that a net had surrounded him and was closing fast—that Pyotr or his people had reason to believe that Sadler’s cover had been blown.

  A transient filtered past, muttering to h
imself, made like he was going to enter the phone booth. Sadler gave him a ten-spot and convinced him to find somewhere else to urinate. He checked his watch, near frantic. He came into work early most days; in a few minutes his absence would be noticed. A very minor change in his schedule, but if they were watching him, then any small shift in his habits, any alteration in his routine, would be swiftly registered and might even be the signal for them to shut the trap. Which of course assumed that they hadn’t already decided to close it, that his arrival at the office wouldn’t be followed immediately by a swarm of FBI Agents spiriting him swiftly away, the first step in a legal process that would inevitably end in a life sentence in a federal penitentiary and the perpetual condemnation of his family, friends and colleagues.

  The phone rang and an instant afterward Sadler had it up to his ear. “Hello?”

  “Mr. Kosczyisko?” Pyotr’s voice asked.

  “Who else would it be?” Sadler asked, anxious and impatient. “I saw the sign. What’s going on?”

  “I’m afraid we were rather too sanguine in our estimation of the situation,” Pyotr said, in the same tone of voice with which a doctor delivers bad news: “The tumor has spread,” “That boil needs to be lanced,” “Your cholesterol is three times what it should be.” Part regretful, part disappointed, but mainly with a sense of professional detachment that made it clear that, at the end of the day, there is only so much a person can concern himself with the problems of another.

  “What the hell does that mean?” Sadler asked.

  “It means that your earlier suspicions were not unwarranted. Your superiors have eyes on you and will likely make their move soon. We need to get you out of New York immediately.”

  On some level Sadler had known that this was the case as soon as he had seen the sign, but still, hearing it out loud, having it confirmed . . . He spent a moment gasping for air, trying to swallow his fear, and then he asked, “What do I do?”

  “Go into work today. Act completely normal. They have suspicions but no proof. You are in no danger so long as you don’t do anything foolish.”

  Sadler’s heart was racing fast enough to be of concern to his cardiologist. It was steaming hot in the booth, but he dared not turn around to face the street and instead hunched his back against any passersby. “How can you be sure?” Sadler asked. He realized he was raising his voice but didn’t care. “How can you be sure of any of this? The last time we talked, you said I was being paranoid and that there was nothing to worry about; now I need to slip onto the next plane for Moscow!” This was not the way he should be acting, he knew, not the way a man of his experience and abilities, of his long practice as a double agent, should be behaving. But he couldn’t help himself: everyone had a threshold, and Sadler was just about at his.

  “With whom exactly do you imagine you are speaking?” Pyotr asked, without any hint of anger or annoyance. “Because this is not the way that a drowning man ought to address his lifeline. Unless you feel comfortable going for a swim on your own?”

  “I’ve got plenty that might be of interest to my superiors,” Sadler said, knowing it was foolish even as he said it—that if he was caught, nothing he could do, no information he could provide, would be enough to save him from a lifetime in federal prison.

  “What exactly is it you think you know? Your arrest would be a . . . difficulty, might injure some of our ongoing plans. But somehow I can’t help but feel it would be more of an inconvenience for you. Perhaps I’m wrong. It’s true your country’s process for dealing with traitors is rather less . . . savage than ours. I’m told these federal penitentiaries are the best that the prison system has to offer. Movie nights, ice cream on weekends. I hope this is true at least, seeing as how you will most likely be dying inside of one unless I help you.”

  “No,” Sadler said after a moment. “You’re right. I’m sorry. Of course you’re right. I’m just . . . I’m a little nervous,” he admitted lamely.

  “Natural, but entirely unnecessary. Don’t worry, my friend. We have it all under control. This is not our first time in this situation. As I said, we still have a window in which to facilitate your escape. They are preparing to move on you, but they aren’t in position quite yet.”

  “How do you know all this?” Sadler asked belatedly. “You’ve got someone else in place, don’t you?”

  “Not at all your concern,” Pyotr said, a hint of annoyance breaking through his usual steady equanimity. “Not your concern at all. The important thing right now is not to let anyone know that you know that they know. Understand?”

  “I understand.”

  “I’m in the process of arranging your extraction. By tomorrow morning you’ll be on your way to Moscow and a hero’s pension.”

  “What about my wife?” Sadler asked.

  “What about your wife?”

  Upon consideration, Sadler did not have an answer.

  It was the longest and most uncomfortable day of his life, and there was not a close second. He sat at his desk and pantomimed working, although he was so distracted he could barely hold on to a coherent thought, and found himself reading and rereading the same sentence for minutes on end. He was unable to shake the sense that everyone in the building knew his terrible secret, that every minor tic from every coworker was a silent prelude to his capture. Which was absurd, of course. The investigation into his conduct would have bypassed his colleagues altogether: some ­special operation put together by the higher-ups, probably with FBI collusion; there was nothing that the Bureau liked more than digging up dirt on the Agency. But still, he couldn’t shake the feeling that the whole office knew of his secret sin and was staring at his back hatefully, waiting for the door to swing open.

  For lunch he went to a nearby deli, ordered a Reuben, fries and a vanilla milk shake, thinking that this might well be the last time he could eat a credible New York sandwich and he had best enjoy it. For all he knew, he’d be spending the rest of his afternoons devouring borscht. When the sandwich came, he took two bites and pushed the thing away, the pain in his stomach searing and unwilling to share space with corned beef.

  The phone at the corner of Third Avenue and Fifteenth Street rang exactly at one fifteen, as Pyotr had promised, and Sadler was there to rip it off its handle a moment later. “It’s me,” Sadler said self-evidently.

  Pyotr laughed at the other end of the line, kindly and unworried. “Calm down, my friend, calm down. We’ve got everything neatly in place,” he said.

  “What’s the plan?”

  “Finish out your workday,” Pyotr instructed him. “Be your usual amiable, congenial self. Go home as normal. Eat dinner with your wife—”

  “I never eat dinner with my wife,” Sadler said, petulant despite everything.

  “Then do whatever you would normally do for dinner,” Pyotr answered, unruffled despite Sadler’s unpleasantness. “Continue on as normal. Do nothing which might alert your . . . colleagues. At eleven o’clock, leave your house as if you were going for something at the corner store. Pack no bag and take nothing with you but the clothes you are wearing. We’ll provide everything for you, don’t worry. Do what you need to do to shake anyone tailing you, and then find your way to the Kings Highway subway station.”

  Sadler had lived in New York half his life and had no idea where Kings Highway subway station was. Pyotr, as ever, was quick with an answer. “It’s off the N line, in southern Brooklyn. It should take you about an hour and a half to get there from your home. You can be trusted to shake off anyone following you, I assume?”

  “I’ll handle it,” Sadler told him.

  “Excellent. Two blocks from the station is a bar named the Blue and Gold. Order a beer and go sit in the back. I will have a man waiting there for you.”

  “And then?”

  “And then, my friend, your years of service to the Russian Federation will be amply rewarded. Moscow is lovely in the
spring,” Pyotr assured him. “Better than Leavenworth, at least.”

  Sadler did not doubt it. He hung up the phone and went back to his office.

  • • •

  The rest of the workday went by at an excruciatingly slow pace, or at least it seemed so to Sadler, but it passed. Not wanting to be the first person out the door, he waited until six thirty before closing down his workstation and preparing to leave.

  His wife was sitting at the kitchen table, on her third or perhaps fourth glass of wine, and she gave him a vague greeting once he arrived home. For one brief moment he had an almost overwhelming urge to confess to her his long years of infidelity, both against her with Indre and against his country with the SVR. But it passed quickly, and indeed as soon as it was gone it seemed absurd to Sadler that he had ever considered it.

  Janet went to bed early, aided by the bottle of wine that she had put away, and here, for the first time, Sadler deviated from Pyotr’s instructions. Standing by the bedroom door, there was a brief moment where he considered saying good-bye to his wife of thirty-odd years; but after a moment he shrugged his shoulders and went into his small office, pulling a jacket off the coat rack. He then violated the second of Pyotr’s directives, heading to his desk, pulling out a small .38-caliber revolver and putting it into his breast pocket. The weight felt reassuring against his chest. He stepped outside of his house feeling an odd sense of lightness, a moment of exhilaration: the die was cast now, for better or worse.

  He walked to Pelham Bay Park station, bought a new Metro­Card with cash, took the 6 line to Union Square. He didn’t think that they had anyone tailing him, but just in case, he got on the L train, waited until the doors were about to close, then disembarked, quickly checking to make sure no one else did the same. But the train pulled out of the station as normal, and Sadler felt confident that he was now free to continue on with his rendezvous.

  Forty-five minutes later he climbed up out of the subway, looked around, then very nearly climbed back down again. Like everyone else who lived in New York, he was familiar only with his own small section of the city, Manhattan mostly, a few neighborhoods in the Bronx. He had never found any particularly compelling reason to investigate the far corners of Brooklyn, and looking at it now he did not think this had been foolishness. The neighborhood looked grungy and dull, the side of New York that the tourists never got a look at. He touched the .38 in his pocket, felt reassured. If some thug thought him easy prey, they would be quickly disabused of the notion. Sadler was deskbound, had no direct experience with violence, personally or professionally, but he knew which end of the gun to hold. Casting a glance about warily, he began to walk south, towards the location Pyotr had given him.