by Tom Savage
The townhouse was clearly laid out in a classic pattern. This was the dining room, with a swinging door on the opposite wall that would lead to the kitchen at the back of the building. The second floor would be the master suite, with two bedrooms and a bath on the top floor. The dining room continued the gray theme: gray marble floor, pale gray walls, pale gray ceiling with an iron chandelier above the mahogany dinner table. A gray laptop computer lay on the otherwise bare table. The room was in the exact center of the ground floor, which meant no windows. It was the most secure place in the house, she imagined, perfect for this meeting. Welcome to Spyland, she thought as she focused her attention on the only other person in the room.
The man who stood beside the host chair at the head of the table was definitely a spy—or, rather, a spymaster. Tall, Caucasian, silver-haired, sixtyish; he wore the requisite dark gray suit and tie. The word patrician could have been coined to describe him. Beyond his handsome face and expensive clothes, he had an air of authority that identified him as the person in charge. He came over to her, extending his hand.
“I’m Edgar Cole,” he said as they shook. “Thank you for agreeing to meet me, Mrs. Baron.”
Nora smiled. “Nora.”
“Okay, Nora. I know you’re not technically on our payroll, but something’s come up that you might find interesting. I hope so, because we could use your talents on this.” He pulled out the dining chair on the immediate right of his own seat at the head of the table and waved her into it.
As Nora sat in what she couldn’t help noticing was the guest-of-honor chair, the kitchen door swung open and a young man in a gray suit came in with a silver tray. So, refreshments were to be served. Good. The young man had long, unruly brown hair, bad skin, and thick glasses. He poured chamomile tea into two cups, adding two teaspoons of honey to one of them. He placed the sweetened cup before Nora, then served his boss and retreated through the swinging door. She knew he’d be stationed in the kitchen, just as she knew he’d be armed. The young woman in the living room would be armed as well. Whatever was about to happen here was clearly Top Secret. Eyes Only. Hush-hush. Nora braced herself for what her show business colleagues would call the big reveal.
She didn’t have long to wait. Mr. Cole, who had not invited her to call him Edgar, resumed his chair and opened the laptop near his cup and saucer, angling it toward both of them. The screen came to life, filled with an expert artist’s sketch of a woman’s face. Nora glanced at the picture and looked away, then looked again. She peered more closely at it, feeling a thrill of intrigue. She maintained a calm demeanor, willing herself not to show any outward anxiety. In a neutral tone of voice, she said, “Who is this woman?”
“Chris Waverly,” he replied. “Code name: Rose. One of our operatives. She could go anywhere, retrieve anything—even the most secure information—and vanish. She was a shadow, a legend. Her assignments over the years have helped our government immeasurably; I can’t begin to count how many lives have been saved and sticky situations avoided, thanks to her. I was Rose’s handler, and we kept her identity heavily guarded. She was one of the best agents the Company has ever had.”
Nora studied the man’s face. “Was?”
He nodded, emitting a little sound Nora interpreted as a regretful sigh. “Yes, was. She was killed three months ago—about the same time you were operating in Venice. Chris Waverly died in January, but now something’s happened, something very ugly and very immediate. We need Rose to be alive and active again.”
Nora looked at the picture, then back at the executive from the head offices in Langley, Virginia. “I don’t understand. She must have family, friends, associates. Her death couldn’t have gone unnoticed, could it?”
Mr. Cole shrugged. “Actually, it wasn’t noticed at all. I’m going to let you in on a secret, Nora, but it can’t leave this room. Not even your husband can know. You understand?”
“Of course,” she said.
He turned his gaze from the screen to Nora. “You must have noticed the resemblance. You did, didn’t you?”
She nodded. “For a moment, I thought that was a picture of me.”
“Yes. Think about that agent’s name. Then think about where you are right now. Where, exactly, is this building situated?”
Nora thought a moment, trying to follow him. “We’re in the Village, near the corner of—” She froze, staring back at the screen as everything fell into place.
“Christopher and Waverly,” Mr. Cole supplied. “Precisely. I named her myself, in this very house, nine years ago. Her code name, Rose, was my grandmother’s name.” He regarded her again. “You see, Nora, Chris Waverly doesn’t exist. She never did. But now, in light of what’s happened, we need her to be real. I’m hoping you can help us with that.”
Chapter 2
There was silence in the room. Nora picked up her teacup and sipped. The dim light from the chandelier, the scent of furniture polish: It was a pleasant environment. She wondered if this house had been used for its main purpose lately, as a temporary home for people whose cooperation with the government had endangered them, or if it would soon be used again.
It hadn’t been lost on her that he’d served chamomile tea, her favorite, or that he knew exactly how much honey she put in it. She was aware that the CIA had a file on her. As the wife of Jeffrey Baron, a veteran field agent who now helped run international ops from a desk here in New York, she expected to be scrutinized. But knowing the file existed didn’t make her feel comfortable about it.
When Nora finally spoke, she said, “How long would this assignment take, Mr. Cole?”
He blinked. “That’s an odd question. I haven’t even told you what the job is.”
“We’ll discuss that after you give me a time frame,” Nora said. “My classes resume in a little over a week, when the spring break ends, and my daughter is graduating from NYU in June, and—”
“Oh, I see,” he said. “Fair enough. If all goes well, we should only require your services for four or five days. No more than one week, at any rate. You should be back at Stony Brook University on the first day of classes, a week from next Monday.”
Nora nodded. “All right, but I’d have to hold you to that. What do you want me to do?”
Mr. Cole leaned back in his chair, studying her. “You’re very direct, Nora. I like that. I’m familiar with your work for us; that business in England and France, and the defection in Venice. Your actions in both were excellent, only you never trained for it, which makes you quite a rare bird—a natural agent.” His face softened for a moment, and he actually smiled. Then he leaned forward again. “Before I tell you about Rose, I’d like to hear what you’ve already surmised about her.”
Nora sipped more tea. So, this was how he was playing it: twenty questions. She was being tested, and she didn’t mind in the least. She did it with her students all the time. She set the cup down and faced him again.
“Chris Waverly doesn’t exist,” she said, “and yet you say she’s done wonderful things all over the map for the last nine years. I’m guessing that she’s really someone else, probably several people in several countries. They get in, do the job, and get out without being detected, and then you circulate the rumor that it was the work of the legendary Rose. Everyone in the international community will buy that, and they won’t go looking for the actual agents involved, so you can use them again. This would be particularly helpful for agents-in-place in volatile countries, people working at great risk. You’ve essentially borrowed the oldest story in the book, the fabulous knight errant who mysteriously arrives and then vanishes: Robin Hood, the Scarlet Pimpernel, the Lone Ranger, Batman.”
She glanced over at the drawing on the screen. “You need the phantom secret agent to be seen and acknowledged, so you’ve given her an actual face—mine. I recognize the pose now; it’s an old head shot in my theater résumé. You’re confident I’ll take the job, confident enough to have had the drawing made. I suppose you plan to circulate it, along
with a rumor that it’s the eyewitness description from the only person who’s ever seen Rose and lived to tell the tale.” She smiled at Mr. Cole. “How am I doing?”
“Go on,” he said.
“Okay, you supposedly retired Rose three months ago, but now you need her reactivated, which suggests you’re planning to use the cover again. I’m guessing somebody knows the truth and is threatening to announce it. WikiLeaks, perhaps, or those Russian hackers, or some bored teenager with impressive computer skills. In any case, it would expose your agent or agents in the field, and they’d be compromised, which is a polite euphemism for dead.”
Now Nora looked him directly in the eye and delivered her conclusion. “There’s probably been a demand of some kind. They want intelligence, or some political prisoner to be set free, or money. But you can’t trust them to take the money and run, can you? Of course not. You want me to draw these people out into the open somewhere, so the Company can handle this in its own special way.” She leaned back in her chair again and reached for her tea.
Mr. Cole smiled again. “That was remarkable. I wish all our usual operatives were as quick as you—you’ve saved me a lot of explanation. It’s money, by the way; ten million. We don’t know who it is. The signal seems to be coming from Western Europe, possibly France, but that’s all we know at this point. I don’t think they’re terrorists or political people because they made no further demands, as any political animal probably would. This has every indication of being a good old-fashioned shakedown.”
Nora nodded. “By professionals.”
He stared. “Why do you say that?”
She shrugged. “The amount, ten million dollars. It’s a nice chunk of change, but not too much. They’re greedy, but not insane. They can’t risk an electronic transfer—that’s suicide with all the current tracking techniques—so it has to be cash. Ten million in cash can be shrink-wrapped into two suitcases. It’s doable, and your blackmailers know it.”
“That’s our opinion as well,” Mr. Cole said.
“When did all this start?” Nora asked.
“Two days ago. One email; that’s all we’ve had. It came to our general aide at Langley, but it was addressed to me.” He hit some keys on the laptop, replacing the sketch of Nora’s face with a screen capture of an email message:
Cole—
We know about CW/R—all 3 in EUR, SYR, RUS. Get $10M old unmrkd nonsqntl 100s ready and wait for further inst. You have till nxt Thrs 3PM EST, then we tell the world. Your choice.
—TSB
“Today’s Thursday,” Nora said. “You have seven days. What have you decided?”
Mr. Cole finally picked up his teacup and sipped. When he put the cup down, he said, “I’ve decided not to pay them; I want to try this idea instead. Rose is still a valuable asset to us. If we—if you can convince them that you’re the genuine Rose, their game is over.”
Nora looked back at the email. “I won’t bother to ask if they got their facts right. So, Chris Waverly is a cover for three people in Europe, Syria, and Russia, and I’m supposed to make TSB think I’m Chris Waverly. You don’t know who TSB is?”
Mr. Cole looked away from her, gazing at the laptop screen before replying. “No.” He turned back to Nora. The actor in her suspected he was lying, but she let it pass.
“Why did you retire Rose three months ago?” Nora asked.
He breathed another sigh. “One of our agents was nearly caught in January. We feared the people tracking the agent could stumble on the truth about Rose and follow the trail to the other agents, which would endanger all of them and expose our presence in several situations where we weren’t supposed to be involved. We decided to shelve the Chris Waverly/Rose cover identity for a while, until it was safe to use again.”
Nora nodded, thinking, Typical CIA skulduggery, but none of my business. She said, “Where would I go?”
“Paris,” he replied. “You could start there, anyway.”
“Why Paris?”
“We think this message came from there, or somewhere close to it. It was routed through a bunch of networks and servers all over the globe, so it’s impossible to pinpoint, but our best estimate is that the earliest connection seems to be France. One of those three agents is there. I’d want you to meet the agent so the two of you would be seen together. That’s a good start. We’d saturate the usual channels with that sketch of you, along with some accidentally leaked particulars of your current itinerary.”
“I see,” Nora said. “So I’d move about in plain sight, and they’d observe me. Do you really think that would discredit them or change their minds? Wouldn’t they guess what you’re doing?”
Mr. Cole leaned back in his chair again, watching her. “Not if you could pull off the assignment by next Thursday.”
“And what is the assignment?”
He waved an arm, indicating the email on the screen. “You’d establish contact with TSB. Bring them out in the open, as you said. We’d take it from there. So, Nora, will you help us?”
She shut her eyes for a moment, thinking of the three vulnerable field agents. Her husband had been a field agent for nearly thirty years, and she remembered how often she’d lain awake nights worrying about him. These people presumably had families and friends who cared about them as well. This was a chance to help the CIA stop the person or persons threatening their careers and possibly their lives, and to help protect vital American intelligence. It wasn’t a tough decision. She opened her eyes.
“Yes,” Nora said.
Every great mystery needs an Alibi
eOriginal mystery and suspense from Random House
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