Blowback

by Valerie Plame

  She stood shakily, close to passing out, but she didn’t. She could walk. She could try to look almost normal. She began the journey back, light-headed, picking up her pace as much as she dared. When she started down the stairs, she almost blacked out again. But voices and shouting inspired her to stay conscious and get the hell away from the castle.

  Luck was with her, because she quickly joined a group of artists hurrying down the trail toward the parking lot. She matched their pace. They passed four soldiers on their way up, but no one tried to stop them. Several members began to give her curious looks as they navigated the last descending stretch of trail. Grateful for the dark blue fabric, she pressed her good arm over the wound, biting back the flash of searing pain. And she pushed herself to move ahead, cutting away from the artists as soon as she exited at the gatehouse.

  No sign of the Chechen, so he had to be moving at least as fast as she could.

  Her pulse jumped when she saw blood droplets on concrete. She passed three more soldiers but only one even glanced her way, and not one of them had noticed the blood. But she saw more, a slivery trail that disappeared abruptly across the asphalt. She felt the rush of triumph at the thought she’d at least wounded him. She wanted him to bleed to death.

  She was about ten meters from her car when she registered Sergei’s Mercedes. A wave of vertigo threatened to knock her flat. She couldn’t afford to acknowledge the horrible fact of his death, not now. She had to keep going. But for a moment she faltered, abruptly dizzy. Was she going to be sick? Pull it fucking together! Keep moving.

  She needed only sixty seconds to reach the VW and make her exit.

  Vanessa stared almost blindly down at the collection of Sergei Tarasov’s possessions spread out on the marble floor. Late-afternoon sun cooked the air in her apartment, but she shivered. Raw energy kept her circling around the flash drive and her own weapon at her feet. Images kept intruding—Arash lying dead in Vienna, and now Sergei with a bullet between his eyes. Her thoughts kept diving to dark places and then resurfacing—how had this happened, and what could she have done to stop it?

  Two assets dead—assassinated while she was meeting with them.

  More and more, she felt the horrible certainty that Jost Penders was dead, too.

  Was it all some terrible coincidence? It couldn’t be.

  Did that make her responsible for their deaths?

  Yes, somehow—but in what way? Had her assets been targeted specifically? If so, her security was breached—she was burned. Meaning someone knew who she was behind her cover identity. But she was sure she hadn’t been followed in Vienna. The Chechen had followed Arash. He was the target.

  And Sergei and the Chechen had beaten her to the castle—so the Chechen had followed Sergei that time as well. Was someone inside the Agency a traitor, a mole? Did Bhoot have access to top-secret intel? Did he know the identities of her assets?

  But she couldn’t put the pieces together—so it was useless and destructive to keep trying. She couldn’t afford to freeze internally, overwhelmed by questions and her sense of guilt.

  Thirty minutes ago, she’d locked the door to her apartment, but now she checked it again before she stripped out of her filthy clothes to step slowly, painfully into the shower. Her injured arm burned under the force of the hot water, but the punishing sting almost felt good. And she would live. At least two of her assets and a bodyguard murdered, and she would live.

  She reluctantly left the warm, cleansing shower knowing she had work ahead of her. She focused on simple tasks. She rigged a butterfly closure and bandaged her arm where his bullet had grazed her biceps. It still hurt like hell, but the bleeding had slowed. She pulled on clean sweatpants and a loose cotton shirt. She swallowed three Excedrin and found herself staring at the small container of prescription pills she’d left hidden in the back corner of her vanity. She picked up the bottle, released the cap, and tapped two into the palm of one hand. They would ease the horrible anxiety. They would also dull her mind and slow her down.

  She returned the pills to the bottle.

  Her thoughts slid back to Prague and Jost Penders, and she moved numbly to her desk and composed a cable to Prague Station:

  C/O GROVES REQUESTS STATUS UPDATE ON POLICE INVESTIGATION INTO DISAPPEARANCE OF FORMER ASSET SWGRAVITY/32 (G/32). ACCORDING TO REF DATED SIX MONTHS AGO, THERE WERE NO CLUES OR NEWS INTO G/32’S ABRUPT AND PUZZLING BREAK IN COMMUNICATION WITH C/O OR STATION. PER PREVIOUS DISCUSSIONS, THERE DOES NOT APPEAR TO BE EVIDENCE OF FOUL PLAY, BUT STATION EFFORTS HAVE NOT SHOWN ANY INDICATION THAT G/32 IS ALIVE. APPRECIATE STATION SHARING WITH GROVES LATEST THINKING INTO G/32’S FATE.

  She sent the routine cable to avoid attracting interest, and she used code routing words—“slugs”—to minimize visibility even more. She wanted to keep the inquiry under the radar.

  Next she sent a flash cable—eyes only—to Chris Arvanitis, giving the barest facts: two dead, including her asset, intel acquired, shots fired, officer safe.

  She wasn’t going to mention she’d packed her personal pistol or that she’d exchanged gunfire with the shooter. Sergei’s dead bodyguard could take credit for wounding the Chechen.

  A ping on her secure laptop announced an incoming message:

  HQS, CHIEF OPS: MESSAGE RECEIVED. STANDING BY FOR MORE DETAILS.

  She dreaded the next, much more detailed cable she needed to send, but at least she’d bought herself an hour—to review Sergei’s intel, to download a copy of his flash drive.

  What she was doing, conducting her own investigation of Sergei’s files, was completely against protocol, but that fact was irrelevant now. She’d already stepped so far over the line of Agency policy and procedures, she was dangling in space. And there might be a mole in CPD, feeding intel to Bhoot. The thought made her sick, but she couldn’t ignore the possibility. Bhoot might have access to the most top-secret information.

  Her watch showed 1725 hours. She tried and failed to light a cigarette. Three matches later, she inhaled, craving the dark rush of chemicals. As she exhaled, she lifted the shot glass she’d filled with cask-strength Bourbon, the strongest on her shelf. She downed it, bracing as the searing heat hit her belly.

  A second pull on the Dunhill, sucking smoke deep into her lungs. She would give herself until 1830 hours—1130 in Washington. At which point she would sit down and compose the longer, more detailed cable: Immediate Precedence.

  By then, the story would be news: Turkish authorities would have discovered the bodies of two men at an historic landmark in Northern Cyprus. Vanessa had BBC news muted on the TV and CyBC Radio 1 streaming at low volume, creating soft background fill. The format alternated news, features, and music, all catering to Greek listeners in Greek. And (as Khoury had liked to point out in better days) she spoke just enough Ellinika to get into trouble.

  So far, nothing about a fatal shootout at a historic site on Cyprus.

  The Turks had the bodies, but odds were they didn’t have identities.

  Sergei Tarasov was a wealthy Russian financier, but, except for the occasional gala, he’d maintained a relatively low profile.

  Vanessa glanced at his wallet and passport, both placed next to the burn phone. She’d already been through the wallet, finding currency, credit cards, and an EU driver’s license. His visa was folded inside his passport. Tech would go through his phone and his personal BlackBerry. She’d set aside the small, laminated color photograph Sergei carried with him: a family portrait. She couldn’t bear to look at it now, even as she pictured Anya at her father’s side in Café Kiji just nights ago. For now she’d try to block those images out of her mind.

  Her laptop pinged, signaling the flash-drive files had successfully been transferred. She sat down at her desk to begin the job of reviewing.

  Sergei had scanned his original documents, spreadsheets for what appeared to be at least three accounts. He’d made sharp and legible hand
written notes and questions in the margins—what she guessed were anomalies and facts worth tracking. And, possibly, the names of companies? Unfortunately for Vanessa, they were in Russian, a language she could barely speak and certainly couldn’t read.

  It made her crazy to stare at them without being able to comprehend what they meant. If only she’d pushed herself beyond studying basic Russian.

  The Greek radio announcer let her know she was running out of her allotted time as the local news came on. She stopped breathing when she heard the word ptoma—corpse.

  She unmuted the BBC televised broadcast and within minutes heard that “the bodies of two unidentified men were discovered at a tourist site in Northern Cyprus. Turkish authorities are not releasing details, but anyone with information should come forward . . .”

  She would have to send the full cable to Headquarters in the next few minutes.

  Vanessa hurriedly sent off copies of Sergei’s files via secure link to Headquarters, to Lee, an extremely clever, extremely geeky forensic analyst who’d forever had a crush on her. A whiz at translation programs, Lee also had an old-fashioned advantage; his mother had been granted asylum from Russia by the United States, and her American-born son spoke fluent Russian. She followed up the scan with a call—on an unsecure line—and a casual phone message: “Hey, Lee, it’s Vanessa. Something’s in your mailbox—can you be sure to get a reply to my request ASAP?” She was going behind Chris’s back again. But given Sergei’s assassination, and the fact that Vanessa’s actions would be scrutinized and investigated and she would be cut out of the official loop at least temporarily, she had to cover as many bases as possible through back channels.

  1848 hours. She couldn’t put off the second cable any longer.

  Three minutes after she sent it, she had a reply:

  HQS APPRECIATES C/O GROVES’ DETAILED DESCRIPTION AND PROMPT AFTER-ACTIONS RE G/258. HQS MONITORING OPEN SOURCE NEWS FOR ANY INFORMATION ON THE DEATH AS THE INVESTIGATION UNFOLDS. C/O GROVES SHOULD RETURN TO HQS FOR IMMEDIATE DEBRIEF. PERMISSION GRANTED TO HAND CARRY R/258 DOCUMENTS IN CONCEALED COMPARTMENT OF TRAVEL BAG. HQS OFFICER WITH APPROPRIATE CREDENTIALS WILL BE AVAILABLE AT ARRIVAL CUSTOMS IF NEEDED TO ENSURE THERE ARE NO PROBLEMS ENTERING U.S. PROVIDE FLIGHT INFORMATION SOONEST. REGARDS.

  She caught a glimpse of her reflection in the small piece of antique mirror she’d hung on the wall, a treasure from Crete. Jesus, she looked like hell. Her bad arm ached. She pictured the small droplets of the blood trail she’d followed down the castle trail. The Chechen had managed to move quickly—God, she hoped she’d really fucked him up.

  Pauk studied the wound on the outer edge of his right thigh. Her bullet had passed cleanly through, but the missing chunk of flesh was the size and shape of a bite out of a piece of bread. The bruised tissue immediately surrounding the cavity was shading dark red to blue-black. Nonlethal, but extremely nasty and very painful. As soon as he could, he would need reconstructive surgery.

  It had been seventeen years since he’d been touched by a bullet—back then, a Russian soldier’s round had smashed through his fourth rib.

  But now this woman had broken his lucky streak.

  He poured a slow stream of amylphenol into the wound, swearing silently, working to breathe again after the intensity of the pain.

  He’d finally put it together—where he’d seen her before Vienna.

  Her athletic stride on the hill to the castle and one gesture had given it away—the way she twisted the strand of hair before she pushed it behind her ears. Blond hair this time, but the gesture was unmistakable to Pauk.

  One other time he’d seen that exact gesture—in Prague, the redheaded woman who clutched the Dutch artist’s arm, laughing as they entered his apartment building.

  He should have killed them both when he had the chance.

  Later, after the woman left, the double-crossing Dutchman headed out to the underground club frequented by the German known simply as Hans. Hans was a close associate of Pauk’s mentor. Apparently, Hans had been seduced by the Dutchman’s beauty before he realized his lover was a traitor.

  So when the Dutchman hopped clubs to score his next high, Pauk killed him.

  How strange that this same woman had shown up at three of his assignments. Why? For an instant he heard Madame Desmarais reading the Tarot in her nasal French drone. She liked to say, “Your fate awaits you.”

  Who did the woman work for? The Americans? Brits? Israelis? Or someone else outside official channels?

  But the most interesting question of all for Pauk: Had his mentor known she would be at all three sites?

  If yes, why hadn’t he told Pauk specifically to kill her?

  Light cascaded in soft ripples along the muted hallway of the Four Seasons hotel in New York City. When possible, Vanessa preferred to travel through the busier entry port at JFK to avoid direct connections to Dulles for security reasons.

  She stopped at the door to 314, a room she and Khoury had never used before. She took a moment to gather herself, to breathe through the pall that had seemed to surround her since the horror at the castle. There was so much she wanted to share with Khoury—Sergei’s murder, the intel she was hand-delivering to Headquarters, and the fact she’d been summoned. There was the almost intolerable anticipation that Khoury had brought her the meaning behind Arash’s code.

  And the regret she felt from Cairo, the way she used him, the way they left each other. She could make it up to him now.

  She used the key card and let herself inside. “Khoury?”

  No lights were on, but the curtains were wide and Manhattan’s twenty-four-hour glow illuminated an embroidered, snowy white hotel bathrobe laid out carefully on the king-size bed. Two glasses and an open bottle of wine graced the table, arranged around a single burning candle. She expected to hear Khoury speak her name. She thought she’d turn and see him wrapped in the other robe, walking toward her.

  Instead, there was only the immediate silence and the soft scrim of city noises outside.

  Where are you, Khoury?

  Vanessa set her travel bag on the edge of the bed. The bathroom door was closed, but there was no light escaping from the seams; it was empty when she checked. She found one spare pillow in the closet.

  Her injured arm was aching and her energy threatening to dissipate completely, but she told herself he’d stepped out for a minute. It was possible he’d gone to the bar for a drink. But it wasn’t like him to disappear when he knew she was coming.

  She switched on one lamp and then another. The warm yellow light lifted her spirits slightly. She checked her phone just in case. No messages.

  She’d sent him a text when her flight was delayed in Cyprus. No reply. Sent a second text when she was thirty minutes from the hotel and that time the reply came almost instantly: everything you need here waiting.

  Had he been delayed? Had she just missed him? Sometimes she hated what passed for communication in the twenty-first century.

  Someone, Khoury or a waiter, had opened the wine, but the bottle appeared otherwise untouched. She looked again at the single robe arranged so carefully. Was she imagining the faint and lingering scent of Dior’s Eau Sauvage, Khoury’s aftershave?

  Across the avenue, lights shivered from office windows where a handful of lawyers or insurance brokers or bank auditors stayed late. Vanessa stopped for a moment, her eyes on them but her mind circling obsessively.

  She scooped up the cork, brought it to her face, and then set it down again lightly. She poured out half a glass. When she swirled the wine around the bowl, it gleamed a deep, bruised purple. She sipped. A 2005 Rauzan-Ségla from the district of Margaux. A favorite. But tonight it left a faintly bitter aftertaste on her tongue.

  Carrying her wineglass, she crossed over to the bed and sat on the edge. She gazed around the room: light earth tones pared with simple, elegant designs meant to soothe and
relax. But the emptiness was palpable.

  This was not her David Khoury. The Khoury she knew always came through.

  A thought, reluctant to coalesce, nudged her consciousness—I changed the game and our relationship when I asked him to cross the line. But just then she heard the click of the electronic key. She tensed, turning as he entered the room.

  Already, moving toward him, she felt a rush of relief and excitement that he’d shown up, even as she warily marked that his gray suit looked slept in and he hadn’t shaved for several days.

  “I was beginning to think I’d missed you,” she said softly.

  “I needed a drink,” Khoury said, brushing past her. “Decided to wait in the bar.” He splashed wine into the remaining goblet and downed half of it before he finally looked her in the eye. “I heard several versions of your shootout.” His voice sounded cold, and he’d slurred his words just slightly.

  She inhaled sharply, stepping back. “You know I couldn’t risk more contact until we saw each other here.”

  “Of course I know.” He set the glass down so hard she winced, thinking the stem might crack. “We abide by the same rules, don’t we, Vanessa? Live by the same code.”

  “You’re drunk,” she said, setting her own glass on the bedside table.

  “And you’re alive—after you tried to get yourself killed on Cyprus.”

  “David . . .” She heard the desperation in her voice when she said his name.

  He heard it, too, and he softened and his eyes took on sadness, but only for an instant, before the emotional wall went up again. “Aren’t you dying to ask if I came through for you?”