The Russian

by Saul Herzog

  Roth stood as tall as he could. He saw this for what it was, and if he was going down, he would do so with as much composure as he could muster.

  “I wasn’t expecting the whole gang,” he said, taking his seat.

  “Sorry for the surprise,” the president said. “This was arranged hastily, as you can imagine.”

  Roth nodded.

  The president cleared his throat as he sat down. He was having trouble getting started. He knew what this looked like, a stab in the back, and he was embarrassed.

  “Well,” Roth said, “let’s get started. I’d hate to keep so many important people waiting.”

  Shrader sat next to the president, and she had her eyes on Roth like a tiger, ready to pounce. The expression on her face was tense, as if her life depended on the outcome of this meeting.

  Roth had to admit, she’d played him like a fiddle. At their previous meeting, she’d been all smiles, so ready to build a cooperative relationship.

  Roth prided himself on his ability to read people, his job depended on it, but he had not seen this coming.

  “As you are aware,” the president said, “I’ve just ordered all CIA personnel stationed in Moscow to stand down.”

  Roth nodded. “I was notified,” he said.

  The president looked at Roth. It was as if he couldn’t believe what he was in the process of doing. He fiddled with the papers in front of him, tapped the plastic presentation controller against the desk. He was stalling, as if he hoped someone else would step in and make this task easier.

  Roth remained perfectly silent. If someone spoke, it wasn’t about to be him. If the president wanted to accuse him of something, he would have to come out and say the words.

  “It seems,” the president continued, “your asset, Lance Spector, just entered the embassy making very serious threats.”

  “That doesn’t sound like anything Spector would do,” Roth said, “but if you have verified footage with audio of it happening, I’d be as interested as anyone else to see it.”

  That was a gamble. Laurel had said something about the NSA cutting the audio feed. He guessed the president hadn’t been given the full story either.

  The president looked at Shrader. She shook her head.

  He sighed and clicked the controller in his hand. A screen began to descend slowly from the ceiling, and everyone waited patiently for it.

  “The following footage,” the president said, “is from inside the Moscow embassy. It’s barely two hours old, and, I think everyone will agree, is quite damning even without audio.”

  “Why is there no audio?” Roth said before it began.

  “Technical problems,” Sandra said.

  “I see,” Roth said.

  The president was about to press play when Roth interjected again. “A fifty-billion-dollar national intelligence budget, and we can’t get audio on this?”

  “Please, Roth,” the president said, pressing play. “We don’t need audio to see that this agent has gone rogue. Your own office pulled his security clearance a few days ago, which is the only reason this incident was even flagged.”

  Roth watched the footage. It did not show anything suspicious as far as he was concerned. No altercation. No threatening gestures. What it did show was Lance speaking to a secretary at the embassy’s main security desk.

  “They could be talking about anything,” Roth said.

  Shrader interjected immediately. “The report says he threatened the embassy.”

  Roth fixed her in his gaze. “And who wrote the report?”

  The president turned to Shrader. Everyone around the table was looking at her.

  She said nothing.

  “I would also like to know who wrote the report,” the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, a stern-faced general by the name of Elliot Schlesinger said.

  The president sighed. “NSA wrote it,” he said.

  The footage was still running and now showed Lance leaving the desk and making his way down a corridor toward a fire exit. Before he reached it, he was stopped by marines. He didn’t resist arrest, but got on his knees and let them take him at gunpoint.

  “Why,” Roth said, “would the most valuable asset in CIA history walk into a US embassy and make threats? It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “We’re going to get to that,” Sandra said.

  “I mean,” Roth went on, speaking directly to the president, “you’ve seen what he’s capable of. With all due respect, sir, he could have taken out those men if he’d wanted. He let them take him.”

  The president sighed again. He was clearly uncomfortable. Something wasn’t adding up, but somehow, Shrader had managed to convince him to go down this path.

  “Sir,” Roth said, “you know Lance Spector is not a threat.”

  Again, Shrader interjected. “We know for a fact he refused to come in after his last operation,” she said. “Your own office pulled his credentials.”

  “I wanted to speak to him,” Roth said. “He was lying low in Moscow, and I couldn’t contact him to find out why.”

  The president threw up his hands. “Come on, Levi. Don’t give us that baloney.”

  “There could be an operational reason he’s still there.”

  “And he makes that decision? Without explaining it to you? That man is government property, Levi. He’s not allowed to make decisions. He’s not allowed to go off the grid.”

  “He’s complicated,” Roth said.

  “His job is to follow orders, Levi, and he’s been refusing to play ball with you for over two years.”

  “I’m managing him.”

  “You’re allowing him to get away with insubordination, Levi. You’re letting him walk all over you and all over the program.”

  “Sir,” Roth said.

  “The man has a fucking cabin in Montana. A pickup truck. A waitress he sees on a regular basis. How’s that for a security risk? Is it any surprise the Russians blew open the program?”

  “There are reasons…” Roth said, but the president kept speaking over him.

  “He’s the only asset still alive. He refuses to report for duty. He refuses to even speak to you or his handler. Does someone need to explain to him the terms of the agreement he signed?”

  “He understands the agreement, sir.”

  “These guys don’t get to retire to Montana, Levi. You know that. He knows that. And you’re living in la-la-land if you think there’s any way he gets out of his agreement with the government that doesn’t end with a bullet in his skull.”

  Roth was surprised by the president’s words. Of course Lance didn’t get to just walk away. Of course he couldn’t hide up in Montana forever. The agreement he’d signed with the government was for life, and there was no getting out of it.

  But at the same time, it was understood by everyone that these men were temperamental. They were inherently unstable. Anyone who signed a contract to become an assassin for life clearly wasn’t playing from the same deck as everyone else.

  They were messed up.

  Roth’s job was to keep them on task, to keep them under control, but to do that, he required a certain amount of leeway.

  If the government wanted to protect the nation, it needed men like Lance Spector. Men who broke the rules. Men who defied their superiors. In short, men who were a little crazy.

  “There’s been nothing,” Roth said, “not now and not at any point in Lance’s past, that would suggest he’s capable of something like this.”

  “Every man’s got his breaking point, Roth.”

  “Not this man,” Roth said, and then instantly regretted it.

  Shrader stepped up. “It seems to me,” she said, “that your loyalty to this rogue agent is clouding your judgment, Roth.”

  “And what do you know about it?” Roth said.

  The president was about to speak but stopped himself. He looked around the table. The silence grew, to the point where Roth thought it would consume the room.

  “I’m sorry, Levi,
” the president said as he handed Shrader the controller for the screen. “I always told you your loyalty to Spector was going to be your downfall.”

  “What is this?” Roth said, sensing the change in tone.

  Shrader clicked a button, and a photo came up on the screen.

  When Roth saw it, he realized this was more than a power play. Shrader was going for the jugular.

  On the screen was a face Roth had not seen in a long time.

  It was the face of Lance’s former handler, Clarice Snow.

  “Who is this?” Shrader said.

  “You know who it is,” Roth said.

  “For the benefit of the others present,” she insisted.

  “Her name is Clarice Snow.”

  “Is?” Shrader said, with all the relish of a district attorney at a sentencing hearing.

  “Was,” Roth corrected.

  Shrader clicked, and the next image came up. It was of Clarice also, but this time she was dead, lying on the ground in a pool of blood. The photo was taken by the killer, and his black boots could be seen at the bottom of the frame, the blood just beginning to reach them.

  “She had a tragic end, didn’t she, Roth?”

  “I ordered her killed,” Roth said.

  “And could you tell everyone why?”

  “She was working for the Russians. Specifically for the Dead Hand, a Kremlin group charged with keeping the president in power.”

  “She was selling secrets to the Dead Hand,” Shrader said, “right under your nose.”

  “Yes she was,” Roth admitted.

  “And it would be fair to say that her betrayal is the reason the Group was so severely compromised? The reason three of your four assets were killed in a single night? The reason, in fact, that you’ve had to re-evaluate its entire existence?”

  “It continues to exist,” Roth said.

  “But in a different form.”

  “That’s correct,” Roth said. “I’m rebuilding it from the ground up.”

  “And Lance Spector is a key part of that plan.”

  “Of course he is.”

  “He’s the key to the most successful and effective program in agency history. The program that you built your career and reputation on.”

  “I’d say that’s a fair assessment,” Roth said.

  “So even if Spector was showing signs of fray, things that should have set off alarm bells and gotten you to pull him from service…”.

  “By which you mean kill him,” Roth said.

  “By which I mean kill him,” Shrader agreed. “Even if you saw multiple warning signs, you’d have a very powerful motive not to act on them.”

  “What are you suggesting? That I saw this coming? That I protected Lance?”

  “As you’ll see,” Shrader said, “I won’t have to say that.”

  Roth turned to the president. “What is this?” he said. “A witch hunt?”

  “Hear her out,” the president said gravely.

  He had the look of a man whose mind was already made up.

  “What was Clarice Snow’s role at the Group?” Shrader said.

  “She was Lance Spector’s handler.”

  “Can you tell us what happened to the man you hired to kill her?”

  “That was a separate thing,” Roth protested.

  “Just tell us what happened.”

  “He was found dead.”

  “When?”

  “Two years ago.”

  “It was less than two weeks after he fired the bullet that killed Clarice Snow, wasn’t it?” Shrader said.

  “If you say so.”

  She clicked, and some documents came up on the screen, showing the date on Clarice Snow’s death certificate, and another death certificate for a John Doe.

  “All right,” Roth said.

  “Did you ever ask Lance if he knew anything about the second man’s death?”

  “No,” Roth said.

  “Why not?”

  “He had nothing to do with it.”

  “It never crossed your mind that he might go after the man who killed Clarice?”

  “Why would he? She was a traitor. Her death was inevitable. Everyone understood that.”

  “Were you aware that Lance Spector and Clarice Snow were romantically involved.”

  “I was,” Roth said.

  “You don’t think that would be a reason for Spector to have strong feelings about you ordering her death?”

  “Lance was sleeping with Clarice,” Roth said, “but that’s not the same thing as saying they were in love, as I’m sure you’re aware, Sandra.”

  Shrader smiled thinly.

  “All right,” she said. “Maybe Lance and Clarice weren’t soulmates. Maybe it was just a casual fling.”

  “It was a casual fling.”

  “But shouldn’t you have at least looked into the possibility that one of your assets had just murdered someone, in cold blood, without any authorization?”

  “I didn’t look into that possibility because there was no reason to believe that man’s death had anything to do with his killing of Clarice Snow.”

  “Where was Lance when Clarice was killed?” Sandra said.

  “On a mission overseas.”

  “A mission you sent him on.”

  “I sent him on all his missions.”

  “Were you making sure he wasn’t around to interfere?”

  “Are you suggesting he would have tried to stop me from taking out Clarice?”

  Sandra smiled. “That’s exactly what I’m suggesting, Roth.”

  “That’s preposterous,” Roth said. “He’d have killed her himself if I’d ordered it.”

  “You really believe that?”

  “Of course I believe that. It’s his job.”

  “Interesting,” Sandra said.

  She clicked, and a new slide came up on the screen, this time showing the dead body of Clarice’s assassin.

  “Where was Lance the day the assassin was killed?”

  “Still on his mission.”

  “He was AWOL,” Sandra said.

  Roth shook his head. He knew where she was going. She’d done her homework. There was nothing he could say.

  “In fact, Lance Spector went AWOL the day he found out you’d killed Clarice, and has remained so every day in the two and a half years since, is that not correct?”

  Roth looked at the president. The president’s face was as blank and ashen as a stone wall.

  “I’d say it’s fair to assume Lance Spector is a little bit upset about what happened, wouldn’t you, Roth?” Sandra said.

  Roth nodded. “It’s a giant leap to say he was upset about Clarice, to threatening to blow up an embassy.”

  “A giant leap,” Sandra said, pressing the button again.

  The next slide was of an ultrasound.

  “Were you aware,” Sandra said, “that Clarice Snow was pregnant at the time of her death.”

  When Roth realized what she was saying, the blood drained from his face.

  This was the first time since he’d entered the room that she’d said something he hadn’t already known.

  “Mr. Roth?” she said.

  Roth leaned forward to get a closer look. According to the slide, the ultrasound was taken at John’s Hopkins Division of Maternal-Fetal Medicine. Clarice’s name was clearly filled in, as was the signature of the obstetrician. It could be fake, but something told him it was real.

  How had he missed this?

  And what else had he missed?

  His mind reeled as it went over the ramifications of what she was saying. Maybe his loyalty to Lance had blinded him. Maybe everything she was saying was true.

  “Please answer her,” the president said.

  Roth cleared his throat.

  “I was not,” he said quietly.

  He looked at Sandra. She’d beaten him, and the look on her face said she knew it.

  “Care to hazard a guess who the father was?” she said.

  Roth
looked from her to the president and then at everyone else at the table.

  “This is starting to make sense now, isn’t it?” Sandra said.

  “I don’t see…” Roth said, his voice trailing off.

  “You didn’t just kill Clarice,” Sandra said. “You killed Lance’s unborn child.”

  “I didn’t know,” Roth said, his voice barely above a whisper.

  “I’d say,” Sandra said, “if we were looking for someone with a reason to go off the deep end, someone holding a grudge against the government, we don’t need to look any farther than Lance Spector.”

  “No,” Roth said, speaking directly to the president. He was no longer trying to convince anyone. He was just saying what he thought. “I know Lance.”

  “Do you, though?” the president said. “You killed his child, and in two and a half years, he never said one word to you about it. I think this man is more deceptive than you give him credit for.”

  Roth’s head was spinning.

  “How did you … how did you even find out about this?” he said to Sandra.

  “That’s not important,” Sandra said.

  Roth didn’t know what to say. If this was true, if Clarice had been pregnant with Lance’s child, maybe he really didn’t know Lance, and didn’t know what he was capable of.

  Sandra pulled back up the footage of Lance at the embassy. “This is from just a few minutes ago,” she said. The footage showed Lance escaping from the embassy, exiting a stairwell, and running around the back of the compound. Smoke and tear gas wafted across the frame, and the sounds of gunfire and helicopters could be heard.

  “That’s happening now?” Roth said.

  “Yes it is,” Sandra said, as Lance climbed the wall of the compound.

  Sandra switched cameras, bringing up pictures of an angry mob throwing Molotov cocktails over the embassy’s front gate.

  “If Lance Spector isn’t a threat,” the president said, “then you tell us what we’re looking at here, Levi.”

  There was nothing Roth could say. He looked at the faces around the table.

  He was about to stand up when someone knocked on the door.

  The aide stuck her head in.

  “Mr. President,” she said, “there’s a call from Moscow for Levi Roth.”

  “Mr. Roth is occupied,” the president said impatiently.

  The aide stared at him.