You Can Run

by Karen Cleveland

  How right they were.

  And now? Now we’re about to run again.

  What if they’re right? What if we can run, but we can’t hide?

  We’re only safe if we can hide.

  We watch Finding Nemo in the family room, all four of us cuddled up on the couch. Mia falls asleep in my lap. I bring her upstairs, place her in her bed, and watch her sleep, one arm stretched over her head.

  I turn on her nightlight and walk back down the stairs, footsteps heavy—

  The doorbell rings. I go still, frozen with fear.

  Is it them? Are they here?

  I rush down the remaining stairs, make a beeline for the front door. I want to make sure Owen’s nowhere near it—

  I look out the peephole, and it’s Alex.

  I swing open the door, fear replaced by anger. She can’t be here. Her presence puts us in more danger.

  “What are you doing here?” I practically hiss. “You should be talking to A. J. Graham.”

  “I can’t,” she says matter-of-factly, looking me straight in the eye. “He’s dead.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Jill

  “What do you mean he’s dead?” I ask. A.J.’s dead?

  She’s giving me one of those intense stares again, like she’s trying to read me. Is she trying to figure out if I knew that? Of course I didn’t know that.

  “Honey?” comes Drew’s voice, from the family room. “Who’s there?”

  I ignore him. “When?” I ask Alex. “How?”

  It was them, wasn’t it? And here I am talking to a journalist, in full view of the street—

  Reflexively I look around. Nothing that I can see—

  “Come in,” I say, ushering her inside, quickly closing the door behind her.

  I hear footsteps, and Drew rounds the corner.

  “Oh!” he says, catching sight of Alex. He extends a hand. “I’m Drew.”

  “Alex,” she says, shaking it.

  Awkward silence follows. He looks flustered, like he thinks he’s supposed to know her, like he’s trying to place her. Probably thinks she’s another preschool mom, that I mentioned she was coming over, that he wasn’t paying enough attention.

  “Daddy, can I have more popcorn?” comes Owen’s voice.

  “Duty calls,” he says with a smile, looking relieved. He quickly disappears.

  “Come on,” I say, ducking into the study. She follows me, and I close the door behind us.

  She unlocks her phone, holds it up. There’s an article on the screen. “Four years ago. Right before you moved to Florida.”

  Right before I moved. I take the phone from her and start reading.

  The date is the first thing that registers. I remember clearly the last day I was in the office, the day I left my career, turned in my badge. A.J. died the very next day.

  If I’d been at the Agency a day longer, I’d have known about this, for sure. He’d have been memorialized internally, even if his death didn’t make a splash publicly. Once I turned in my badge, though, I was cut off from this kind of information. A.J. was undercover; technically there’s no reason a CIA employee like myself would have been working with him. And if any old colleague had broken protocol to let me know, they’d have to call on an open line or in an open setting, risking their clearance to do so. But why—

  “Overdose,” she says, even though I’m reading the same thing myself. The article calls him a State Department employee. Says he was found at his home, deceased. Lethal amount of fentanyl in his system, along with a significant amount of alcohol.

  That’s why I didn’t hear about it on the news. He wasn’t killed in the line of duty, in an operation. It was opioids, in the middle of an opioid epidemic. He was nothing more than a statistic.

  “Accidental?” I ask.

  “You think it wasn’t?”

  I look down at the phone again, stare at the article, like it has the answers I’m looking for. My brain is spinning—

  “What’s that?” she asks. She nods toward the cardboard box in the corner of the room. Our passports are lying atop framed pictures, an external hard drive. “Where are you going, Jill?”

  I say nothing.

  “Running, again? Why?”

  I glare at her, this woman who’s in my home, who brought this fear back into my life. “I gave you what you asked for. A lead.”

  “It’s not a lead when he’s dead.”

  “You don’t think a dead case officer is a story?”

  “Tell me why it’s a story, Jill.”

  I hand her phone back to her. “You need to leave.”

  She takes it from me without breaking eye contact. “You’re covering something up, and that makes you part of the story. It’s all going to come out eventually.”

  I believe her. But what can I say? What can I possibly tell her?

  “You’re afraid of something, Jill. Why are you afraid? Who are you afraid of?”

  “I’m not the story.”

  “Tell me what you’re afraid of.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why?”

  “I just can’t.”

  She stares at the cardboard box. “I think you tried to do the right thing before. Leaving the Agency, running. Because you were compromised, and you didn’t want to do anything else wrong.”

  I watch her.

  “And I think you’re about to run again because you’re afraid someone’s going to come after you.”

  Her words make me angry. I am afraid they’re going to come after us. If she’d just go away, this would all go away. If she’d never appeared, the past would still be the past, and I wouldn’t be in this situation.

  “I’m not saying anything. You need to leave.” I point to the door.

  “I believe you when you say you’re not the story. So help me find the story. Give me something.”

  I open the door of the study, give her a hard look. “I did. I gave you A.J.’s name.”

  “And he’s dead. I can’t talk to a dead man.”

  I say nothing, and she watches me for another moment, then finally walks out of the study, toward the front door. She opens it, then pauses, turns back around. “It wasn’t an accident, was it?”

  Not with that timing. Right after Falcon became a source.

  “I don’t know,” I say.

  “It was them, wasn’t it? The same people you’re running from?”

  Them.

  Was it them?

  Did they get what they needed from A.J., and then eliminate him? Falcon was a source. A.J. had given him COVCOM—

  A.J. had just given him COVCOM.

  The overdose was right after my last day of work, and that was the day he gave Falcon the COVCOM.

  They killed him, didn’t they?

  “If they got to A.J.,” she says, “what makes you so sure they won’t get to you?”

  * * *

  —

  I stand alone in the hall and stare at the closed door, trembling. Strains of the Disney movie in the family room reach my ears; her voice echoes in my brain. If they got to A.J., what makes you so sure they won’t get to you?

  I’m not sure at all. And that terrifies me.

  A.J.’s dead. How did I not know that?

  Because I stayed away from the news. Because this, it probably didn’t even make the news, not really. A State Department employee in another country. An overdose. Not exactly breaking news.

  I walk into the family room, numb. Sit down beside Owen, put my arms around him, pull him close. He doesn’t take his eyes off the screen.

  “Who was that?” Drew asks.

  “Alex.”

  I leave it at that. And he doesn’t press it, probably thinks he should know who that is.

  I watch the s
creen but don’t see a thing that’s happening. My mind is racing.

  I’ve followed the rules. I still haven’t breathed a word, haven’t told Alex anything. Haven’t told anyone anything.

  Did A.J. do the same thing?

  For years now, it’s been in the back of my mind that he was in on it. That he knew Falcon was a fake. But now, hearing that he’s dead…it makes me wonder if he was in the same position as me. If they got to him. Warned him to be quiet, like they did to me.

  Maybe they got to all of us, everyone in the approval chain.

  It wouldn’t have been hard to do. There weren’t very many of us, thanks to those new streamlined procedures. After me it was just COPS and the Director of Operations. Who knows if they’d have even needed to get to those two. They were rubber stamps, for the most part.

  And there was only one person between A.J. and me. Vaughn Craig, the Chief of Station in Damascus when Falcon was recruited. A.J.’s boss, the person who approved the cable before it got to me.

  “Come on, Nemo,” Owen whispers intently, beside me. I glance over, and his eyes are wide, focused on the screen.

  I pull my phone from my back pocket, unlock it with one hand, pull up the browser. Type the letters of the name into Google: Vaughn Craig.

  I can’t help myself. What happened to him? Something terrible, like what happened to A.J.? Did he resign, like me? Or is he still employed, doing someone’s bidding?

  I scan the results, then click on the first.

  A bio appears, with a picture. That’s him. I recognize him, encountered him a few times while I was at the Agency.

  Looks like he retired a few months ago, started his own security consulting agency, Security Solutions. In Miami.

  Miami. That’s less than an hour’s drive from here.

  I watch the fish swimming on the screen, pull Owen closer.

  A.J.’s dead. Vaughn Craig isn’t. He might know how to navigate this.

  And he’s close to here. It’s like a sign.

  I think it’s time that Vaughn Craig and I have a little chat.

  * * *

  —

  I leave the next afternoon, as soon as Drew gets home from work. I called my boss at the Language Academy, said I’d come down with something, that I needed the evening off. Drew still thinks I headed into work; there’s no way I can tell him what I’m really doing.

  What am I doing?

  I’m not going to breathe a word about my own situation. If he reports back to them, at least I’m still following their rules. But I need to understand what’s going on. And I feel like Vaughn Craig might have answers.

  His website was flashy. Touted his experience as a twenty-year veteran CIA operative, in charge of numerous posts around the world. His “unparalleled experience and expertise.” It promised “security solutions for your business, designed by an expert.” I plugged the address from the contact page—minus the suite number—into Google Maps, and I’ve followed the directions here.

  I was expecting a high-rise, something equally flashy. But the map directs me to a strip mall, a dingy one. The “suite” is wedged between a dry cleaner and a liquor store, a generic sign above the door. SECURITY SOLUTIONS.

  This isn’t what I would have expected, at all.

  I pull into a parking space out front. The lights are off inside, and there’s a sign in the window that says Closed. It’s not quite five o’clock. I knew this was a possibility, but I’m disappointed nonetheless. This was a complete waste of—

  Another car pulls up beside me, two spots over. A Jeep, open on all sides, music blaring. A man steps out of the driver’s seat, a takeout bag in one hand, soft drink in the other. Vaughn Craig. He’s in a Hawaiian shirt and loafers. Aviator sunglasses, a dark tan. He looks like a walking cliché.

  He unlocks the door, steps inside. Turns on the lights, flips the sign to Open. I watch through the windows as he settles himself into the single desk, pulls a sandwich from the paper bag, opens it up, smoothing the paper flat.

  I get out of my car and walk to the door. A chime rings when it opens. “Afternoon,” he says, getting to his feet. “Something I can help you with?”

  “Vaughn, right?”

  “That’s me.” He walks closer. “And you are?”

  “Jill Smith. We used to work together. I was a reports officer. Syria. I was Jill Bailey back then.”

  “Jill. Of course.” He extends a hand and smiles broadly, exposing a row of bright white teeth. “I forget names, but I never forget a face. What can I do for you?”

  “Do you have a minute to chat?”

  “I have all the time in the world. Have a seat.” He gestures toward the two chairs opposite the desk and lowers himself back into his own chair.

  I sit down and realize I’m not sure how to begin. “So you’re in the business world now.”

  He laughs. “This probably wasn’t what you expected, if you looked me up online.”

  I smile. “You have a nice website.”

  “It’s all most of my clients see. They never see this.” He shrugs. “Rent’s cheap.”

  “You left the Agency recently?” I need to dig without making it obvious I’m digging.

  “Six months ago. Thought about going green.” He uses Agency terminology for becoming a contractor, trading in a blue badge for a green one. “But I’m making the same doing this, for half the hours. And I’m here, outside the hellhole that is Washington.”

  He leans back in his chair, clasps his hands behind his head. “Are you in need of some security solutions?” He gives me a wry smile.

  “Actually, I’m here about an old friend of mine,” I say carefully. “A. J. Graham.”

  At this, his demeanor changes. He drops his arms and leans forward. “A.J., huh?” He shakes his head. “Such a shame. He was one in a million, that guy. Top-notch case officer.”

  I search his face, but I don’t see what I’m looking for. Don’t see fear, or reticence, or anything I might expect if he’s wrapped up with them.

  I press ahead. “I left the Agency right before he passed. Last case I worked was Falcon. That was the last cable I approved.”

  He gives me a quizzical look. “Hold that thought.”

  He stands up, walks over to a closet. Opens it, pulls out some sort of electronic device, a long black wand. Turns it on, starts sweeping the room, waving it toward each wall, the ceiling, the furniture. The device emits a slow, quiet beep the entire time.

  Finally he turns it off and puts it back in the closet. “You can never be too careful.”

  He looks almost disappointed not to have found anything.

  “Now,” he says, settling back into his chair. “Falcon. What an incredible source. A.J.’s legacy.” He looks wistful.

  He has no idea, does he?

  I don’t know what to do with that information, what to think. This wasn’t what I was expecting. I thought for sure they’d have gotten to him, too.

  The fact that they didn’t leaves me bewildered.

  Get some answers, Jill.

  “I’m trying to learn more about his final days. The overdose…it was fentanyl?”

  “It was.”

  “That doesn’t sound like A.J.”

  Truth be told, I don’t know if it does or not. I never knew him all that well. But how else am I going to dig for more information, ask if it wasn’t an accident, if he was killed?

  “That was my reaction, too.” Vaughn shakes his head.

  “And the fact that he overdosed—that makes it even more surprising, doesn’t it?”

  He gives me an even stare. “You’re asking if it was a hit, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.” No sense denying it. I want to hear what he has to say. “I mean, it was a dead case officer.”

  “And a lethal drug. Naturally that w
as an immediate concern. But we didn’t find a shred of evidence to suggest that was the case.”

  I process those words. Not a shred of evidence. Couldn’t that just mean it was someone sophisticated, someone who covered their tracks?

  “On the contrary, we found something that most certainly indicated it wasn’t a hit.”

  “What did you find?”

  “Can’t get into that.”

  “I’m really just trying to understand—”

  “I can’t get into it.”

  I can tell from the look on his face he means it, that he isn’t going to say a word, whatever it is he knows.

  I try a different path. “What about the timing?” I’m heading into dangerous waters here.

  “What timing?”

  “It was the day after Falcon got COVCOM.”

  “Where are you going with this?” He gives me an even stare.

  “I’m just trying to find out about A.J.’s last days,” I say, but it sounds like a lie, even to me.

  “This isn’t about A.J. This is about Falcon. Why?”

  What am I supposed to say?

  I could insist it’s just about A.J. Find a way to end the conversation, make my way home. I came because I thought Vaughn and I were in the same boat. I was wrong.

  But then what? Alex is publishing in three days. I have three days to find a way out of this. And right now I don’t have a clue how to do that.

  “Was Falcon a dangle?” I ask. It’s impulsive, and it’s probably a step too far. But I’m sitting across from the person who knows more about this case than just about anyone.

  He raises his eyebrows. “You know our processes are rigorous. Why do you ask?”

  I notice he doesn’t immediately say no. “Don’t you think the timing’s suspicious, with what happened to A.J.?”

  He leans back in his chair. Steeples his fingers, watches me closely. “And what would be the goal?”

  “COVCOM.”

  “Using it to penetrate our network?”

  “Exactly.”

  He taps his fingertips together, looks thoughtful. “Well. If it was about COVCOM, I doubt they’d still be wasting their time on Falcon.”