Think, Jill.
I open my bag, look at what I have. The gun. My wallet. My phone. A tube of lip gloss. A pen, a few stray crayons, a small plastic dinosaur, a notebook. That now-familiar feeling of terror and helplessness bubbles up inside me at the sight of the kids’ things.
My gaze settles on the notebook. I pull it out. It’s small and spiral-bound, light blue. Owen likes to doodle in it. I open it, tear out the pages with crayon scribbles, stuff them back into my bag. Now it’s an empty notebook. I reach for my pen, open the notebook to the first page, and write.
Cyrillic letters. I know a handful of words in Russian. Da and dasvidaniya and things like that. The alphabet, too. I took an introductory Russian course at the Agency, years ago. We started with the alphabet, had it drilled into us. Our instructor, Oleg, insisted we know it like the back of our hands before moving on to anything else. I still remember most of it.
I write random letters in random groupings, but to anyone unfamiliar with the language, it should look like coherent sentences. I write a few sentences on the first page, a few on the second, same with the next few pages. Then I drop the pen into my bag, clutch the notebook, make my way out of the bathroom, back to the front desk.
“Can I help you?” the unpleasant-looking man in the suit asks. His nametag reads Thomas Worthington.
I lay the notebook down on the counter. “I found this in the ladies’ room. I think it must belong to a guest. A Russian guest, by the looks of it.” I flip it open to the first page.
He glances down at the page, then back at me. “I know just the guest.”
Perfect.
“Thank you, madam.” He takes the notebook, flips it closed, lays it down in front of him, behind the counter, out of my reach.
That’s not what’s supposed to happen. He’s supposed to place it in one of those cubbies, at the least.
“Anything else I can help you with?”
I can’t just stand here. “No. That’s all.”
“Have a nice day, madam.”
I need to leave. I force myself to turn away from the desk.
Panic begins creeping through me. This was supposed to work. If this didn’t work, what else am I supposed to do? Any other attempt to identify the Russian guest and it’ll be obvious what I’m trying to do.
I glance back at the desk. Thomas hasn’t moved. He’s still looking at his computer screen.
I need to figure out something else to do.
I stop in front of a large painting on the wall—a man on a horse, Revolutionary War–type dress. There’s a placard on the wall beside it, with a long description. I pretend to read, my mind churning.
Out of the corner of my eye I see Thomas reach for the corded phone, lift the receiver to his ear. He presses a single button. Must be dialing a room—
“Mrs. Ivanova?” he says. “I believe we have an item of yours at the front desk. Would you like to retrieve it? Or shall I send up a valet?”
A pause. I hold my breath.
“Very well, then,” he says. “It will be right here when you arrive.”
My heart’s pounding. I don’t turn around, force myself to walk to the next painting on the wall. This one’s of a woman in a hoop skirt dress, holding a parasol. I stand back and pretend to admire it for what seems like an appropriate length of time. Then I turn.
There’s an antique upholstered bench against a nearby wall. Angled toward the center of the room, but if I sit on one side, I should be able to see the front desk beyond the columns in the center of the room. I walk over, take a seat, pull out my phone. Hold it between myself and the front desk, pull up my texts, the chain with Alex.
Mrs. Ivanova, I type.
MRS? comes the reply.
Stand by.
The elevator dings. The doors open, and a woman steps out. She’s in her sixties, probably, fair hair, dressed like she’s just come from the office—slacks, a blouse, a scarf, all understated. She walks confidently through the lobby, toward the desk—
I open the camera app on my phone, lift the screen just slightly, tap the button. A series of pictures, silent. She never looks over.
Her back is to me now. She’s talking to Thomas. He lays the notebook down in front of her. She shakes her head, and they have a quick conversation. Thank God she doesn’t open it, doesn’t see the nonsense words, or surely she’d grow suspicious—
She turns away from the desk, toward the lobby, toward me, and I look down at my phone. Pretend to be texting. I can feel her coming closer. I watch her in my peripheral vision—
She walks past me, toward the front door. I pull up the text chain again, tap out a quick message, attach one of the pictures I just snapped.
She’s coming your way. Don’t let her out of your sight.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Alex
The picture Jill sends shows an older woman with fair hair, dressed smartly. That’s my source. She isn’t what I expected. Not at all.
She’s coming your way.
I lower the phone and watch the front door of the hotel. The sliding doors open—there she is. Nondescript, really. Blends in. A perfect spy.
She steps outside, takes a right. Walks at a moderate pace. There’s nothing about her that would attract attention.
I stand up from the bench, start walking in the same direction. Opposite side of the street, a handful of paces behind. She doesn’t turn. Doesn’t seem particularly aware of her surroundings.
I reach for my phone, tap out a text to Jill. She headed right. I’m following.
The response comes an instant later. I see her. I’m on it.
Of course she is. She’s a spy, too. Or she was. She knows how to do this. Hell, she ID’d my source in no time at all. Even got a name. I have no idea how she did it.
I slow my pace a bit as Jill comes into view on the opposite side of the street. Better to let her get close anyway. My source might know what I look like. She reached out to me, after all. Last thing I want to do is spook her.
Past the fish and chips restaurant now. Past Jill’s car. My source is still walking at an even pace. Still hasn’t looked back. And Jill’s still behind her.
I reach for my phone. Scroll as I walk, until I find the name I need.
“Hana,” I say when she answers. “It’s Alex.”
“Alex. What’s up?”
“I need your help.” It’s true. If anyone can help me get to the bottom of this, it’s her. A senior counterintelligence analyst.
“And I’ve told you what you need to do to get my help.”
I slow my pace. Jill’s still clearly in my view. As long as I keep her in sight, I’m good.
“One of the CIA’s best sources is a fake,” I say.
In the distance I hear a car horn. There’s silence on Hana’s end of the line. “Who?” she finally says.
“You help me, I tell you.”
“How do you know this?”
“A source.”
“Who’s your source?”
“A Russian intelligence officer.”
“Your source is a Russian intelligence officer?” She sounds like she’s salivating.
“This is going to be a big story, Hana,” I say, stating the obvious. “Biggest damn story of your career.”
There’s a pause, and then: “What do you need from me?”
“I need you to verify my source’s access. Tell me everything you know about this person.”
She doesn’t answer right away. “And then you’ll give me the name of the CIA source?”
“I’ll give it to you before it becomes public.”
I wait for her to object. She doesn’t.
“And one more thing. You can’t breathe a word of this to anyone. Especially at the CIA.”
“It’s an inside job?”<
br />
“Looks that way.”
She exhales audibly.
“I told you, it’s a big story.”
I focus on Jill’s back, my eyes shifting every so often to the source, farther ahead.
“You’ve got yourself a deal,” Hana says.
I give her the information I have—SVR, female, surname Ivanova, in the U.S. right now, staying at the Fenwick-Coats—and she promises to call when she has something.
No sooner have I ended the call than I realize I should have asked about the accident at the Farm. I almost call back, but stop myself. Better she focuses on my source. I’ll try Beau.
I glance down at the phone as I walk, find his name. Touch the number labeled “Work” and press send.
“Beau, I need a favor,” I say when he picks up.
He sighs.
“There was an accident at the Farm. I need to know more about it.”
I’ve lost sight of my source, but Jill is still firmly in my sights.
“Did you get this from your source?” he asks.
I don’t answer right away, and I know he takes my lack of response as confirmation.
“Who is this source, Alex?”
“She’s a Russian intelligence officer.”
“What?”
“She knows what she’s talking about.”
“She?”
“She.”
“I want to talk to her,” he says.
I cringe. I had a feeling that was coming. When has he ever not gone after my sources? “I’ll see if she’s willing to talk to you. After this is all over and done with.”
“Alex, I—”
But I don’t hear the rest of the sentence. I abruptly end the call.
Because Jill’s just broken into a run.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Jill
She knows I’m on her tail.
That’s the only explanation for why she just darted right down a side street. I’m running to catch up, to reach the street, my feet pounding the pavement, my hand gripping tight to the purse slung on my shoulder as I swerve around a couple of teenagers, a woman in a suit.
I round the corner—
I don’t see her. I scan the length of the street, one filled with boutique stores, coffee shops, and cafés, offices above. There’s a relatively small number of people milling about, both sides of the street, heading to and fro, but there’s no sign of her, none whatsoever.
It’s like she just disappeared.
I start walking down the street, peering into store windows, but I know it’s useless. She could be anywhere. She probably ducked into one, has already slipped out a rear door. I don’t know which side of the street she picked.
How did she know I was behind her? She never turned around, not once. Did she catch my reflection in a window somewhere?
However she did it, she’s good. She knows what she’s doing.
Footsteps, behind me. I turn, and it’s Alex, running to catch up, breathing hard. “Where’d she go?” she asks.
“I don’t know.” The words fill me with desperation. This is the only lead I have to my kids. And I’ve just lost her.
A door opens behind us, a bell sweetly dinging inside. An ice cream store. A man walks out, holding tight to two kids’ hands, a boy and a girl, each clutching an ice cream cone, big grins on their faces.
The sight makes me feel even more desperate.
“You want to take one side of the street and I’ll take the other?” Alex asks. She crosses the street without waiting for an answer, heads straight for the first shop, a clothing boutique.
I look down the street again. So many stores. There’s no point. The source knew she had a tail and she shook it. She’s a professional. We’re not going to find her—
Vibration, from my purse. Incoming call. I pull out my phone, and there’s a single word on the screen.
Unknown.
It’s them, isn’t it?
I press the green button instantly. “Hello?”
“Hello, Jill.”
That voice, that deep robotic voice.
“Where are my children?”
“With us.”
“Are they okay?”
There’s no response, and my heart seizes. They have to be okay. I’d know if my kids were dead. I’d feel it. Some piece of me would die, too, wouldn’t it?
“For now.”
I grip the phone tightly. As terrified as I was when Owen was taken as a baby, this is worse. They’re four and three. Old enough to know what’s going on. What are they thinking? How are they being treated?
What if they don’t listen, and these people hurt them?
“What do you want?”
“We wanted you to stay quiet, and you didn’t.”
My heart is pounding. They’re not saying they’re going to hurt the kids, are they?
“Do you remember what we said would happen if you talked?”
Oh my God. They are saying they’ll hurt the kids. “Please,” I beg, because I don’t know what else to say. “Please don’t hurt them.”
“Here’s the good news, Jill. The information hasn’t spread. Right now your journalist friend is the only one who knows.”
I take a shallow breath and glance at the clothing boutique, the last place I saw Alex. She’s in there now, or she’s moved on to the next store.
“There’s still time to fix this.”
“How?”
“How do you think, Jill?”
And then the voice is gone, disconnected, a short string of beeps in its place.
I lower the phone. I feel like I’ve been punched in the gut.
Alex steps out from the café beside the boutique. Catches sight of me, heads my way. “This is pointless, isn’t it?”
I nod. That voice is still ringing in my head.
How do you think, Jill?
“Did she see you?” Alex asks.
“She must have.” Must have caught my reflection. She must always be looking over her shoulder, without actually looking over her shoulder.
“What now?”
I open up my purse to drop my phone back inside, and my gaze lands on the gun.
There’s still time to fix this.
“Jill?”
I’m not actually considering this, am I?
I close the purse tightly. “Come on.” I start walking, back in the direction from which we came.
“Where are we going?” Alex asks.
I’d be willing to bet she’s headed north, toward the Russian embassy. We could try to intercept her before she arrives, but she’s got a jump on us, probably already in a cab, and even if we beat her there, if she sees us at one entrance she’ll just make her way to another, won’t she?
It would be futile. We’d always be one step behind. And we need to be one step ahead.
“Back to the hotel,” I say.
“You think she’ll head back?”
“No,” I say. “That’s why we’re going.”
* * *
—
We walk in silence, because I need to think. Need to come up with a plan. I might know where we’re going, but I don’t know what we’re going to do when we get there.
We’re nearly back to the Fenwick-Coats when Alex’s phone rings. She pulls it from her back pocket and looks at the screen. “It’s Hana. My CIA contact. I’ve got to get this.”
She holds the phone to her ear as we walk. “Hello?”
She listens to something, but I can’t hear what it is.
“Great,” she says, and then after another pause, “I need more. Everything you have on her. Background, cases, family, everything.”
I lead the way back to the park across from the hotel. There’s an older man with a ca
ne sitting on the bench now, so I come to a stop under some big shade trees. No one else is around.
“Thanks,” Alex says into the phone, and then lowers it, returns it to her back pocket.
“Source is SVR all right,” she says, facing me. “CIA has a file on her. Natalia Ivanova.”
“What else?”
“She works counterintelligence. She’s in the U.S. for a short trip. Attending a conference on emerging technologies.”
Is she picking up information that would be useful to Russian intelligence? Attempting to recruit sources?
Does it matter?
“Hana’s going to dig deeper. Get me more.”
“Good.”
My brain is churning. We have a name now, first and last.
I look across the street at the Fenwick-Coats, the gaggle of valets. An idea is beginning to form.
Twenty-four rooms, two floors…
I turn back to Alex. “You’re going in this time. Be confident. Act like you belong, and no one will question you.”
She glances at the hotel. “I can try.”
“You saw me do it. It’s easy.”
“For you it was easy.”
“Just be confident.”
I picture the interior of the hotel in my mind. It’s a small place, which will work in our favor. “When you enter, you’ll see the check-in desk straight ahead, up three steps. You’re going to veer off to the left before you get there. There’s a hallway that leads to the rooms.”
“Okay.”
“What I need you to do is map the first floor. Look for every room with a Do Not Disturb sign. One of those is hers.”
I’ve never met a spy who wants housekeeping. Just doesn’t happen. If there’s one thing I’m sure about, it’s that this woman doesn’t want anyone entering her room when she’s not there.
“I’ll do the same on the second floor,” I say. “Text me and tell me what you find.”
“Will do.”
I look across the street again. There’s a red coupe in the circular drive, blocking my view of the front door. “You go first, okay?”
Seems better for us to stay apart.
She crosses the street just as the red coupe pulls out of the drive. She walks to the front door, head held high—
You Can Run Page 20