by Alma Katsu
“They’d like you to report by eight a.m., ma’am, if that would work for you,” the security officer goes on to say. She almost asks if there will be a hearing, if she’ll get a chance to tell her side of the story or if she’s only coming in to turn in her badge.
But then, the sergeant adds one last thing. One thing that stops the angry conversation in her head and brings her safely back down to earth.
“Oh, and one more thing: you’re to report to Eric Newman.”
* * *
—
There will be no going back to sleep now.
Lyndsey retrieves the lamp from the floor and clambers out of bed. She can’t find her bathrobe. It’s as though a spiteful servant packed her bags when she left Lebanon. She’s been living out of two suitcases filled with a crazy assortment of odds and ends. Unsuitable shoes, not one decent dress, mismatched jewelry. She is constantly reaching for something that isn’t there, a possession that’s in a box making its way to the United States on a very slow boat. Since she was the one who did the packing, she has no one to blame but herself.
Even though the apartment is fully furnished down to the sheets and towels, pots and pans, she can’t mentally adjust to the space. It’s like trying to ride a bicycle in high heels and an evening gown; she seems to constantly be running into things (an awkwardly placed coffee table, a wall where a door should be). Unable to find what she needs in any given moment, nothing ever at hand.
She rubs her face. She should have used the past couple weeks to search for a place to live. She was supposed to have two months of home leave, the term for annual leave you aren’t able to burn while you’re stationed overseas. Leave that piles up while you’re busy being invaluable to the nation’s security. Some people come back with six months of paid vacation. Lyndsey offered to forfeit hers if they would let her go right back to work. She wasn’t trying to be a hero; it would take her mind off her troubles. But they insisted she take the time.
Trust me, the OHESS doctor had said during the customary checkup on her return. She never liked dealing with the Occupational Heath, Environmental and Safety Services office, it seemed intrusive for your doctor to work for your employer. Everybody needs to de-stress after an overseas tour. You need to get used to being in the States again. He had been instructed to say that, she was pretty sure. They needed time to decide what to do with her.
Lyndsey wanders through the apartment in the oversized T-shirt she wears for sleeping, turning on lights as she goes. Because of the Ambien, she rules out another drink. Something hot? Herbal tea, cocoa? But there’s next to nothing in the place, only one-cup bags of ground coffee brought daily by the housekeeper, because she has been avoiding the grocery store. She really should go shopping.
She can hardly believe her luck. She hasn’t been fired; she knew as soon as she heard Eric Newman’s name. He was her first boss at the CIA. Their paths have crossed innumerable times since then, which is to be expected since they work the same target. He’d been made Chief of Russia Division a few years ago, a powerful position. Whatever’s happened, the reason for the call, has something to do with Russia. But CIA has lots of Russia hands, many of them with more years on target than her. It’s a little odd that he would ask for her by name. She wonders what he might know about her time in Lebanon—and her return.
She sits on the couch, tucking her cold, bare feet beneath her. She tries to remember how she left things with Eric the last time she’d seen him. She’d always thought him a good guy, a boss who wanted to do the right thing for his people, but there had been grumbles. Weren’t there always grumbles about the boss? Show me one manager who is loved by everyone.
Eric Newman asked for her by name.
She finds the remote and turns on the television, flipping quickly to CNN. The news is all reheated from earlier, not a clue as to what could be behind Eric’s request. Wrangling over financial reforms in Congress, another round of peace talks in the Middle East, and baseball’s team owners about to meet in Florida. The reality is that whatever is behind the SOC’s call, it hasn’t hit the news. It’s something bad that the rest of the world doesn’t know about yet.
But, in four hours, she’ll find out.
THREE
LANGLEY, VIRGINIA
CIA has not changed in the five years Lyndsey has been gone.
The next morning, the headquarters building makes no attempt to charm, only to impress. White walls like a glacial field. Wide terrazzo floors. The main hallway hung with oil paintings of former Directors, their solemn faces (knowing, judgmental) staring down on the passing streams of employees. While it has felt stifling at times, Lyndsey also finds something reassuring about the sameness, a promise that despite the rolling crises, where the job is meeting one impossible challenge after another, this place will endure because it must.
She sees as soon as she steps through the door to Russia Division that not much has changed here, either, a fairy kingdom that went into hibernation the moment she left, awaiting her return. The same drab colors, the dated furniture. The same binders of case studies and training materials collecting dust, that no one has looked at since they were first shelved. And the window dressing to remind visitors where you are: a row of matryoshka, Russian nesting dolls, line up on the receptionist’s desk. A Soviet-era flag that’s seen better days hanging on a wall, greeting visitors as they enter the vault. Welcome to the Evil Empire. Abandon all hope ye who enter here.
As she waits for the office manager to fetch Eric Newman, she looks over the rows of cubicles. At this hour, the room is only half-full, but most heads remain hunched over computers. Only a few swivel in her direction and she doesn’t recognize any of them. The old hands, the people who would know her, have worked their way into the corners, out of sight.
Eric Newman emerges from his office, his right hand outstretched. He shakes hers like a politician who needs her vote. He hasn’t changed much, either, since the last time she saw him. They like guys like Eric at Langley, tall and lean and reasonably good looking. Works out every morning in the gym in the Agency’s basement, dresses well but not too expensively, charges around with a seemingly endless supply of energy. He’s always calm and competent and in control.
“Good to see you, Lyndsey. Thanks for coming in. How—” He almost asks about Lebanon but catches himself. It would be a perfectly normal thing to ask someone who’s just returned—unless that person has been recalled pending evaluation.
Lyndsey pretends not to notice. Instead, he asks, “How long have you been back?”
“Two weeks.”
“That’s barely time to unpack. I’m sorry to have to cut your home leave short.”
He leads her down the hall to his office. It’s nicer than she remembers. They’re treating him well. Large by headquarters’ standards, with enough room for a couch and armchair to one side, a conference table and six swivel chairs to the other. A cluster of three tall windows looks out on the trees, the scene so idyllic and peaceful that it resembles a college campus. His desk sits toward the back of the room, facing out like a captain’s bridge. Unlike many managers at Langley, Eric doesn’t decorate his office with mementos, no “me wall” of awards and commendations doing their best to impress you. Uncluttered and focused, Eric’s office projects that he’s stronger than that.
Lyndsey’s mind flits back to when she and Eric first met. He was a branch chief then, two rungs down the ladder from where he is now, with his circle of responsibility commensurately smaller. He was her first boss in the clandestine service when she finished the trainee program and wrapped up her assignment in the Directorate of Science and Technology, building on the paper she’d worked on at the University of Pennsylvania, the one that got all the attention, brought the job offer in the first place. Eric had been interested in her work in the DST, even the paper she’d written, though she’d been out of school for years at that point and college seemed like another life. He undo
ubtedly had something to do with the decision to send her to Moscow for her first overseas assignment. It was rare to get such a plum assignment right off the bat. “Don’t make us regret sending you,” he’d said with a chuckle as he toasted her at the going-away party.
Then she brought in Yaromir Popov as a major asset and her future seemed assured, all their trust in her validated.
Now she is on administrative leave pending adjudication. What a difference a couple of years can make.
Eric takes the armchair with the easy command of a king on his throne, but his face is troubled. “I’ll cut right to the chase: I called you in because we have a crisis on our hands. In the past couple weeks, we lost two of our assets in Moscow. They disappeared. Vanished.”
When two of your recruited spies disappear in such a short a time, you have to assume the worst. Discovery by Russian internal security, arrest. Prison, or worse. She can’t remember this happening since she’s been at the Agency. Sure, assets stopped performing and took themselves out of the game, or you stopped expecting anything from them. But they’d never lost one to the enemy, not in her time.
“These were two of our most promising assets,” Eric continues. “The first is a colonel in the Russian Ground Forces, Gennady Nesterov. He’d been working for us for a few years. He’d just been assigned to a new unit, an elite cyber force. The unit was supplementing its ranks with hackers. They’d arrest guys selling malware on the dark web, you know, garden variety criminal activity, and give them the option to either work for the government or go to jail. It was the only way for the military to get the skills it needed.” Lyndsey is familiar with the story. Russian army recruits were bottom of the barrel, country boys with no prospects, most of them dropouts from school. “Nesterov had just warned us that his unit got the call: something big was about to happen. Then he disappeared.”
“You think they were on to him?”
“Moscow Station was just starting to look into it when the second disappearance happened. A scientist, Anatoly Kulakov. He’s part of a very small but very important program. The Office of Tactical Solutions. They look for ways to apply new technologies to ground warfare. Most of what he’s passed to us hasn’t been immediately useful. Developmental stuff, basic research. Still, we get insight into the strategic direction of research over there. He disappeared a few days ago.”
One in the military, one in research. Two different departments. You might lose one to a routine counterintelligence sweep. Lyndsey knows there are reasons why an asset might get rolled up. It could be entirely self-inflicted: he may have made a mistake that led to his arrest. He might have been arrested for reasons that had nothing to do with spying—a domestic squabble, a lawsuit gone bad. It happened. But two assets, from two different walks of life? The odds against it are astronomical. No, this is textbook: when arrests start, chances are that you’ve got a spy in your midst. A traitor handing over your secrets to the adversary.
There could be a spy in CIA.
Eric shifts unhappily in his chair. “I want you to handle the investigation. Obviously, I can’t turn to anyone inside the Division. You have experience both with Moscow Station and Russia Division. You know how both operate and we’re going to need that. I knew you’d be the right person for the job. When I heard you were back from overseas, I couldn’t believe my luck.”
Lyndsey hesitates. It will embarrass Eric if he puts her in charge and then finds out that she’s being investigated. As much as she would like the opportunity—she feels strongly about the mission, having worked the Russia target nearly her entire career. And it would help rehabilitate her reputation. But she owes it to Eric to tell him. Though the thought of recounting what she’s done makes her sick to her stomach. It’s like admitting he was wrong to trust her all those years ago, to have any faith in her whatsoever.
Her palms have gone sweaty and she rubs them against the legs of her pants. “I appreciate the vote of confidence, Eric, I really do. But there’s something you should know first—”
He waves her off. He already knows. She can tell by the way he looks at her, the hint of disappointment he struggles to hide. “If it’s about what happened in Beirut, you don’t have to tell me.”
She’s not sure if she’s irreparably embarrassed or grateful that she doesn’t have to explain. “Well, I don’t know the details,” he clarifies quickly. “Security is pretty strict about that stuff. When I raised your name up to the seventh floor, that’s when they told me you were sent home early from Lebanon.”
She wishes she could walk out and spare herself this shame, but the feeling passes. You learn early in this job that it’s going to require an uncomfortable degree of candor. That you must admit your every trespass, your every failing, to complete strangers. You’re expected to lie to your spouse and your children in the line of duty, but you can’t lie to the Agency. It’s your confessor and parent and spouse.
She fixes her gaze on him. Steady. “You want me to tell you the whole story?”
“It’s your call. If it makes you feel better.”
Who knows, maybe it will. Aside from Security, she’s talked to no one about it. Left the Chief of Station’s office in Beirut so utterly embarrassed, she’d wished the earth would open up and swallow her. Her shame was red-hot, like she’d been on fire. What she needs is someone with a bucket of water. And here is Eric Newman, volunteer fireman. “Maybe sometime. Soon. I’m not ready to talk about it yet.”
He seems disappointed but nods.
“If I’m cleared to work on this, I can only assume they don’t consider me a security threat.” She’s only a danger to herself.
Eric shifts again in his seat. “Well, they had their reservations, but I told them there were extenuating circumstances. There was no runner-up. It had to be you. Because there’s one more thing—something I haven’t told you yet.” The tentativeness falls away and suddenly he looks like the saddest man in the world. “Have you seen the Post this morning?” He is watching her face. “I’m sorry to have to tell you. So, so sorry.”
Enough with the apologies—tell me already. Her skin is crawling. How much bad news can one person take?
Eric takes a deep breath. “Yaromir Popov is dead.”
Her heart does a stutter step. Her first asset. Impossible. This cannot be.
Eric continues, talking over her shocked silence. “It happened last night. He was flying to D.C. From everything we’ve been able to gather, he had no reason to make the trip. It came out of nowhere. State Department didn’t have him scheduled for meetings, no ‘official duties.’ It could’ve been some other business or a personal reason, of course, but . . .” Eric trails off; they both know that this isn’t likely. “Are you okay? It’s got to be an awful shock. Can I get you some water?”
Lyndsey can only blink at him. To the rest of the world, Yaromir Popov looked like a mid-level diplomat in the Russian foreign ministry, a man who filled out the table during negotiations, chatted up visiting foreign delegations, and attended endless rounds of diplomatic functions.
But behind the quiet façade and accommodating demeanor, he was really a high-ranking officer in the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service. A man with thirty years in Russian intelligence.
A man who had been a double agent for CIA.
Lyndsey knows this because Yaromir Popov was her first triumph as a case officer. But there was more to their relationship. She could admit to some people—no one at CIA, of course, but the people who were really close to her—that Yaromir Popov was like a father to her.
And she’d already lost one father. Losing two might be too much to bear.
* * *
—
Time has slowed. Seconds pass like minutes. The sunlight falling across the conference table is so bright, it stings Lyndsey’s eyes. Sound is muffled, like the world has been wrapped in cotton batting, quietly ushered away.
Sh
e pictures Popov’s face. The way he smiled for her, like a delighted parent. Always happy to see her, even when the business at hand was bad. They met in that shabby safe house off Arbat Square or in rented cars parked along quiet Moscow streets. He always carried himself with dignity, but there had been sadness, too. He had been somewhat tortured, ending his career working with the enemy. But his disgust for what had happened to his country under the oligarchs ate away at his belief that the enemy was external. The more patriotic thing to do was to try to rid his country of the parasites.
He had managed to turn his sadness aside, and even seemed to enjoy working with his American handler. To channel his energy into teaching the tricks of the trade—his side of the trade, that is. He had come to see her, over time, as his protégée.
But now, he was dead.
She had been his recruiter, his handler. Yaromir Popov wouldn’t have been a target if it wasn’t for her.
Eric has the office manager bring coffee, dark as pitch from sitting too long on the burner. It unblocks her ears and focuses her eyes.
Her hands are unsteady on the cup, making the coffee tremble. “How did it happen?”
“It looks like a heart attack. He was on the last leg of the Moscow trip, JFK to Reagan National. It departed JFK at eleven p.m., arrived at Reagan about midnight. The attendant said he started showing signs of distress shortly after he boarded. That’s all we know. No surprise, the Russians are demanding the body back right away. We got the D.C. health department to hold on to it, saying he might’ve died of some communicable disease, but they could only do so much. It’s got to go back today. We’re waiting on the report.”
How did they kill him? Russian intelligence is known to love its poisons. They have a long history of political assassination by poison, quirky and cruel at once. Something about the delayed effects and painful drama at the end that appeals to the Russian nature. Lyndsey thinks of Popov dying alone on the plane, panicking as his airways swell shut. Realizing that help is 33,000 feet below. Recognizing what is happening to him, knowing that his choices have caught up to him.