Red Widow

by Alma Katsu

  Was he running for his freedom? He wouldn’t flee without his wife, Masha, and daughters, Polina and Varya. She is sure of that—pretty sure. Even though the Russia of today is not Cold War Russia. The spouses and children of traitors aren’t automatically thrown in prison. If he were running, then poisoning him on the plane would send a message to other would-be traitors—and the big middle finger to America at the same time. We knew he was your man and you were not able to save him.

  Now that the shock has eased, she sees pain on Eric’s face. Of course, Eric must be taking Popov’s death hard, too. He knew the man—not as well as Lyndsey, but the Russian asset had been one of Eric’s coups. He owed much to Popov. Nearly as much as Lyndsey.

  Eric won’t want consoling, however, so she presses on. “Do we think his cover was blown?”

  “He should’ve gone to Moscow Station if that was the case. We have procedures for this.”

  And, in this case, there is only one person for Popov to turn to. The person Popov was told to report to. “Who’s his handler now?” Lyndsey asks. When she left Moscow Station, there had been a near complete turnover in personnel. This is not uncommon; the bureaucratic changing of the guard had a rhythm to it. Popov’s new handler hadn’t been decided by the time she left for her next assignment. There had been no overlap, no handoff.

  But Eric doesn’t answer her question. Instead, an eyebrow shoots up: don’t go there. “No one was going to have the same success with Popov that you did. You can’t blame the handler.” Things will undoubtedly get ugly, political. Moscow Station will feel threatened and defensive. His subtext is clear: don’t start attacking Moscow Station and turn this into a war between headquarters and the field.

  Yaromir Popov. The thought of him pushes all other concerns out of her head. She will always be defined in part by the man. She never told him what he meant to her. That for two years, he was the mentor she never had at CIA. The one person, ironically, she felt she could trust.

  Eric stands: this meeting is over. He starts to ease her to the door. “The Director told me to set up a task force to get to the bottom of this. It needs to be small, given the circumstances. We’re not lifting the compartment, for obvious reasons. I need you to work quickly on this. He would like an answer as soon as possible. If the Russians knew about Popov, all of our assets there could be in jeopardy. Lives are at stake.”

  Lyndsey rests her hand on the doorknob and turns to him. “One last question . . . You’ve had some time to think about it . . . If there is a mole, chances are it’s either here or in Moscow Station. Do you have a sense . . . ?”

  “I’d rather it was in the Station, of course,” he says quickly. “And Moscow Station will insist that the mole is here. That’s another reason why I asked for you: both offices will see you as neutral. And for Popov’s sake, I knew you’d want to be involved. So you see, Lyndsey, it has to be you.”

  FOUR

  Eric calls the office manager, Maggie Kimball, a tall, no-nonsense woman, and asks her to help Lyndsey get settled. To Lyndsey, he apologizes: she’ll need privacy for her work but it will take a day or two to clear one of the private offices. In the meantime, she must make do with one of the empty cubicles.

  Every office at Langley, it seems, has a Maggie, a take-charge woman whom everyone turns to when they need something done. Organize the office holiday party, accommodate all the dietary restrictions to make sure that no one is offended or poisoned. Figure out a way to seat three summer interns and two new hires when there are only two empty desks. And, most important, wrangle the boss and make sure he gets his to-do list done each day. One look at Maggie and Lyndsey is sure the woman—a little younger than Lyndsey, highlighted hair piled on top of her head, dark green polish on her dragon-lady nails, tight smile—is more than up to the task.

  Maggie finds Lyndsey a desk in a quiet corner of the floor, half-hidden behind a pillar and a row of safes, the reinforced file cabinets with combination locks that are as big as Sherman tanks. It feels like exile, though for the job Lyndsey is about to undertake, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

  The woman in the next cubicle looks strangely familiar. Lyndsey feels she might know her, though not in a personal way. More like someone you might recognize from a TV commercial. She is fortyish, a few years older than Lyndsey. She is elegant, with narrow shoulders and hips. Her russet-red hair is cut in an old-fashioned bob that goes perfectly with her chic black dress. She looks like the kind of woman you find in the New York Sunday society pages, very white and very thin, the product of one of those aristocratic families who believe in eugenics.

  The woman shows no interest in Lyndsey, continuing to peck at her keyboard as though Lyndsey isn’t standing five feet behind her. It’s odd behavior, but Langley is full of odd ducks.

  Lyndsey steps into the woman’s field of vision and sticks her hand out. “Hello. I’m Lyndsey Duncan.”

  They shake. The woman’s hand is like doeskin wrapped around a mouse’s skeleton, small and soft and crushable. “Theresa Warner.”

  Theresa Warner. Theresa Warner was a junior officer who’d already distinguished herself when Lyndsey first came to Russia Division. Five years ahead and she made the most of every one of them. She looks so different from how Lyndsey remembers her.

  “I actually worked here previously. I think we met, briefly.”

  Theresa’s head tilts like a terrier’s as she puts the pieces together. “Oh yes, Lyndsey. Of course, I remember you.” She must be pretending: there is no reason for Theresa Warner to remember her. They were in different circles then. Lyndsey, fresh out of training and Theresa part of the elite. Worlds apart. “Welcome back.”

  Lyndsey checks out the desk as she waits for the computer to boot up. A steno pad with half the pages ripped out. Two old pens, tooth marks in the plastic shells. A handful of paper clips. Does anyone even use paper clips anymore? “I won’t be staying long. I’m here for the investigation,” she says absently.

  A thin, perfect eyebrow arches. “The incident from last night, you mean? The Russian on the plane? They haven’t told us anything about it yet. It’s all close hold.”

  That’s right, the compartment. You don’t know who has been read in and who hasn’t. She shouldn’t have said anything. “Yes, I suppose you’re right.”

  Theresa Warner turns back to the monitor. Next to her computer is one and only one family photo, a picture of a young boy with dark hair and the biggest eyes Lyndsey has ever seen. No pictures of a husband anywhere.

  That’s because Theresa’s husband had been killed in an Agency operation gone wrong. The pieces come back to Lyndsey now. Theresa Warner is The Widow. They had made a big deal when they put her husband’s star up on the Wall of Honor, splashed around a photo of Theresa from the ceremony. Skeptics snarked it was because she looked like Jackie Kennedy and would remind people of the tragic romance of dying for your country. Lyndsey heard about the incident shortly after she arrived in Lebanon and she never heard any details of what had happened. Close hold, no need-to-know. Like everyone else, she only heard that Richard Warner had died.

  Richard Warner had been a branch chief in Russia Division when she first came on board. Not that she’d ever worked with him. She only knew him in passing. He and Eric had both been branch chiefs then—though he surpassed Eric at some point.

  It is kind of strange to find Theresa still working at Langley. How awful it must be, to spend your days in a place where everything reminds you of your lost spouse. Most people would’ve quit. Of course, everyone’s circumstances are different. Perhaps Theresa can’t afford to leave, or doesn’t want to look for a new job. There is the son, obviously. Perhaps she stays out of loyalty, or the possibility of avenging her husband’s death.

  Suddenly Eric is walking toward her. He looks like he’s on his way to something important, a stand-up over a late-breaking crisis, a meeting with the Director on the seventh floo
r. He is rushed but puts on a good face.

  “Good, you two have met. I was coming to introduce you. Don’t you know each other already? Didn’t you work together in the early days?”

  “No,” Lyndsey says.

  “Well, if you need anything, I’m sure Theresa would be happy to help you get settled.” Then he heads off to fight his next battle.

  Theresa narrows her eyes, studying Lyndsey. “Weren’t you at Moscow Station recently?”

  Lyndsey thinks she knows where Theresa is going with this but she wasn’t there when Theresa’s husband died. Lyndsey opens her mouth to say how sorry she was to hear about Richard, but Theresa cuts her off. “I’d love to catch up, but I don’t have time to talk right now. I have a report to finish. Maybe later?” And with that, she turns her back on Lyndsey and goes back to her keyboard, keys clacking away.

  Dismissed. Lyndsey pokes around the empty desk for a few minutes and then heads to Maggie’s station. The office manager looks up as she approaches.

  “Is there another empty desk I could use? I feel like I’m—imposing on her space.”

  “Oh, don’t mind her. She can be a little chilly.” Maggie drops her voice and leans forward, a curl dropping onto her forehead. “You know who she is, right?”

  Lyndsey nods.

  Maggie glances over her shoulder to see if someone might be listening but there’s no one around. “They call her the Red Widow around here. Because of, you know.” She gestures to her mouth. Theresa’s fire-engine-red lipstick. Not something a widow would wear, is the implication. “Then there’s the sports car. It’s a Jaguar, that really famous model. Bright red. It was Richard’s. She drives it once in a while, when the weather is really nice. Parks it in Richard’s old spot. So everyone will remember him, I guess.”

  “That’s very—loyal of her.” Lyndsey struggles for words.

  Maggie shrugs and turns back to the monitor, to whatever she was doing before Lyndsey came up. “I’m afraid we’re full up, no other desks at the moment. But don’t worry, it’ll just be a day or two. I’m working on getting you a private office. You won’t have to put up with her for very long.”

  Lyndsey walks back to her desk, sobered. She would’ve liked to reconnect with Theresa, but this is not the woman she knew. She has been upended by loss and changed irrevocably. No longer a person harboring the usual hopes and beset by normal tribulations. She has been transformed by tragedy into The Widow.

  FIVE

  Lyndsey has just returned from the vending machine in the hall—vending machine coffee has to be better than the tree pitch in the office’s coffeemaker—when Maggie stops by her desk.

  “There’s someone in the conference room to see you. From CI.”

  Counterintelligence. It’s not the worst news: if it had to do with Lebanon, they’d have sent someone from the Office of Security. The men in Security are humorless, unsmiling and unblinking. After the events of the past month, the accusations and threats, she’s had enough of Security to last her a good long while, thank you.

  There is something unexciting about the man she finds in the small conference room. Counterintelligence are the people who look for in-house spies. In many ways, it’s a small world unto itself, chasing leads that rarely pan out. A dull job for dull, suspicious people. As opposed to the Clandestine Service, her service. The glamourous work, the stuff of legends.

  “Raymond Murphy,” the man says as he rises to shake her hand. His dishwater-colored eyes give her a once-over. She studies his face in return. Wary. Something he’s trying to hide, that he doesn’t want me to see. He’s the kind of man who mows the lawn every Saturday morning whether it needs it or not, shines his shoes every Sunday, always buys the same brand of cereal. “I’ve been assigned to work with you on the task force.”

  It makes sense that Eric would get someone from CI to assist on this. They have access to information that she wouldn’t, from financial disclosure statements to background checks. And computer logs. Still, she can’t help but feel slightly uncomfortable, as though he’s looking over her shoulder, too. All Agency people feel that way about them, she figures. They’re like internal affairs in a police department.

  “I’ve been told that you’re just back from overseas, getting your feet on the ground,” he continues. How much has he been told about her specific situation, she wonders, before admonishing herself to STOP THINKING ABOUT THE THING that hangs over her head like the Sword of Damocles. Her lapse of judgment. Her relationship with a foreign national, an agent of another intelligence service to boot. Davis Ranford, a British citizen . . . and a member of a rival service. The rules are there for a reason, Chief of Station Beirut had said when he sent her back to D.C.

  Rules that others have broken and gone unpunished, but who does the breaking is as important as which rule was broken.

  Murphy gives no indication that he’s aware of the debate raging in her head. He swivels his chair lazily. “I thought maybe we could start with some background, get you set up. Have you ever been involved in an investigation like this before?” He leans back, but she senses he’s not as relaxed as he’d like her to think. “This is probably an insider threat. We like to say Counterintelligence is like an iceberg. The part we can see is probably less than ten percent of what’s really going on. You usually don’t have a clue until something like this happens.”

  He means a double agent. Someone on your team selling secrets to the enemy. It’s not entirely a surprise to Lyndsey. The Agency teaches its employees about treason. They sit in classes devoted to the case histories of famous traitors: Robert Hanssen, Aldrich Ames, Ana Montes. They are made to learn the particulars of their treachery. They are taught the warning signs—unexplained wealth, sudden and unaccountable foreign travel, spurts of sudden chumminess alternating with prickly distance—so they’ll know when to be suspicious if they see these signs in a coworker. So you’ll be able to tell when the person sitting beside you might be selling secrets to foreign masters.

  And yet it seems surreal to Lyndsey. Impossible. The kind of thing that never happens in real life. That only happens in movies.

  “It’s more common than we think,” Raymond says, as though reading her mind. “You should know that going in. We’re going to have to look hard at some of your colleagues and it’s going to feel uncomfortable. You’re not going to want to believe what you’re seeing.” His dishwater-brown eyes don’t seem so vague now. “Chances are good that someone inside this building has committed treason. Maybe even someone you know.”

  She already feels funny. She doesn’t want to judge her coworkers; she knows what it’s like to be judged. “Isn’t it possible that it isn’t someone on the inside? Couldn’t the Russians have found out on their own?”

  He smiles like he feels sorry for her, clinging to a fairy tale. “Well, sure, there’s always a possibility. And if that is what happened, it’ll be your job to prove it. But it’s far more likely that it was someone inside. Someone who knew these guys were working for us.”

  “But it could be Moscow Station. Could you look into the people there, see if there are any possibilities . . .” See if there are any weak links, she means but cannot say. Disciplinary cases, case officers who’ve fallen behind in child support or started drinking.

  “That’s a good division of effort. I’ll look at the Station and you cover Russia Division. I’d like you to start by finding out which officers in Russia Division were working on those cases. Kulakov, Nesterov, and Popov. Check their reactions, how they’re taking it, see if any of them act defensive. You pass those names on to me. I have access to their files, so I can check out their stories, look for unusual activity.” That means financial disclosure forms, security paperwork, requests for unofficial foreign travel. A CIA officer’s personal life is well documented. It’s hard to keep secrets from Uncle Sam.

  “We should check the access lists, too,” Raymond continues.
“Who knew these guys’ true identities in the first place? See how many people we’re talking about. We’ve already started the paperwork to get you approved for the compartments. Get in touch with your Security office.”

  “Okay.” And again, she sees something funny in his expression. A razor-thin but shell-hard veneer. Suspicion.

  He can’t seriously think she had anything to do with this. That’s the thing about dealing with CI: they have a way of making you worry even though there’s nothing to find.

  It’s not Davis Ranford. Raymond Murphy might know about Beirut—let’s face it, he probably knows—but she suspects it’s something else, something that’s been around longer. Maybe he’s heard the stories about her, stories that will haunt her for the rest of her career.

  Because Popov had been a legendary Russian spymaster and she had been his first handler, and they had been close. Lyndsey had gotten the old SVR spymaster to give up more on the Russian spy machine than anyone else in CIA’s history. With that success came suspicion. How had a young officer on her first big assignment been able to succeed where no one else had? Was it because she was merely lucky, or had there been some quid pro quo, some double-dealing? There were some—officers with many years of service with nowhere near the same success—who were sure something bad had gone down, that Lyndsey could not have been that good or that lucky. Men who were as sure of it as they were of anything.

  They had investigated—and found nothing. Because there was nothing to find.

  They can’t seriously think she has been working for Moscow all this time. That she and Popov fed Langley a string of lies to establish her bona fides, to make her look like a wunderkind. In their twisted logic, Popov’s death would make sense: Moscow could’ve killed him to protect her story, if he was the only one who knew the truth . . .