Red Widow

by Alma Katsu

  Now there’s Lebanon. Actual proof that she is a bad egg.

  Anxiety blooms in her chest like heartburn. She knows there is no link between Yaromir Popov and what happened in Beirut, just as she knows they will look, because that is what the job calls for, chasing ghosts. Hoping to catch something that you can’t see.

  This eternal suspicion, which some would call vigilance.

  How sad to always be suspicious, she thinks as she looks at Raymond. To never be able to trust anyone you work with, not one hundred percent. What that must do to a person over time, filled with mistrust as corrosive as acid. Stay in the job too long and one day, you’re hiring a private investigator to follow your spouse and having the kids microchipped and installing keylogging software on their computers.

  How much does he know about Davis Ranford, about what she did? Everything, probably. No, not everything. He can’t know her feelings. He may know that she and Davis often met at a bar on Armenia Street, even though they avoided nightclubs and going out in general because the threat of being seen together—he was MI6—was too great. But sitting on a restaurant terrace on a Wednesday night to watch the last streaks of light evaporate from the sky seemed safe enough.

  She couldn’t date anyone in the Station. It didn’t take a week after she’d arrived to know there was something off about Beirut Station, a toxic boys’ club led by a sadistic Chief of Station. She’d known when she agreed to the assignment that going from the Russia target to the Middle East would be what they liked to call a “challenge,” needing to prove herself all over again to people who’d just as soon not have the competition. She just didn’t know how bad a decision it had been until she walked through the door. That the old guard in the Clandestine Service clearly had it in for her.

  She couldn’t be friends with coworkers: she couldn’t trust them, that was clear. She’d reconciled herself to a lonely two-year tour when she met Davis at an embassy function. She sensed right away that he was also an outcast, even if she couldn’t tell what personal failing or mortal sin had made him so. Why his colleagues at the British embassy ostracized him—except maybe jealousy, but she was partial to him. She liked his dry wit.

  So many evenings spent on the terrace of the bar on Armenia Street, neither of them saying a word to each other. They’d done a few touristy things—visited the Cedars of God in Kadisha Valley, explored the Jeita Grotto—but more often than not, if they went out in public, they ended up at this terrace bar, sipping gin and listening to bickering rise up from the street below. Davis was in his mid-forties and she’d never dated someone that much older, but it only seemed to amuse him. “It’ll be a huge boost to your ego, you’ll see,” he said with a smile. “You’re so much quicker and nimbler than I am, and know everything that’s popular—books, movies, celebrities—while I will know absolutely nothing. Before long you’ll be wondering what you ever saw in me.”

  It wouldn’t last forever, she knew, but she had been in no rush to end it. She liked that he never stumbled by mentioning their world outside of Beirut: saying that she’d have to visit when he went back on home leave, or offering to join her in America at Christmas. Their two worlds had to remain separate. It was why they didn’t venture outside one or the other’s apartment on the weekend: too great a risk of being seen together. Officers from different intelligence services should not date one another.

  “I don’t see the harm. You’re British,” she’d said once. “You’re practically American.”

  “Is that supposed to be a compliment?” He’d made a face. “Don’t believe that ‘cousins’ talk people like to toss around. MI6 is well aware that Langley hates us, and you’ll find your lovely ass in serious trouble if they find out.”

  Davis was the only thing that made Beirut bearable. He was always honest with her, perhaps the only one in the entire strange city. He’d been in MI6 for over twenty years and had come by his jadedness honestly. “I’m in it for the travel. I’m afraid England’s not big enough for me and my family and my ex.”

  Sitting in this stuffy room with Murphy, she can still picture Davis on the terrace of the bar, the warm night breeze riffling his hair. Can hear the sounds wafting up from the street below, the honking of taxis and occasional catcall from a shopkeeper, as they sit side by side without speaking, wholly given over to the sultry languor. One time she’d complained about Lebanon, some trifling thing she could no longer remember, telling him she preferred Moscow.

  His glance was kind but not apologetic. “Moscow will always be your first love because it was your first assignment. Fret not, you’ll go back one day.” Then he said the words that echoed in her head to this day. “In the meantime, though, you must learn to love the one you’re with.” Is that what she was to him? Nothing more than an opportunity to him, a convenience? She never asked. She would’ve stayed in Beirut, toxic office and all, if she’d been able to stay with Davis.

  Lyndsey snaps back to the moment, breaking the pleasant trance she let herself fall into. There is no loving this assignment, possibly the worst possible job of all the difficult, unpleasant jobs at Langley. But she will do it for Yaromir Popov, because he is dead and she owes him.

  It is then she realizes her mistake. Raymond Murphy is not a dull man trapped in a dull job. That is a façade he has built to lull her into complacency, so she will let down her guard. He wants to ask her about Popov (and probably Davis, too), she can feel it, but he can’t. That’s not how you do the job, running headfirst at it. They are to work together on the disappearance of the Russian assets, yes, but she will be Raymond’s target, too. He will watch her as closely as everyone else.

  She can’t afford to forget that.

  SIX

  Lyndsey arrives early to work the next day, determined to follow her old routine. Predawn alarm, hair pulled back in a ponytail, a protein powder smoothie on the drive to the gym. This is what she wanted, wasn’t it, to slide back into her old life?

  As she slips through the door to Russia Division, Maggie stops her as she heads for the desk in the corner. “We found an office for you. Eric said you should have privacy.”

  Maggie leads the way, carrying a cheerful coffee cup that reads This may be wine next to a drawing of a poodle in a beret hoisting a goblet. The private office is small and out of the way, next to the copy room, but that will do fine. Lyndsey doesn’t want to be in a high-traffic area, anyway. The rest of the people in the Division will be curious about the investigation, once word gets out. Maybe this will reduce the drive-by snooping.

  The office is barely larger than the desk itself, and has obviously been vacated hastily. There are out-of-date books on some of the shelves (World Factbook 2002; inexplicably, an ancient Janes All the World’s Tanks from 1982 in a tattered blue dust jacket). Cheap ballpoint pens and paper clips scattered about like bread crumbs. The chair is tired and worn. At least the desk drawers seem to have been emptied of any classified papers.

  Maggie leans in the doorway. “I’ll get you the keys”—to the door, the desk, the file cabinets—“once the previous occupant finds them all.”

  After Maggie leaves, Lyndsey begins tidying up. It’s going to remain a Spartan cell. There’s no reason to settle in, to bring in photos from home or any other personal touches. It would send the wrong message. She’s not here for the long haul. She’s here to do a specific job.

  She’s just locked away all of the detritus when she notices someone hovering in the door. It’s The Widow.

  Theresa shows the faintest hint of a smile, shy and apologetic. “Maggie told me I’d find you in here. I want to apologize for my brusqueness yesterday. I was crashing a report for Eric and I guess my mind was elsewhere.”

  “I understand completely. No need to apologize.”

  “It looks like we won’t be neighbors anymore. They got you your own space.” Then she cocks her head, hair falling across her face and momentarily obscuring her eyes. �
�Say, have you had any coffee yet? I was just about to head down—would you like to join me? We could catch up.”

  * * *

  —

  It still happens, even after all this time. A head will turn after Theresa has passed. A whisper behind a hand. Only the most brazen gawk openly, eyes widening. Theresa has to know they’re looking at her. And yet she doesn’t react at all.

  They cross the ceremonial entrance to the building, a cavern of white marble and glass. It’s where all the icons are kept. The life-sized statue of Wild Bill Donovan, who led the organization in the OSS days. The Agency seal inlaid into the terrazzo floor, where important visitors are unfailingly positioned for a souvenir photograph. But the most famous feature is surely the Memorial Wall, commemorating the Agency’s fallen, a field of five-point stars, each one solemn and distinct, carved into white Alabama marble. Below, on a little shelf, is the register that bears the name of the Agency employees killed in the line of duty.

  Which one is Richard’s star? Lyndsey wonders.

  Theresa seems to sense what Lyndsey is thinking. “Do you want to see it? Richard’s star?” Before Lyndsey can answer—there can be only one answer, yes, of course—Theresa is off, heels clattering against the terrazzo floor.

  Luckily, there are no groups of visitors lingering in the hallway today. There are tours most days, visiting officials or families allowed in for an award ceremony. But today, except for the guards, they have the alcove to themselves. Theresa stops in front of the big marble wall. “Here it is.” She points quickly at it. The last one, the chiseled edges fresh and crisp.

  She traces the edge with her finger. “Looks rather lonely, doesn’t it?”

  After a respectful minute, Theresa leads the way to the cafeteria. The first pit stop is for coffee, steam rising from the coffee urn as she draws a cup. They pick a table set next to the towering glass wall overlooking a grassy courtyard. They head to the farthest corner, so they will have a buffer of empty space around them.

  It’s amazing how much Theresa has changed from the woman Lyndsey remembers, but it’s understandable given what she’s gone through. Theresa always was thin but in a healthy way, fashionably so. Now she is positively gaunt. Frightening, what grief can do to you.

  Theresa watches steam rise from her cup. “I’m so sorry about yesterday. I’m not normally like that. I try to be friendlier. It’s been hard since Richard’s disappearance. Especially at work.” Theresa lets out an ironic laugh. “I blame the Director, I really do. They broadcast the service for Richard at the Memorial Wall. The Director did it for ratings. He was new at the time, a political appointee. Nobody liked him, so he did it to score points with the workforce.” Her smile is grim. “That was two years ago and still everyone knows my face. You’d think there are wanted posters of me in the restrooms.”

  She isn’t exaggerating. Even though they are hidden away in the corner, Lyndsey notices the stares. What must it be like to have whispers follow you everywhere? That’s her. The Widow.

  Theresa seems to withdraw into herself, not wanting to be noticed. “This isn’t how I thought it would be. There are days when I want to quit. After the incident, they told me to take as much time as I needed. But after a while it felt like I was hiding. I was only forty. I had to figure out how to live in the world again.”

  Lyndsey won’t be forty for some time, but her reckoning has come earlier. There are times when she wants to hide, too, to go back to the way things were. To pretend that things haven’t changed.

  Theresa pushes a pair of narrow gold bangles over her bird-boned wrists. “I had a son to take care of. Brian was only five at the time. He was watching me to make sense of his world. That’s when I realized I didn’t have the luxury of feeling sorry for myself or being mad at Richard for putting duty before his obligation to his family. So, after two months, I asked Eric if I could come back. He said I could if that’s what I wanted. I found a woman to take care of Brian after school, and here I am. It hasn’t been easy. But the counselor said the return to normalcy would be good for Brian. And for me.”

  “You’ve come a long way,” Lyndsey says, trying to sound cheerful.

  “There are still days when it feels like yesterday.”

  “I remember Richard. I had just started in the office. I couldn’t get on his team because everyone wanted to work for him.”

  “He had a great reputation. They thought he’d be running this place one day.” Theresa turns the paper cup of coffee in her hands as she turns her thoughts. “Richard and I met here. It was still common, then, to meet our future spouses at the office. He was nine years older than me. I had a schoolgirl crush on the boss.” She buries her face in her hands in mock embarrassment.

  Plenty of women in the office had crushes on Richard, Lyndsey remembers. At first glance, you wouldn’t think he was the kind of guy women fell for. He was on the slight side. He wasn’t what you call handsome; he had a craggy face, lines etched into it too early. He could be stern. But he was fair, and he always wanted to see the right thing done. He was one of those rare managers who were loved and respected by everyone who worked for them.

  Theresa tosses her head. “I found our attraction rather thrilling, but as things started getting serious between us, Richard insisted I transfer to Eric’s branch. ‘If we’re going to do this, we’re going to do it by the rules,’ he said.” Lyndsey is impressed; there are plenty of supervisors who openly dated subordinates, thinking no one would dare to challenge them.

  She couldn’t think of Richard without thinking of Eric, too. Everyone knew they had come up in the system together, their careers mirror images. Yet they had been opposites in many ways. Eric was good looking in the conventional sense, like a prep school boy, with a thick head of hair and square jaw. He was the appeaser, the one who knew how to cajole and negotiate. Who knew how to tell a joke to ease the tension and could make everyone who worked for him feel good.

  In some ways, Eric seems the more natural choice for a woman like Theresa. She had been the “it” girl in the office at the time. Still, she chose Richard. Perhaps she had been drawn to his intellect: he was easily the smartest man Lyndsey had met at the Agency at that point. If you were asked to predict who would be running things in a decade’s time, everyone would’ve said Richard. Eric would be the deputy, the one who smoothed feathers Richard had ruffled.

  Theresa’s eyes glow. “He was just so different from the men my age. Do you know what we did on our first date? We hiked up Old Rag in Shenandoah National Park. Another man probably would’ve booked a table at L’Auberge Chez François, but there we were in the Virginia countryside on a fall day, getting to know each other during the hours it took to climb up and back. It was glorious, and typical Richard.”

  The good times are seductive, Lyndsey thinks. You believe they’re going to last forever.

  Theresa picks up her debris, packing crumpled napkins into the empty cup. “More than anything, I wish Brian could’ve known what his father had been like here, at the Agency. He had a brilliant mind for our line of work. He made amazing deductions, saw possibilities that no one else did. He engineered these really smart exploits that led to great coups, and ultimately provided for the security of the nation. But Brian will never know—unless he gets a security clearance of his own one day, but I am dead set against that.”

  “Really?” Lyndsey is surprised. Most parents who work at CIA or other intelligence agencies usually hope their children will follow them into the business—or, at least, they wouldn’t be vehemently against it.

  Theresa turns away but not before Lyndsey sees her press her mouth into a firm line. “Not after what I’ve been through.”

  * * *

  —

  They walk back to the office without speaking much. Lyndsey’s not sure what to say. Their conversation in the cafeteria seems to have ended on an awkward note. At one point, Theresa apologizes for do
minating the conversation, though Lyndsey is happy not to dodge questions about herself. She’s not ready to open up yet.

  But a few steps before the door to the office, Theresa finally breaks the silence. “Strange, isn’t it, what happened yesterday?” She can only be talking about Popov. A flash cable had gone around, announcing his death. “Had you heard of him?”

  “Heard of him, yes.” While word of the investigation will come out sooner or later, for now Lyndsey is sure she should play it cool. To honor the compartment that protects the knowledge that Popov was a double agent.

  “He must’ve been one of ours: the Division wouldn’t go on alert like that for just any Russian official.”

  True enough. Still, Lyndsey is careful not to confirm or deny.

  “You said you were conducting an investigation. It’s got to be about this death, isn’t it?”

  Now Lyndsey feels doubly wrong for letting it slip out yesterday. “I’m not free to say.”

  “Of course. I didn’t mean to pry.” Theresa smiles apologetically. “Still . . . you’re getting settled in. It’s all got to be disorienting, topsy-turvy. Let me know if I can do anything to help.” And they slip back into the office, parting silently, Lyndsey feeling slightly better about her return. The prodigal daughter.

  SEVEN

  Back in her tiny office, Lyndsey closes the door. It’s time to put aside interruptions and get started with this investigation.

  There had been an email earlier from Raymond Murphy. He’d started looking into Moscow Station for bad apples and hinted that he’d found a possible suspect. It wouldn’t be the Station Chief Hank Bremer, Lyndsey could anticipate that much. She hadn’t worked with him—Hank had come in as she’d been leaving—but he had a reputation for being rule-bound and old-school, and it is hard to picture a guy like that selling out to the enemy.