by Alma Katsu
Is Reese right? Lyndsey has no way of knowing without meeting Cassidy for herself. In the meanwhile, she’s always known Reese’s judgment to be sound. She should trust him—for now.
“Thanks, Reese.” As she hangs up, it hits her how much she wishes it was Reese here at Langley. How much she trusts him. How exposed she feels at headquarters, near-friendless and alone.
SIXTEEN
A flicker from the computer screen catches Lyndsey’s eye. Her chat window blinks at her. She squints: there’s a message from Randy Detwiler, the poison expert. I have a thought about the toxicology report. Come see me. I am at a conference the rest of today but will be back in the office tomorrow . . .
She makes a mental note to contact Detwiler in the morning.
In the meantime, she thinks about how she found Detwiler. The tool that helps you find experts scattered across the Agency. Perhaps she can use it to find someone who could advise her on this investigation, weigh in on what she’s done and tell her what she needs to do next. She feels like she’s missing a lot.
Instead of searching on some term—unsure of what term to try—Lyndsey goes to the forum home page. There’s an index of groups by topics. She marvels as she scans pages and pages of topics, a map of parts of the Agency she never knew about. Who would’ve thought there were experts here on desert agriculture and renewable energy and econometrics? It seems endless, this river of expertise.
She comes to the section on Russia. It is huge, bigger than all the other categories—of course. It is one of the oldest and most important targets. She is transfixed as she pages through the subgroups and threads of discussion. No wonder Russia Division is so quiet: the office chatter has gone underground. They quietly ask questions of one another in this forum, everything from the mundane (Is there a problem with the printers this morning?) to the profound (Who will rise to lead the All-Russia People’s Front if Putin were to die suddenly?). Lyndsey tiptoes through the threads, feeling as though she has stumbled on a secret cocktail party, eavesdropping on conversations and no one realizes she’s there.
You could use this to spy on the office. It doesn’t provide everything you need to know, but it would be a start. It would point you in the right direction, provide clues.
She works her way methodically through the sub-forums, noting who is working on which targets and who chimes in on their threads. She watches the communities forum. The names start to repeat themselves: here’s the guy who always has an opinion on Russian weapons, here’s the guy who knows everything about Russian troll farms. The names rarely cross between groups and the ones that do are either the sage hands who have worked in the Division forever or the burnouts with too much time on their hands.
She fleshes out a diagram on a piece of paper. In the middle of each group are the people who ask the most questions on a subject or seem to be at the center of discussions on that topic. Next, she lists the people who chime in or occasionally post their own questions. She fills a page, then three, then five. Two hours later, she has pieced together a skeleton of a network diagram of the office. The curious thing, she sees, is that it provides a level of detail that isn’t generally known, the precise targets or cases—or assets—that are only known to supervisors.
Lyndsey runs her finger along the spokes in the diagram. There is Jan Westerling, the reports officer for Lighthouse, the scientist, surrounded by all things Russian research and development. She asks questions about metamaterials and nanotubes and 3D printing. The number of people in her circle are few. The names Lyndsey doesn’t recognize she assumes are in the Directorate of Science and Technology but there are some from Russia Division, people she knows.
Kyle Kincaid sits at the intersection of military targets and cyber. The group that follows his posts is made of military and cyber experts and they mix it up freely. Though she notices Kincaid doesn’t post many questions himself; probably doesn’t want to be seen needing help. Mostly he chimes in on other officers’ posts or gives his opinion on a breaking piece of news. She smiles when she sees one of the old Russia hands smack down one of his naïve assumptions. It stings when it happens but it’s how you get better in this business, being schooled gently in public.
Still, Lyndsey hasn’t found any posts explicitly about Lighthouse or Skipjack, the military officer. You could infer a few things from the posts she’s seen, but nothing about a specific asset and certainly no true names.
Lyndsey stands and stretches. She looks at the clock on her monitor: it’s nearly one p.m. No wonder she’s stiff: she’s been sitting motionless for hours.
Her eye falls back to her notes, lingering over the crude network diagram. It’s like she’s got a whole new way of thinking about the people in the Division, like she can see an invisible spider’s web that connects them. Ruth Mallory tends all the discussions about Russian internal security like a busy mother hen (which begs the question, who will take over when she retires?). Zach Gelfman, the other officer still working from the Soviet era, is there whenever a question comes up about the Red Square days.
Lyndsey notices that Zach Gelfman comes and goes. Always watching, apparently, only decloaking when a topic comes up that he’s interested in.
Always watching.
Which gives her an idea.
She runs a finger over the sheets, looking for the names that dip in and out of conversations. She recalls vaguely that there is only a small handful of these gadflies, alighting in the strangest places, with no apparent consistency. They’ll comment on anything, from Russian performance in the World Cup to food prices in the outer oblasts to the depletion of old-growth forests in Siberia. The names she finds confirm her suspicions: these are the kooks, people with axes to grind and grievances whom no one listens to anymore.
And, curiously, Theresa Warner.
Lyndsey double-checks her diagram but there is Theresa’s name popping up here and there like a hummingbird. From what she recalls of Theresa’s posts, the ones she read, they’re never anything substantive. Theresa usually just surfaces in the conversation, drops a tidbit of something useful.
The IM window in the corner of her screen flashes: it’s Theresa. Like a genie or a demon, seemingly summoned by the mere thought of her. Lyndsey is so startled that, for a few seconds, she can only blink at her monitor.
Want to grab lunch? Theresa asks.
Sure, Lyndsey types after another second’s hesitation. To turn her down might seem suspicious. Not that there’s any reason to be suspicious.
She locks her screen before heading out the door. She looks out at the big, open office, the physical representation of the diagram she’s just made, the invisible spider’s web of links hanging in the ether. She makes a mental note to find out who is in the corner cubicle: many double agents favored secretive spaces to reduce the chance of being seen doing something they weren’t supposed to be doing.
She looks in the direction of Theresa’s cube, and then Eric’s office. Should she tell him what she’s discovered even though she’s not sure what it means? It would be good to have him weigh in on her deductions. She needs perspective. Maybe it all means nothing. It’s easy to get lost in a forest of shadows.
Lunch first, she decides. What’s the harm in that?
* * *
—
Lunch is salad and more coffee and Theresa’s story of how Brian has started asking for a dog. “A puppy, to be precise. How do you tell a little boy that he can’t have a puppy? That mommy has no time to take care of a puppy? I blame our neighbors—their Labrador just gave birth. The wife offers one to Brian every time we see her. Am I a bad mother? I feel like I’m robbing him of his one chance to grow up with a dog . . .”
Lyndsey listens, stabbing listlessly at lettuce, but all the while her mind is on what she left behind at her desk. She can’t help but wonder, What were you doing in the network chats, Theresa? Of course, she broaches nothing with her friend.
Eventually, they amble back to the office, and Lyndsey can’t wait to head to her little office.
There’s a bombshell waiting for Lyndsey when she gets back to her computer. An email from Murphy:
Katherine Franklin was found dead in her townhouse in Springfield this morning. Security was dispatched to her house when she did not report for duty at her normal time and did not respond to supervisor’s phone calls. EMTs found her unresponsive and she was taken to the nearest hospital, where she was pronounced dead. An autopsy will be conducted but preliminary diagnosis is suicide by overdose. A note was found at the scene and, after review by Security, the contents will be shared with you. While not admitting guilt, she does express remorse for her mistakes in judgment.
Lyndsey clutches at her chest. She spoke to Franklin just yesterday.
Now the woman is dead.
Before she can absorb the news, however, there’s a briefing to attend, and she gets pulled into another meeting. Hours pass, during which she turns the news about Franklin over in her mind until she is almost numb to it. I can’t process this right now. There was something else I needed to do . . .
That’s right. The forum.
It’s the end of the day before she can go back to the forum and search on Theresa’s posts. Luckily, it’s easy to find them, just a couple clicks and she can pick up where she left off.
What have you been up to, Theresa? Who have you been talking to?
Theresa replied to Jan Westerling. And Kyle Kincaid.
Friendly little connections made to both reports officers.
Suspicion flares up like acid reflux. Lyndsey tamps it down, blaming the lateness and hours spent poring over tiny bits of information that are now all cloudy in her mind. There’s an innocent explanation for it, she assures herself.
Get a good night’s sleep and take another look in the morning. Don’t stew on it now.
Lyndsey flips the light switch and hurries past Eric’s office. She definitely won’t bring this up to him now. For something like this, you need to be sure.
* * *
—
Theresa leans in the doorway to her son’s bedroom, watching him sleep. It’s one of her favorite things to do. He’s so peaceful—not that he’s not peaceful most of the time. He’s such a quiet kid, it worries her sometimes. He can sit completely still for hours, you can barely tell he’s breathing. Not many kids can do that.
Why did she bring up Brian when she spoke to Lyndsey at lunch? She hates to do that; she doesn’t want Brian involved in this horrible business at all. Though it’s impossible: he’s at the very heart of it. She’s doing it for Brian. Though she would never, ever resent Brian for it. It’s her own choice.
She would love to let him take one of the neighbors’ puppies. She can picture the two of them in the yard, Brian running and laughing and calling to the dog, the puppy nipping and jumping. Brian acting like a seven-year-old boy instead of like a ninety-year-old man, always so careful because he knows the earth can open up and swallow you whole at any time. It happened to his father, didn’t it?
But: no puppies. It wouldn’t be fair to the dog. Where they’re going, they’d only have to leave it behind.
SEVENTEEN
SIX MONTHS EARLIER
Theresa Warner always disliked hospitals. For one thing, there was the air, so sour. The antiseptic tang of it turned her stomach. And then there was all that uncertainty, long hours of waiting. She never was good at being patient. This hospital, Sibley Memorial, reminded her of past visits: days spent in the ICU when her father was dying, or that time Brian fell from a tree. Four hours in the emergency room for ten stitches to close a gash on his forehead. Fretting over whether it would leave a scar.
She came straight from work, feeling out of place in her navy suit and heels. Everyone else was dressed in comfortable clothes, ready for a long day in the waiting room or at a loved one’s bedside. Then there were the nurses and cleaning staff dressed in well-worn scrubs, but also latex disposable gloves and aprons. That settled it: she wouldn’t touch anything. She wasn’t going to bring some god-awful germ home to her son. Antibiotic-resistant germs were out of control, new ones found every day, ones that ate the flesh from your bones, could kill you before the week was out. And they all lived at the hospital.
Under ordinary circumstances, Theresa would not be visiting Jack Clemens. But Eric Newman had told her that Jack had asked especially for her. Jack was not someone she knew well; he belonged to her past, a former colleague of Richard’s. She was not about to deny a dying man (pancreatic cancer, no less, no coming back from that) but she wasn’t happy about it. Sibley was in the District, not an easy drive from McLean. It meant leaving work early to beat rush hour traffic but worse, it meant time away from Brian. It was bad enough that they were apart the entire day because of work and school, which couldn’t be helped but she resented anyway. She doubly resented any imposition on her time outside the office. Even for a dying man. Her throat closed as she imagined the terrible things that could happen to Brian if she wasn’t there to protect him. A home invasion. A tree falling on the house. She never had this crippling anxiety before Richard’s death, of course. She kept waiting for it to fade but it only got worse with time.
She scurried through the maze of hospital corridors, wondering what Brian was doing at that moment without her. Probably sitting on the love seat in the den with the cushions stacked around him like his own little bunker. The National Geographic channel, his favorite, would be on—it was always on, like white noise—but he would have one eye on the clock, watching for her return. He would be deaf to the sitter, listening only for the sound of his mother’s car pulling into the driveway.
Theresa hesitated outside Clemens’s room, gathering her resolve. You’re here, just get it over with. For Richard’s sake. The hospital bed was surrounded by high-tech equipment. Lit-up boxes, adorned with red LED numbers, beeped. A monitor displayed vitals in lines and numbers. Tubes and wires hung from the ceiling and twisted around the bed rails like vines in a jungle. A nurse stood to one side, squinting at the monitor as she typed at a portable stand.
And in the center of the bed, completely dwarfed by all the equipment, was the shrunken figure of Jack Clemens. He had once been a good-looking guy, secretly admired by more than one woman in Russia Division, but was now practically child-sized and bald from chemo. It made him seem like an old, old man but—Theresa did the math in her head—he should be in his early fifties. A breathing apparatus sat on his face like a creature from an Alien movie. There were dangling tubes everywhere; he looked like a frail white spider at the center of a very large web.
Theresa didn’t notice Jack’s wife at first. She was a chunky, sturdy midwestern sort with dyed blond hair, disproportionately large next to her withered husband. She rose from a chair, a balled-up tissue clenched in her hand. Theresa felt sorry for her. She was faced with a horrible reality: her husband would not be with her much longer. That was inarguably terrible, yes, but it was a blessing Theresa had never had. To see her husband’s death coming. To have time to make that emotional adjustment. To be with her husband at the end. You think this is the worst thing that could happen to you but it’s not. This is a luxury, she wanted to say to Clemens’s wife. At least you get to say goodbye.
She knew she was a bad person for thinking this, but she didn’t care.
On seeing Theresa, Jack Clemens’s dim eyes lit up. A desiccated hand clawed at the breathing mask.
Theresa felt a rush of alarm at the sight. She turned to the nurse. “Should he be doing that? Shouldn’t that stay on?”
But the nurse only pulled the mask off the man’s face matter-of-factly. “Oh no, he doesn’t need this, strictly speaking. It just makes breathing easier,” she explained.
“Theresa. Beautiful as ever.” Jack’s voice was barely audible. “Thank you. For coming.”
Theresa stood by Jack�
�s bed, determined not to touch anything. Germs. “I’m sorry that it has to be under these circumstances.”
He nodded toward the foot of the bed. “My wife. Helen. I don’t think. You’ve met,” he said, laboring for breath like an asthmatic.
“I don’t believe so.” She extended a hand. “Theresa Warner. Jack and my husband were old friends.” Theresa wasn’t going to explain about Richard or share her personal story with Jack’s wife. If the two men had been close—and Theresa had no evidence of that, Jack’s name rarely coming up in all the time she was married—then Helen would already know what had happened. If not, then, there was no need to rehash it, not with Richard gone and Jack with so little time.
The wife shook Theresa’s hand limply. The grip of a woman in shock.
Jack looked at his wife. “Give us. A minute alone,” he said. How many times had he asked that of her, a CIA spouse? She didn’t seem surprised, not in the least. Secrets, right up to the end.
Clemens waited as the wife and the nurse shuffled out, his eyes trained on Theresa. There was something ominous in his stare, his silence. What in the world could this be about? Suddenly, she wished she hadn’t come. She wanted to leave before he could say whatever it was he wanted to tell her.
“Jack—” She looked longingly to the door.
He held up a hand to stop her. “Theresa, I have something to tell you. I’m sorry. I didn’t tell you sooner.” Then he stopped abruptly, coughing, then reached toward a pink plastic jug on a counter, a bendable straw jutting out of it. She held the jug for him as he drank. It reminded her of the early days with Brian, the sippy cups.