by Alma Katsu
The FSB has made no demands? No offer to trade Richard Warner for one of their traitors? Not even for Aldrich Ames or Robert Hanssen, their most successful recruits? CIA seniors are clearly flummoxed.
And, surely, they mean a trade for Richard Warner’s body. The man is dead.
The language is clear: there’s no reference to Richard in the past tense. The understanding is that the man is alive.
What can we do? Barker asks. We can’t leave him to rot in a Russian prison. We owe Richard more than that.
Richard didn’t go through proper channels, the Deputy Director says. He knew the risk he was taking. He didn’t expect to be bailed out if things got out of hand.
There’s nothing we can do, Moscow Chief of Station weighs in. The Russians refuse to even acknowledge anything happened. They will deny that they have Richard Warner, and if we press the point, we risk exposing CAROUSEL. I’m not going to lose this asset—we’ve lost enough of them because of this fiasco.
Fiasco. The word must’ve dripped like acid onto Eric’s skin. He was already in water hot enough to boil him alive. All his years on the Russia target, his reputation, going up in smoke.
Risk big or go home—wasn’t that always Eric’s motto?
But not Richard’s. Yes, there’s something here that niggles at Lyndsey, like a buzzing gnat.
Finally, the Director weighs in. Our hands are tied. There’s nothing we can do for Richard, poor bastard. Maybe the Russians will change their mind one day. For now, we let it go. Seal the records.
No one speaks up, according to the report.
And Theresa? The Deputy Director asks the question.
Tell her nothing. Let her think that her husband is dead.
Who could be so heartless to keep this from Theresa? Lyndsey wonders. That director, the political appointee, the one before Chesterfield? Some outsider, oblivious to the Agency’s obligation to its people.
It’s right there on the page, who said it.
Eric Newman.
Eric Newman told them to keep this information from her.
It went on: We don’t know that we’ll ever get him back. Let her get on with her life. There’s no reason for her to suffer for his mistake. Isn’t it better for her this way?
No one objects. Not the Director, not the Deputy Director. No one speaks up for Theresa.
I swear she’ll never know, Eric goes on. It remains on the seventh floor. We’ll be the only ones to know.
And it’s done.
Lyndsey pushes away from her desk, her heart pounding in her chest like she’s just run a marathon at a sprinter’s pace.
This is unbelievable—and yet it is completely plausible. In the clandestine service, you hear rumors of assets captured by foreign security services and left to rot in jail for years and years. It’s the risk they all acknowledge and accept.
But it only happens to assets, foreigners who decide to give away their country’s secrets. This doesn’t happen to CIA officers. There are always secret negotiations, trades for an adversary’s agent languishing in a U.S. prison. Right? That’s what the Clandestine Service would have its new hires believe.
Two years in a Russian prison. Lyndsey can only imagine what it must be like for Richard.
And Theresa . . . They decided she would never be told. Eric made the suggestion, the men in suits backed him up. Left his friend to rot in a Russian prison, to be tortured, maybe even killed, and leave the wife thinking he was gone forever. And all the stories Eric’s told, over and over, making him look like the good guy, the hero who fought for her . . . Lyndsey feels a stab in her chest like a cold dagger plunged deep.
There is no indication that Theresa ever found out the truth, but if she did . . .
There is her motivation for working with Russia. To get back at CIA for their betrayal.
Lyndsey’s stomach drops, like being pushed off a cliff.
This is a tangled, tangled web of deceit. And at the heart of it, The Widow, bruised and battered.
THIRTY
First thing in the morning, Lyndsey marches into Eric Newman’s office.
It’s seven thirty. She’s barely slept, thanks to the Razorbill reports she read hours earlier, still percolating like a narcotic in her veins. Luckily, at this hour Russia Division is nearly empty, just the same early birds hunched over their monitors, the same blue light flickering in the dimness. None of them pay attention to her as she heads straight to Eric’s office and closes the door.
His head jerks up at the sudden intrusion. “I’m getting ready for the eight thirty stand-up. Can this wait?” No smile, no “good morning.” It’s like he was expecting her. Perhaps there was an email in his inbox from the Watch, letting him know someone was given access to the Razorbill compartment last night.
She folds her arms across her chest. “Were you going to tell me about Richard Warner?”
The energy seems to go right out of him. Then he stiffens. He pushes back from his desk but remains in the chair, looking up at her. “So, you know—”
“About Razorbill, yes. A mention slipped through sanitization. I was read into the compartment last night,” she says, not wanting Eric to cut her off before she can ask all her questions.
He almost seems relieved that she knows, as though he’s wanted to say something all along. “You don’t know the half of it.” He rises to his feet and starts to pace, full of a wild energy. “It was hell. I thought I was going to get brought up on charges. I would’ve, if Roger Barker had his way.”
Few people survive a clash with Barker, head of the Clandestine Service. He looks like your sweet old grandfather but is rumored to play as rough as legally possible. What big teeth you have, Grandfather. The better to eat you up with, my dear.
“You let Theresa think her husband was dead.”
“It wasn’t my idea.”
“That’s not what the transcript said.”
An expression passes over his face, angry, then gone. Tamped down. “I don’t know what’s in this transcript you’re talking about . . . It’s a mistake, then. Maybe done on purpose, to make those snakes in the room look better. You know I’d never do that to Theresa. You’ve heard me defend Richard—and try to protect Theresa.”
Yes, she has. “Does Theresa know Richard is alive?”
“What difference does it make?” He sounds miserable.
“Motive, Eric. It gives her a motive to go to the Russians.”
His face reads pain. His brows furrow and the corners of his mouth collapse. “She knows. Jack Clemens made a deathbed confession. I guess he wanted to clear his conscience.”
She heard about Clemens’s death. He had been Eric’s deputy for a long time, even though he was much older than Eric and that he was past the time to be running things. Some grumbled that Eric made him deputy precisely because he wasn’t very good. He got a cushy position and plenty of time to play golf and in return, stayed out of Eric’s hair and never made him look bad. Why else would Eric carry him all these years? the skeptics asked. Others swore there was nothing nefarious in it, that Eric was just doing a favor for an old man and helping preserve his dignity.
There were two sides to everything. What mattered, and what was almost impossible to find out, which was the truth? “And when was that?” she asks.
There’s that frown again. There’s definitely something wrong with Eric’s frown, a complexity that defies classification. An indicator that’s being repressed. “Jack died in early May.”
Lyndsey works through the months in her head: if Theresa had acted on Clemens’s information right away, the timing fits. “Did she come to you? Did she ask for your help?”
“Does it matter? I told her there was nothing I could do, because there wasn’t. The seventh floor wasn’t going to change their minds. I didn’t think she’d go to the Russians, for god’s sake. I would’
ve reported her if I thought she was a danger.” He stands up. “Look, what you saw in that file made you mad, I get it. It certainly doesn’t paint me in a flattering light.”
“Eric, I want to believe you. I want to be on your side. Be straight with me: why didn’t you tell me about Richard? You put me in charge of this investigation—I should’ve known.”
He turns on his heel and starts pacing. “It was highly compartmented, one of the Agency’s most closely held secrets . . . I didn’t think they would give it to you. Because of what happened in Beirut.”
That stings.
He continues, not stopping for air, rolling over her. “What does it matter, anyway? You figured it out for yourself. I didn’t have to tell you. You got to the truth on your own. And—how did that happen, exactly? How were you able to see this transcript?”
“I saw the cover term in a report in one of the old files. I went to Patrick Pfeifer in the middle of the night—”
Eric switches from controlled to ballistic in the blink of an eye. “You went to the Chief of Staff, behind my back?”
There’s a nasty edge in his voice. “Not behind your back—he was available, we know each other . . . slightly. I saw there was a compartment and asked him to get me access. It took five minutes.” Then, she thinks to add, “We didn’t discuss the case.”
Eric is quiet. Lyndsey knows there’s more to this investigation than meets the eye. There’s more she’s not seeing—yet. Like most everything at the Agency. A long hall of smoke and mirrors.
Then suddenly, he’s across the room, standing right in front of her. “What happened with Richard was one of the worst moments of my life, personally and professionally, and I’m willing to talk to you about it—just not now, okay? I have to get ready for the stand-up and I don’t want to be thinking about all this while I’m standing in front of the Director.” He’s searching her eyes, trying to read her. He wants to know if she believes him. “You can trust me, Lyndsey. I brought you into this, didn’t I? Made your problem go away?”
What’s going on? She feels as though she’s a step behind, that she’s missing something. Eric hasn’t answered her question, not really: why didn’t he tell her that Richard Warner was still alive? Was it nothing more than an honest lapse in judgment, as he says?
He turns his back to her, gathering the things he needs from his desk. Portfolio, pen. “Don’t let this rattle you. We’re almost there, Lyndsey. Keep your eye on the ball: Theresa is the bad guy here. This could be the biggest catch for Russia Division since—since you brought in Yaromir Popov. Keep working it—but come to me first, if you learn anything more, understand?” And then he’s gone, leaving Lyndsey alone under the harsh glare of office lights, wondering what just happened.
THIRTY-ONE
Well, well, well.
A few weeks ago, from across the office, Theresa watched Lyndsey in conversation with Jan Westerling.
As everyone in the office knew, her asset was just found dead. Westerling was young, so this may well have been the first person she has known, personally, to die. And to die so horribly, so violently. She was shaken so badly that she burst into tears in the office, not a good place to display emotions, especially the weak, “female” kind. Someday she’ll rue it, realize it set her back in ways she couldn’t know.
Theresa remembers the incident now, and tries to tamp down the accompanying wave of panic. Who else might Lyndsey have spoken to? Theresa should’ve thought of this earlier, done something about it. What else is she forgetting?
It’s exhausting being on high alert all the time. When was the last time Theresa did her actual job? She should be going over the reports coming in from Moscow Station but it’s nothing but low-level assets, handled by bored case officers who have been going through the motions for years. She’s supposed to read these reports and put the pieces together, to see the bigger picture. Occasionally she is asked to translate, her Russian that good fifteen years after college. She hasn’t done any real work for days, maybe weeks, but it would be easy to catch up before anyone asks.
If something else doesn’t happen first.
All she can think about now is keeping two steps ahead of Lyndsey and the investigation. She listens for footsteps behind her, waits for the hand of an officer from Security to fall on her shoulder. You’re coming with us, ma’am.
But this hasn’t happened.
After a minute—checking her watch, pretending to be thinking of some important thing, a reason to be standing in the aisle like this—Theresa turns around and scoots through a little-used back door into the hall. Once outside the vault, she feels better. It’s less likely that she’ll be observed out here. People come and go up and down the hall, and no one takes note. She joins them, walking with just enough purpose to give the impression she’s on her way to a meeting.
Lyndsey was talking to Jan Westerling. It could be coincidence: maybe Lyndsey saw Westerling crying and wanted to comfort her, but Theresa senses that wasn’t it. Lyndsey isn’t integrated into the office yet. She’s not part of the team. She doesn’t know Westerling, and isn’t the den mother type. Lyndsey was talking to Westerling for a reason.
It’s obvious what she’s doing: she’s talking to the reports officers for the three Russian assets. She’s trying to put the pieces together. Theresa listens to the sound of her own heels echo off the walls. Loud and sharp and insistent, drawing attention to her. You’d better run away. They’re coming for you.
Don’t look guilty. Whatever you do, don’t look guilty.
Theresa is going to have to find out who else Lyndsey has spoken to. Without conscious thought, her feet have brought her to Kyle Kincaid’s office. To this domain of former military with their telltale clipped haircuts and their self-consciously unfashionable manner of dress, as though they’re not quite used to picking out shirts and ties. Wrong colors, cheapish synthetic fabrics. They joke with each other loudly, and their desks are messier than over in Russia Division, as though there is no one to tell them that appearances matter.
Kyle Kincaid sits at his desk with his back to her, unaware of her approach, even though the boyish chatter dies down as she walks into the bullpen, as the men stop and stare at her. They don’t know she’s The Widow; they only see an attractive woman.
She hasn’t thought of what to say to Kincaid but she’s not worried; it will come to her. It always does. She’s a cat who always lands on her velvet paws. He looks up when she stands beside him, and his face lights up. “I was in the neighborhood and thought I’d drop by,” she says. She hopes her smile looks genuine.
They leave the vault and meander to the end of the hall, walls of glass with a view of the parking lots. It is dead space where no one ventures unless they have come for the vending machines. They have privacy.
He seems at a loss. He sneaks glances in her direction like a schoolboy afraid to ask her to the dance. Like all popular girls, cheerleaders and prom queens, it will be Theresa who will have to do the leading, carefully shepherding him along to get him to say what she wants him to say.
“You heard what happened to the other missing asset?” she asks in a low voice. There are few secrets in the Agency. “I wasn’t sure if the news got out of Russia Division yet.”
“What? No,” he answers, quickly masking his surprise. He doesn’t want to look out of touch. She tells him about Kulakov’s messy end while at the same time tamping down her guilt. She’s almost managed to erase the pictures from her mind. It’s amazing how well she’s learned to compartmentalize. It’s survival: concentrate on putting one step after the other. “And your asset—any word on him yet?”
He shakes his head.
She wants to ask about Lyndsey. She wants to know if Kincaid has spoken to her yet, what Lyndsey may have told him, how much she knows. If she mentioned Theresa’s name. The problem is she can’t think how to do this without making Kincaid suspicious.
<
br /> Before she can think of a way, however, Kincaid surprises her. He steps in closer than is proper in the workplace, so close that he can practically see down her cleavage. She can smell the dying scent of his deodorant and faint traces of the last thing he ate. Too intimate too fast.
“Would you like to go out to dinner with me? It’s hard to talk here at work, don’t you think? Someone always listening. It would be easier to speak freely out of the building.” This is a funny thing to say under the circumstances. There’s something about his tone and the hard glint in his frankly untrustworthy eyes that make her think there’s something he hasn’t told her.
She’s losing control. Like with Tarasenko and Morozov. Someone she thought was a pussycat might turn out to be a tiger.
She feels the knife edge of panic, but it’s not enough to keep her from accepting. After all, she has to know what he may have said to Lyndsey and he’s right, it will be easier to talk outside of work. She doesn’t want to have anything to do with Kyle Kincaid, socially or otherwise—but she has no choice. It’s a risk she has to take.
“Why Kyle, I thought you’d never ask.”
* * *
—
Theresa pulls into the parking lot of the restaurant and turns off her Volvo’s engine. She sits behind the wheel, not looking to see if she is being watched. A voice in her head tells her to turn around, that it’s not too late. She can send the sitter home early, wipe the makeup off her face, curl up on the couch to watch a Disney movie with Brian, and leave Kyle Kincaid sitting at his table alone, wondering what happened to her.