by Alma Katsu
Seeing Kanareyka cry shames him. She really does love her husband, to be willing to go to such lengths for him. He thinks of the women in his life and cannot imagine any one of them capable of the same devotion for him. Quite the opposite: they’d applaud his jailers and encourage them to throw away the key. What Kanareyka is doing for her husband takes tremendous courage. He cannot despise her. If anything, he comes to respect her a bit more.
In any case, it looks as if she is proceeding as planned. Satisfied, he scrabbles back the way he came, inching carefully across the roof before dropping down to the covered porch, and then to the ground, stealing back the way he came like the shadow he aspires to be.
* * *
—
There is one more thing he needs to do tonight.
He drives a few miles down the highway, following the bright streetlamps. The address he looked up after getting the name from Kanareyka. He wants to know more about his adversary, this Lyndsey Duncan.
The parking lot outside her apartment building is completely still. It is what the Americans call a garden apartment, the buildings only a couple stories tall with open stairwells connecting them. It’s not so late that there aren’t lights on in some of the windows. He pulls a pair of binoculars out of the bag in the passenger’s seat.
The curtains looking into Lyndsey Duncan’s apartment are half-drawn, enough to afford Tarasenko a glimpse inside. It’s tantalizing, like peeking through a keyhole. A figure moves back and forth in the room and for a long time is nothing more than a shadow. Like watching a ghost.
But then she stops right in front of the divide and he can see her clearly. Tall, lithe, strong. Long legs, which he has always liked on a woman. As a matter of fact, he likes everything about her: her confidence, which he can tell by the way she stands. The intelligent expression on her face. Her reddish hair, which falls over her shoulders. He can picture himself twisting that hair around his fist. He can picture himself doing a lot of things with this woman. A familiar, not-unpleasant longing comes over him. It’s all he can do not to charge up those stairs and force his way into the apartment.
He could act on his impulses now, but that would ruin everything. Better to play the long game. He stows the binoculars and starts the engine, heading back to his hotel.
Kukla. That will be his name for Lyndsey Duncan. Doll.
THIRTY-NINE
We’ve had eyes on Cassidy since he landed at National.”
Lyndsey sits inside a humongous black SUV, an FBI agent at the wheel, a second in the passenger seat. Sally Herbert sits next to Lyndsey in the back seat, not nervous in the least. They’re streaking down the George Washington Parkway. A cloak of indigo has fallen over the city. D.C. is not a party town at night: the road traffic is thin and the sidewalks empty. The SUV glides through darkness decorated by red brake lights, streetlights, and the occasional distant glow from spotlights trained on a skyscraper or monument.
They’re going to the Hilton in Tysons Corner. Cassidy is staying there while he’s in-country; they know this from the itinerary he filed with Russia Division, which Lyndsey got from Maggie. According to his itinerary, he’ll spend a few days helping Eric with the side operation and then take a week of home leave in Ocean City, Maryland. He has no idea of the welcome he’s about to get.
The driver pulls up in front of the hotel. Lyndsey remembers the reception area from previous visits. It looks something like a futuristic ski lodge, roughhewn wood and stone finishes and modern furniture. There is little activity, thanks to the late hour. A couple strolls through the lobby from the bar, and in the far corner a small party is camped in a comfortable seating area finishing their drinks, light from the flames twinkling off martini glasses.
At reception, Herbert flashes her credentials at the clerk and the poor man’s face freezes as he tries not to betray alarm. “The man who just checked in—what’s the room number?”
On the elevator ride to the sixth floor, Lyndsey tries to calm the pounding of her heart. She’s done a lot of things in her career—shaking surveillance tails while feeling eyes on her back, following adversaries on their way to meet their assets in a crowded shopping district—but leading a team of FBI agents to a colleague’s room isn’t one of them. She hopes she’ll never have to do it again.
Cassidy answers the door and it’s obvious he had no idea what was waiting for him on the other side. He looks like he didn’t get a wink of sleep on the fifteen-hour journey. He’s in the same clothes he wore on the plane, jeans and a sports jacket, rumpled and wrinkled. A faintly sour, stale cloud hangs around him.
“Lyndsey? What are you doing here?” He seems to ignore the credentials Herbert holds up as she pushes her way into the room, less interested in the FBI than in her. They leave an FBI agent on station in the hall as Herbert closes the door.
“I’m Special Agent Sally Herbert of the FBI Counterintelligence Division.” She uses her height to her advantage with Cassidy, who is short, forcing him back a couple steps. With Lyndsey on the other side, Cassidy is boxed against the wall. He cringes as he backs away. He knows he did something wrong.
“We have your management’s permission to speak with you. Why don’t you take a seat?”
He turns away instead, rubbing the back of his neck. He doesn’t want to face us. “Now is not a good time. My flight just got in and I’m beat. Can’t it wait till the morning?”
“I’m afraid not.”
Reluctantly, he sits on the edge of the bed.
“We’re conducting an investigation into one of your colleagues”—Cassidy doesn’t look surprised, but then, Eric would’ve told him about Theresa—“and need to ask you a few questions.”
He runs a hand through his sticky hair, giving him a harried, disheveled look. “Whoever it is, they’re not going anywhere tonight. Look, I’m beat. The Moscow to D.C. route is a bitch. Can’t it wait till morning?” he asks again testily.
Herbert presses on. “New information has come to light concerning Genghis. He believed his cooperation with CIA had been revealed to the FSB, and that’s why he was headed to Washington.”
It’s a bluff Lyndsey fed Herbert, bait to see how Cassidy will react. He shrugs as though it’s common knowledge. “Why else would he be going to Washington?”
“You were the one who told him, right? But I couldn’t find any reporting to the fact—like there should be, right?—so perhaps you can tell us who gave you this information.”
Cassidy’s eyes dart momentarily to Lyndsey, an uncontrollable tell. The unmistakable look of a rat who feels the trap closing on him. “Why do you think it was me?”
This is the missing part, the piece that will bring everything together. Cassidy has got to be involved—he was Popov’s handler, after all—the trigger that sent the old Russian spy running to find Lyndsey.
All they have to do is get him to admit it.
“Masha told me,” Lyndsey blurts. The thought comes to her out of thin air. “Yaromir shared everything with Masha. He shared this, too.”
The color drains from Cassidy’s face. It doesn’t dawn on him to question her, probably because of the immediacy of the situation, the FBI agents hemming him in. “That’s right. I haven’t had time to write it up yet, so much going on. The information came from another of my assets. He told me Genghis was blown, so I passed it on to Genghis. Told him not to panic and to sit tight. We were in the process of deciding what to do for him when he bolted. It wasn’t my fault.”
Cassidy’s gaze shifts left and high, like he’s plucking thoughts from midair, another common tell. It could be that he and Eric didn’t work this part through, or that he’s exhausted and scared, and can’t remember the story they’d come up with. In all likelihood, though, they didn’t bother to tidy up this loose end, confident they wouldn’t be questioned. Popov was a double agent and if Russia found out, they would assassinate him. It happened with un
fortunate regularity. No one would think to question it.
Herbert leans forward, using all her height. “Who is this other source, Tom? And why did you talk to Genghis before Station had a plan in hand to deal with it?”
She has rattled him. He looks at Herbert, and then around the hotel room at the dark gray walls and the curtains rippling over the big glass window. “I’m not going to discuss this here. These are highly classified sources and we’re in a hotel, for god’s sake.”
Herbert is unbothered. They’d hoped he’d make this very objection. “I was just about to say the same thing. Let’s go down to FBI headquarters. We’ll use the classified SCIF there, and then you’ll feel like you can speak freely.”
* * *
—
It was Herbert’s plan to take him to the forbidding FBI headquarters building all along. Now Cassidy is on Herbert’s territory. He was shaken up by the unexpected visit to his hotel room, but now he’s been whisked away, flanked by a pair of strapping federal agents and escorted through the deserted halls of this concrete fortress to a vault deep in the earth. It must feel like he’s being taken to prison. The overhead lights here are harsh and carve deep circles under Cassidy’s eyes. He looks like a convict. He’s left in an interrogation room by himself for a few minutes while Herbert and Lyndsey watch from behind a one-way mirror.
“It’s good to give them time to think,” Herbert says. “Our job tonight is to get him to tell us what his role was.” On the other side of the smoky glass, Cassidy sits with a forced look of blankness. He tries to seem dazed and overwhelmed and above all innocent, but Lyndsey suspects it’s an act. “This isn’t a typical case, and I’m not exactly sure what we should be looking for. I’ll know it when I hear it. But you should be prepared for bad news, Lyndsey. Whatever he did, we might not be able to bring a case against him. A lot of intelligence work falls outside of U.S. domestic law. There’s a good chance that whatever Cassidy did, it was under the direction of his supervisor. Even if it was illegal, and resulted in an unwarranted death, his culpability will be mitigated.”
Lyndsey tries hard to tamp down her anger, to stop thinking of Yaromir Popov. It’s all she can do not to burst into the interrogation room and shake Cassidy hard. How could you do this to him, she wants to ask. He depended on you. What could be worth that man’s life?
Before she can do anything, Herbert gives her a stern look. “I know how you must feel, Lyndsey, but stay with me. We need him to talk. Follow my lead.”
They go into the interview room together. The room is dingy and the sour smell has gotten worse. It’s the smell of fear. How many people have they interrogated here? It must’ve seen all manner of suspects: presumed terrorists and armed robbers and serial killers, yes, also federal types gone bad. FBI agents who cooperated with drug cartels and organized crime, CIA officers who sold their souls to the other side. Aldrich Ames or Robert Hanssen may have sat in that chair. Greed, ambition, bloodlust: these emotions hover in the air like poltergeists, impossible to banish.
Herbert sits in the chair opposite Cassidy, resting her forearms on the table. “You’re in a SCIF, Mr. Cassidy. Authorization for us to talk to you came from the highest levels of your organization. And you should know that I’ve been read into all Moscow Station’s compartments. There isn’t one aspect of your work that you can’t discuss with me. Is that clear?”
Cassidy gives a halfhearted smirk. He may be nervous but he’s not ready to throw in the towel.
Herbert takes in his smirk and nods. “Let’s get right to it, then, shall we? We know you told Yaromir Popov that the FSB knew of his relationship with the CIA. How had you learned this?”
“I told you: one of my assets.”
“You’ll give us his name. And he’ll corroborate this?” Herbert jabs a finger into the tabletop. “Look, we’re pretty sure the FSB didn’t know about Yaromir Popov. So you just told me a lie. Lying to the FBI is a federal offense.”
“It’s not my fault if an asset gave me the wrong information,” Cassidy blurts, shooting upright. “I was trying to protect him.” The reaction is right, but the tone of voice is all wrong: whiny and high. A liar’s voice.
Herbert doesn’t change. She’s a stone wall. “Look, we know something funny’s going on and we know you’re not behind it. You’re a bit player—you’re being used. Be smart. This is your chance to clear yourself, to give us your side of the story.”
A furrow deepens between Cassidy’s eyes. A man having an argument with himself. “You’re right. I was just following orders.”
“So, tell us what those orders were.” More internal struggle. Herbert tries again. “Who gave you the orders to talk to Genghis? Was it the Chief of Station?”
This should worry Cassidy. He doesn’t want to implicate someone wrongly. His frown is twisted; he’s conflicted.
Lyndsey decides to build on that. “You don’t have to say anything, Tom. We’ll take your silence to mean it was Hank Bremer. Just nod if that’s correct.”
From what she’s heard, Cassidy is tight with Bremer. The Station Chief seems to have been supportive of Cassidy, giving him good assets to run despite his questionable record. Cassidy wouldn’t want to burn that bridge. From where he’s sitting, he’s going to need all the help he can get.
He glares at her murderously. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? You have it in for Hank, don’t you?” A good try, but Lyndsey is not going to let him push her buttons.
Maybe it’s the hours and hours of grueling travel, or being surrounded by FBI agents in this dark, airless space, but after another minute of silent struggle, something breaks inside Cassidy. “It wasn’t Hank. Don’t drag him into this—he wasn’t involved. It was Eric Newman. He told me to tell Popov he’d been blown.”
Lyndsey has to force herself not to react. Even with everything she knows and suspects, this is still hard to hear. A man she trusted ordered the death of a man she adored.
Herbert leans forward. “But it wasn’t true?”
Cassidy won’t look in Lyndsey’s direction. “Not to my knowledge, no.”
“Why?” Lyndsey checks herself before she can lunge at Cassidy. How could you betray him? You were his last line of protection.
Cassidy leans back in his chair like a schoolboy caught red-handed. “It was some plan of Newman’s. Look, he told me to do it. That’s what we do, we follow orders.”
“You don’t know what’s behind all this?”
“Oh no, I know what Newman was trying to do.” Cassidy turns to Herbert, his expression perfectly calm. Smug, even. “It’s a trap for Evgeni Morozov.”
His words fall on Lyndsey like a landslide. For a moment, nothing makes sense.
Morozov. Tarasenko’s boss. Tarasenko, Theresa’s handler. But there’s been no connection to Yaromir Popov . . .
Except for Eric. Eric is the only connection.
“Morozov’s been on CIA’s most wanted list for years now. This was a plan to shake him loose, to dangle something he wanted in front of his nose in order to get him to come out. And Morozov took the bait. To snare a CIA officer, someone from the inner sanctum . . . And Richard Warner’s wife, no less. The man Putin hated above nearly all others.”
Stars dance before Lyndsey’s eyes like she’s been hit with a baseball bat. It had been right in front of her, pieces of a puzzle begging to be put together. She sees Eric’s plan now, devastatingly cunning and breathtakingly selfish.
We’re nothing but pawns to him. Popov, Theresa, Richard . . . even me.
Lyndsey opens her mouth to speak but Herbert holds up a hand. “And who is the bait, Tom? Who is Eric Newman using to draw out this Russian?”
Cassidy blinks as though woken from a dream. “I—I’m not sure. I thought it was Popov.”
“He’s dead, so it can’t be him, can it?” Lyndsey slams her hands on the table. “Theresa Warner is the bait. A fello
w officer.”
Only then does Cassidy acknowledge her. He turns his head slowly and smiles, the smile of a mortal enemy. Why would he hate her? She’s younger, and a woman; she’s done nothing to him, except be a better case officer. But that’s the only excuse some people need. “No one put a gun to her head to make her hand classified information to the Russians. She chose to do this herself.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Lyndsey wants to tell him that he was tricked. He thinks he is clever, but he was played by a master. A soulless man with no conscience.
Herbert catches her eye. Don’t say another word. Let him talk.
“You think you know everything, Duncan, but you’re still a rookie. Where would you be without your protectors? Without Reese Munroe looking out for you, or Yaromir Popov? You think no one knows why Popov was so good to you—and for me there was nothing? It doesn’t take a genius to figure it out. The old man was worthless since you left—worthless. If we lost him, it was no big deal.” He looks back to Herbert. “You can’t possibly understand. Morozov has been thumbing his nose at CIA for ten years. Killing one of our COS in broad daylight, in front of his own home. The guys who got Morozov would be heroes. We’d get anything we wanted. We’d be set for the rest of our careers.”
Lyndsey wonders what she would find in Cassidy’s personnel folder: botched operations, personal arguments with colleagues, pettiness and intrigues. Probably a bad marriage, estranged kids, maybe bankruptcies. Not one or two bad choices but a string of them, a chain of mistakes held together by self-pity. Bad people make bad decisions. Weak minds are easily led. It’s obvious that this wasn’t Cassidy’s idea: it was Eric’s. Cassidy is malleable, just what Eric needed.