by Alma Katsu
She feels exhausted, suddenly. She aches all over, like she’s been dragged behind a truck. Days and weeks of searching, searching, searching—and this was under her nose all along.
Tricked. It was all a trick.
Cassidy is mad and red-faced, like a crying infant. He’s been waiting to say these things for a long time and now it’s his chance to show them—Herbert, the uninformed, and Lyndsey, the misguided—who really is the better man. “Here’s the other thing you don’t know, either of you: what Eric did, that’s the way it is at CIA. We’re supposed to be bold. We’re supposed to do the things nobody else can. You want to be all high and mighty and make us out to be the bad guys, but it only goes to show that you don’t get it. We didn’t do anything wrong here. The ends justify the means—you’ve heard that before, haven’t you, Lyndsey? Well, this is what it looks like.” He stares hard at her. “If you think what Eric Newman did was wrong, you don’t belong and you never will.”
Cold shivers run down Lyndsey’s body. So, assets like Yaromir Popov and officers like Theresa Warner can be toyed with so casually, because they don’t matter. The irony—lost on Cassidy—is that if Cassidy thinks Eric will be loyal to him and protect him now that the whole thing is unraveling, he’s delusional. There is no honor among spies, apparently.
“If you don’t think big, you’re not doing your job,” he says belligerently. “The only crime is getting caught.”
Where has Lyndsey heard that before?
* * *
—
They slip into a nearby room to confer, leaving Cassidy alone.
Herbert has an assistant fetch water, coffee, to give Lyndsey time to recover. Herbert excuses herself to check her cell phone while Lyndsey takes in everything she has heard. How she wishes she could leave the building, get into her car and drive. To look at something—anything—that will take her away from where she is. She feels the need to purge the deceit and lying from her head.
Lyndsey has to hand it to Herbert: she has a great poker face. She has no idea what the FBI squad supervisor is thinking at this moment.
“Well, now you know what I was working on,” Lyndsey says. “Eric Newman ordered Yaromir Popov’s death, and pushed Theresa into going to the Russians. Theresa was bait to lure Morozov out of the country. But Popov—I’m still not sure why he had him killed.”
Now that she’s said the words out loud and feels the truth of them in her heart, it only takes a second for Lyndsey to push that last puzzle piece into place.
It was for her.
Eric killed Popov to entice her to do the investigation. It wasn’t that Eric had faith in her: no, it was the opposite. To lead the investigation, he needed someone he could dupe and manipulate. To make sure they came to the right conclusion: that Theresa Warner was a double agent for Russia and that she’d done so out of spite and malice.
Lyndsey was nothing more than a pawn. In a way, she is responsible for Popov’s death.
For a moment, she can barely breathe. The human lie detector—I missed every sign.
She opens her mouth to tell Herbert—but stops. It is too embarrassing to admit. Too shameful.
It doesn’t matter: Herbert doesn’t give her more than a moment to recover—or maybe she can’t feel the depths of Lyndsey’s distress. She runs a hand impatiently through her short hair. “I have to hand it to you: FBI has its share of ambitious pricks, but you guys are in a league of your own.”
Lyndsey isn’t about to argue the point. “What are we going to do with Cassidy? He knows we’re onto Eric. What’s to stop him from telling Eric before the takedown?”
“FBI can’t detain him. There’s no evidence that he committed a crime. I’ll tell Cassidy he’d better keep his mouth shut. If he leaks word of our investigation to Newman, he’ll face federal charges. But maybe it would be better if CIA handles this one. Can you get your folks to take care of Cassidy? I have a feeling if the orders come from Langley, he’ll listen.”
Herbert looks Lyndsey square in the face. She’s sizing her up, that’s plain, taking her measure. “But we’ve got something bigger to worry about right now. This is where you and I figure out how we’re going to trap Eric Newman. If you’re right, he has a lot to take responsibility for . . . But you and I both know that he can try to deflect the blame, to wiggle out of it. Sometimes hiding behind clearances and policies, rules and regulations. If Eric Newman had your asset killed and provoked Theresa Warner into spying for the Russians, how are we going to prove it?”
It’s now the moment of truth. Her real fear, she realizes, is that she’s afraid everything Cassidy said is true and they’ll side with Eric. That they, too, will want Morozov so badly that they’d be willing to sweep it under the rug, look the other way.
She almost loses her nerve. Eric is not stupid; he will have covered his tracks well. They’ll need conclusive evidence of what Eric has done—does that even exist?
Then she thinks of it: somebody paid Claude Simon, and she is sure it didn’t come out of Eric’s pocket. Simon gave Tony Schaffer’s name to the FBI agents in Norfolk, which means he handled the contract that paid Simon. Eric’s signature would be on the contract, too.
“You’re going to have to subpoena the Agency to show you a classified contract,” Lyndsey says. Shakily at first but then with more confidence. “But yeah, I think we can prove it.”
* * *
—
She calls to set up an appointment with Patrick Pfeifer as soon as she gets into the office the next morning. She hasn’t been able to shake the suspicion that Tom Cassidy telephoned Eric as soon as he was released, but that was a risk they had to take.
Turns out Pfeifer is juggling a lot of duties as Director Chesterfield is on vacation, Lyndsey is informed rather grumpily by the secretary who answers the phone. “It’s of the utmost importance. I need to prepare him for a call from FBI,” Lyndsey says.
“You can have fifteen minutes,” the woman says curtly, and Lyndsey gratefully accepts.
She practices what she will say in her head over and over, but it dissolves like salt in warm water on the long walk to the seventh floor. She perches on one of the chairs in the anteroom, the secretaries explicitly ignoring her as they fall into the morning’s rhythms. Attendees arrive for the first morning meetings, prep for the President’s Daily Brief. Women and men walk by busily, throwing curious glances in Lyndsey’s direction. Voices drift in from the private offices in the back but Lyndsey deliberately tries to ignore them so that she can focus on the task at hand.
The investigation has come to a dangerous junction. She can only see one way to succeed, but once Pfeifer hears what’s going on, he may take it all out of her hands.
And what will she do if he looks her right in the eye and tells her she’s being naïve? That Eric is in the right and she in the wrong, just as Cassidy said.
One of the secretaries lifts her head in Lyndsey’s direction. Salt-and-pepper hair cut short, piercing blue eyes. “You can go in now.”
Pfeifer sits behind his desk, flanked by stacks of papers. This morning he seems more harried than usual. Is that a look of annoyance she sees flit across his face? Lyndsey is hypervigilant for any sign of impatience, and she wouldn’t blame him if he told her to stop these drop-bys. The Chief of Staff owes her nothing, after all. He’s just a kind man who paid attention to her years ago when she was a new hire. CIA has thousands of employees and he has a responsibility to each one. The strained smile on his face could be her tenuous connection to him going up in flames.
“Hi, Lyndsey. I have a teleconference with State Department in a few minutes, so we’ll have to keep this brief. Now, what can I do for you?”
Deep breath and it all comes out. She tells him everything, including her research, all the evidence she’s compiled. She almost stumbles when she gets to what happened last night, Tom Cassidy’s poisonous admission . . . Eric�
�s plan, it sounds so preposterous now, said aloud in the Director’s office, even if there is a contract with Eric’s signature on it that will bear her out . . . She wonders in the back of her mind if she’s hallucinating. She runs over her allotted fifteen minutes—the salt-and-pepper-haired secretary knocks at the door and, when there is no response, clears her throat, but Pfeifer asks her to get one of his executive assistants to cover the teleconference. State Department will have to understand.
As Lyndsey wraps up, Pfeifer’s face goes ashen—for which she is grateful. She wasn’t wrong to take this insane risk. To follow her gut. “This is incredible,” he says when she has finished.
She’s laid quite the problem at his feet. She wishes she were wrong, hopes there’s something she’s overlooked that Pfeifer, with his experience, will see. Her stomach roils while waiting for him to say something.
He sits back. “I don’t know Eric Newman all that well. We never worked in the same office, and that’s how you get to know a person. I’ve heard stories—but that’s all they were, stories, and I never knew how much stock to give any of them. I wish I’d paid more attention then. This is bad, Lyndsey. Bad.”
He doesn’t qualify his statement with “if it’s true.” He believes her, for which she is immeasurably grateful.
“What I should do is call Newman into my office, with Roger Barker, his boss. Give them a chance to explain themselves. That would be standard operating procedure.” For a moment, Lyndsey’s stomach is in free fall. “But I’m not sure what that will get me. Newman will deny it, of course, and things will drag on, and from what you tell me, we don’t have a lot of time. The meeting with this Russian agent is due to happen any day, you say?”
She nods.
Pfeifer rubs his chin. “And FBI is witting? They know the extraction is set to happen?” She nods again. He’s silent as he thinks. Lyndsey lets her gaze skitter over the piles of papers on his desk. There must be dozens of crises demanding his attention, secrets that could cause the rise or fall of a foreign leader, unrest that could boil over to violence. CIA serves the president, not itself. This is one of many things Pfeifer must juggle at this moment, but she fears it must be the most personal to the Agency.
At length, Pfeifer lets out a sigh. “Okay—let’s let this play out and see where it goes. It sounds like we have safeguards in place—FBI is witting, Newman’s planning to pounce on the Russian agent?” She’s explained that it’s not any Russian agent but Evgeni Morozov, one of CIA’s most wanted.
Even though this is what Lyndsey hoped for, she’s surprised at Pfeifer’s decision. She doesn’t know why it’s such a big surprise: the Agency takes risks every day. Some are moonshots. After a moment’s thought, Lyndsey realizes that going against protocol seems out of place for Pfeifer, that’s why it bothers her. He isn’t talking about replacing her. She expected that, after this meeting, she would be ushered to the side and someone more experienced would be put at the helm.
She thinks she knows why, though. Eric Newman has been Chief of Russia Division for a while now. A senior executive. He has his allies, people who know him and will find it hard to believe that he’s capable of this. Things could still blow up, even at this juncture. But Pfeifer has chosen to place his trust in her.
She almost wants to ask him—are you sure? I’m not a human lie detector. I almost didn’t see this. Eric nearly got away with it.
And yet, she did figure it out. By some miracle.
Pfeifer nods his head with finality. “We’ll let it proceed. I’ll inform the General Counsel’s office.”
As his hand goes for the telephone, Lyndsey brings up two more things. First, someone needs to pay a visit to Tom Cassidy. “If his loyalty is to Eric, he may have already told him what’s happened.”
Pfeifer grunts. “Considering I haven’t gotten a phone call from Newman yet, I doubt that’s the case. We’ll get the General Counsel’s office to handle this one. Remind him of his legal obligation.” It’s the best he can do under the circumstances, and she’ll just have to accept it.
The second ask is harder: Masha and Polina Popov need CIA’s help. “They’re in danger because of what Eric did. No one in the FSB suspected Popov was spying for us. He was safe. Now it’s only a matter of time before the Russians figure it out.” Help for Masha will be hard to keep from Eric. As long as he’s Chief of the Division, there’s a chance that he can find out about any operation that involves Russia. It could be an inadvertent slip by someone working logistical issues or the contracts office, pushing through the purchase of plane tickets or hotel rooms. There are a thousand little details that need to be taken care of in order to get someone out of hostile territory and set up a new life for them in America. To do it under intense time constraints increases the risk of discovery that much more.
“I’ll talk to Roger Barker and ask him to take care of it. I can’t make any promises until I talk to him, but . . . It sounds like we owe them at least that much.”
Her gratitude is so great she cannot find words.
“Keep me posted,” he says as she leaves, already turning back to the pile of paperwork on his desk, the next crisis beckoning.
FORTY
Lyndsey has barely returned to her office when Theresa appears at the door.
Lyndsey cannot help but notice that she looks so different from when Lyndsey returned to the office a few scant weeks ago. She’s aged twenty years. She is exhausted. There is strain around the eyes, a tightness to the mouth. This is a woman ready for her trials to be over. But under the weariness and anxiety, there is a glimmer of resolve, of determination. A glint of steel. She is ready to set things right.
No doubt, the same could be said of Lyndsey. She feels like she aged twenty years between Cassidy’s questioning and Pfeifer’s office.
Theresa won’t linger. They are both highly aware that Eric will notice, and become nervous, if there’s any change in their behavior of the past few weeks.
Lyndsey locks eyes with Theresa but keeps her voice low. “We know what Eric’s after. Cassidy spilled everything under questioning. He wants Evgeni Morozov. That was his plan all along. You’re the bait.”
Theresa can’t believe what she’s just heard. “I’m the bait?”
“There was intelligence that Morozov would come to Washington to bring you in personally. Eric was banking on that.”
Theresa bites her lip. “The Russians haven’t told me much . . . They never give me much detail, it’s all in code . . . But Morozov’s not coming to the meeting: it’s Tarasenko, Dmitri Tarasenko. That’s what I came to tell you. They contacted me last night. It’s on for tonight. Ten o’clock. I don’t know for sure who’s coming. I was only told to be ready.” She glances over her shoulder in the direction of Eric’s office. “I’d better go. He’ll be back any minute.” Then she’s gone, as suddenly and completely as a ghost.
It’s go time. A familiar feeling, part anxiety and part anticipation, rises inside her. Equal parts dread and eagerness to have this over.
At least there’s one bit of poetic justice in all this: Eric is going to be destroyed. After all this plotting and scheming, he isn’t going to get Morozov anyway. He would’ve ruined lives only to end up with nothing.
Lyndsey reaches for the secure phone, punches in Herbert’s number.
* * *
—
Theresa’s house is ready. Herbert’s team has fitted it with microphones and cameras. It was done stealthily, in case the Russians are watching the house—which they undoubtedly are. The FBI found an agent who looked uncannily like the woman who watches Brian in the afternoons, and she was sent in, backpack slung casually over one arm, to set up the equipment. A technician was sent in later to finish the work and test the connection to the command post, posing as a repairman come to fix the refrigerator. Herbert shows Lyndsey and Theresa on a map where the FBI teams have been posted, hours in advance. Th
e house is covered; she and her son will not be in danger at any time, she assures Theresa, but of course she can’t know that, not for certain. That’s just what they tell you. What they want you to believe.
“I wish Brian didn’t have to be there,” Theresa says, fist pressed against her mouth. Rouge Rebelle smears across one knuckle.
Herbert gives her a tense smile. “Don’t worry—my agents know his safety is our number one priority.”
It’s six o’clock, and they’re in a van parked just outside Theresa’s immediate neighborhood. She is ostensibly getting dinner and must rush back to her son so the sitter can leave. A bag of Chinese food, picked up earlier by one of the FBI agents, sits at her feet. It fills the van with spicy and savory aromas. Lyndsey’s stomach growls to remind her that she hasn’t eaten all day.
Theresa sighs. “At one point, months ago, I almost told Brian he was going to see his father again. I’m glad I didn’t.”
That must be the hardest part of what she is doing: knowing that Richard is alive but accepting that she is never going to see him again. In agreeing to take the safe course, she has chosen her son over her husband. Would she ever forgive herself for it?
She picks up the white plastic bag, the weight of the containers within shifting. It crinkles softly in her hands. “I’d better get home. Brian will be waiting.”
* * *
—
Lyndsey will spend the hours leading up to the event with Herbert and her agents. She and Herbert sit with another agent in the command post, made to look like a delivery van on the outside but fitted with equipment inside. An agent with headphones sits at a station next to her, listening to what comes in from the microphones in Theresa’s house. He also listens to a police scanner. Herbert is at a monitor, tapping away at emails. Lyndsey feels out of her element. She’s not given anything to do and listens to bursts of chatter between the FBI teams, reporting potential activity, picking out recurring vehicles and pedestrians lingering in improbable spots, probable Russian surveillance. The good news is that there doesn’t seem to be too many, about four total units spotted so far.