Red Widow

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:

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.