Red Widow

THIRTY-TWO

Outside it’s raining, but if Lyndsey had not gone to the vending machine for coffee, she would not have known, not in her small, windowless office. She stands in the cul-de-sac at the end of the hall, the bit of space given over to vending machines. The walls are gray-tinted glass, ceiling to floor. She takes a minute to sip at the steaming hot coffee and watch fat drops of water slide down the glass in streams. She tries to predict which way the stream will break as gravity pulls it down—as though it matters. Anything to stop thoughts running through her head.

Masha needs you. Time is running out.

Don’t let Popov down. He trusted you.

Theresa is a traitor. Theresa is your friend.

No sooner does she return to her office than the phone rings. “Lyndsey, do you have a minute? It’s Dwayne.” Dwayne Molina is a peace offering from Raymond Murphy in CI, a computer tech offered up to help sift through the copious amounts of data associated with the case. She was about to give up on CI completely, but Murphy has redeemed himself with Molina. The tech is a shy young man, recently out of the military, far more willing to be helpful than Murphy, thankfully. He’s had the data for all of twenty-four hours and already she’s talked to him more than Raymond. The previous calls from Molina were all explanatory, providing background and generally bringing him up to speed, but the man has proven a quick learner. “Sure. Got something for me?”

“Maybe. I don’t want to get your hopes up,” he says. There is a faint tap-tap in the background. Molina never seems to stop typing. He’s always buzzing like a bee. “I was going through the forum data and noticed something weird.” Tap-tap-tap. “Yeah. After we isolated the serial number of the computer Theresa’s been using, I ran it against all the activity on the forum. There wasn’t a whole lot, barely anything before June and then—bam—she starts using it three, four times a day.”

“Is that unusual?” It seems people usually are active when they first start using a new app, judging from her own experience. You stop using it once the novelty has worn off.

“Not by itself. It does track with your hypothesis, though.” More tapping. “Then I took a look at the activity around those three cases you told me about. Lighthouse, Skipjack, and Genghis.”

“Right.”

“I found her computer serial connecting on threads that have to do with Lighthouse, the scientist, and Skipjack, the cyber dude, all right. She drops in on every thread dealing with those two cases.”

The first part makes sense. Lyndsey has already confirmed with Jan Westerling that Theresa made personal contact. Molina’s work just provides more evidence. But this part about Skipjack is significant.

“What about Evelyn Wang?”

“No joy,” Molina says flatly. “I mean, she connected a few times with both Westerling and Kincaid, but nothing sustained. I think she’s just trying to be seen as part of the gang, you know?”

That doesn’t track with what Kincaid said. “One more thing, and I don’t know if you can do it”—not without higher authority—“but is there any way you can see if there were communications between Theresa Warner and Kyle Kincaid?”

A tense silence. “You mean, like, read their emails? Users sign consent to be monitored in order to get an account on the system, but I’d have to get permission to get records.”

She bites her lip. “Do it. I’ll go to Eric for authorization, if I need to.”

“Raymond can take care of it. I’ll let you know when we got something.” He hangs up.

Lyndsey lowers the phone. As she starts to put the pieces together, she feels a familiar buzz of excitement in the back of her skull. Why didn’t Kyle Kincaid tell her about Theresa? Obviously, she’d been in contact about Skipjack. If Molina finds emails between the two, they might prove interesting.

Molina’s revelations sit badly with her, like spoiled meat. There’s nothing to be done for it but to continue digging.

Lyndsey is turning the facts over in her mind when she looks up to find Maggie Kimball standing at her door. Her arms are full of binders and manila folders but her dark eyes sparkle as usual. “Eric wants to see you.”

He sits behind his desk, staring glassy-eyed at the monitor. When she walks in, he looks visibly relieved. “Close the door, please.”

He waits until she takes the seat opposite his desk. “We might have a little complication. I got a call from the NSC.” National Security Council. “They’ve seen the medical examiner’s report on Popov and feel they need to issue some kind of statement. To publicly call out the Russians.”

This is expected. Sovereign states don’t take kindly to other nations poisoning people on their territory. Since the exact time of death hasn’t been determined, there might be some issue over sovereignty, but there is no denying that whoever is behind the killing brought a deadly poison to American soil, capriciously endangering American lives.

She can see why Eric’s upset. That means going public about Popov’s death. So far, it’s been kept out of the papers. As far as anyone knows, it was nothing more than a personal tragedy. A Russian diplomat had a heart attack.

An official U.S. statement would be a complication, to say the least.

Eric swivels in his chair. “I don’t want the NSC mucking around in this. There are still too many unknowns. It’s too early to tip our hand to the Russians. I want you to talk to the NSC. Make them understand we have an important investigation going on and we can’t have it jeopardized. See if you can get them to hold off.”

Why isn’t Eric going? It would be more effective if the request came from the Chief of Russia Division. When she hesitates, he steps in. “I’d go but I’m too busy. I’ve got a full schedule of meetings for the next three days and this can’t wait.”

“Okay. I’ll see what I can find out.”

“One more thing,” he adds as she’s almost out the door. “Tom Cassidy is coming into town, in case you need to talk to him. It’s for that other op I told you about. But as long as he’s here, if he can be of any use to your investigation…”

Tom Cassidy, the man who failed Yaromir Popov. He’s been stonewalling her, not responding to emails and not returning her calls, using the thousands of miles between them as a barrier. Yeah, she has a few things she’d like to ask him about.

At one point in Lyndsey’s career, a trip to the NSC would have been thrilling. It is housed in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, next door to the White House, after all. The West Wing and the Oval Office are mere steps away across the manicured lawn. The building stands behind an iron fence. It’s formal and spooky looking, with a vaguely Victorian mansard roof and embellishments that make it look like an overly decorated wedding cake. The floors inside are a dizzying black-and-white-checkerboard pattern that makes the long corridors seem like optical illusions and always remind her of Alice in Wonderland. She climbs the staircase to the second floor and makes her way to the offices of the Senior Director for Russia.

She’s not meeting with the Senior Director, Anthony Olcott. She has heard Olcott speak on several occasions—a former professor at Georgetown University who started his federal career at State Department, ending as ambassador to Russia before moving to the NSC—and wouldn’t mind seeing him again. He impressed her with his encyclopedic knowledge not only of Russia but of U.S. policy, past and present. It will have to wait for another day because she’s not senior enough to meet with Olcott. Eric would be, yes, but not a mere case officer like her. Instead, she’s meeting with two of the staffers, Renee Dentley and Bruce Cavanaugh. NSC staffers are often on loan from other federal agencies, careerists familiar with policy in the subject area. Sometimes they come from outside the government, academics or researchers with a background on the topic whose outlook is in line with the administration’s position. Lyndsey has met Renee, a political officer at State Department, several times before, but Bruce Cavanaugh is new to her.

Lyndsey is ushered into a small office shared by the two. “Thanks for coming down.” Renee Dentley has always struck Lyndsey as a typical State Department officer, smart and composed but recklessly overworked. She looks exhausted, too worn out to care much about her appearance. Cavanaugh, on the other hand, is nattily dressed. He must’ve risen at five a.m. to look this good. She heard that he came from a university in the Midwest and so he’s not had much experience dealing with intelligence types. He watches Lyndsey as though he fears she might try to set the office on fire.

“We’ve been told you’re working on the Popov murder,” Dentley continues. “We saw a report on the poison. It’s definitely Russian?”

Apparently, Randy Detwiler has already released a report on his findings. Lyndsey can’t blame him—it’s his job, and it’s important to get this information on record—but the timing could be better. Maybe he didn’t imagine the NSC would pick up on it so quickly.

“It appears to be, but—”

Cavanaugh leans forward, eager to use his prerogative as an NSC staffer to interrupt. “I thought it was strange that they didn’t use Novichok. If it really were the Russians behind the hit, they would’ve used Novichok, wouldn’t they?”

Novichok is the poison du jour, it seems. It was used in the spring of 2018 to poison Sergei Skripal, a Russian military officer who had been spying for the British, and the case seems to have made everyone a Russian poisons expert overnight. That’s Lyndsey’s sum total knowledge on the subject, however. If she had known they wanted to talk poisons, she would have brought Detwiler with her.

Lyndsey levels a cool eye at Cavanaugh, hoping to take the edge off his aggressiveness. “I’ll ask our poison expert for his opinion, but my guess is that the Russians wouldn’t use it on Popov if they didn’t want to tip their hand. It doesn’t mimic a heart attack or look like natural causes—it doesn’t provide plausible cover, in other words. And don’t forget: Novichok is far from a sure thing. Skripal and his daughter survived.”

Cavanaugh nods. “So, you don’t think the Russians want us to know it was them?”

“Their thinking is unclear.”

“But CIA believes it was murder?” Dentley adds.

“Popov was definitely murdered. But we’d also like to ask you not to take any action against Russia at this time.”

The two exchange worried glances before Cavanaugh starts up again. “Ms. Duncan, you’ve just told us that the Russians committed a murder on U.S. soil—”

“It was aggressive, no doubt about it. But hear me out, please. We have reasons for asking you to sit on this—for now,” she says. Cavanaugh fumes and avoids Dentley’s attempts to catch his eye, but to his credit he lets her speak. “We think there might be a mole on the U.S. side giving the Russians information. We’re guessing that’s why Popov was killed.”

“Guessing?” Dentley asks, raising an eyebrow.

But Cavanaugh is cowed. “Criminy,” he says, his voice about an octave higher now.

“We think they found out he was a CIA asset and had him executed.” She’s just given them a field promotion since neither was cleared for Genghis’s compartment; Lyndsey makes a mental note to have the pair read in later. “We’re making good progress on the investigation, but we haven’t found the mole yet. It’s too soon to let the Russians know that we know what they did.”

She braces for the pair to blow up: how could you not know anything about this, an asset blown, a mole in the ranks? She may get her chance to have face time with the NSC senior director after all.

The two staffers are so dazed that they sit stunned. Finally, Dentley says, “The Brits have been pressing us on this. They’re still smarting after Skripal’s assassination attempt. They want us to accuse the Russians, and use the incident as the basis for another round of sanctions.”

“But that’s out of the question now,” Cavanaugh hastens to add. “We’ll tell them the medical results were inconclusive and that we have to run more tests. That will buy us time. When do you think you’ll have this investigation wrapped up?”

Lyndsey sends up a silent prayer of thanks. “I’m not sure. We’re moving quickly, but you know how these things can drag out… A month?”

Dentley is about to respond—probably to give her two weeks, max—when Cavanaugh taps his watch. “I’m sorry—we have another meeting. We’ll have to wrap this up.” The place runs on meetings. Every hour on the hour. Can they ever do anything more than scratch the surface? It’s a miracle any decisions get made.

Dentley reaches for her leather portfolio, a signal that it’s time to leave. Cavanaugh has already bolted out the door, as though he can’t get away from the spook fast enough. It’s a good reminder to Lyndsey that outside of the Washington bubble, most of America is leery of who she is and what she does.

Lyndsey stands and follows Dentley into the hall. Dentley leans in close to Lyndsey. “Look, I’ll give you a break this time because we’ve worked together before. We’ll stall the Brits for now, but they won’t be patient forever. This whole thing sounds a little half-baked to me, but I’m trusting you. Keep us in the loop. Let us know when you’re close.” She furrows her brow, searching Lyndsey’s face. “If I find out you’re hiding something from us, there’ll be trouble.”

Where is this hostility coming from? Has she ever broken a promise to the NSC? Ah, but it’s not just her track record being questioned here. It’s everything Russia Division has ever done to Olcott’s team, every promise made and broken, every assessment that was wrong, every shady trick they found out about after the fact. “I’ll talk to Eric about this as soon as I get back to the office.”

“Eric—that’s Eric Newman, right? You work for him,” Dentley says like she’s just putting two plus two together. “You know, there’s a rumor he’s coming to the NSC.”

This is a first heard for Lyndsey. “What?”

“As senior director.” Uncertainty flits across her face. “You didn’t know? Tony is going to retire in a couple months. He says four years is long enough. He’s going to go back to Michigan and dote on his grandkids. I heard Eric’s name is on the long list for Tony’s replacement.”

Lyndsey is at a loss for words. Eric Newman plays his cards very close to the vest indeed. Has he been getting ready to bolt for new pastures? Senior Director for Russian Affairs would be a plum position, indeed. Finding the mole who eliminated CIA’s top Russian asset would be certain to clinch the nomination. The revelation doesn’t sit well with Lyndsey but she’s not sure why. It doesn’t change anything, not really. Yet she can’t help feeling like there’s a veil over her eyes obscuring her view.

Back at headquarters, Eric is overjoyed to hear how the meeting went. “Thanks, Lyndsey. Sounds like you handled it perfectly. That’s a load off my mind.”

He seems relieved, though Lyndsey can’t figure out why. It wouldn’t be impossible to bring the NSC into the investigation, and they’ll have to do it at some point anyway. Of course, some managers don’t like to have outsiders looking over their shoulders. Things would get complicated once the NSC stepped in.

“Something wrong?” He’s studying her.

“Renee Dentley mentioned that Tony Olcott is retiring in a few months. Did you know?”

She doesn’t fool him. Eric smiles as he leans back in his chair. “Oh, someone let the cat out of the bag while you were there, didn’t they? Yes, I heard a rumor that my name might be on the list of replacements…”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

He shrugs. “They’ll probably pick someone else, someone with more policy experience. I didn’t want to rattle the team here, have them think I’m leaving.”

His expression says he’s not telling the truth. He’s so pleased that he’s like the cat that ate the canary, but she won’t call him on it. “And if you are selected? Would you go?”

A mask descends, and she can’t read him. He’s trying to read her, too, though: the slightest narrowing of his eyes, tension around the mouth. “I’ve been in this position for some time… Most men would’ve moved on by now, wouldn’t you say?”

That’s his ambition showing itself. “So, you’re saying you’d take it?”

He laughs lightly, eyes crinkling at the corners. “Let’s just say I’m comfortable here.”

It could be he’s afraid of jinxing it by talking about it—or that he doesn’t want to make himself vulnerable by admitting that he wants it. She decides to let it drop. “There was one other thing. Cavanaugh asked why Popov’s killer didn’t use Novichok. You know, the poison from the Skripal case.”

“And what did you tell him?”

Now it’s her turn to shrug. “I can see reasons why they might not… but I’ll talk to the poison expert and see what he has to say.”

Eric has gone a bit glassy-eyed, lost in thought. He tugs at his lower lip. “Interesting. Yeah, let me know what he says.”

The unanswered questions nag as she walks back to her office. Why would the Russians be subtle? If they knew Popov was a traitor, why didn’t they want everyone to know they’d killed him? Playing it subtle would be uncharacteristic, to say the least.

And yet, that’s what happened.

For today, she has no answers.