Red Widow

EIGHT

Closing the door behind Eric, Lyndsey’s thoughts turn back to Varya. Reading that report was a punch to the gut.

She throws herself into her chair, letting it roll backward to hit the wall with a jarring thud. Too much is happening at once. Even though she hasn’t seen Popov in years, losing him has shaken loose an old sadness inside her. She lost her own father when she was very young, but that loss has never gone away. It has merely been dormant, and now those emotions kick up like a sandstorm. Being left with her aunt while her mother rushed her father to the hospital. Her mother returning in the middle of the night—alone. The feeling that the floor has suddenly dropped out from beneath her. The sensation of being completely vulnerable. Of never being whole.

Poor Masha. Losing her daughter and now her husband. Though Lyndsey never met them, she has always felt as though she knew Masha and the daughters, Polina and Varya. Popov had told her stories about how it was just the two of them, he and Masha, for a long time, before the girls came along. For a girl who had few memories of her own parents together, it was a balm to hear about their marriage. How he valued Masha’s wisdom and had come to trust her judgment, even with his intelligence work. She remembered the photos he’d shown her of Masha from the early days, her round, serene face; the two in somber Soviet-era clothing, standing outside their grim, regimental apartment building. Later, Masha as a schoolteacher, her hair gray and piled on top of her head. Photos of the girls, too, of course: he was a proud father. Little girls in snow suits, teenagers in fur hats and lipstick.

Should she try to reach Masha, offer condolences? It would be risky to try to contact them directly right after Popov’s suspicious death. The authorities undoubtedly would be watching the family, particularly if they knew he was a double agent.

Lyndsey doesn’t have a way to contact Masha, anyway. There was no protocol for covert communications with the family, only with the asset. Strictly speaking, families were not supposed to be witting; it would endanger both them and the asset.

Thank goodness for modern technology. The spy’s friend. For backup, she’d had them both set up special accounts on a secure messaging app. It wasn’t even one of the popular ones; reputedly, it was used almost exclusively by teenagers. Popov had balked, saying he felt ridiculous having it on his phone, even if no one knew, but she had pressed and eventually they were both glad she had.

She’ll have to wait until after work to use the app. Cell phones aren’t allowed in secure spaces at CIA, for obvious reasons. Her phone sits out in her car, waiting patiently, like the family dog. Some people at Langley take a break to go out to their cars if they need to use their phones, but even that is frowned on. Lyndsey can be patient. She has plenty of work to keep her distracted.

As soon as Lyndsey is back in her cheerless apartment that evening, she leaves her purse and coat at the door and heads straight to her couch, cell phone in hand.

She stares at the black glass of her smartphone. She hasn’t used this secret channel since she left Moscow. Lyndsey swipes through the screens, looking for the app. She’s not a big smartphone user, not like some people she knows who download every hot app they hear about—use it a couple times and then forget about it. She can’t remember the name of the app but she remembers its icon: a square pink telephone sporting a cartoonish human face, one eye winking. On second thought, she can see why Popov didn’t like it. She finds it on the second to the last screen—she never used it in Beirut because she hadn’t developed any assets during her short time there, no one who merited special back-channel communications. The app is like a guilty memory, a reminder of her willingness to flout the rules, now buried on her phone.

It opens with a tap. Her account name is Mindreader, plucked out of thin air at the time but so silly now, so naïve, it makes her cringe.

There’s a red flag next to it. An unread message.

There was only one person she corresponded with on that app: Yaromir Popov.

Her stomach goes into free fall. She had turned off notifications after she’d been in Beirut for a few months, determined to put her old life behind her. The handoff to a new handler was where an asset could stumble; they both knew it. She and Popov had agreed he’d give the new handler a chance. Then, too, her life had been in such a state of flux: being pushed off the Russian target, told to prove herself by doing something completely different. See if you can make lightning strike a second time, COS Beirut had said with a touch of bitterness. It had been time to get back on track. To prove, if only to herself, that she could abide by the rules.

She squints at the tiny print. The message is dated the day before Popov’s Aeroflot flight.

Taking a deep breath, she opens it.

I need to talk to you. Something has happened, and I don’t know who to trust.

Guilt washes through her like acid. She wills herself to calm down, but the same thought keeps swamping her: he tried to reach me before he died. Before he made that fatal flight to Washington. He had come to try to find her because she hadn’t answered him. Because she had forgotten all about him.

She resists the urge to throw the phone across the room, frustrated by that cryptic message. Why didn’t he explain in his text what had happened? But it’s useless to ask questions that can’t be answered. She can only guess. Maybe it was because he didn’t think it was safe, even though the app encrypts the messages.

Whatever he had to tell her must’ve been exceptionally sensitive.

She stares at the phone’s screen for a long time before she starts to type.

What she writes is pure wishful thinking. It’s like stuffing a message in a bottle and throwing it in the ocean. A bottle adrift in a vast sea. Chances are it will never be found, never read. But she does it anyway, because it’s all she has.

M or P, if you’re watching this, please reply. A friend of Y.

Then she goes on a run to clear her head.

Lyndsey can’t wait to get back to her apartment so she can check her phone. Superstitiously, she didn’t bring it with her on her run—a watched pot never boils—but she heads straight to it as soon as she unlocks the door. She snatches the phone off the coffee table, squints at the screen, and holds her breath as she scrolls, frantically looking for a message.

This is M. Y said you would help us. Is that why you’ve texted?

Her heart first explodes with glee—success—then clenches like a fist. Tom Cassidy should’ve reached out to them as soon as they learned Popov was dead. But it’s obvious this hasn’t happened.

She’s about to tap a response but pauses. There is a momentary, passing instinct to suspect interference. That response was awfully fast. Maybe it’s not Masha, maybe it’s an FSB tech operative. But no: she and Popov used this channel for two years and were never found out, by either the FSB nor the CIA, so she feels certain that she is talking to Popov’s wife and not an FSB operative pretending to be her.

She begins to type. I’m so sorry for what happened. Are you okay? Has the FSB contacted you yet?

The dialogue box fills slowly. The authorities are still not certain what happened, I believe.

She has to ask a question, a very important one. It can’t wait, though she feels badly for trying to get information from Masha while she is grieving. She has no choice.

Y contacted me before he died saying something terrible had happened but didn’t explain. Do you know what he meant?

She counts the seconds after she finishes typing. There’s a long pause on Masha’s end. Lyndsey prays that he shared this secret with his wife.

Y said the FSB knew about him. He went to the U.S. to find you.

The missed text. Another stab of regret, right in her heart.

There is her answer: the mole—whoever he is—gave them Popov, and he had no choice but to run. But the FSB went after him, his running might as well have been an admission of guilt, so they killed him.

Lyndsey tries to push the overwhelming grief away, though she feels like she’s drowning. She needs to think clearly while she’s able to communicate with Masha. There’s more she needs to know.

Did Y tell his handler that the FSB was onto him?

The answer comes back quickly. Without hesitation. He didn’t trust Gerald.

They use code names for handlers. Gerald is Tom Cassidy.

He didn’t trust Tom Cassidy—or, by extension, Moscow Station. That was why he was flying to Washington.

The implications are staggering. For a second, Lyndsey can scarcely breathe. She needs to think through all of this coolly, deliberately. But time is ticking by, and it’s dangerous to stay on any communications channel for too long. You want to be stealthy, to avoid drawing attention.

One last thing. Do you need anything?

The answer is not immediate, and Lyndsey feels the seconds tick by as Masha deliberates. I do not think we will be safe here soon.

She is asking, in so many words, for CIA to save her and her daughter. Her husband would’ve told her this was part of the deal. Lyndsey remembers sitting across the table from him in the safe house during one of their early meetings, hammering out the provisions of his cooperation. The payments and how they would be held in a special Swiss bank account (nothing outrageous; he’d been looking for security, not a payday). And the promise of extraction if things ever got tight. This was a promise made just to the big fish (rather cynically, Lyndsey always thought, knowing how few assets take it). Not to the small fry, and Popov knew this, too. He and his family would not be left to take the fall.

Only now, they are.

She wishes she could type yes, of course, because she knows that’s what Masha needs to hear. She is a new widow with a daughter to protect. But Lyndsey doesn’t want to lie to her. Russia Division won’t do anything until they know what’s going on. Someone is giving the names of CIA assets to the FSB and even though Yaromir Popov is dead, until he’s completely cleared, Russia Division is not going to act—as callous as that sounds. The seventh floor is focused on finding the mole. The wife of a dead asset will not be their greatest concern at the moment.

Masha needs to feel heard and seen. There is no one else she can go to for help. It is Lyndsey’s duty. I’ll get started on that right away, she types. Sit tight. If it becomes necessary, is there some place you can go where no one would think to look for you?

A few more beats. Yes. My sister’s dacha.

Keep watching this app. I will be in touch.

She is sorry she can’t do more at this moment, that she has to leave Masha like this. She closes the app, a tremble of rage passing through her. How they’ve failed Yaromir Popov. He placed his faith in her—and the Agency, but mostly in her—and she let him down. Because she trusted the system.

Something has happened, and I don’t know who to trust.