Red Widow by Alma Katsu (good books to read for beginners txt) 📗

“That’s great, slugger,” Theresa says to her son as she places a hand to his back, gently steering him away from the play space and into the throng of shoppers. “But now it’s time for lunch. Where do you want to go? Do you want to get a hamburger? And a chocolate shake? And maybe if you’re very good”—her eyes flit to Lyndsey, holding her gaze for a second—“Miss Lyndsey will agree to join us. And she can become your new friend, too, like she’s mommy’s friend. What do you say?”

ELEVEN

In the middle of a quiet afternoon, Lyndsey slogs through the stack of last year’s reports, looking for clues. She’s been unsettled all day, restless and prickly. She feels the pressure of Eric’s warning—the Director has asked for an update every day—but also, it feels as though something is about to happen, as though there’s a storm in the distance. It’s the waiting: waiting for the missing assets to turn up, waiting for the other shoe to drop. She promises herself another coffee if she can keep at the reports until the top of the hour.

But then Maggie Kimball knocks on the door. She shifts her weight from foot to foot. “Eric wants you in the conference room for a teleconference with Moscow Station.”

Why would Moscow Station request a teleconference at this hour? It’s late in the evening, Moscow time. As Lyndsey weaves through the desks, she notices—or is she imagining it?—tense faces and rounded shoulders, twitchy and ready to bolt. At CIA, people are like gazelles at the watering hole, exquisitely attuned to the slightest change in the air. They know that something is up.

Eric is the only one in the room and he nods slightly at Lyndsey to close the door. On a monitor, two men sit hunched and scowling at a table, braced for contention. She recognizes Hank Bremer, bald and overweight, his unhandsome face flushed bright pink like he’s just run up flights of stairs, though the monitor might be to blame. Next to him is a man she doesn’t recognize, Hank’s opposite physically, with thick, dark hair and a trace of a Mediterranean complexion.

Eric addresses the screen as she takes a seat. “This is Lyndsey Duncan. She’s helping with the Genghis investigation. I want her to sit in.” To her, he says, “You know Hank, I believe. That’s Tom Cassidy.”

It’s all Lyndsey can do not to lash out at Cassidy. She hasn’t brought up to Eric what she learned from Masha, not yet. She wants to work it out in her head first, make sure she’s not overlooking something. Yaromir Popov didn’t trust Moscow Station and it cost him his life.

Eric swivels to face the monitor. “Tell us what happened, Hank.”

Bremer’s hands are clasped in front of his face, hiding his mouth. He has news he doesn’t want to share. “Kulakov’s body was found today.”

One of the missing assets, the scientist. The news is not unexpected but still it takes Lyndsey’s breath away.

“It was all over the newspapers and television. They wanted us to hear about it.” Is Bremer mad because he’s embarrassed that one of his assets was killed under his nose? There seem to be only two types of Chiefs of Station: ones who keep their thoughts to themselves, or emotional types who lash out at the slightest provocation. Reese Munroe, Chief of Station during Lyndsey’s time, had been the former, for which she was grateful. She never liked working for the volatile ones. No one did. “His body was found in a strange place, not near his home or his work. They’re claiming it was a mugging, of course. The body was in bad shape when it was found. Broken bones, face a bloody mess.”

Not a mugging, in other words. Extreme damage implies it was not impersonal. “Could it have been something else?” Lyndsey asks. A hate crime. There is no shortage of these in Moscow. Kulakov was Jewish.

“We’ve seen the police report. They’re trying to insinuate that he was gay. They said his profile was found on a gay website that’s seen trouble recently. Members lured out by homophobes and beaten up.”

“Was he gay?” Eric asks. His tone is clipped; he isn’t in the mood to beat around the bush. He wants answers, not speculation.

“No.” Cassidy jumps in. “He was married. Had children.”

“Married men have been known to have secret lives—”

“He was my asset. I knew the man. I say no,” Cassidy snaps.

So, Cassidy was Kulakov’s handler, too. Can this much bad luck be coincidental? Though to give up two of your own cases to the Russians would be the height of stupidity, to say the least. She tries to read his body English, but it’s hard under the circumstances. He could be defensive. Or merely unhappy.

“Have any of the other victims from the website been killed?” Eric asks.

Bremer sucks in his cheeks as he thinks. “Not that I recall.”

“It’s a smoke screen. They killed him,” Cassidy snaps. He means the FSB. “Maybe they figured out he was working for us. The timing is—suspicious.” He looks sideways at his boss, a sheepish expression flitting by in the blink of an eye but she catches it, knowing where to look. “We were waiting for him to pass missile plans to us. The INF—it was going to be the main focus of the negotiations this summer.”

“Oh?” Eric says. His voice is sharp with surprise.

“Yeah,” Cassidy says. “He was finally going to pay off, after all the waiting . . . He told me last time we got together. He said he could get his hands on the plans. I was waiting for him to deliver.”

Bremer leans toward the camera, his pink face glowing in the low light. “I think those assholes found out what he was up to and had him killed. Made it splashy, too, as a warning.”

They are all quiet for a moment, turning over individual thoughts. The loss of those plans is a huge