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

black-and-white photo of a man, forty-ish. “That’s Alexander Perepelichny. He was involved in the Magnitsky case—you know, the guy who uncovered the big swindle involving Putin. Because of his murder, the U.S. imposed sanctions on Russia.”

“Perepelichny was killed by this same poison?” she asks. Detwiler nods. “So, it’s something the killer can administer in one dose? Like a hit-and-run?”

“Exactly.”

“And how long before it takes effect?”

“It depends on a number of factors: the amount used, the victim’s condition, the usual variables . . . But it can be quite fast-acting. At the levels that were in his blood—thirty minutes, maybe.”

That narrows the time down to the flight, or possibly just before boarding. Her chest tightens at the thought of Popov dying alone in an airplane. Because of his trust in her. “How would it have been administered?”

“It’s usually done orally. Easy enough to slip into a drink, for instance. I’ll check to see if it can be injected.”

She looks at the monitor again, into the face of the dead man. “And who was responsible for Perepelichny’s death?” Lyndsey asks, even though she’s sure she knows the answer.

“Well, since the case involved elites in the Russian government laundering money overseas, it’s assumed that the FSB was behind the murder, but of course it’s never been solved.”

Will Popov’s murder go unsolved, too? What will happen to his wife and surviving daughter? Will the government take its ire out on them, harass them, cheat them, starve them? Lyndsey’s mind swims with questions.

It seems there can be no denying that Popov was murdered by his own country. The only question that remains is why? It would be easy to assume the Russians discovered what he was doing, but this is Lyndsey’s guilty knowledge talking. She shouldn’t jump to conclusions. There could be another reason, something CIA didn’t know about.

Whatever the reason, it won’t be found in the toxicology report. She has work to do.

She stands to leave. “Thank you, this has been very helpful.”

He walks to the door with her. “Sure, my pleasure. I read about this death in the papers. Unhealthy middle-aged men die every day, of course, including on planes, but when I heard he was a Russian official—well, it sounded awfully suspicious to me.”

A word catches in Lyndsey’s ear. “Unhealthy? Why do you say he was unhealthy?”

“It was in the toxicology report.” Detwiler rummages through the papers on his desk until he finds the one he wants. He runs a finger down a column of numbers. “See here? They list the medications in his bloodstream. It says that he was on SSRIs—selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. Antidepressants.”

Varya. It’s no surprise for a man whose daughter has just killed herself to be on antidepressants. Even for an old-school Russian, when the vodka wasn’t enough.

She shakes her head for Detwiler: nothing to see there.

He taps the page again. “He was on a bunch of worrisome medications. Diovan; it’s used to treat blood pressure, but it’s commonly prescribed for someone who’s just had a heart attack.”

A heart attack? Lyndsey raises an eyebrow.

He reads from the paper. “Tissue plasminogen activators—that’s for breaking up blood clots. You commonly see them administered after someone’s had a stroke. Anticoagulants. At the levels found in his blood, I’d say this man had had a serious medical episode fairly recently.”

Had Popov been ill? This case is one secret after another. What else doesn’t she know about her old friend?

“If he was so sick, how can you be sure he didn’t die from a heart attack?”

“No, it was the gelsemium, all right. You couldn’t have those levels in your bloodstream and live. But in his condition, it probably didn’t take much to get the body to shut down. It’s all right here in the report,” he says, rattling the sheet of paper, “though I’d be happier to run my own tests, you know, rather than go off someone else’s numbers. Mistakes happen. They’re rare, but they happen. Maybe I’ll call the medical examiner’s office and see if they have any material left.”

Typical analyst, wants to button things up. She is grateful to Detwiler, but their talk has nonetheless saddened her. Popov had not been this sick when she left. His deterioration was rapid.

Still. The clues are aligning too perfectly. It makes her nervous. She’s been trained to expect outliers. Sometimes it is a slam dunk, and everything lines up because the expected is exactly what happened. But other times . . .

“You’ve been very helpful. If you come across anything else of interest, even if you don’t think it’s significant, get in touch. Please.” After another handshake, she starts back to her office with one answer and a lot of new questions.

THIRTEEN

Lyndsey is barely back at her desk when there’s a large figure lurking in the doorway. Raymond Murphy stands just outside, hovering like a vampire waiting to be invited in. The thought amuses Lyndsey briefly, until she remembers that he might very well be there to tell her she’s lost her clearance, to pack up and go.

But no, it seems she’s been spared for another day. “We have a development at Moscow Station,” he says as he drops into a chair. Let it be Cassidy, she says to herself, and doesn’t even feel bad for it.

Murphy sounds pleased, though he tries to hide the satisfaction in his voice. “Turns out they flagged one of the case officers, Kate Franklin, as a potential concern. She’s been at Moscow Station for a year, with the Agency about twenty years. The Chief of Station came to us a few weeks back after noticing something odd about her. We’ve turned up some irregularities in her finances. Money in a bank account not covered in her financial report.”

Lyndsey’s disappointed that it has nothing to do with Cassidy. Still—so much for Hank Bremer’s complaining at the teleconference about Raymond Murphy’s inquiry: he’d reported the employee himself. Which is part of a COS’s job, after all. On the other hand, she knows what it’s like to be questioned over