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

the vending machines at the end of the corridor where they won’t be overheard. He rattles coins in his pocket as he looks over the assortment of snacks behind the Plexiglas. “I thought we were done. You forget something?” He sounds like a man who expects bad news.

Lyndsey folds her arms over her chest. “I forgot to ask who may have approached you about Skipjack. Anyone with an unexpected interest in cyber?”

“I’ve been thinking about that.” He nods in agreement. Raymond Murphy will be happy to hear the mandatory CI training is having an effect. “It’s cockamamie if you ask me . . . What are the chances that someone inside is responsible for his disappearance?”

She doesn’t mention Lighthouse or Genghis. If he’s unaware of the other cases, so much the better. “You think there’s another reason?”

Kincaid shrugs. “He was an unhappy man. I think it’s more likely that it’s something we don’t know about. Like he owed the wrong people money, or his wife was getting on his case.”

We tend to assume other people’s problems are like our own, she learned from the two behavioral researchers she worked with at Penn. In which case, there may be more to Kyle Kincaid than meets the eye. Still, he might be right about Skipjack.

He rattles the coins again, like they are burning a hole in his pockets. “Skipjack had just turned in some really good information, and a report was getting a lot of attention from new people, offices that hadn’t bothered with his earlier reports . . . So, it’s hard to say for sure whether there was someone bad in there. But there was one in particular . . .” Jiggles coins. He’s stalling. “It struck me as odd, that she would be interested. She doesn’t work in cyber.”

“She?”

Kincaid casts a glance over his shoulder before continuing. “Her name is Evelyn Wang. In Russia Division. You know who I’m talking about?”

Lyndsey nods, but she’s not sure if she knows the woman. Easy enough to find out.

“She gave me some story how she thought Skipjack might have something to do with a problem she was working on. She asked a million questions about him.”

“And did you tell her?”

He swallows. He knows he is caught. “Yeah, I thought where’s the harm? She has a blue badge hanging around her neck the same as me . . .” By the way he feigns and stammers, he knows he did wrong. “I didn’t think about it at the time, but a couple weeks later I was taking that mandatory training course, the one where they talk about spies caught here, and they were talking about Aldrich Ames and it hit me, it was just like that. Just like that.” Now the bravado has gone out of him. Skipjack is gone and he could be responsible.

“Did you tell anyone about your suspicions at the time?”

“No. Because at the time, it didn’t seem . . . It didn’t make sense. There was nothing going on.” His face turns red.

“You can’t tell anyone about this, got that?” Lyndsey says. “This is an ongoing investigation. Not a word.”

He nods. Funny thing is, Lyndsey thinks she sees a flash of resentment pass over his face—then triumph.

—

There’s an IM flashing on her screen when she returns to her office. It’s Theresa: Coffee? Lyndsey would like to, maybe probe discreetly about Theresa’s use of that bulletin board tool, but there’s one meeting she’s been putting off that she can stall no longer. Sorry, maybe later? she types, then hits Send.

She has to see Genghis’s reports officer.

The reports officer for Genghis hasn’t changed since Lyndsey was Popov’s handler. Lyndsey has known Evert Northrop for most of her career, ever since she came to Russia Division as a trainee. Northrop is past retirement age, with a reputation for being a martinet. They had a prickly long-distance relationship when Lyndsey was in Moscow and she’s been avoiding him since she’s been back, though she feels guilty about it. Northrop stays in his corner of the office, she has noticed, not talking much to anyone or participating in team meetings, a fussy old man making pots of tea with the electric kettle he doesn’t let anyone else use.

He’s still tucked off in a corner, forcing you to wend through a maze of safes and file cabinets if you want to see him. The light dims, giving you the sensation of descending into a library’s long-forgotten stacks. There are old Soviet-era propaganda posters on the walls, probably salvaged from the trash thirty years ago, and bits of Russian kitsch: a pink babushka draped decoratively over a side table, and on a nearby shelf, a set of matryoshka dolls painted to resemble Russian ballerinas. The overall impression is a cross between a crazed Muscovite diva’s parlor and Soviet party headquarters. He’s carved out his own little corner, made a place for himself among the more predatory types, the Hank Bremers and Richard Warners and even the Eric Newmans of Russia Division.

His expression is unreadable as she approaches, though he seems to grip the report in his hands a little tighter. Seeing her would remind him of Yaromir Popov. She isn’t the only one who lost Yaromir Popov. Lyndsey kicks herself for not coming to see him earlier.

Northrop avoids looking at her as he pours tea into his cup. “Hello, Lyndsey. I’d heard you were back.”

As the reports officer for Genghis, Northrop would know about the investigation so he knows why she has come to see him. Still, there are niceties to observe. “How are you?”

“They’re still waiting for me to retire. They want to replace us with younger models. You’d do well to remember that. You may be one of the younger models now, but it’ll be your turn one day.” His eyes are sharp as needles.

His desk is piled with stacks of reports, a wild hedge of white paper and manila file folders. Paper overflows from his two-drawer safe. Some officers never learn to trust a computer or claim they can’t absorb what they read on a screen. They