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

the back seat, not nervous in the least. They’re streaking down the George Washington Parkway. A cloak of indigo has fallen over the city. D.C. is not a party town at night: the road traffic is thin and the sidewalks empty. The SUV glides through darkness decorated by red brake lights, streetlights, and the occasional distant glow from spotlights trained on a skyscraper or monument.

They’re going to the Hilton in Tysons Corner. Cassidy is staying there while he’s in-country; they know this from the itinerary he filed with Russia Division, which Lyndsey got from Maggie. According to his itinerary, he’ll spend a few days helping Eric with the side operation and then take a week of home leave in Ocean City, Maryland. He has no idea of the welcome he’s about to get.

The driver pulls up in front of the hotel. Lyndsey remembers the reception area from previous visits. It looks something like a futuristic ski lodge, roughhewn wood and stone finishes and modern furniture. There is little activity, thanks to the late hour. A couple strolls through the lobby from the bar, and in the far corner a small party is camped in a comfortable seating area finishing their drinks, light from the flames twinkling off martini glasses.

At reception, Herbert flashes her credentials at the clerk and the poor man’s face freezes as he tries not to betray alarm. “The man who just checked in—what’s the room number?”

On the elevator ride to the sixth floor, Lyndsey tries to calm the pounding of her heart. She’s done a lot of things in her career—shaking surveillance tails while feeling eyes on her back, following adversaries on their way to meet their assets in a crowded shopping district—but leading a team of FBI agents to a colleague’s room isn’t one of them. She hopes she’ll never have to do it again.

Cassidy answers the door and it’s obvious he had no idea what was waiting for him on the other side. He looks like he didn’t get a wink of sleep on the fifteen-hour journey. He’s in the same clothes he wore on the plane, jeans and a sports jacket, rumpled and wrinkled. A faintly sour, stale cloud hangs around him.

“Lyndsey? What are you doing here?” He seems to ignore the credentials Herbert holds up as she pushes her way into the room, less interested in the FBI than in her. They leave an FBI agent on station in the hall as Herbert closes the door.

“I’m Special Agent Sally Herbert of the FBI Counterintelligence Division.” She uses her height to her advantage with Cassidy, who is short, forcing him back a couple steps. With Lyndsey on the other side, Cassidy is boxed against the wall. He cringes as he backs away. He knows he did something wrong.

“We have your management’s permission to speak with you. Why don’t you take a seat?”

He turns away instead, rubbing the back of his neck. He doesn’t want to face us. “Now is not a good time. My flight just got in and I’m beat. Can’t it wait till the morning?”

“I’m afraid not.”

Reluctantly, he sits on the edge of the bed.

“We’re conducting an investigation into one of your colleagues”—Cassidy doesn’t look surprised, but then, Eric would’ve told him about Theresa—“and need to ask you a few questions.”

He runs a hand through his sticky hair, giving him a harried, disheveled look. “Whoever it is, they’re not going anywhere tonight. Look, I’m beat. The Moscow to D.C. route is a bitch. Can’t it wait till morning?” he asks again testily.

Herbert presses on. “New information has come to light concerning Genghis. He believed his cooperation with CIA had been revealed to the FSB, and that’s why he was headed to Washington.”

It’s a bluff Lyndsey fed Herbert, bait to see how Cassidy will react. He shrugs as though it’s common knowledge. “Why else would he be going to Washington?”

“You were the one who told him, right? But I couldn’t find any reporting to the fact—like there should be, right?—so perhaps you can tell us who gave you this information.”

Cassidy’s eyes dart momentarily to Lyndsey, an uncontrollable tell. The unmistakable look of a rat who feels the trap closing on him. “Why do you think it was me?”

This is the missing part, the piece that will bring everything together. Cassidy has got to be involved—he was Popov’s handler, after all—the trigger that sent the old Russian spy running to find Lyndsey.

All they have to do is get him to admit it.

“Masha told me,” Lyndsey blurts. The thought comes to her out of thin air. “Yaromir shared everything with Masha. He shared this, too.”

The color drains from Cassidy’s face. It doesn’t dawn on him to question her, probably because of the immediacy of the situation, the FBI agents hemming him in. “That’s right. I haven’t had time to write it up yet, so much going on. The information came from another of my assets. He told me Genghis was blown, so I passed it on to Genghis. Told him not to panic and to sit tight. We were in the process of deciding what to do for him when he bolted. It wasn’t my fault.”

Cassidy’s gaze shifts left and high, like he’s plucking thoughts from midair, another common tell. It could be that he and Eric didn’t work this part through, or that he’s exhausted and scared, and can’t remember the story they’d come up with. In all likelihood, though, they didn’t bother to tidy up this loose end, confident they wouldn’t be questioned. Popov was a double agent and if Russia found out, they would assassinate him. It happened with unfortunate regularity. No one would think to question it.

Herbert leans forward, using all her height. “Who is this other source, Tom? And why did you talk to Genghis before Station had a plan in hand to deal with it?”

She has rattled him. He looks at Herbert, and then around the hotel room at the dark gray walls and the curtains rippling over the