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

was bait to lure Morozov out of the country. But Popov—I’m still not sure why he had him killed.”

Now that she’s said the words out loud and feels the truth of them in her heart, it only takes a second for Lyndsey to push that last puzzle piece into place.

It was for her.

Eric killed Popov to entice her to do the investigation. It wasn’t that Eric had faith in her: no, it was the opposite. To lead the investigation, he needed someone he could dupe and manipulate. To make sure they came to the right conclusion: that Theresa Warner was a double agent for Russia and that she’d done so out of spite and malice.

Lyndsey was nothing more than a pawn. In a way, she is responsible for Popov’s death.

For a moment, she can barely breathe. The human lie detector—I missed every sign.

She opens her mouth to tell Herbert—but stops. It is too embarrassing to admit. Too shameful.

It doesn’t matter: Herbert doesn’t give her more than a moment to recover—or maybe she can’t feel the depths of Lyndsey’s distress. She runs a hand impatiently through her short hair. “I have to hand it to you: FBI has its share of ambitious pricks, but you guys are in a league of your own.”

Lyndsey isn’t about to argue the point. “What are we going to do with Cassidy? He knows we’re onto Eric. What’s to stop him from telling Eric before the takedown?”

“FBI can’t detain him. There’s no evidence that he committed a crime. I’ll tell Cassidy he’d better keep his mouth shut. If he leaks word of our investigation to Newman, he’ll face federal charges. But maybe it would be better if CIA handles this one. Can you get your folks to take care of Cassidy? I have a feeling if the orders come from Langley, he’ll listen.”

Herbert looks Lyndsey square in the face. She’s sizing her up, that’s plain, taking her measure. “But we’ve got something bigger to worry about right now. This is where you and I figure out how we’re going to trap Eric Newman. If you’re right, he has a lot to take responsibility for . . . But you and I both know that he can try to deflect the blame, to wiggle out of it. Sometimes hiding behind clearances and policies, rules and regulations. If Eric Newman had your asset killed and provoked Theresa Warner into spying for the Russians, how are we going to prove it?”

It’s now the moment of truth. Her real fear, she realizes, is that she’s afraid everything Cassidy said is true and they’ll side with Eric. That they, too, will want Morozov so badly that they’d be willing to sweep it under the rug, look the other way.

She almost loses her nerve. Eric is not stupid; he will have covered his tracks well. They’ll need conclusive evidence of what Eric has done—does that even exist?

Then she thinks of it: somebody paid Claude Simon, and she is sure it didn’t come out of Eric’s pocket. Simon gave Tony Schaffer’s name to the FBI agents in Norfolk, which means he handled the contract that paid Simon. Eric’s signature would be on the contract, too.

“You’re going to have to subpoena the Agency to show you a classified contract,” Lyndsey says. Shakily at first but then with more confidence. “But yeah, I think we can prove it.”

—

She calls to set up an appointment with Patrick Pfeifer as soon as she gets into the office the next morning. She hasn’t been able to shake the suspicion that Tom Cassidy telephoned Eric as soon as he was released, but that was a risk they had to take.

Turns out Pfeifer is juggling a lot of duties as Director Chesterfield is on vacation, Lyndsey is informed rather grumpily by the secretary who answers the phone. “It’s of the utmost importance. I need to prepare him for a call from FBI,” Lyndsey says.

“You can have fifteen minutes,” the woman says curtly, and Lyndsey gratefully accepts.

She practices what she will say in her head over and over, but it dissolves like salt in warm water on the long walk to the seventh floor. She perches on one of the chairs in the anteroom, the secretaries explicitly ignoring her as they fall into the morning’s rhythms. Attendees arrive for the first morning meetings, prep for the President’s Daily Brief. Women and men walk by busily, throwing curious glances in Lyndsey’s direction. Voices drift in from the private offices in the back but Lyndsey deliberately tries to ignore them so that she can focus on the task at hand.

The investigation has come to a dangerous junction. She can only see one way to succeed, but once Pfeifer hears what’s going on, he may take it all out of her hands.

And what will she do if he looks her right in the eye and tells her she’s being naïve? That Eric is in the right and she in the wrong, just as Cassidy said.

One of the secretaries lifts her head in Lyndsey’s direction. Salt-and-pepper hair cut short, piercing blue eyes. “You can go in now.”

Pfeifer sits behind his desk, flanked by stacks of papers. This morning he seems more harried than usual. Is that a look of annoyance she sees flit across his face? Lyndsey is hypervigilant for any sign of impatience, and she wouldn’t blame him if he told her to stop these drop-bys. The Chief of Staff owes her nothing, after all. He’s just a kind man who paid attention to her years ago when she was a new hire. CIA has thousands of employees and he has a responsibility to each one. The strained smile on his face could be her tenuous connection to him going up in flames.

“Hi, Lyndsey. I have a teleconference with State Department in a few minutes, so we’ll have to keep this brief. Now, what can I do for you?”

Deep breath and it all comes out. She tells him everything, including her research, all the evidence she’s