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

compiled. She almost stumbles when she gets to what happened last night, Tom Cassidy’s poisonous admission . . . Eric’s plan, it sounds so preposterous now, said aloud in the Director’s office, even if there is a contract with Eric’s signature on it that will bear her out . . . She wonders in the back of her mind if she’s hallucinating. She runs over her allotted fifteen minutes—the salt-and-pepper-haired secretary knocks at the door and, when there is no response, clears her throat, but Pfeifer asks her to get one of his executive assistants to cover the teleconference. State Department will have to understand.

As Lyndsey wraps up, Pfeifer’s face goes ashen—for which she is grateful. She wasn’t wrong to take this insane risk. To follow her gut. “This is incredible,” he says when she has finished.

She’s laid quite the problem at his feet. She wishes she were wrong, hopes there’s something she’s overlooked that Pfeifer, with his experience, will see. Her stomach roils while waiting for him to say something.

He sits back. “I don’t know Eric Newman all that well. We never worked in the same office, and that’s how you get to know a person. I’ve heard stories—but that’s all they were, stories, and I never knew how much stock to give any of them. I wish I’d paid more attention then. This is bad, Lyndsey. Bad.”

He doesn’t qualify his statement with “if it’s true.” He believes her, for which she is immeasurably grateful.

“What I should do is call Newman into my office, with Roger Barker, his boss. Give them a chance to explain themselves. That would be standard operating procedure.” For a moment, Lyndsey’s stomach is in free fall. “But I’m not sure what that will get me. Newman will deny it, of course, and things will drag on, and from what you tell me, we don’t have a lot of time. The meeting with this Russian agent is due to happen any day, you say?”

She nods.

Pfeifer rubs his chin. “And FBI is witting? They know the extraction is set to happen?” She nods again. He’s silent as he thinks. Lyndsey lets her gaze skitter over the piles of papers on his desk. There must be dozens of crises demanding his attention, secrets that could cause the rise or fall of a foreign leader, unrest that could boil over to violence. CIA serves the president, not itself. This is one of many things Pfeifer must juggle at this moment, but she fears it must be the most personal to the Agency.

At length, Pfeifer lets out a sigh. “Okay—let’s let this play out and see where it goes. It sounds like we have safeguards in place—FBI is witting, Newman’s planning to pounce on the Russian agent?” She’s explained that it’s not any Russian agent but Evgeni Morozov, one of CIA’s most wanted.

Even though this is what Lyndsey hoped for, she’s surprised at Pfeifer’s decision. She doesn’t know why it’s such a big surprise: the Agency takes risks every day. Some are moonshots. After a moment’s thought, Lyndsey realizes that going against protocol seems out of place for Pfeifer, that’s why it bothers her. He isn’t talking about replacing her. She expected that, after this meeting, she would be ushered to the side and someone more experienced would be put at the helm.

She thinks she knows why, though. Eric Newman has been Chief of Russia Division for a while now. A senior executive. He has his allies, people who know him and will find it hard to believe that he’s capable of this. Things could still blow up, even at this juncture. But Pfeifer has chosen to place his trust in her.

She almost wants to ask him—are you sure? I’m not a human lie detector. I almost didn’t see this. Eric nearly got away with it.

And yet, she did figure it out. By some miracle.

Pfeifer nods his head with finality. “We’ll let it proceed. I’ll inform the General Counsel’s office.”

As his hand goes for the telephone, Lyndsey brings up two more things. First, someone needs to pay a visit to Tom Cassidy. “If his loyalty is to Eric, he may have already told him what’s happened.”

Pfeifer grunts. “Considering I haven’t gotten a phone call from Newman yet, I doubt that’s the case. We’ll get the General Counsel’s office to handle this one. Remind him of his legal obligation.” It’s the best he can do under the circumstances, and she’ll just have to accept it.

The second ask is harder: Masha and Polina Popov need CIA’s help. “They’re in danger because of what Eric did. No one in the FSB suspected Popov was spying for us. He was safe. Now it’s only a matter of time before the Russians figure it out.” Help for Masha will be hard to keep from Eric. As long as he’s Chief of the Division, there’s a chance that he can find out about any operation that involves Russia. It could be an inadvertent slip by someone working logistical issues or the contracts office, pushing through the purchase of plane tickets or hotel rooms. There are a thousand little details that need to be taken care of in order to get someone out of hostile territory and set up a new life for them in America. To do it under intense time constraints increases the risk of discovery that much more.

“I’ll talk to Roger Barker and ask him to take care of it. I can’t make any promises until I talk to him, but . . . It sounds like we owe them at least that much.”

Her gratitude is so great she cannot find words.

“Keep me posted,” he says as she leaves, already turning back to the pile of paperwork on his desk, the next crisis beckoning.

FORTY

Lyndsey has barely returned to her office when Theresa appears at the door.

Lyndsey cannot help but notice that she looks so different from when Lyndsey returned to the office a few scant weeks ago. She’s aged twenty years. She is exhausted. There is