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

strain around the eyes, a tightness to the mouth. This is a woman ready for her trials to be over. But under the weariness and anxiety, there is a glimmer of resolve, of determination. A glint of steel. She is ready to set things right.

No doubt, the same could be said of Lyndsey. She feels like she aged twenty years between Cassidy’s questioning and Pfeifer’s office.

Theresa won’t linger. They are both highly aware that Eric will notice, and become nervous, if there’s any change in their behavior of the past few weeks.

Lyndsey locks eyes with Theresa but keeps her voice low. “We know what Eric’s after. Cassidy spilled everything under questioning. He wants Evgeni Morozov. That was his plan all along. You’re the bait.”

Theresa can’t believe what she’s just heard. “I’m the bait?”

“There was intelligence that Morozov would come to Washington to bring you in personally. Eric was banking on that.”

Theresa bites her lip. “The Russians haven’t told me much . . . They never give me much detail, it’s all in code . . . But Morozov’s not coming to the meeting: it’s Tarasenko, Dmitri Tarasenko. That’s what I came to tell you. They contacted me last night. It’s on for tonight. Ten o’clock. I don’t know for sure who’s coming. I was only told to be ready.” She glances over her shoulder in the direction of Eric’s office. “I’d better go. He’ll be back any minute.” Then she’s gone, as suddenly and completely as a ghost.

It’s go time. A familiar feeling, part anxiety and part anticipation, rises inside her. Equal parts dread and eagerness to have this over.

At least there’s one bit of poetic justice in all this: Eric is going to be destroyed. After all this plotting and scheming, he isn’t going to get Morozov anyway. He would’ve ruined lives only to end up with nothing.

Lyndsey reaches for the secure phone, punches in Herbert’s number.

—

Theresa’s house is ready. Herbert’s team has fitted it with microphones and cameras. It was done stealthily, in case the Russians are watching the house—which they undoubtedly are. The FBI found an agent who looked uncannily like the woman who watches Brian in the afternoons, and she was sent in, backpack slung casually over one arm, to set up the equipment. A technician was sent in later to finish the work and test the connection to the command post, posing as a repairman come to fix the refrigerator. Herbert shows Lyndsey and Theresa on a map where the FBI teams have been posted, hours in advance. The house is covered; she and her son will not be in danger at any time, she assures Theresa, but of course she can’t know that, not for certain. That’s just what they tell you. What they want you to believe.

“I wish Brian didn’t have to be there,” Theresa says, fist pressed against her mouth. Rouge Rebelle smears across one knuckle.

Herbert gives her a tense smile. “Don’t worry—my agents know his safety is our number one priority.”

It’s six o’clock, and they’re in a van parked just outside Theresa’s immediate neighborhood. She is ostensibly getting dinner and must rush back to her son so the sitter can leave. A bag of Chinese food, picked up earlier by one of the FBI agents, sits at her feet. It fills the van with spicy and savory aromas. Lyndsey’s stomach growls to remind her that she hasn’t eaten all day.

Theresa sighs. “At one point, months ago, I almost told Brian he was going to see his father again. I’m glad I didn’t.”

That must be the hardest part of what she is doing: knowing that Richard is alive but accepting that she is never going to see him again. In agreeing to take the safe course, she has chosen her son over her husband. Would she ever forgive herself for it?

She picks up the white plastic bag, the weight of the containers within shifting. It crinkles softly in her hands. “I’d better get home. Brian will be waiting.”

—

Lyndsey will spend the hours leading up to the event with Herbert and her agents. She and Herbert sit with another agent in the command post, made to look like a delivery van on the outside but fitted with equipment inside. An agent with headphones sits at a station next to her, listening to what comes in from the microphones in Theresa’s house. He also listens to a police scanner. Herbert is at a monitor, tapping away at emails. Lyndsey feels out of her element. She’s not given anything to do and listens to bursts of chatter between the FBI teams, reporting potential activity, picking out recurring vehicles and pedestrians lingering in improbable spots, probable Russian surveillance. The good news is that there doesn’t seem to be too many, about four total units spotted so far.

Somewhere, not far away, Eric’s team is setting up. As decided in advance with Lyndsey, Herbert’s team told Eric they’d intercepted a call that gave the final date and time, setting the trap. Lyndsey tries to picture what Eric will do—this is his big night, after all. The payoff for all his cunning. How many officers and contractors has he got on his team? He told Lyndsey, in passing, that he will lead them himself. She’d assumed he wouldn’t let someone else steal the limelight. He will want to nab his prize.

So many teams converging on one target in such a confined, busy area, it’s a miracle they haven’t tripped over each other yet. In a more well-coordinated operation, Herbert explains to Lyndsey, CIA would let FBI handle it or a few officers would be invited to participate as part of the team. The fact that there are two separate teams should’ve tipped Eric that something unusual is going on—but he was so close to his prize, perhaps he decided not to fight it.

At one point, there’s a crackle over the radio and one of the FBI units says they believe they’ve spotted the CIA team in a large SUV parked down the street.