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

Richard. And he proved it in the end, didn’t he? Whatever love he had turned to hate. He was willing to burn me and let Richard die in prison.”

Now Lyndsey feels a slight afterburn of embarrassment. Because she recognizes that this is what she has wanted, too. Once she came back to Russia Division and became friends with The Widow: to have a piece of what she didn’t have a decade ago, when she was on the outside looking in.

And yet . . . That seems like a lifetime ago, the desire for acceptance a holdover from her first uncertain days at the Agency. That self-doubting young woman is gone, Lyndsey’s eyes opened by the events of the past weeks. She understands Davis better, how one becomes toughened in this business. Cynical.

She deserves that relationship with Davis now, she decides. It’s been hard-won.

Just like her friendship with Theresa.

FORTY-FOUR

ONE WEEK LATER

RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, GERMANY

It is a rainy and cold afternoon. Lyndsey stands inside an old concrete building, next to a wall of windows.

Outside, the air base looks like any airport the world over. Huge runways. Planes touching down in the background with languid regularity. Ground crews in camouflage and reflective vests scurrying about. Huge transport vehicles parked on the periphery, painted olive drab. Rainwater runs down the glass in streaks, the grayness lending an air of weariness and ennui.

Closer to the doors leading to the tarmac are Theresa and Brian. They are more animated than everyone else in the terminal, and certainly more than the last time Lyndsey saw them. Theresa is pointing out ground equipment to Brian, who seems to know the name of each one. Brian, who has barely said two words in the entire time Lyndsey has known him and perpetually hid behind his mother’s legs, can’t stop talking. He’s pressed against the windows, straining to see the landing of the aircraft carrying his father.

There isn’t a big crowd waiting in the terminal for Richard Warner’s return. Spy swaps tend to be done on the hush-hush, even for a man who has been declared dead. There are a couple Agency representatives to handle all the administrative work, the paperwork, and to explain what happens next. What the government is prepared to do to make amends. Once they’re back in Virginia, there will be debriefings. Eventually, he will be brought back into the headquarters building. There are a lot of people who want to see him, to hear his stories, to cry over his return.

The two representatives stand back, conferring with each other in a waiting area. This is the family’s time, Theresa’s and Brian’s.

She and Theresa have barely spoken since they heard the news that Eric Newman has disappeared. That night, right after Lyndsey’s call, the Watch sent an officer to Eric’s apartment to check on him, only to find certain key things missing, such as his suitcases. Then they found out that he’d withdrawn most of his savings from his bank account the day before, just walked in and took what he could in cash. They were trying to track him down, but it wasn’t hard to disappear when you know how. When you’ve been trained for it.

A woman in an air force uniform walks up to Theresa, their liaison since arriving on the base yesterday. “Your husband’s plane should be touching down any minute. If you go over here”—she starts to lead them along the wall of windows—“you’ll have a better view.” Theresa and Brian follow, hand in hand. Lyndsey hangs back a little.

The plane, a military transport, comes into view shortly. It’s so big, it’s like watching an aircraft carrier descend from the clouds, then touch down on earth, the ground rumbling beneath it. You hold your breath as it wheels toward the terminal. It looks impossibly big, like it could roll over this building.

The officer escorts Theresa and Brian through the doors and onto the tarmac. An ambulance has pulled up, its red lights flashing. They’ve already been told the ambulance is just a precaution; Richard Warner has been seen by medical personnel at the U.S. embassy in Moscow and he’s in reasonably good health for a man who’s been imprisoned for two years. But that’s why he’s been flown to Ramstein and not directly to the United States: he’s getting a complete checkup. It seems that’s the protocol for prisoners and hostages, a trip to the army’s Landstuhl Regional Medical Center. He’ll stay for a couple days, at the least, before flying to Virginia. A psychiatric evaluation before he touches down on U.S. soil is a big part of the reason he is at Landstuhl.

Lyndsey remains inside and watches. The terminal is cold; perhaps it’s just too hard to heat this old building. So much glass. A damp German chill seems to emanate off the walls. She watches as they roll a set of metal steps out to the aircraft, Spartan and old-school. No jet bridges here.

A couple of other passengers disembark first. None are Richard, she guesses, because they’re wearing military uniforms. Did they know that man at the back of the plane, the quiet man in civilian clothing, has just been released from a Russian prison? That he’s a hero? He’ll never be a famous one, though; his story won’t even be well known in the halls of CIA. The real story will be kept secret. Not for the first time, she wonders what will become of Richard Warner. What do you do with your life after something like this? She tries to imagine him back at CIA, working for men who left him to rot in prison, but that can’t be possible. He will have been changed forever by the experience. He must be ready to close the book on his life in the intelligence business.

Eventually, Lyndsey catches sight of him as he steps onto the top of the portable stairs. He’s so far away that she can’t see him very well but it’s close enough. A