“I know.”
“You’d considered it already?”
“I’d considered it, and rejected it.”
“Why?”
“Because, like you, I don’t put my faith in other people.”
Given that Ellie had been internally wrestling with her lack of faith in others only moments before, it made her uneasy that Will had the very same thoughts. With her back to him, she walked a few paces closer to the mountains and thrust her hands into Herald’s coat pockets.
Will watched her as she stood motionless, just staring at the stunning vista. Large snowflakes began to slowly descend in the windless air.
“I’ve spent ten years as a deep-cover operative.” Ellie’s voice sounded distant. “You know what that means?”
“Yes.” Will knew that it meant she’d spent five years longer than the maximum time an intelligence officer could expect to operate undercover before the constant state of paranoia and fear would finally take its toll on even the strongest mind. “Why have you stayed in the field so long?”
“Because I was never interested in a desk job in Langley.”
“Is that your only reason?”
Ellie hesitated before answering, “Thought I was doing some good.”
“For the States?”
“For the people who live there, yeah.”
“The Agency should have pulled you out of the field. You’re on borrowed time. I’m surprised you’re not dead in a ditch somewhere with a bullet in the back of your head.”
“Thanks for the mental image.”
“It’s one you’ve thought of every day during the last ten years.”
“It is.” She turned to face him. “And you know what I’ve concluded about that image?”
“You’ve accepted it, and that’s how you survived so long in the field.”
She nodded. “But the thing is—”
“You never thought you could be shot with the blessing of the Agency.”
“Or needing to be rescued by a guy who’s on the run.” She pulled out another cigarette, stared at it, and replaced it in the pack. “You saved my life. That matters. But what also matters to me is that I’ve gone above and beyond what the Agency should have expected from me, and in return they’ve stuck the knife in me. So, I can no longer put my faith in the organization. And that means I’m faced with the choice of putting my faith in nothing or something.”
“Something?”
“You.” She folded her arms. “The only option that makes sense.”
That option was for Ellie to return to Langley, pretend to senior management that she’d tried to persuade Will to surrender to the embassies in Oslo, somehow gain access to the Project Ferryman files, and relay what she’d discovered to Will if he made it to the States.
“If you get caught they’ll—”
“Oh, come on!” Ellie made no attempt to hide the sarcasm in her voice. “Don’t give me a pep talk about risk, okay? I know this stuff backward. Just don’t.”
Will made a decision. “Okay. Get a pay-as-you-go cell phone. Not in your name. Deposit its number at a DLB in Washington, D.C.” He gave her the precise location of the dead-letter box. “If it rings, it’ll only be me. But you might not hear from me for a while. No idea how long it’s going to take to get to America. Given you’re a deep-cover operative, I’m assuming you know how to get stuff? In particular, disguises and people’s home addresses.”
Ellie nodded.
“Okay. I’ll need a lockup or an apartment in D.C. Someplace on the outskirts and cheap. And I’ll need you to procure and store some things for me there.” He told her what he had in mind, and drew out his wad of cash to give her money.
But Ellie walked up to him and said, “You’ll need every cent you’ve got. I’ll get you what you want. We can settle up later.”
Will held out his hand.
Ellie shook it and held it for a few seconds, staring at the scars on his fingers. It surprised her that holding his warm hand made her feel so good. “We need to go.”
“We do.” Will looked at the place where earlier he’d had Russia’s best spymaster in his sights. “Antaeus was here in person to make sure we didn’t learn about his mole.” He fixed his gaze on Ellie. “Be very careful. Trust no one.”
FOUR
Eighteen hours later, Alistair entered a large boardroom in the CIA headquarters in Langley. The MI6 controller, co-head of the joint CIA-MI6 task force, had been summoned here because he was Will Cochrane’s boss. The other co-head, CIA officer Patrick, was already in the room, sitting on a chair facing three people on the other side of a large oak table. The room was nothing like the others in the sprawling headquarters: it had oak paneling on the walls, leather-upholstered chairs, and ornate oil lamps that emitted a flickering bronze glow through their tulip-shaped glass bulbs; on the table was a tea set and doilies that would have looked at home in the Claridge hotel. Alistair had been in this room twice before, once to talk in fluent Arabic to a visiting Arab prince who was young and charming and naive to the nastier ways of the world, and latterly to advise the head of the Agency that MI6 was certain the Chinese had recruited an employee of the NSA.
On each occasion he’d been here, the room reminded him of the officers’ quarters on a seventeenth-century man-of-war ship.
The slim, middle-aged controller was, as ever, immaculately dressed, wearing a blue three-piece suit, a French-cuff silk shirt with a cutaway collar, a tie that had been bound in a Windsor knot, and black Church’s shoes. His blond hair was trimmed and lacquered in the style of an Edwardian gentleman.
Patrick looked similar to Alistair and was the same age. But today, the CIA officer had not opted to match Alistair’s immaculate look; he wasn’t wearing a jacket or tie, and his shirtsleeves were rolled up to reveal his sinewy and scarred forearms. Alistair knew from experience that his informal attire meant the CIA officer had contempt for the men opposite him and was pissed off.
Alistair sat next to him and studied the three people on the other side of the table. Though he knew of them, he’d never met them in person before. The man directly opposite him was Colby Jellicoe, a former high-ranking CIA officer and now an influential senator who sat on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, an oversight body that was tasked with ensuring that the CIA operated within the rule of law. Next to him were CIA director Ed Parker and senior CIA officer Charles Sheridan.
Jellicoe spoke first. “The Norwegians got there before we could, and they’re saying there are dead American spies on their turf and they want to know why.”
Alistair placed the tips of his fingers together. “Dead Americans? Oh dear.”
“Yeah, well, they’ve been made to look like Americans, anyways.” The senator picked up a pen and jabbed it in the direction of Alistair. “We’re now at the diplomatic shit storm stage of a cluster fuck.”
“What a delightful turn of phrase.” Alistair was analyzing Jellicoe. Probably mid-fifties, short, fat — no, fat in places, wrists were normal size, face was jowly rather than round, probably he’d lost and gained weight throughout his life, but he wasn’t naturally fat. What did that mean? He was a binger, yes, a man who at times couldn’t resist being a gourmand, a pig. That was decided then: Jellicoe was a pig. “I’m sure you can placate the Norwegian government with a little honesty and perhaps a reminder about the nature of false-flag operations.”
Jellicoe looked over the top of his glasses with an expression of utter hostility. “That’s providing we want to try and placate anyone.”
“Try to.”