“Of course not. I’m sure only a small percentage are involved. But I can’t take the chance of the one person who is involved finding out. The stakes are just too high.”
“Call the cops then. The Secret Service. Alert the media. We have to do something.”
Tracie sighed. “I’d like nothing better. But do you have any idea how many ‘tips’ the authorities get every day about assassination plots against the president? Dozens, especially when he travels or makes public appearances. We won’t be taken seriously, Shane, trust me on this. We’ll be detained and the speech will go on as planned.”
He stared at her, his stomach turning over slowly. The blueberry muffin he had eaten earlier felt like a ticking time bomb and his mouth tasted sour and acidic, like he might be about to puke. “What are we going to do, then?”
“We continue to D.C. as planned. I have to interrogate Andrews, force him to give up the names of everyone involved in this thing. Once I have those names, I’ll know who’s clean. Then we pass along this damned letter.”
Shane punched the gas and the Granada leapt forward again. They were still hours away from Washington and time was ticking. Something was still bothering him, though. “What if Andrews refuses to give up the information you need?”
Tracie stared straight ahead, steely-eyed and determined. “He’ll talk.”
36
Winston Andrews’ two-story townhouse was located in Georgetown, a couple of blocks northeast of the Potomac River and Virginia, a couple of blocks west of the D.C. political sprawl. Built of weathered red brick and covered in climbing ivy, the house looked lush and full and green in the summer.
Tracie and Shane had been forced to pass the time in the New York City area waiting for the bank containing Tracie’s safe deposit box to open for business. At nine o’clock sharp, they had parked outside a squat concrete bank building, and the moment the manager had unlocked the front door, Tracie entered.
Shane stayed with the car while Tracie carried in a cheap canvas backpack they had picked up at a roadside Five and Dime store. She returned fifteen minutes later with the pack bulging, then tossed it into the backseat where it landed with a metallic clank.
“Don’t ask,” she said, and Shane didn’t ask.
After that they had taken turns driving, following the interstate, pushing the speed limit as much as they dared. Getting stopped for speeding would be a problem, but arriving in Washington too late to prevent the assassination of the President of the United States would be a bigger problem. They stopped at a highway gas station just after noon, where they filled up the tank and bought a couple of cold burgers, then got right back on the road and ate in the car.
Conversation was sporadic. Shane could see plainly that Tracie had been shaken to the core by her betrayal at the hands of Winston Andrews. It was eating at her, seemingly bothering her even more than the idea that the two of them were all that stood between the Soviet Union and the likely outbreak of World War Three. She chewed her lip and muttered to herself, shaking her head when she thought he wasn’t looking. “Can’t talk about it,” was all she would commit to when he tried to get her to open up.
Shane thought he understood. The relationship between a field operative — Tracie refused to use the term “spy,” but to Shane it seemed appropriate — and her handler was of necessity extremely close, especially when clandestine operations were involved. She had told him back at the New Haven Arms while they relaxed in bed that often the handler was the only person alive besides the operative herself who possessed all the details of an operation, making the handler the only lifeline if the operative ran into problems in the field.
So Tracie had placed an inordinate amount of trust — faith, really — in Winston Andrews. And he had turned out to be a traitor both to Tracie and to his country, accepting without question what he thought had been her execution in a dive motel by two KGB agents as the cost of doing business. Shane wondered what was going to happen when they arrived at Andrews’ townhouse. After having seen the results of her interaction with the two Russian spies back in New Haven, he guessed life would suddenly become exceedingly unpleasant for Andrews.
The sun had lost its day-long battle with an overcast layer, and the slate-grey sky hung dour and menacing over the mid-Atlantic as they entered the D.C. metro area. Tracie was behind the wheel for this leg, and after exiting the highway, navigated the streets with practiced ease. Fifteen minutes later, she pulled to the curb in a quiet, leafy neighborhood, letting the Ford idle while she sat taking in the activity, of which there was little.
“Which one is it?” Shane asked, and she pointed out Andrews’ home.
“He lives alone?”
She nodded wordlessly.
“He won’t be expecting you, so you should have the advantage of surprise,” he said.
“That may or may not be true,” Tracie answered, the first time she had spoken more than a couple of words at a time in several hours. “It all depends upon the communication schedule he had set up with the Russians. If he expected them to check in between New Haven and here, say at the halfway point or something, he’ll obviously be aware by now that something’s gone wrong.”
“How likely is that?”
She shrugged. “No way of knowing. He wouldn’t have had that kind of arrangement with me, but then again, he and I worked together for a long time.” Her voice was hard-edged and bitter. “But with these guys, he may have wanted a more hands-on relationship.”
She shrugged again. “Doesn’t really matter. Nothing we can do about it either way.”
They sat for another moment. “What’s the plan?” Shane asked.
“The plan? Reintroduce myself to my old friend and have a little heart to heart.”
37
Tracie knew she needed to move now, but couldn’t shake her depression. She had been brooding for hours in the car, the weight of Andrews’ betrayal throbbing in her gut like a physical ailment. She liked to think of herself as a keen judge of character — staying alive often meant sniffing out the difference between sincerity and bullshit — and she had never viewed Andrews as anything but a patriot.
It was like losing a parent. Hell, in some ways it was worse than losing a parent, because Winston Andrews’ deception had been so willful, so heartless so…complete. Death happened, it came for everyone eventually, and although the death of a loved one could bring pain, the actions of Winston Andrews had brought that and much more: the hurt of personal betrayal, and anger, and a confusion Tracie simply could not work past.
She had signed on at CIA not out of any desire to put her life on the line. Not because she had an addiction to danger. Certainly not because she wanted to fly around the world nonstop for years on end, working in the biggest hellholes, putting out the biggest fires, always knowing that if things went sideways there would be no one to come to the rescue, always knowing if she were captured or killed she would be cast aside by her government, sacrificed on the altar of political expedience.
No, she had signed on at CIA out of an abiding love for her country, a knowledge that despite our weaknesses and faults as Americans — we had them, of course we did, we would not be human if it were otherwise — we possessed the best system of government in the world, enjoyed freedoms unprecedented in human history.