The blood vessels around my eyes pulsed with anticipation as I checked who was credited on the reports, but there was no mention of Corrigan. Instead, the header ascribed them to Grimwood, no first name, reporting to FF-Frank Fullerton, Corrigan’s CIA partner back during Sokolov’s defection fiasco. “Grimwood” had to be the agent’s code name, which reinforced my mole suspicion. Then I flipped screens and saw that there were further updates. The first one was five days old and related that Yakovlev had died in a fall from Jericho’s apartment.
The next one had my name on it.
Well, if not my name, my initials. Because it said that “FBI SACs SR/NA” (meaning Special Agents in Charge-me, and NA, or Nick Aparo) “assigned to investigate FY death” (meaning Fyodor Yakovlev).
Then it said something curious.
It stated “Scene indicates physical struggle with no clarity on how Jericho managed to overpower FY. Unlikely FY would have accepted drugged drink. SR to follow up autopsy tox report.”
SR to follow up autopsy tox report?
I wasn’t sure how many shocks my system could take.
Grimwood had to have been there. In Sokolov’s apartment. The morning Aparo and I first showed up, four days ago. The report was written by someone who’d visited the scene. Someone who knew I was going to follow up on the coroner’s report. My mind flashed back to the apartment and to who had asked me that. Then to that late meal at J. G. Melon’s when it had come up again.
I knew who Grimwood was.
And he wasn’t a “he” at all.
KOSCHEY SAT IN THE Suburban with his engine running and watched as the youths battled it out on the basketball court.
He couldn’t hear any of it, of course. The bulky ear protectors were blocking out all the screams and grunts, giving the savage outbreak an eerie and even more surreal tinge.
Given everything he’d seen and done in his life, it took a lot to impress and even shock him, but this did. One minute, they were just a bunch of average neighborhood guys, some with their shirts off, some not, dribbling and blocking and jump-shooting away, all sweaty and committed, letting some steam off. Then Koschey started hitting the presets on the laptop.
The first one was like hitting them with a massive dose of tranquilizer. They slowed down and went all sluggish. Some of them sat, others lay down on the rough concrete of the court. Some wandered around aimlessly with dazed expressions on their faces. They all seemed lost and disoriented.
The second was more graphic. They started retching and throwing up as they hugged their stomachs in pain.
Then he hit the third setting, and they began laying into one another with fists and kicks and anything they could get their hands on.
The speed with which it took effect, the intensity and commitment of the savagery it triggered-it was as if the youths were suddenly facing a desperate life-or-death situation, one in which the only way they could survive was to make sure everyone else was dead.
A sharp knock burst through the ear protectors and startled him. He turned to see a crazed teen with wild eyes and a bloodied nose pounding his side window, shouting wildly, trying to break through the glass and get at him.
It was time to end the test.
Koschey reached over to the open laptop on the seat next to him and struck one of the keys. The kid by his window hammered it a couple more times, then his fist relaxed and he stared at Koschey with a look of utter bewilderment.
Satisfied that it was all working properly, he put his Suburban into gear and pulled away. There was no time to waste. He needed to pick up Sokolov and hit the road.
History was waiting.
60
I had to be sure.
I snatched my phone off the desk and called Larisa.
“Agent Reilly,” she answered, sounding surprised.
“We need to talk.”
She hesitated. “Okay, but-sounds like it’s urgent? What’s happened?”
I just said, “Can you come down here?”
“Sure. Where and when?”
Half an hour later, I went downstairs to receive her and took her across the street, to Foley Square, opposite the steps of the State Supreme Court Building.
I dove right into it. “I know all about Jericho and I know who you are. I’ve seen your updates in his case file. You’ve been playing me all along and for what? Just to help you track him down? You could have told me. Things might have turned out differently if I’d known what we were dealing with and how important he is.”
She eyed me with a look of total confusion. “You’re- You’ve lost me.”
She was definitely good, but I really didn’t feel like wasting time. “Okay, you know what?” I pulled out my phone. “Let’s call the consulate. Let me ask your boss there what he thinks. See if he thinks my theory that you’re a CIA double agent has any merit. What do you say?”
She was still staring at me like I was a crackpot, but something had changed in her expression. A couple of worry lines had cracked her pristine face.
I just held up my phone, with a questioning look. Then I moved to dial the number. “Here we go.”
She watched me for a second or two-then she lunged for my phone. “Don’t be stupid,” she snapped.
I held the phone out innocently, like, “What?”
“Hang up, dammit,” she insisted. “This isn’t a joke.”
I put the phone down. “I never said it was. But you guys seem to love playing games.” I stuffed the phone back in my pocket. “What the hell’s going on?”
She stared at me, her face flaring with annoyance. “What do you think? We’re trying to find Shislenko before he gets shipped back to Moscow.”
Now we were getting somewhere. “Is that Sokolov’s real name?”
“Yes.” She nodded grudgingly. “Kirill. Kirill Shislenko.”
“And you’re one of ours?”
She nodded again.
“Code name?” I had to make sure. “Grim-”
“Wood,” she completed it pointedly.
She couldn’t have known that any other way. Which meant she was working for us. I wasn’t sure where her ultimate allegiance lay, of course-who really did, with double agents. But she was on the Agency’s payroll and she damn sure didn’t want her Russian bosses getting wind of it.
“How’d you find out?” she asked. “How do you know about Jericho?”
“Confidential sources,” I said tersely. “So why not let me in on it from day one?”
“You need me to tell you what they’d do to me if the SVR ever found out?”
I didn’t need to answer that.
“I can’t risk anyone blowing my cover,” she continued. “It’s a very tightly held secret, even inside the Company.”
I guess I could understand that. “So how’d that happen? What made you come to our side?”
She shrugged. “It was my plan all along. I never bought into the big lie.”
“What do you mean?”
Her expression took on a distant, steely tinge. “My father was a diplomat. He was also KGB, and a brute. Both to me and to my mom. But we lived well. We had a privileged life, with nice houses and chauffeurs and all the food we wanted. His being a diplomat meant I got to see the outside world and live in all kinds of places. Beirut, Rome, London. So I also got to see the outside world for what it really was, which was nothing like the lies the Soviet propaganda machine was pumping out when I was a kid. I grew to hate everything my father and the rest of them stood for.”
She paused, gauging my reaction, a little internal debate clearly going on about how much to tell me.
“Then after the Wall came down,” she continued, “it became even worse. There’s this great myth here in the West that the fall of Communism was a people’s revolution. Nothing could be further from the truth. I mean, sure, it was a revolution-but the people doing the uprising had no idea who was really pulling the strings and making it all happen. The whole thing was prodded and nursed from within. It was all stage-managed by the KGB.”