Theresa looked icily at Eric Newman. “And you swear you didn’t know? You didn’t leave Richard to rot in prison for your mistakes?”
Now he jumped out of his chair like it was on fire. “I thought he was dead, Theresa. As far as I knew, there was nothing coming out of Moscow, nothing.” His words were like a dagger plunged in her chest. Knowing that he had been left in the dark the same as she did nothing to relieve her agony. “Do you think for one minute that if I knew Richard was still alive, I wouldn’t do everything in my power to save him? That I wouldn’t get on a plane myself, with or without Agency support, to find him and bring him home? He was my friend, too, Theresa. My oldest friend.”
She watched him storm back and forth, angrier than she’d ever seen him. She hadn’t expected him to yell at her, almost turning on her. Embarrassment for having been tricked? “Does that mean I can count on your support?”
He came up short. “Support in what? What do you plan to do?”
She was momentarily stunned. Wasn’t it obvious? “I’m going to confront them—”
He rushed toward her. “No, no, no… . You can’t, Theresa. It would be worse than futile, it would be suicide. You’re not going to like this but…” She closed her eyes, as though that would stop her from hearing the rest. “We have to accept what’s happened.” He spoke firmly. Sharply. He’s thought about this. Had he known? “Two years have passed and nothing’s changed. What are you going to ask the seventh floor to do—approach the Russians for a swap? They’ve been clear about it, freezing out you and me. As far as they’re concerned, the case is closed.”
She looked him at him levelly, searching for the slightest indication that he was hiding something. A wavering gaze, a twitch of the lips. Something to tell her that there was a chance, a hope however faint…
Nothing.
She was having trouble breathing, fought for air. “You mean you expect me to do nothing? When I know there’s a chance my husband is still alive?”
“I… I don’t know what else to say. This is for your own good. Otherwise you’ll just go crazy…”
She slapped him. So hard that her palm stung, before she had time to think about it. She had secretly worried that he didn’t have the guts to stand up to the merciless men who ran this place. He’d taken his punishment two years ago docilely enough, gone off to lick his wounds, hadn’t he?
Now he proved it: Eric Newman wasn’t the man she’d hoped.
Well, fuck Eric Newman. Fuck all of them. She’d be damned if she would join him in the corner. She would show them what came of perfidy. When you betrayed the people who had placed their trust in you. They thought they could get away with it because the men who run spy agencies thought they had the world on a string. That the rest of the world would only know what they wanted it to know.
These egotistical men thought they could keep something of this magnitude a secret.
She brushed by Eric as she hurried out the door. She walked down the halls, down the miles of Agency corridors to cool off, to calm her jangling nerves and focus her thoughts.
She kept her eyes down, not wanting to see the glimmer of recognition in anyone’s eyes—ah, that’s The Widow. She wanted to be alone with her thoughts.
There was a tiny, distant voice questioning whether she should listen to Eric’s advice. A survivor’s voice. After years of suffering, she was finally gaining some distance. Healing. She was able to see a future for herself and for Brian. This had reawakened all the old feelings, ripped her hard-earned peace away like a bandage off a wound. Taking Eric’s advice might be the smartest thing she could do.
Except she couldn’t. Eric Newman was not their friend, not hers, not Richard’s. This was proof.
She knew that she couldn’t go to Eric’s bosses in the Clandestine Service, the ones who had opposed Eric’s scheme in the first place. Eric was right there: as far as they were concerned, it was over. They would never change their minds to side with her. They cut their teeth on the spy business during the Cold War. They were craven old men, notoriously conservative with a high instinct for self-preservation. What’s done is done, they’d say. Let sleeping dogs lie. Richard Warner would not be the first CIA officer sacrificed to preserve the Agency’s honor or to cover up another man’s mistakes.
Theresa turned a corner and headed into a little-used hall, turning thoughts in her head the whole time. Should she go to her congressman? She snorted at the idea: CIA would play the national security card and stonewall any official who pressed for an inquiry—if she could get anyone to believe her. They’d say she’d become unhinged by grief. Their word against hers. This never, ever worked. It was a dead end.
She sighed, a heavy weight in her chest. They wanted to think they held all the cards and that she was powerless, nothing more than a helpless little widow. They wanted her to go away, go sit in the corner, be trotted out at ceremonies. Smile, wave, be a brave little trouper.
But that wasn’t the case. No, she knew the answer. It had been with her all along.
Richard could be saved, and it was up to Theresa to do it.
NINETEEN
PRESENT DAY
It’s been less than twelve hours since Lyndsey was last in the office and even with the sunlight streaming through the windows and the bustle of people coming in to start their day, she can’t shake the feeling that she never left.
Because she didn’t sleep a wink. She spent the night drifting through her cheerless apartment like a ghost, unable to rest, her mind still in the office. She is haunted by two thoughts. First, that lingering shadow of a doubt about Theresa…
Second—and more immediate—Kate Franklin’s suicide. She hasn’t been able to stop thinking about it, not for a minute. To feel guilty for her part in it, for she certainly was a factor. The woman killed herself shortly after their interview. Lyndsey studied psychology and so she knows there had to be other factors, that their conversation alone didn’t drive Franklin to do it. Still, she can’t shake the guilt.
Was Kate Franklin the mole? Lyndsey is ninety-nine percent certain that she wasn’t.
Will Raymond Murphy agree with her? She is almost as certain that he will not. That he will use the suicide to declare Franklin’s guilt and to pack up his investigation.
Which would be disastrous. It would enable the real mole to continue, and what’s more, the mole would know that CIA is on the alert and so would be more careful than ever.
Lyndsey can’t let that happen. She might not be able to convince Murphy to keep his investigation open, but she vows not to let him make Franklin the scapegoat.
Even if the evidence takes her someplace she doesn’t want to go.
Lyndsey stops at Jan Westerling’s desk. The young woman doesn’t notice her at first; she’s too busy taking off the walking shoes she wore in from the parking lot and slipping on high heels, black pumps with four-inch stilettos. Her head jerks up when she sees she has a visitor.
“How are you doing, Jan? Feeling better?”
“I’m fine,” she responds curtly. Westerling is defensive about crying in the office. She doesn’t want Lyndsey or anyone else thinking less of her for it. They can smell weakness in the air here.
“That’s tough for anyone to go through,” Lyndsey hurries to say, thinking of the ugly photos of Kulakov’s broken body filling Westerling’s screen. It was hard enough reading Popov’s toxicology report; she’s grateful there were no autopsy pictures. “I have a question for you, but it’s one that needs to stay between us”—Westerling nods quickly—“Has anyone shown an unusual interest in Kulakov? I’m not talking about recently. This would be before his death.”