“I’m sorry,” I said, mostly meaning it. “I barely knew what was going on.”
“Yeah, I’ll believe that when pigs fly out my ass.”
So I guess this meant she wouldn’t be coming over for wine anytime soon. But I liked her and refused to give up on her now. I’d allow her a few weeks to sulk, then invite her again.
Shiva, meanwhile, had already made a deal with the feds to reveal everything she knew in exchange for immunity. Given her special status with the United Nations, the authorities agreed rather than risk international embarrassment. Now she was singing like a birdie.
Thanks to Derek’s spooky contacts, more of the story was emerging. All those years when Shiva was traveling for so-called humanitarian causes, she had been a spy for the U.S. government. For the most part, anyway. Once in a while, her loose scruples allowed her to play for the other team.
When Robin heard that, she whispered, “No,” and I felt her shudder at the news. It wasn’t every day that you found out your mother was a scumbag double agent playing fast and loose with your own life.
“It’s all right, sweetie,” I said, hugging her as she began to cry. I watched Derek get up and find a box of tissues for her to use. My hero. I grabbed a few myself.
When Derek sat down again, he took the chair next to Robin. Both of us held her hands as his Interpol buddies spilled the rest of the background they’d collected on her mother.
Recently, Shiva had come into possession of information so inflammatory that its disclosure could embarrass and topple the Russian government. She’d worked with Galina, the Ukrainian agent, before, so she devised a scheme to sell the volatile information to Galina and rake in millions.
Knowing the Ukrainians were positioning themselves to barter a new oil deal with Russia, Shiva knew Galina’s people would want to get their hands on the information. Shiva figured she’d make enough money to retire to an island off the coast of India and live in splendor for the rest of her life.
She placed all the particulars-racy phone call transcripts between high-level married diplomats, incriminating e-mail, texts, and a number of documents-onto a tiny flash drive that she stuck inside a miniature brass elephant, and then she sewed the brass doodad into the old scarf. She called Galina and asked for four million dollars in exchange for details of when the flash drive would be carried into the United States via her daughter, Robin.
The money was deposited into her account while Robin was visiting her. Talk about convenient timing. Robin shuddered when she heard that.
But once Robin got back to San Francisco, things went very wrong. It seemed to Galina that either the Russians or the Americans were thwarting the Ukrainians at every turn. Alex, who’d been Galina’s superior as well as her part-time lover, was dead now. Galina had managed to track down the big Russian man, and when he admitted to killing Alex, she shot him. Then she dropped him off in front of Brooklyn’s apartment, where she knew Robin was staying. She hoped the police would accuse Robin of killing the man, but didn’t realize that Robin was already out of the city.
Shiva had admitted that Galina wasn’t the brightest crayon in the box, but the young operative had her uses. But then Galina contacted Shiva in Varanasi to complain about the screwups. She was furious that Alex had been killed and blamed Robin. She accused Robin of paying the Russian to kill Alex as a way to double-cross her mother.
That was when Shiva decided she’d better get on a plane to the Bay Area and take charge of the operation. While she was there, she would spend time consoling her daughter, Robin. And, if necessary, she would rough up a few of her friends.
Chapter 18
Three days later, after Pookie went home and some of the dust had settled on what I’d taken to calling the Kama Sutra Caper, the three of us, Derek, Robin, and I, drove back to Dharma. On the phone, Mom had whispered that Guru Bob had asked her to perform a banishment ceremony, but she wasn’t sure she had the heart to do it in front of Robin. I suggested we wait and gauge the state of Robin’s prakriti, or mind-body-soul constitution, before deciding.
Sitting in my parents’ living room, we shared the sordid details of the downfall of Shiva Quinn with Mom and Dad, Austin, Gabriel, and Guru Bob. Austin sat on the love seat holding Robin as close to him as he could get her.
I found myself focusing on my brother again. It was as though he had truly grown up while I wasn’t looking. Yes, I’d always known he was good-looking, but a sister tended to forget a brother’s mere cuteness in the face of age-old sibling rivalries. But watching him now with Robin and seeing the way he gazed at her and laughed with her, I couldn’t be happier that they had finally found each other.
He was a wonderful man-and lucky, too, because Robin was a delightful, talented woman with a fantastic sense of humor and a wide-open heart. The fact that her own mother had never recognized Robin’s amazing qualities was Shiva’s loss-and one more big black eye for her, as far as I was concerned.
I was going to get weepy in a minute if I didn’t shake off those thoughts. Glancing around the room, I could see the stress and confusion in everyone’s eyes. Except Gabriel’s. Nothing seemed to surprise Gabriel, including the pain of betrayal.
It was Guru Bob whose reactions wrenched my heart the most. I couldn’t remember a time when I’d seen him express negativity. Ever. But watching him now, I could see anger and great sadness mar his features as the details of Shiva’s duplicity emerged.
We had Derek’s Interpol friends to thank for filling in a number of blanks in Shiva’s story. For instance, the big man who died in my home was Yuri Borkov, a Russian operative who had received a tip early on that there was highly embarrassing information on the market that could disgrace people at the top levels of the Russian government. He’d had no choice but to follow every lead.
Shiva later confessed that she’d been the one who leaked the flash drive information to the Russian. She wanted a kickback from their side as well. And why not? She needed the money. She wasn’t getting any younger, and wealthy men were starting to lose interest in her. When she realized she couldn’t count on her wealthy lovers to keep her in the high life much longer, she took matters into her own hands.
When Robin heard that, it was the last straw. I agreed it was a pathetic, arrogant, and egotistical excuse for doing what she did, but it was the closest Shiva had come to revealing the true motivation for her actions.
“I still can’t believe it,” Robin said, her tone a mix of bewilderment and scathing anger. “I know she didn’t do the killing herself, but she set everything in motion, and a lot of people died just so she could line her own pockets. And I saw her pointing that gun at Jeremy. She was so desperate, who knows if she would’ve gone ahead and used it, just to get her hands on that butt-ugly scarf and the stupid flash drive.”
“Oh, sweetie,” Mom said, “I’m so sorry. I’m having a hard time believing it myself.”
“I know, Becky,” Robin said, and sniffed a few times. “My own mother was a double or triple agent. It’s so bizarre. It’s like I stepped into the Twilight Zone or something. I mean, Shiva was never what you’d call maternal, but still… I keep expecting someone to jump out and tell me it’s all been a giant misunderstanding, that she was actually one of the good guys and… I never really knew her, obviously.”
And that was Shiva’s fault, not Robin’s, I thought, angry all over again at her mother’s treachery. Robin insisted she’d given up years ago on ever being close to Shiva, but I knew it wouldn’t be easy for her to overcome this major revelation.
The other night, after we’d left the FBI building, Robin had begged to come home with me and Derek. Once again, her own place had a stigma attached to it. Shiva had stayed there. She’d probably searched the place while Robin was sleeping, made phone calls, maybe arranged a murder or two. Robin didn’t have the heart to return there just yet.