He knocked on the door frame and peeked inside, catching her glance.
“Get in here,” she said, standing up at her desk with a warm smile.
So far, so good, he thought, stepping inside her office for the first time.
“May I close the door?” he asked.
Her smile faintly waned; then she nodded. “I thought this might be a friendly visit. Long time no see, Karl.”
He pushed the door shut before answering. “It’s a long overdue visit. Sorry, Audra.”
She motioned for him to take a seat in one of two comfortable-looking, modernist accent chairs bordering a white marble coffee table. The office was half the size of her previous space, but she’d done her usual job turning it into an art-museum-quality space.
“I see you haven’t lost your decorating touch,” he commented, sitting in the pristine black leather chair contraption.
Bauer joined him at the table. “I suppose your office is still filled with unopened boxes from the move?”
“Cubicle. Not much room for collectibles.”
“Sorry. I didn’t know,” she said. “I should have, but I haven’t exactly been anyone’s best friend lately. I wish you had told me this. I could have done something.”
“Things are uneasy enough around here. The last thing either of us needs is to draw any undue attention. I can ride this out in a cubicle.”
“Ride out the current administration? That’s one hell of a protracted ride,” she said.
“No. I won’t be around that long. I’m waiting for the right moment. Letting myself fly under the radar for a few months, maybe a year, long enough to show them I can play by the rules.”
“And that’s why you popped into my office out of the blue and shut the door before saying hello? Flying under the radar?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.
Berg leaned across the table, lowering his voice. “This is big. At least it could be big. Especially for your division.”
“If it has to do with Reznikov, I’m not interested.”
“Hear me out,” Berg pressed.
“I’m not interested, Karl. I’d like to have something to show for my years of service here other than a punitive letter of reprimand that will magically follow me while I hunt for another job,” she said.
“Let me explain, and if your answer is still no, I won’t bring it up again,” said Berg.
“Why don’t you take this up the chain if it’s that important?”
“Because I’m radioactive, Audra. They put me in a fucking cubicle, where I sit around all day reviewing bullshit reports about nothing,” he said. “I can’t bring this to anyone but you.”
“Fuck,” she muttered, leaning back in her chair and shaking her head. “Karl, this better be good. If I walk this up to Manning—”
“You won’t have to get him involved,” said Berg.
“Excuse me? Manning is my boss. That’s kind of how it works,” she snapped.
“I know. Sorry. I’m not explaining myself,” said Berg. “The information I received is a long shot at best, and it’s only tangentially connected to Reznikov. His name doesn’t even need to come up. Seriously.”
“I’m listening,” she said, eyeing him skeptically.
Berg spent the next few minutes bringing her up to speed, substituting “very high value target” for Reznikov. She nodded imperceptibly throughout his briefing, never interrupting. When he finished, she sat like a stone, her eyes fixed on the table in front of them for an uncomfortable period of time. Berg barely breathed, afraid to move or make a noise. She hadn’t outright refused yet, giving him a tiny glimmer of hope.
“Sokolov is the key,” she said.
“Reznikov is on everyone’s watch list, but nobody is looking for Sokolov. We generated a profile for him connected to the Vermont disaster, but that wasn’t widely distributed,” said Berg.
“It wasn’t distributed at all, beyond you. I made sure of it,” she said. “My hope was that we might wrap this up quietly at some point.”
“Then Sokolov doesn’t exist outside of a tight, private circle. We stand a good chance of accomplishing your goal. Can you discreetly add him to the counterproliferation watch list?”
She nodded. “I can add him without drawing any attention. Another Russian mercenary mixed up in the chemical weapons trade.”
Berg rubbed the stubble on his face. He’d stopped shaving every morning a few months ago. A kind of subtle protest, more like a resignation to his current fate. Either way, he felt overly conscious of it in front of her. Embarrassed might be a better word.
“I’ll reach out to Ryan Sharpe at the FBI. He’s pretty high up in their National Security Branch. I might be able to convince him to add Sokolov to the Interpol watch list in addition to whatever broader identification resources they can influence. Worth a shot, and I don’t see any way that would come back to haunt us. That about covers it.”
“Nice try. There’s still the matter of what happens if Sokolov pops up,” said Audra.
“I’ll take care of that. One phone call. No exposure,” said Berg. “If we all get lucky and our high-value target is with Sokolov, they’ll send us pictures, fingerprints, DNA samples, whatever is necessary to put this ugly chapter to rest.”
“No severed heads, please,” said Audra, referring to Daniel Petrovich’s unconventional method of providing the first Zulu virus samples examined by U.S. bioweapons scientists.
“If they want to deliver his severed head, who am I to say no?” said Berg, eliciting a faint smile from Bauer.
She stood up without warning and took a deep breath. “I’m not expecting much. Someone with deep pockets bankrolled his escape. I’d be shocked if Sokolov, or Reznikov for that matter, fucked up that badly. That said…”
Berg nodded. “Reznikov is a loose cannon, and they’ve both been stuck in one shithole after another guarding him,” he said. “I expect them to turn up sooner than later.”
“Precisely,” she said, grinning like he always remembered. “Good to see they haven’t crushed your spirit, Karl.”
“They tried, but it’s going to take more than a cubicle to keep me down,” he said, winking.
“The entire intelligence community was gutted a few months ago. I don’t know if things will ever be the same around here.”
“I wish I could tell you that this is business as usual, but True America’s Beltway sweep is unprecedented. This is my seventh administration in thirty plus years, and…” he said, considering his next words carefully, “a storm is brewing unlike anything we’ve seen before.”
She studied him for a few moments before responding. “There’s nothing we can do about it. The game has changed.”
“Hopefully I’ll be gone when it fully reveals itself,” said Berg. “Somewhere warm.”
“Argentina?”
“Not likely,” he replied. “Unless I spot a black van parked in front of my town house.”
“If you do, let me know. I’ll probably have one parked on my street too,” she said. “I’ll add Sokolov to the watch lists. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”
“I appreciate you doing this for me. I’d like to retire knowing that psychopath is permanently off the market.”
“Don’t torture yourself over this. You didn’t create that monster,” she said.
“But he escaped on my watch,” said Berg.
“Thirty trained CIA guards were also on watch that day, and it didn’t make a difference,” she said. “What are you doing to keep yourself busy these days? Getting out of the house enough?”
“Sounds like our visit just turned into a psych eval.” Berg chuckled.
“You’re the one that keeps dredging up the past, constantly beating yourself up,” said Bauer.
“Funny,” said Berg, standing up.
“Karl, we all took a big hit earlier in the year. It hasn’t been easy.”
“I’m fine. Really. As a matter of fact, I’m meeting Darryl Jackson for dinner and cocktails tomorrow night,” he said.
“All right. Please say hi for me, and thank him again for his help in the past,” said Bauer.
“I’ll be sure to pass none of that along. His left eye twitches whenever he hears the letters C–I-A.”
Bauer laughed, moving around the table to shake his hand. “I’ll keep you posted. Good seeing you.”
“Good seeing you too. I grab coffee down at the Starbucks most days around 1:30 PM. I probably shouldn’t make a habit of visiting your office.”
“Radioactive?”
“Positively glowing,” he said, showing himself out.
Berg avoided eye contact with the busy collection of analysts and CIA officers swarming in and out of the cubicle farms occupying the Counterproliferation Division’s middle ground. Reaching the stairwell unmolested, but presumably not unnoticed, he stopped to collect his thoughts. There really was nothing else to do at this point. He’d return to his desk and continue to mindlessly tackle an email inbox full of mundane tasks, all the while keeping his fingers crossed. But before he returned to his cubicle, a leisurely stop at the on-site Starbucks was in order.