The look on his face is petty and exulting, the face of the mob outside the jail, waiting for the hanging. He glares at her, as though she personally did something to hurt him. What she did was a minor bending of the rules, she reminds herself. It should be a minor infraction. It’s only a big deal because someone has it in for her.
She turns her attention to the computer monitor. “Are you done? Because I need to get back to work.” She waits until he’s left to react. She pushes the keyboard away, pressing her hands into the desktop to stop them from trembling. She feels like she’s been hit by a truck. This is getting a taste of what Franklin must’ve felt: that once you make a mistake at the Agency, there are some people who will never let it go. Who will make sure it haunts you for the rest of your career, if not your life.
Lyndsey doesn’t return to the present until she realizes Theresa is standing in the same spot where Murphy was just a few seconds ago. Staring at her.
Her smile is tentative. “Something happen?” She nods in the direction of the front door, where Murphy undoubtedly has just left. “Want to get some coffee?”
The cafeteria is near-empty, for which Lyndsey is grateful. People stroll by in twos and threes on their way to the steam tables and cashiers, but she and Theresa have the seating area to themselves. Two steaming paper cups stand on the table between them.
She turns the cup gingerly in her hands. It’s blisteringly hot but she barely feels it.
Theresa winces as she watches. “Do you want to talk about it? I assume it had something to do with the guy I saw leaving your office?”
Theresa is right: Lyndsey feels the need to talk about Davis pushing against her chest, but who can she talk to? It’s not the kind of thing she can talk about with anyone outside the Agency, and it’s not the sort of thing to confess to someone inside. The idea of calling Davis suddenly flits through her head but that would be the last wise thing to do, especially with the investigation still open. During the exit interview in Lebanon, she told Security it was over with him. It had hurt like hell to say that but now it hurt even more to make it stick.
If she tells her secret to Theresa, it will change everything between them. Or… maybe not. Maybe Theresa’s not like that. She’s been through a lot, after all. Suffered more than her share.
Theresa is throwing her a lifeline. Lyndsey decides to take it.
“I’m under investigation.”
Silence. Theresa leans back in the plastic chair. “Wow. No offense, but you seem like the last person who’d break the rules.”
“Am I that much of a goody-two-shoes?”
“It can’t be too bad if they’re letting you keep your badge.”
A half smirk. “It’s only because of Eric. For the investigation.”
Theresa’s eyebrows shoot up. She seems to start to say something, then hesitates. “You don’t have to tell me what happened if you don’t want to…”
Say it fast, like pulling off a bandage. “I dated a foreign intelligence officer while in Beirut.” Theresa is working hard to suppress whatever thoughts she’s having. Lyndsey can’t tell if she’s being judged at this moment.
“He’s a Brit,” she adds, knowing that will make a difference.
“Did you get any good intel from him? If you got any reportable information out of it, all would’ve been forgiven,” Theresa cracks. She’s trying to lighten the situation but it’s not entirely untrue.
“It wasn’t like that. We didn’t talk about work.” That is never true, not in this line of work. Now Lyndsey doesn’t want to say anything more, doesn’t want to relive it all over again. The wound doesn’t smart as sharply as it did this morning. Finally telling someone about it has loosened its power over her.
Except now Theresa knows something bad about her. Something she could hold over Lyndsey’s head if she chose to. She has given The Widow leverage.
But a true friend wouldn’t do that, would she?
“So, he was just a fling, this guy?” Theresa asks. “That’s too bad… It’s good, you know, being with someone in the business. They understand what you’re going through.”
Lyndsey’s heard this said before. But she’s not sure this isn’t just a way for Agency folks to excuse themselves. My wife doesn’t understand me. Then hop into bed with a coworker.
“It would be a shame to lose this guy if you really like him. It’s hard to find the right one. It would be too bad if you had to let him slip away.” Theresa takes a long draw on her coffee. “There’s another way to look at this, of course. Without a man in your life, you’re free to do what you want. Ask for an assignment in Paris, or Timbuktu, any place that takes your fancy. Take that plum assignment, volunteer to be the Director’s executive assistant. You can do the long hours now.”
Lyndsey chuckles. “You’re not going to tell me I need a husband?”
“God, no.” Theresa turns somber. They are treading on sensitive ground. “Marriage is a big deal. A commitment. I truly believe that. It’s a test of who you are as a person. You have to be sure that you’re ready.”
For a while, they sit in silence. The most important thing in Theresa’s life, it seems, was her marriage. Now that Richard is gone, what does that mean for Theresa? What is she if she’s not Richard Warner’s wife?
Lyndsey puts down her cup. “Thanks for being my talk therapy. I liked Davis—this man—a lot.” Referring to him in the past tense rankles, but Davis Ranford is part of her past now. She can’t see any way to get back together with him, not as long as she’s still working.
“The only advice I have is to do what feels right,” Theresa says. “If that’s fighting to keep this man, then fight. Or if you know in your heart that it was a mistake, let him go. Only you know the answer to that.”
Lyndsey walks out to the parking lot with Theresa. The women say their goodbyes and Theresa heads off to where she’s parked her Volvo as Lyndsey sits behind the wheel of her rental. She’s been unable to stop thinking about Davis since the conversation in the cafeteria. Was it a mistake to let him go, is this what’s been troubling her? There’s nothing she’d like to do more, at that moment, than lean against his long, rangy frame and feel his arm slip around her shoulder, drawing her close. To feel him nuzzle her hair and remind her that life is too short for regrets.
Taking a deep breath, she turns the key in the ignition and drives away.
FOURTEEN
The mornings begin to fall into a steady rhythm. Powering up her computer and spinning the dial on the combination lock to her safe. Shutting the door to mute the sounds of life outside, the murmur of voices and thump of footsteps approaching and receding. To put herself into the necessary mind-set to hunt a traitor.
She needs to be sure about Kulakov, that the official cause of death isn’t plausible. So, she calls Ruth Mallory, one of the old Russia hands. One of the few who has worked the target since the Soviet days, but Lyndsey hears she is about to retire. “Did you get that report I sent you?” Lyndsey asks as soon as Mallory answers the phone.
“Sure did. Those were some pictures.”
“Whose handiwork, if you had to guess?”
“Oh, it’s FSB, no doubt about it. Maybe the politsiya were involved, too. They’ve been known to go overboard if the FSB lets them in on the fun.”
“I’m disappointed they didn’t do a better job covering their tracks.”
“They have no reason to hide. It’s better, for intimidation purposes, for everyone to know what they’re capable of.”
When Lyndsey asks Mallory—who knows everyone who’s walked through the doors of Russia Division for the last forty years—what she knows about Kate Franklin, Mallory gives a brusque laugh. “It’s a fool’s game, trying to guess. I’ve been through that once, you know. Aldrich Ames. I was a junior officer. It’s a miserable ordeal to go through. Absolutely miserable. They turn the office inside out, question everyone. They investigate you to within an inch of your life. It destroys morale. Here, your whole identity is built around trustworthiness. You’re given access to secrets because they trust you, and—not for anything you did, poof, it’s all taken away from you. That’s when you see things for how they really are: they don’t trust us, not really.”