When two of your recruited spies disappear in such a short a time, you have to assume the worst. Discovery by Russian internal security, arrest. Prison, or worse. She can’t remember this happening since she’s been at the Agency. Sure, assets stopped performing and took themselves out of the game, or you stopped expecting anything from them. But they’d never lost one to the enemy, not in her time.
“These were two of our most promising assets,” Eric continues. “The first is a colonel in the Russian Ground Forces, Gennady Nesterov. He’d been working for us for a few years. He’d just been assigned to a new unit, an elite cyber force. The unit was supplementing its ranks with hackers. They’d arrest guys selling malware on the dark web, you know, garden variety criminal activity, and give them the option to either work for the government or go to jail. It was the only way for the military to get the skills it needed.” Lyndsey is familiar with the story. Russian army recruits were bottom of the barrel, country boys with no prospects, most of them dropouts from school. “Nesterov had just warned us that his unit got the calclass="underline" something big was about to happen. Then he disappeared.”
“You think they were on to him?”
“Moscow Station was just starting to look into it when the second disappearance happened. A scientist, Anatoly Kulakov. He’s part of a very small but very important program. The Office of Tactical Solutions. They look for ways to apply new technologies to ground warfare. Most of what he’s passed to us hasn’t been immediately useful. Developmental stuff, basic research. Still, we get insight into the strategic direction of research over there. He disappeared a few days ago.”
One in the military, one in research. Two different departments. You might lose one to a routine counterintelligence sweep. Lyndsey knows there are reasons why an asset might get rolled up. It could be entirely self-inflicted: he may have made a mistake that led to his arrest. He might have been arrested for reasons that had nothing to do with spying—a domestic squabble, a lawsuit gone bad. It happened. But two assets, from two different walks of life? The odds against it are astronomical. No, this is textbook: when arrests start, chances are that you’ve got a spy in your midst. A traitor handing over your secrets to the adversary.
There could be a spy in CIA.
Eric shifts unhappily in his chair. “I want you to handle the investigation. Obviously, I can’t turn to anyone inside the Division. You have experience both with Moscow Station and Russia Division. You know how both operate and we’re going to need that. I knew you’d be the right person for the job. When I heard you were back from overseas, I couldn’t believe my luck.”
Lyndsey hesitates. It will embarrass Eric if he puts her in charge and then finds out that she’s being investigated. As much as she would like the opportunity—she feels strongly about the mission, having worked the Russia target nearly her entire career. And it would help rehabilitate her reputation. But she owes it to Eric to tell him. Though the thought of recounting what she’s done makes her sick to her stomach. It’s like admitting he was wrong to trust her all those years ago, to have any faith in her whatsoever.
Her palms have gone sweaty and she rubs them against the legs of her pants. “I appreciate the vote of confidence, Eric, I really do. But there’s something you should know first—”
He waves her off. He already knows. She can tell by the way he looks at her, the hint of disappointment he struggles to hide. “If it’s about what happened in Beirut, you don’t have to tell me.”
She’s not sure if she’s irreparably embarrassed or grateful that she doesn’t have to explain. “Well, I don’t know the details,” he clarifies quickly. “Security is pretty strict about that stuff. When I raised your name up to the seventh floor, that’s when they told me you were sent home early from Lebanon.”
She wishes she could walk out and spare herself this shame, but the feeling passes. You learn early in this job that it’s going to require an uncomfortable degree of candor. That you must admit your every trespass, your every failing, to complete strangers. You’re expected to lie to your spouse and your children in the line of duty, but you can’t lie to the Agency. It’s your confessor and parent and spouse.
She fixes her gaze on him. Steady. “You want me to tell you the whole story?”
“It’s your call. If it makes you feel better.”
Who knows, maybe it will. Aside from Security, she’s talked to no one about it. Left the Chief of Station’s office in Beirut so utterly embarrassed, she’d wished the earth would open up and swallow her. Her shame was red-hot, like she’d been on fire. What she needs is someone with a bucket of water. And here is Eric Newman, volunteer fireman. “Maybe sometime. Soon. I’m not ready to talk about it yet.”
He seems disappointed but nods.
“If I’m cleared to work on this, I can only assume they don’t consider me a security threat.” She’s only a danger to herself.
Eric shifts again in his seat. “Well, they had their reservations, but I told them there were extenuating circumstances. There was no runner-up. It had to be you. Because there’s one more thing—something I haven’t told you yet.” The tentativeness falls away and suddenly he looks like the saddest man in the world. “Have you seen the Post this morning?” He is watching her face. “I’m sorry to have to tell you. So, so sorry.”
Enough with the apologies—tell me already. Her skin is crawling. How much bad news can one person take?
Eric takes a deep breath. “Yaromir Popov is dead.”
Her heart does a stutter step. Her first asset. Impossible. This cannot be.
Eric continues, talking over her shocked silence. “It happened last night. He was flying to D.C. From everything we’ve been able to gather, he had no reason to make the trip. It came out of nowhere. State Department didn’t have him scheduled for meetings, no ‘official duties.’ It could’ve been some other business or a personal reason, of course, but…” Eric trails off; they both know that this isn’t likely. “Are you okay? It’s got to be an awful shock. Can I get you some water?”
Lyndsey can only blink at him. To the rest of the world, Yaromir Popov looked like a mid-level diplomat in the Russian foreign ministry, a man who filled out the table during negotiations, chatted up visiting foreign delegations, and attended endless rounds of diplomatic functions.
But behind the quiet façade and accommodating demeanor, he was really a high-ranking officer in the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service. A man with thirty years in Russian intelligence.
A man who had been a double agent for CIA.
Lyndsey knows this because Yaromir Popov was her first triumph as a case officer. But there was more to their relationship. She could admit to some people—no one at CIA, of course, but the people who were really close to her—that Yaromir Popov was like a father to her.
And she’d already lost one father. Losing two might be too much to bear.
Time has slowed. Seconds pass like minutes. The sunlight falling across the conference table is so bright, it stings Lyndsey’s eyes. Sound is muffled, like the world has been wrapped in cotton batting, quietly ushered away.
She pictures Popov’s face. The way he smiled for her, like a delighted parent. Always happy to see her, even when the business at hand was bad. They met in that shabby safe house off Arbat Square or in rented cars parked along quiet Moscow streets. He always carried himself with dignity, but there had been sadness, too. He had been somewhat tortured, ending his career working with the enemy. But his disgust for what had happened to his country under the oligarchs ate away at his belief that the enemy was external. The more patriotic thing to do was to try to rid his country of the parasites.