And it’s done.
Lyndsey pushes away from her desk, her heart pounding in her chest like she’s just run a marathon at a sprinter’s pace.
This is unbelievable—and yet it is completely plausible. In the clandestine service, you hear rumors of assets captured by foreign security services and left to rot in jail for years and years. It’s the risk they all acknowledge and accept.
But it only happens to assets, foreigners who decide to give away their country’s secrets. This doesn’t happen to CIA officers. There are always secret negotiations, trades for an adversary’s agent languishing in a U.S. prison. Right? That’s what the Clandestine Service would have its new hires believe.
Two years in a Russian prison. Lyndsey can only imagine what it must be like for Richard.
And Theresa… They decided she would never be told. Eric made the suggestion, the men in suits backed him up. Left his friend to rot in a Russian prison, to be tortured, maybe even killed, and leave the wife thinking he was gone forever. And all the stories Eric’s told, over and over, making him look like the good guy, the hero who fought for her… Lyndsey feels a stab in her chest like a cold dagger plunged deep.
There is no indication that Theresa ever found out the truth, but if she did…
There is her motivation for working with Russia. To get back at CIA for their betrayal.
Lyndsey’s stomach drops, like being pushed off a cliff.
This is a tangled, tangled web of deceit. And at the heart of it, The Widow, bruised and battered.
THIRTY
First thing in the morning, Lyndsey marches into Eric Newman’s office.
It’s seven thirty. She’s barely slept, thanks to the Razorbill reports she read hours earlier, still percolating like a narcotic in her veins. Luckily, at this hour Russia Division is nearly empty, just the same early birds hunched over their monitors, the same blue light flickering in the dimness. None of them pay attention to her as she heads straight to Eric’s office and closes the door.
His head jerks up at the sudden intrusion. “I’m getting ready for the eight thirty stand-up. Can this wait?” No smile, no “good morning.” It’s like he was expecting her. Perhaps there was an email in his inbox from the Watch, letting him know someone was given access to the Razorbill compartment last night.
She folds her arms across her chest. “Were you going to tell me about Richard Warner?”
The energy seems to go right out of him. Then he stiffens. He pushes back from his desk but remains in the chair, looking up at her. “So, you know—”
“About Razorbill, yes. A mention slipped through sanitization. I was read into the compartment last night,” she says, not wanting Eric to cut her off before she can ask all her questions.
He almost seems relieved that she knows, as though he’s wanted to say something all along. “You don’t know the half of it.” He rises to his feet and starts to pace, full of a wild energy. “It was hell. I thought I was going to get brought up on charges. I would’ve, if Roger Barker had his way.”
Few people survive a clash with Barker, head of the Clandestine Service. He looks like your sweet old grandfather but is rumored to play as rough as legally possible. What big teeth you have, Grandfather. The better to eat you up with, my dear.
“You let Theresa think her husband was dead.”
“It wasn’t my idea.”
“That’s not what the transcript said.”
An expression passes over his face, angry, then gone. Tamped down. “I don’t know what’s in this transcript you’re talking about… It’s a mistake, then. Maybe done on purpose, to make those snakes in the room look better. You know I’d never do that to Theresa. You’ve heard me defend Richard—and try to protect Theresa.”
Yes, she has. “Does Theresa know Richard is alive?”
“What difference does it make?” He sounds miserable.
“Motive, Eric. It gives her a motive to go to the Russians.”
His face reads pain. His brows furrow and the corners of his mouth collapse. “She knows. Jack Clemens made a deathbed confession. I guess he wanted to clear his conscience.”
She heard about Clemens’s death. He had been Eric’s deputy for a long time, even though he was much older than Eric and that he was past the time to be running things. Some grumbled that Eric made him deputy precisely because he wasn’t very good. He got a cushy position and plenty of time to play golf and in return, stayed out of Eric’s hair and never made him look bad. Why else would Eric carry him all these years? the skeptics asked. Others swore there was nothing nefarious in it, that Eric was just doing a favor for an old man and helping preserve his dignity.
There were two sides to everything. What mattered, and what was almost impossible to find out, which was the truth? “And when was that?” she asks.
There’s that frown again. There’s definitely something wrong with Eric’s frown, a complexity that defies classification. An indicator that’s being repressed. “Jack died in early May.”
Lyndsey works through the months in her head: if Theresa had acted on Clemens’s information right away, the timing fits. “Did she come to you? Did she ask for your help?”
“Does it matter? I told her there was nothing I could do, because there wasn’t. The seventh floor wasn’t going to change their minds. I didn’t think she’d go to the Russians, for god’s sake. I would’ve reported her if I thought she was a danger.” He stands up. “Look, what you saw in that file made you mad, I get it. It certainly doesn’t paint me in a flattering light.”
“Eric, I want to believe you. I want to be on your side. Be straight with me: why didn’t you tell me about Richard? You put me in charge of this investigation—I should’ve known.”
He turns on his heel and starts pacing. “It was highly compartmented, one of the Agency’s most closely held secrets… I didn’t think they would give it to you. Because of what happened in Beirut.”
That stings.
He continues, not stopping for air, rolling over her. “What does it matter, anyway? You figured it out for yourself. I didn’t have to tell you. You got to the truth on your own. And—how did that happen, exactly? How were you able to see this transcript?”
“I saw the cover term in a report in one of the old files. I went to Patrick Pfeifer in the middle of the night—”
Eric switches from controlled to ballistic in the blink of an eye. “You went to the Chief of Staff, behind my back?”
There’s a nasty edge in his voice. “Not behind your back—he was available, we know each other… slightly. I saw there was a compartment and asked him to get me access. It took five minutes.” Then, she thinks to add, “We didn’t discuss the case.”
Eric is quiet. Lyndsey knows there’s more to this investigation than meets the eye. There’s more she’s not seeing—yet. Like most everything at the Agency. A long hall of smoke and mirrors.
Then suddenly, he’s across the room, standing right in front of her. “What happened with Richard was one of the worst moments of my life, personally and professionally, and I’m willing to talk to you about it—just not now, okay? I have to get ready for the stand-up and I don’t want to be thinking about all this while I’m standing in front of the Director.” He’s searching her eyes, trying to read her. He wants to know if she believes him. “You can trust me, Lyndsey. I brought you into this, didn’t I? Made your problem go away?”
What’s going on? She feels as though she’s a step behind, that she’s missing something. Eric hasn’t answered her question, not really: why didn’t he tell her that Richard Warner was still alive? Was it nothing more than an honest lapse in judgment, as he says?