They go into the interview room together. The room is dingy and the sour smell has gotten worse. It’s the smell of fear. How many people have they interrogated here? It must’ve seen all manner of suspects: presumed terrorists and armed robbers and serial killers, yes, also federal types gone bad. FBI agents who cooperated with drug cartels and organized crime, CIA officers who sold their souls to the other side. Aldrich Ames or Robert Hanssen may have sat in that chair. Greed, ambition, bloodlust: these emotions hover in the air like poltergeists, impossible to banish.
Herbert sits in the chair opposite Cassidy, resting her forearms on the table. “You’re in a SCIF, Mr. Cassidy. Authorization for us to talk to you came from the highest levels of your organization. And you should know that I’ve been read into all Moscow Station’s compartments. There isn’t one aspect of your work that you can’t discuss with me. Is that clear?”
Cassidy gives a halfhearted smirk. He may be nervous but he’s not ready to throw in the towel.
Herbert takes in his smirk and nods. “Let’s get right to it, then, shall we? We know you told Yaromir Popov that the FSB knew of his relationship with the CIA. How had you learned this?”
“I told you: one of my assets.”
“You’ll give us his name. And he’ll corroborate this?” Herbert jabs a finger into the tabletop. “Look, we’re pretty sure the FSB didn’t know about Yaromir Popov. So you just told me a lie. Lying to the FBI is a federal offense.”
“It’s not my fault if an asset gave me the wrong information,” Cassidy blurts, shooting upright. “I was trying to protect him.” The reaction is right, but the tone of voice is all wrong: whiny and high. A liar’s voice.
Herbert doesn’t change. She’s a stone wall. “Look, we know something funny’s going on and we know you’re not behind it. You’re a bit player—you’re being used. Be smart. This is your chance to clear yourself, to give us your side of the story.”
A furrow deepens between Cassidy’s eyes. A man having an argument with himself. “You’re right. I was just following orders.”
“So, tell us what those orders were.” More internal struggle. Herbert tries again. “Who gave you the orders to talk to Genghis? Was it the Chief of Station?”
This should worry Cassidy. He doesn’t want to implicate someone wrongly. His frown is twisted; he’s conflicted.
Lyndsey decides to build on that. “You don’t have to say anything, Tom. We’ll take your silence to mean it was Hank Bremer. Just nod if that’s correct.”
From what she’s heard, Cassidy is tight with Bremer. The Station Chief seems to have been supportive of Cassidy, giving him good assets to run despite his questionable record. Cassidy wouldn’t want to burn that bridge. From where he’s sitting, he’s going to need all the help he can get.
He glares at her murderously. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? You have it in for Hank, don’t you?” A good try, but Lyndsey is not going to let him push her buttons.
Maybe it’s the hours and hours of grueling travel, or being surrounded by FBI agents in this dark, airless space, but after another minute of silent struggle, something breaks inside Cassidy. “It wasn’t Hank. Don’t drag him into this—he wasn’t involved. It was Eric Newman. He told me to tell Popov he’d been blown.”
Lyndsey has to force herself not to react. Even with everything she knows and suspects, this is still hard to hear. A man she trusted ordered the death of a man she adored.
Herbert leans forward. “But it wasn’t true?”
Cassidy won’t look in Lyndsey’s direction. “Not to my knowledge, no.”
“Why?” Lyndsey checks herself before she can lunge at Cassidy. How could you betray him? You were his last line of protection.
Cassidy leans back in his chair like a schoolboy caught red-handed. “It was some plan of Newman’s. Look, he told me to do it. That’s what we do, we follow orders.”
“You don’t know what’s behind all this?”
“Oh no, I know what Newman was trying to do.” Cassidy turns to Herbert, his expression perfectly calm. Smug, even. “It’s a trap for Evgeni Morozov.”
His words fall on Lyndsey like a landslide. For a moment, nothing makes sense.
Morozov. Tarasenko’s boss. Tarasenko, Theresa’s handler. But there’s been no connection to Yaromir Popov…
Except for Eric. Eric is the only connection.
“Morozov’s been on CIA’s most wanted list for years now. This was a plan to shake him loose, to dangle something he wanted in front of his nose in order to get him to come out. And Morozov took the bait. To snare a CIA officer, someone from the inner sanctum… And Richard Warner’s wife, no less. The man Putin hated above nearly all others.”
Stars dance before Lyndsey’s eyes like she’s been hit with a baseball bat. It had been right in front of her, pieces of a puzzle begging to be put together. She sees Eric’s plan now, devastatingly cunning and breathtakingly selfish.
We’re nothing but pawns to him. Popov, Theresa, Richard… even me.
Lyndsey opens her mouth to speak but Herbert holds up a hand. “And who is the bait, Tom? Who is Eric Newman using to draw out this Russian?”
Cassidy blinks as though woken from a dream. “I—I’m not sure. I thought it was Popov.”
“He’s dead, so it can’t be him, can it?” Lyndsey slams her hands on the table. “Theresa Warner is the bait. A fellow officer.”
Only then does Cassidy acknowledge her. He turns his head slowly and smiles, the smile of a mortal enemy. Why would he hate her? She’s younger, and a woman; she’s done nothing to him, except be a better case officer. But that’s the only excuse some people need. “No one put a gun to her head to make her hand classified information to the Russians. She chose to do this herself.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Lyndsey wants to tell him that he was tricked. He thinks he is clever, but he was played by a master. A soulless man with no conscience.
Herbert catches her eye. Don’t say another word. Let him talk.
“You think you know everything, Duncan, but you’re still a rookie. Where would you be without your protectors? Without Reese Munroe looking out for you, or Yaromir Popov? You think no one knows why Popov was so good to you—and for me there was nothing? It doesn’t take a genius to figure it out. The old man was worthless since you left—worthless. If we lost him, it was no big deal.” He looks back to Herbert. “You can’t possibly understand. Morozov has been thumbing his nose at CIA for ten years. Killing one of our COS in broad daylight, in front of his own home. The guys who got Morozov would be heroes. We’d get anything we wanted. We’d be set for the rest of our careers.”
Lyndsey wonders what she would find in Cassidy’s personnel folder: botched operations, personal arguments with colleagues, pettiness and intrigues. Probably a bad marriage, estranged kids, maybe bankruptcies. Not one or two bad choices but a string of them, a chain of mistakes held together by self-pity. Bad people make bad decisions. Weak minds are easily led. It’s obvious that this wasn’t Cassidy’s idea: it was Eric’s. Cassidy is malleable, just what Eric needed.
She feels exhausted, suddenly. She aches all over, like she’s been dragged behind a truck. Days and weeks of searching, searching, searching—and this was under her nose all along.
Tricked. It was all a trick.
Cassidy is mad and red-faced, like a crying infant. He’s been waiting to say these things for a long time and now it’s his chance to show them—Herbert, the uninformed, and Lyndsey, the misguided—who really is the better man. “Here’s the other thing you don’t know, either of you: what Eric did, that’s the way it is at CIA. We’re supposed to be bold. We’re supposed to do the things nobody else can. You want to be all high and mighty and make us out to be the bad guys, but it only goes to show that you don’t get it. We didn’t do anything wrong here. The ends justify the means—you’ve heard that before, haven’t you, Lyndsey? Well, this is what it looks like.” He stares hard at her. “If you think what Eric Newman did was wrong, you don’t belong and you never will.”