On the first reading, the file seemed nothing more than the record of a solid career, with no obvious signs of personal or professional distress. Her second review revealed that the high marks and bureaucratic language used to avoid legal issues were hiding a flawed man. There were no reprimands or disciplinary actions in the records, but performance covered a multitude of sins. Case officers considered sin itself a tool for plying their trade, and if the practitioners indulged on occasion, that was the price of business so long as they didn’t cross certain lines. But pride and wrath were capital vices too, and Alden Maines’s arrogance and temper both had bloated until he couldn’t accept that his decisions could be faulty or see any better way to deal with his failures than making his staff into targets.
The file had been thin, which Kyra hoped was the result of some nervous counterintelligence manager’s fear that giving away too much would jeopardize the investigation. There were less noble reasons why such files often were thin. Information was the life’s blood of intelligence, but it was also the black-market currency of bureaucrats and only reluctantly did they give it away for free if they thought it had some value they could trade for favors or some other advantage. But there was enough in the papers to ensure she would lose sleep tonight trying to dissect the puzzle Maines had left behind. One line in the Russians’ dead-drop letter stood out in her mind.
This is why we suggest you use some money in this package to meet us in GLENDA very soon as we asked in our previous contact.
Kyra had parsed the words so many times that she’d lost count, but the implication never changed, like a quiet voice in her mind. They’re in a hurry, she thought. The Russians knew that they had a rich source to tap and they wanted to start mining him immediately. Maines imagined that it was so they could talk face-to-face, issue him taskings, and settle on a communications plan in hours that would take them weeks or months to work out through dead drops alone. But if Jon’s theory was right, the Russians were more impatient than that. Maines could’ve been a long-running source, like a deep mine in a mountain, full of endless veins that could produce valuable ores for years. Now the Russians were prepared to strip-mine that resource in a single stroke, looking for only a few tidbits of Maines’s information that they considered more valuable than his long-term potential.
What operation is so important that it’s worth burning an asset like him? Kyra wondered. Any of the answers she could imagine scared her more than she wanted to admit even to herself.
She finally heard Jon enter. “Barron approved your plan,” the man said.
Kyra stared at her mentor, taking in his face. “You’re worried about it.”
He nodded and his eyes stared off at some point in the distance as he always did when he was talking and thinking at the same time. “The Russians are vicious. We’ve tangled with the Chinese and the Iranians and the Venezuelans and came out with everything attached, but the Russians play on their own level. Anyone who isn’t scared of the Russian intel machine is either stupid or ignorant.”
“They’re not perfect,” Kyra said. “You’re the historian. You know our people outplayed them plenty of times during the Cold War.”
“ ‘Quantity has a quality all its own,’ ” Jon quipped.
Kyra frowned. “What are you saying?”
“That was something Stalin said when a critic pointed out that his enormous army was mostly untrained conscripts. When the other guy has enough people on his side, he can afford mistakes. It’s the one who’s outmanned that has to be perfect, and even that might not be enough. If the enemy is big enough, sometimes he only has to hit you once and the fight’s over. The only question is whether you’re humble enough to stay on the mat. Can’t fight when you’re dead.”
Kyra felt an ache in her arm, under the scar that a Venezuelan bullet had left behind years before. “Jon, we have to help.”
He glared at her. “Leading with your heart is a fine way to get yourself killed.”
Kyra smiled. She’d seen him surrender to the inevitable before. “God hates a coward,” she said.
“Your plan is only marginally insane,” Barron said. To be fair, the analysts had only worked on it for an hour before approaching him, but he supposed that time was working for traitors today. The proposal Kyra had offered him had taken less than two minutes to explain.
“I’m open to a better one,” Kyra told him.
“I called Langley. No one there has anything either. Honestly, I don’t mind a little insanity when it’s called for. The Russians practically sent us an invitation to come talk, but they’ve got some agenda and I’ve got no idea what it is,” Barron admitted.
“I could talk to the ambassador… see if he’d be willing to send one of these State Department boys in to talk,” Kyra suggested.
“I thought about that,” Barron told her. “But they don’t know the right questions to ask, and Maines is our problem anyway. Plan approved. When are you going?”
“First thing in the morning, as soon as we can get a disguise in place,” she replied. “Maines will know who I am, but there’s no sense in giving the Russians an easy picture of my real face.”
“Agreed,” Barron replied. “How’s Jon doing?” The tone of his voice suggested he wasn’t asking about her partner’s professional performance.
“The same,” she admitted. “He’s been this way ever since Marissa was killed last year. He’s never been the happiest man I ever met, but I’m pretty sure he’s clinically depressed. I tried to get him to see one of the Agency psychologists, get him on something that’ll help him climb out of the dark, but he won’t go.”
“I guess I’d be feeling down if one of my old flames died in front of me like that,” Barron said. “Doesn’t help that Kathy left either. She’s the one person who could really help him, but the DNI is keeping her busy. Do you know if they’ve talked?”
“I don’t think so, not for a few months anyway,” Kyra said.
“Do you think he’s a danger—”
“No,” Kyra answered, too readily. “He’s usually pretty morose anyway. I’m sure he’ll come through it eventually.”
“Keep an eye on him,” Barron ordered. “If it looks like he’s becoming nonfunctional, let me know and we’ll bring him home. The Russians are too good at the game for us to keep anyone in the field who can’t keep themselves together.”
“I will, sir.”
“Good hunting.”
“Thank you, sir,” Kyra said. She sat back, closed her eyes, and wondered whether Barron should ever have let her friend come to Berlin.
CHAPTER THREE
The etched metal plate by the gated entrance displayed an imperial eagle with two heads, both crowned, holding a scepter and orb, under the words Botschaft der Russischen Föderation. Kyra spoke no German, but the words were plain enough.
The devil’s den, she thought. Are you in there, Maines?
She had waited in the rain two hours to get this far in the queue. Every few minutes the line shuffled forward a few feet, and most of the supplicants kept silent. The couple in front of her had said enough to identify themselves as Russians, the family behind her, German. She heard no English. The natives walked past the granite complex without a glance, leaving only the tourists to stare at the building, a mix of trepidation and amazement on their faces. Probably the way the Russians like it, Kyra thought.