Karen Cleveland - Need to Know

“But you had to have known that one day—”

“No,” he interrupts. His voice is firm. “I didn’t. I truly believed that I could do this until you retired. Until I retired. And then I could be free from them.”

I’m quiet. He’s quiet. The whole house is unnervingly quiet.

“They’d have let me stay,” he says softly. “It’s happened before. I could’ve lived out the rest of my life and died and no one would’ve ever known.”

Could’ve. Would’ve. The tense is jarring. He knows we can’t just pretend this didn’t happen, that I didn’t learn about this. He knows I have to turn him in.

He gives me a weak smile. “If only you weren’t so good at your job.”

The words make my stomach turn. If I hadn’t pushed for that algorithm, none of this would have happened. I bring the sippy cup into the kitchen, unscrew the top, put both pieces on the top rack of the dishwasher. He’s watching me, silent. I close the dishwasher and lean on the counter.

He walks into the kitchen and stands behind me. Tentatively, like he’s not sure what I’ll do, how I’ll react. I’m not sure, either. But I don’t move. I let him take a step closer, put his hands on my shoulders, slide them down to my hips, until he’s holding me close. My body softens into the familiar embrace, and when I squeeze my eyes shut, a single tear escapes from each one.

In my mind I’m back on that street outside my apartment. Leaning into his kiss, pressing against him, wanting more. Stumbling into the building, up the stairs. Feeling his touch, seeing the look in his eyes, the hunger that was there. And afterward, lying together on tangled sheets, intertwined. Waking up in his arms, watching as his eyes opened and he took in my presence; the slow smile that spread across his face. All of that was real. It had to be.

“What am I supposed to do now?” I say quietly. A rhetorical question, really. Voiced to my best friend, the one I’ve always turned to, relied on. My partner. My rock.

Or maybe it’s a lifeline. Get me out of this. Tell me what to do to make this all disappear.

“There’s only one thing you can do.” He buries his head in the space between my neck and shoulder, and I feel the scratch of his stubble. A shiver runs through me. “Turn me in.”

The words don’t seem real at first. He’s supposed to be trying to talk me out of it. But instead there’s just silence, a gaping hole where that conversation should have been. And I feel like I’m dangling over the edge of it, about to lose everything.

And then something changes in me. Like a switch, flipped. I swivel around to face him. He doesn’t move back, stays close to me, close enough that I can breathe in his scent, feel his warmth. “There has to be another way,” I say. He shouldn’t be admitting defeat, throwing in the towel.

He moves away, and I feel a rush of cold air where he had been standing. He walks over to the cabinet, pulls out a wineglass, sets it down beside mine. I watch him, my mind trying to sort through what’s happening. He pours wine into each glass, then hands me mine. “There’s not.”

“There’s always—”

“There’s not, Viv. Trust me. I’ve thought through everything.” He picks up his glass and takes a long sip. “I’ve had plenty of time to think about it. About what to do if this day ever came.”

I stare down at my own glass. I shouldn’t drink this. I need my head as clear as possible right now. But at the same time, the thought of drinking enough to make all of this disappear is strangely attractive.

“What else do you want to know?” he asks quietly. He’s already moving on. That part of the conversation is done, in his mind. Turn him in. That’s what I’m supposed to do. He doesn’t have a plan. A way to get us out of this.

It’s not done, in my mind. Not at all. I shake my head stubbornly, and then I consider his question. What else do I want to know? I want to know if you’re being completely honest with me. If I can trust you, one hundred percent. If we’re really on the same team. I look up and meet his eye. “Everything.”

He nods, like he expected the answer. Swirls the wine around in his glass, then sets it down and leans back against the counter. “I have a handler. His name’s Yury Yakov.”

I keep my face impassive. “Tell me about him.”

“He splits time between Russia and the U.S. He’s the only other person I know involved in this. It’s so heavily compartmented—”

“How do you communicate?”

“Dead drops.”

“Where?”

“Northwest D.C. Our old neighborhood.”

“Where exactly ?”

“You know that bank on the corner with the domed roof? There’s a little courtyard around the side, two benches. It’s the one on the right, the one that faces the door. The drop spot is under the bench, on the right side.”

That is awfully specific. And it isn’t all information I already know. This is new. Valuable. “How often do you meet?”

“Whenever one of us signals.”

“On average.”

“Once every two or three months.”

Every two or three months? I swallow past a lump in my throat. We’d always assumed handlers spent most of their time in Russia, meeting sleepers in the U.S. infrequently—every year or two—or in third countries. Yury has only a limited record of travel to the U.S., short trips. That means he’s here under an assumed identity, doesn’t it?

“How do you signal?” I ask.

“Chalk on the bench. Just like the movies.” He gives a weak smile.

I could press the issue. I could find out if there’s special chalk, where exactly the mark is made, what it looks like. And that would be enough information to lure Yury there, find him, arrest him.

Or, the CI analyst in me says, he’d play me, give me instructions on how to signal that he’d been compromised. How to ensure Yury would disappear . My throat tightens.

“What do you leave? What do you pick up?”

“Encrypted flash drives.”

“How do you decrypt?”

“You know the storage area behind our stairs? There’s a false floorboard. A laptop’s inside.”

The answers are coming fast, no signs of deception. I try to ignore the fact that the laptop is hidden in our home and think of what to ask next. “And you don’t tell him anything I tell you?”

He shakes his head. “I swear, Viv, I don’t.”

“You’ve never mentioned Marta, or Trey?”

“Never.”

I look down at my wine. I believe him. I do. But I don’t know whether that makes sense. I look back up. “Tell me what you know about the program.”

“You probably know more than I do, really. It’s hierarchical, self-contained. I only know Yury. Beyond that, I have no idea.”

I swirl the wine around in my glass and watch it cling to the sides. I picture myself at my desk, the intelligence gaps I have, the things I always wish I knew. Then I look back up. “How do you get in touch with Moscow? Like if something happened to Yury. Who would you contact? How?”

“I wouldn’t. Not for a year. We’re under strict instructions not to. For our own safety. SVR moles or whatever. I’m supposed to just hang tight, wait until someone steps into Yury’s place and makes contact with me.”

That’s what I was afraid of. An answer—a program design—that makes finding handlers and ringleaders nearly impossible. But something he said is sticking in my head. Something new. A year.

“What happens after a year?”

“I get back in touch.”

“How?”

“There’s an email address. I’d go to another state, create a new account…. There’s a whole list of protocols.”