Karen Cleveland: Need to Know

There’s a folder in front of me at the table, the paper I need nestled securely inside. I see Omar’s eyes land on it, then travel up to my face. “What’s going on, Vivian?” he says.

My voice, my body, everything suddenly feels paralyzed. Is this really what’s best for the kids?

“Vivian?” he says again, confused.

It is. It’ll protect the kids. I can’t do it on my own. I can’t keep them safe.

I slide the folder over to Omar, my hand trembling. He puts a hand on it, his eyes on me, quizzical. He hesitates, then opens it gingerly. I see the headshot, the one Luke identified.

“Anatoly Vashchenko,” I say quietly. “Yury’s handler. The ringleader.”

He’s staring at the picture. He finally looks up at me, his face like a question mark.

“He needs to be arrested immediately. And I need protection for all my kids until it happens.”

His eyes shift from me to Matt, and back to me again. He still hasn’t said a word.

“He threatened Luke,” I say, my voice cracking. “He’s a threat to my kids.”

He exhales softly, his eyes locked on me. He gives his head a shake. “What the hell’s going on, Vivian?”

I need to get this out, all of it. “He’ll have a necklace. A pendant. A cross, I think. There should be a flash drive embedded inside. It’ll have the names of his five handlers.”

Omar blinks. He looks stunned.

“Matt can walk you through the decryption process,” I add softly. “His code, ours from Moscow, the one from Dmitri the Dangle.”

I glance at Matt, who nods grimly. Once I gave him the other decryption keys, it hadn’t taken long for him to get into the folder, to find the five pictures. The same five I saw that day at work, a lifetime ago, but with text this time: addresses, occupations and access, instructions for signaling meetings.

I actually didn’t expect to see the same faces, the other four. Once I realized the pictures were planted, I felt sure the others were fake. But maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised. Maybe it was proof of their arrogance, their confidence that they knew exactly how everything would play out.

“The handlers all have them, too. With the names of their five agents,” I say. I set down Yury’s necklace, the heavy gold cross. The flash drive’s tucked back inside, the screws tightened. “The fifth name’s in here.”

Omar’s eyes widen ever so slightly. His jaw’s gone slack, his mouth open in an unconscious O. I’ve stunned him. He shifts his gaze to Matt, and Matt nods. “Viv didn’t know,” he says. His voice breaks, and my heart breaks to hear it. “I kept it from her.”

Omar turns back to me.

I feel like I owe him some sort of explanation, but I don’t know what to say. “They get you where you’re most vulnerable,” I finally settle on. “With us, it was our family.”

His eyes are disbelieving.

“He would have come in from the cold,” I say softly. “Years ago.”

Omar looks away. Something changes in his face. “Exactly the kind of person I thought we might find.”

He hasn’t made a move for Yury’s necklace. I place my index finger on the pendant, slide it closer to him. What’s going to happen next? That flicker of hope is still there, but it’s so faint, so very faint.

In any case, it was the right thing to do. It’s the way to keep the kids from harm.

More likely, he’s going to call for backup. Place us under arrest. My parents should be back soon, but now I wish I’d insisted they stay the night. And the kids, the poor kids. What if we’re gone by the time they wake up?

He’s still staring at the necklace. There’s a strange feeling creeping over me, that glimmer of hope intensifying. Maybe this’ll work. Maybe it’ll be enough.

Finally he places his own index finger on the necklace, but instead of pulling it toward himself, he pushes it back to me. “You’ll be needing witness protection, then,” he says.

A tingling sensation runs through my body like electricity. Did this actually succeed? I look down at the necklace, back in front of me now. He doesn’t want it. He’s not going to take it, to see the fifth name. Matt’s name.

I’m trying to wrap my mind around the words, trying to understand if this is really happening. I look at Matt and see his confusion. We didn’t talk about this; it seemed so unlikely, and if there really was a chance of it working, I didn’t want to jinx it.

“Witness protection?” I say, because I don’t know what else to say.

It takes Omar a minute to respond. “You just gave me enough information to disrupt the entire cell. Certainly the Russians wouldn’t take kindly to that. And if they’re already threatening Luke…”

I look down at the flash drive. I shouldn’t get my hopes up. Not yet. Maybe he didn’t understand. That Matt’s the fifth sleeper, that I knew about it. That we both belong in jail.

“I’ve done some things wrong. I’ll tell you everything—”

“Everything we’ve been investigating,” Omar says, holding up a hand as if to stop me, “everything we attributed to a mole, or to a Russian agent with access to CIC, Peter confessed to.” He drops his hand, looks from me to Matt, then back again. “I’m confident that the fifth sleeper hasn’t done a thing to harm national security.”

Oh my God. This is really happening. Omar’s going to let us go. It’s what I hoped. It’s what I thought might possibly keep us out of jail, keep our family together. Give them enough. Information for freedom.

It only works, though, if he can keep the kids safe. “The kids—”

“Will be protected.”

“That’s the only thing we care about.”

“I know.”

I’m quiet for a moment, still trying to process everything. “How will it work?” I finally ask.

“I’m going to walk myself right into the director’s office with information that’ll disrupt the entire cell. He’ll give me what I want.”

“But—”

“I’ll say Matt admitted to being a sleeper. That he gave me the ringleader’s name, gave me his encryption code, let me know about the necklaces. And that, in exchange, we’re going to protect him and his family.”

“But what if someone finds out—”

“We’ll keep it in compartmented channels. Highest classification.”

“Can you—” I begin, and again he cuts me off.

“It’s Russia. Everything’s compartmented.” I hear the words I myself have spoken so many times, the ones I know are true. The ones that mean maybe, just maybe, this could work.

“Will the director agree?” I ask, my voice almost a whisper. Even if Omar wants to do this for us, there’s no guarantee he can, right?

He nods. “I know how the Bureau works. I’m confident.”

Hope is radiating through me. Hope that maybe we’ll be safe, and together, after all. I look at Matt and see the same emotions mirrored on his face.

“What now?” I finally ask.

Omar smiles at me. “Pack your bags.”

I sit in the sand on the little crescent beach and watch the kids. Chase is running along the edge of the surf, sturdy little toddler legs churning across hard-packed sand, a seagull skipping along in front of him. Caleb stands behind him, blond curls glistening in the sun. Watching, squealing in delight as the gull takes to the sky. Ella’s farther up the beach, packing sand into bright turret-shaped buckets, concentration on her face, an elaborate sandcastle in front of her. And out in the ocean is Luke, belly-down on a boogie board, waiting for the next wave. Water glistens off his back and the legs that seem to lengthen by the day, tan from the sun and the hours spent out here in the surf.