Алма Катсу - Red Widow

“Try to get some sleep. I’ll be in touch tomorrow.”

Lyndsey has one hand on the bannister when Theresa calls out. “Wait a minute—I want to thank you. This could’ve ended differently, a lot worse, and…” She looks down at her son.

“You don’t have to thank me, not after what you’ve been through.” And she has been through so much more than anyone will ever know. Because of what she did tonight, her husband may remain in a Russian prison for the rest of his life. Brian doesn’t know that yet, but he may one day. What then?

“You did the right thing,” Lyndsey says. Theresa deserves to hear it, too. Even if Lyndsey is the only person who will ever say it to her.

The next morning, Lyndsey is sluggish. In the end, she only gets a couple hours of sleep before daylight and traffic noise force her out of bed. Even a hot shower does little to revive her.

For one thing, she had to take a late phone call from Pfeifer. He’d spoken to the attorney general and wanted to warn her that the FBI had decided not to hold Eric overnight. “Barker called someone and threatened hell to pay if they did,” he had told her, an uncharacteristic grittiness in his tone. “I’ll talk to Barker about it in the morning. And Lyndsey, there’s something else. I’ve spoken to a few people about Eric, people whose judgment I trust, and they had some unsettling things to say about him. Clearly, we missed the signs on this one. Obviously there’s something we should’ve caught sooner. We’ll be watching him of course, but his ego is bruised, and that’s the worst thing you can do to a guy like him. Be careful. Keep your distance. At least he doesn’t know where you live,” Pfeifer said in parting. She’s not sure that’s not the case. She remembers mentioning where she was staying to him once, but surely Eric hadn’t been paying attention at the time.

That morning, she spends the gridlocked drive into D.C. wondering if Herbert was able to get much of anything out of Newman before he was released. Will he be fired? Pfeifer had warned her it was unlikely that Eric will face any disciplinary action. Strictly speaking, he broke no CIA regulations or U.S. law. The only offense he’s guilty of is recklessness, which is viewed at Langley as a blessing and a curse. Pfeifer has made it clear that Eric has committed enough wrongs so that his career, if not over, will be ruined. That’s a catastrophe when your career is all that matters. Barker has been particularly outspoken, Pfeifer confided. Apparently, it’s one thing to let a case officer sit in an FBI holding cell but quite another thing to ignore Clandestine Service protocol and bypass proper vetting.

Merely losing his job doesn’t seem like punishment enough. Yaromir Popov is dead. Theresa Warner was tricked into committing a crime and very nearly ruined her life. The unfairness eats at Lyndsey as her car creeps down Route 66.

By some miracle—the capricious D.C. commuting gods smiling on her this morning—Lyndsey finds space in a garage not far from FBI and is able to make good time. A young woman from Herbert’s office escorts Lyndsey, chirping brightly over her shoulder as she leads the way. “I heard about the takedown last night. It sounds like you had an exciting evening.”

You don’t know the half of it.

The young woman works a keypad at the front door of the SCIF, leading Lyndsey inside. Herbert is talking to a couple men. She introduces them to Lyndsey: Steven Riley from the U.S. Attorneys office, and Jonah Rhee, from State Department. “Steve will participate in the questioning. Joe here delivered the bad news to the Russians this morning.”

Rhee smiles sheepishly. “We’re trying to slow roll them for you, but they’re pretty anxious to get their men out of jail. They’re claiming diplomatic immunity, of course. We told them we IDed one of their men as FSB. That’s where we’re at, at the moment.”

They step into the interview room, the same one where Tom Cassidy was questioned less than two days ago. Was it only a day ago? The past twenty-four hours feel like an eternity.

She’d seen the man at the table just a few hours earlier, but now he looks completely different. He was like an enraged bull in Theresa’s house, defensive, dangerous, looking for a way to free himself. Here, he sits—not calm exactly, but not on edge. He sizes up his three visitors, but his gaze lingers on Lyndsey. She’s seen a lot of Russian intelligence and military from her time in Moscow. Men like Dmitri Tarasenko tailed her wherever she went in the city. They would give her the same little smirk to try to intimidate her. It enrages her, and then she remembers the reports she read on Tarasenko’s military service and a shiver runs up her spine. He is not a man to engage lightly.

Sally drops a folder on the table. “Dmitri Tarasenko. Major Tarasenko, of the FSB. We’ve been in touch with your embassy and informed them of the charges against you. They denied them, of course, and demanded your release.”

Riley takes over. “I’m with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia. We handle all criminal prosecutions for violations of federal law. We’re preparing the court papers. We’ll be charging you with espionage against the United States of America, and you should be aware that you could face a number of years in a U.S. prison—”

“An idle threat, no?” Tarasenko lifts one shoulder in a lazy shrug. He doesn’t come across as nervous or afraid. To the contrary: he’s not threatened in the least. “We both know you will not prosecute me. You don’t want to give away secrets in court. You will trade me for your spies in Russia, the people we caught working for you.”

Richard. This could be how they get Richard back. The FSB won’t be able to deny they’re holding him any longer, not when they were trying to entice his wife to work for them. This could be the opening they were hoping for. Lyndsey will have to talk to Patrick Pfeifer to see if the seniors will agree to offer a swap.

Tarasenko sinks back in his chair. He looks down at the Formica tabletop, at two worn patches where countless people have rested their elbows, exhausted by the weight of their duplicity. “There is one other possibility. One you haven’t considered, perhaps, but is much more beneficial to you.” He locks onto Lyndsey with those cold-as-creek-water eyes. “You are with CIA, yes? Do not bother to deny it: I know your name from your time in Moscow. I would like to make a deal with you. I want to become a double agent for the CIA.”

It is pandemonium. They have to clear the room, unsure who needs to take part in this discussion. This is above Lyndsey’s pay grade. Ideally, someone much more senior would handle this negotiation, but Lyndsey is here. It seems as though Tarasenko is counting on this.

Standing in the hall with Riley and Rhee, Herbert is relieved. “You know he’s right,” she says to Lyndsey. “He’ll never be prosecuted. His people are going to fight like hell to get him released. The best we could hope for is a prisoner swap.”

She needs to bring this back to Langley. Logically, the decision would be made by the Director of Russia Division, but Eric has been removed from his position. Kim Claiborne has been Eric’s deputy since Jack Clemens went into the hospital. But Claiborne has been on a long-term assignment out of the office. Lyndsey hasn’t met her since her return from Beirut and is pretty sure Claiborne hasn’t been kept in the loop on any of this. Eric is known for eschewing deputies. He has them because he has to, it’s part of the management structure, but they quickly find out Eric considers them about as useful as a knitted condom.