Алма Катсу - Red Widow

She’ll call Pfeifer’s office. He has more important things to do, but she’s pretty sure he’ll want to hear this. And hopefully, Claiborne is already on recall and winging her way back to Virginia.

“I need a secure line. I have to make a phone call—but then I’m going back in there.”

Now it’s just the two of them in the interview room. Tarasenko leans far back in the chair, defying gravity. The Russian is cockier now. He’s happy he’s gotten the attention he needs. He likes to be in the driver’s seat, this one. Lyndsey assesses him as quickly as she can from across the table.

They’ve given him a cup of coffee and cigarettes, letting him smoke in a federal building. The cigarette burns lazily between his fingers. He’s watching her, too, deliberately letting his gaze wander away from her face over her body. He’s just trying to intimidate her. She learned a lot about old KGB tactics from Popov. This man would’ve been happy under either the Soviet regime or the oligarchs. A bully and an opportunist, he’s tailor-made to be a foot soldier in Putin’s Russia.

“You’ve had quite a change of heart,” Lyndsey says.

He taps ash into the paper cup they’ve given him to use as an ashtray. “How do you know? Maybe I’ve always wanted to help the CIA.”

Or maybe you just want to play us. “We’ll see. You’ll need to talk to some people who will evaluate you. They’ll decide whether you can be trusted.”

His smile is reptilian. “Ours is a funny business, no? We deal in deceit but in the end, there is no magic formula to let us see into a man’s heart. It comes down to gut and need. Do you feel you can trust me? Do you need me enough to override your distrust?”

She’s been through this before, of course. She went through the whole drill with Popov; even though she never doubted his sincerity, she understood the need for polygraphs and interviews and evaluations. Those things take time, however. The clock is ticking with Tarasenko. Every day he’s detained will add to the FSB’s suspicions. After a certain point, they will assume he’s been turned.

“Do you think you can see what’s in my heart?” He narrows his eyes at her.

The human lie detector. Does he know about her, her reputation? It wouldn’t surprise her: she’d been stationed in Moscow, after all. Theresa may have told Moscow she was the person running the investigation for the mole. Tarasenko may be trying to keep her off-balance. Baiting her.

“That’s up to other people, and we’ll see soon enough. In the meantime, I need to ask a few questions. But mainly I want to know why? Why flip?”

He closes his eyes as he takes a drag on the cigarette. Avoiding her. “I can see what will happen. The Hard Man will be displeased by this… miscalculation. Morozov will be in trouble. This is not good for me. His enemies will use this to their advantage, and he has many enemies.” He crushes the cigarette in the paper cup. “I can tell you are disgusted. What kind of person in our profession would do this, offer to turn on his country? I am looking to survive, that is all. A man must look out for himself. CIA wants Evgeni Morozov. I can help you.”

Russia could’ve handed him over to the UN for what he did in South Ossetia, but it didn’t. There is no honor among thieves.

Tarasenko is not stupid; he’s being practical. He’s been caught by the enemy. His mentor’s stock will be dropping back in Moscow. He must cut his losses and find a way to land on his feet. He has one card to play—and he knows this offer will quicken the pulse of every official back at CIA headquarters. But Lyndsey finds his treachery breathtaking. “You were Morozov’s protégé, weren’t you?”

He tilts his head. “He helped me, yes, but I did not ask for this. This is how it is in the FSB; the ones at the top surround themselves with men who are indebted to them. We are an insurance policy. It is like with parents: you do not choose your father. What do you do if your father is a bad man? What do you owe him?” She feels a sting—does he know about her father, too? Is he trying to manipulate her?

“Look”—he leans forward, a tiger constrained only by his cage—“I know you don’t like me. That is fine. Do we like any of the people who spy for us? Of course not. But that does not stop us from using them. It is like an arranged marriage, no?”

There are certainly case officers who disdain every asset who works for them—and many assets are damaged people, weak and narcissistic, desperate for approval, for love. Hard to like. But she also thinks of Yaromir Popov, whom she admired. She thinks of other case officers who tried to protect and care for their assets, even to advise them against their worst selves.

She doesn’t think she will be able to like this one, though. He is doing this to save himself and that will be good enough for the evaluators.

“How will you deliver Morozov, if he never leaves the country?”

He flips a lighter in his hand end over end with the dexterity of a magician. “I will help you get him. I cannot say how, at this point. We must assess. It is true, he doesn’t leave the city often, but he has a secret place he goes when he needs to get away from the Hard Man. A country dacha. Something might be possible there—maybe.”

Is this true, or is he making it up? Tarasenko would know this is exactly what CIA would want to hear. She studies him for tics and tells but the vault is closed. He’s good.

Lyndsey stands. She knows what she needs to do. There was no question that they will take him up on his offer, but she wanted to satisfy herself. “I’ll recommend we proceed. You know what comes next. Evaluations. Interviews. A polygraph. We’ll want to make sure you’re telling us the truth.”

He snickers. “I expect as much.”

“And the expression you were looking for is ‘a marriage of convenience.’” Yes, this is a marriage of convenience, slightly better than an arranged marriage. She can’t help but have the feeling, however, that Tarasenko is a bad bargain at any price.

As she turns for the door, she hears him whisper. Almost too softly to be heard.

Kukla. Doll.

But he wanted her to hear. She turns back to face him and doesn’t like the smile on his face.

Lyndsey stands in the observation room, looking through a one-way mirror. On the other side, Tarasenko sits in an armchair, chatting easily with a CIA tech ops officer as though they were old friends. He snorts cigarette smoke through his nose like a cartoon bull while they go over a piece of covert equipment Tarasenko will use once he’s back in Russia.

They’re in a safe house in the verdant Virginia countryside, not far from a covert CIA facility. They’re not going to bring Tarasenko into the facility, where he would get the opportunity to see the faces of CIA employees and learn more about the workings under the cover. Not yet. Such privilege only comes with trust. He has to prove his trustworthiness.

The safe house is small, an old farmhouse surrounded by acres of overgrown fruit trees, gone half-wild and impenetrable. Tarasenko sleeps upstairs, and there’s someone on duty in the house—half housekeeper, half truant officer—around the clock. Outside, a security team patrols the grounds to make sure no unwelcome visitors come at night but it’s unlikely the Russians have made up their mind about him yet, let alone know where the safe house is. Tarasenko has been here for three days. The first two, he was evaluated by psychologists. By the end of the second day, they concluded that he was probably making the offer in good faith. “He’s not motivated by ideology—obviously,” one of the psychologists said when she presented the team’s decision to Lyndsey and Kim Claiborne, now returned from overseas. “He’s an egoist, so he’ll respond well to flattery. That will only go so far, however. Our best chance to control him is through incentives.”