Дэвид Балдаччи - The Fix

“And if we ask they may not tell us the truth anyway,” said Milligan.

“I wouldn’t bet the farm on it,” opined Brown.

Bogart said, “If she was managing an asset within DIA or another of the intelligence agencies, that asset may still be around. Berkshire might have retired, but that doesn’t mean the asset did.”

“That’s true,” said Brown.

“But where do you think the money came from?” asked Jamison.

“If she turned to our side and helped us out, could the cash have come from there?” asked Decker, looking at Brown.

“Depending on the significance of the assistance. But if she were a spy the basic leverage might have been help us or go to prison, not a penthouse.”

“But if she wasn’t caught but came forward voluntarily?” said Decker. “Maybe she didn’t reveal herself as a spy but rather as a citizen with some special knowledge looking to help?”

Brown thought about that. “I don’t know how likely that would be.”

Bogart said, “The tricky part is how do we organize an investigation along these lines? We have four items here and a dead woman who might or might not have been a spy or a handler or something else.”

Decker said, “The first thing we have to do is find out who Anne Berkshire really is. Or was.”

“What the hell do you think we’ve been trying to do, Decker?” exclaimed Milligan.

“But we have more to work with now. If she was Russian, that’s something that can be checked out. If she was a handler for a spy within the government, that can be investigated too. We have leads, we just have to run them down.”

Bogart said, “If she did help out this country and was paid a substantial sum for it, that is something we should be able to track down.”

“But how does that explain Dabney’s killing her?” asked Jamison. “We know that Dabney stole secrets, but that was very recently.” She looked at Brown. “Do you have anything to show that Dabney and Berkshire were working together?”

Brown hesitated.

“Oh for God’s sake, you can at least nod or shake your head,” said Jamison in exasperation.

Brown shook her head.

Jamison turned to Decker. “Okay, so what is the connection?”

“I don’t know,” admitted Decker. “But if we find the answer to one, something tells me we’ll find the answer to all.”

Brown picked up the security badge. “I can check out when these types of badges were used at DIA. We tend to change them on a regular basis, so that will give us some time parameters.”

“And she kept that KGB communication for a reason,” said Decker.

Brown nodded. “And I’m going to read it from one end to the other. It might provide some clues.”

“And the floppy disk?” asked Jamison.

Bogart picked it up. “It’s been a while since any of us have seen one of these. We’ve had the lab go through it. Whatever was on there no longer is. At least nothing that’s intelligible.”

“Was it Russian?” asked Jamison.

“It was computer ones and twos,” replied Bogart. “That made no sense.”

Decker picked up the doll.

Milligan said, “You don’t expect to get anything from that, surely.”

Decker rubbed the doll’s hair. “I don’t expect anything. I just go where things take me.”

His phone buzzed. It was a reminder to him of their meeting with Nancy Billings.

Decker stood. “Like right now. Let’s go, Alex.”

Nancy Billings was in her late thirties, with light blonde hair, a carefree manner, and a nose ring. When she met them at the Starbucks she was dressed in jeans and a wool sweater. They ordered coffees and sat at a back table.

Decker said, “Just wondering, can you wear nose rings while being a teacher at a Catholic school?”

“No. I just wear it in my off hours. Still pretty strict in parochial school. For teachers and students.”

“So what can you tell us about Anne Berkshire?” asked Jamison.

“What do you exactly want to know? I mean, I was stunned to hear what happened to her.”

“Did you two talk, interact?”

“We did. She substituted for me a number of times. I was sick some, had to attend some teacher training, and a couple of other times I had to go out of state to help my mom. My dad has dementia.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Jamison.

“Anne was very good, stuck to the lesson plans, knew her way around the classroom. I never heard any complaints.”

“But you did interact?” said Decker.

“Yeah. I would meet with her after she taught my classes. She’d fill me in on what had happened, things like that. We also went out for coffee a few times. I think I was the only sort of friend she had. I mean, she never talked about anyone else in her life.”

“What did you two talk about?”

“Well, I did most of the talking, come to think of it. Anne was quiet. I can’t even tell you if she had family living. I mean, she never talked about stuff like that.”

“She must have said something.”

“The kids. The lessons. The state of education in America.”

“What did she think of that?” asked Jamison.

Billings frowned. “She wasn’t a big fan, to tell the truth. She thought the kids had it too easy. Had too much stuff.”

“Did you know she lived in a million-dollar condo and drove a Mercedes-Benz 600?”

Billings’s astonished expression answered for her. “What? I had no idea. I thought she was as poor as me. I mean, she never said.”

“What else?”

“My kids would tell me that she was very strict and wouldn’t tolerate any horseplay. I mean, that’s not a bad thing in a high school. The kids can get out of hand pretty quickly if you let them take advantage. But Anne seemed to have a way about her that commanded respect.”

“What would she teach?”

“Math. She had a really good grasp of it. I teach algebra and calculus too. And I think I’m pretty good. That was my degree in college. But I have to admit that Anne was far superior to me in the field. The kids would tell me that she could easily work out problems on the board that she’d never even seen before. And she was never stumped for an answer for any question they might have. In fact, Anne had helped me on some lesson plans and shown me a few shortcuts with some of the formulas. I just assumed that she was a math major too.”

Jamison said, “We’re not sure. Her résumé said computers, but that may not be true.”

“What do you mean may not be true?” asked Billings.

Decker said, “She may not be who she said she was. In fact, it’s pretty clear she wasn’t.”

“I don’t understand. Then who was she?”

“That’s the $64,000 question,” said Decker. “Did she ever speak a foreign language in front of you?”

Billings looked alarmed. “A foreign language? Like what language?”

“Let’s leave it at anything other than English.”

“No. Although sometimes it seemed that I could detect a little bit of an accent that I couldn’t place. My boyfriend was raised in Germany and he has an accent. That’s probably why I picked up on it. Are you saying Anne wasn’t American?”

“We’re not sure,” said Jamison.

“Anything you can remember that seemed out of the ordinary?” asked Decker.

Billings looked confused. “Compared to what?”

“Just anything she said that seemed out of character.”

Billings drank her coffee and thought about it. “Well, I’m sure it’s not important.”

“It could be.”

“We were sitting in my class one morning. She had come in early to fill me in on a test she had done while I was out. The kids weren’t in yet.”