“Subtle, she is not,” Carter murmured as Florence walked away. “Do you think you can stand, if I help you? You’d be more comfortable sitting in a car—and we should get you to a doctor.”
It was indeed more comfortable in the back of an FBI SUV, sipping on bottled water supplied by an agent as he drove them into the city. Though Alice didn’t technically need Carter holding her up, she was grateful when he slid up beside her and gently held her. She snuggled right in and took the hug, pain be damned. He pushed her hair back from her eyes. His fingers snagged on something, and he pulled it out. The tie clip. “We’d better switch this off before we say anything inappropriate for a court of law.”
“Don’t make me laugh—it hurts!”
A phone rang. Carter’s. He pulled it from a pocket and answered.
“It’s Randolph Jeffson,” said a tinny version of Randolph’s voice. “Can we talk?”
“Randolph!” Carter said. “How did you get this number?”
“From Silvia Maldonado. She just called me. She said they got Tania Garrett.”
“Yeah, they did.”
“Good.”
“Good? But she was financing your campaign.” Carter sent a quizzical look at Alice, who shrugged. He put Randolph on speaker.
“Turned out she might have had an agenda,” Randolph said dryly. The connection wasn’t great—Alice struggled to make out the words. “So they’re looking at her for the murder?”
“Among other things. And it’s not just her. Gonna be a game of dominoes in the next few months, from the White House on down.”
“Makes sense. You know, back in Moscow we were ordered to stop looking into the COS’s death.”
“Who by?”
“Came from the higher-ups, same as any order. We were the guys with our ears to the ground, and we were told to stop listening. That’s why I took early retirement. If it was my body found decomposing in Moscow I’d want someone to find the asshole who did it.”
“I take it you’re gonna drop the charges against Alice now?”
“Already instructed my lawyers. Anyway, all this wasn’t why I called. Silvia says it’s time you knew the truth. At fucking last.”
“What about?”
There was a slight pause, and then Randolph said, “Vanessa.”
Alice felt Carter’s body tense. She rested a hand on his leg.
“Silvia’s given me the green light to talk to you, but it didn’t come from me and if anyone asks, I’ll deny I told you. I can tell you broad brushstrokes, but I can’t tell you where it happened or who the other participants were. It can’t ever be known that the CIA was involved, that we were there.”
“Youwere involved?”
“Hear me out. I don’t have a lot of time—gotta sort out where this all leaves the campaign. I literally have people banging on my door right now. Thing is, it was my mistake that got Vanessa killed.”
“What the hell?—”
“Carter, this is going to be hard to hear but just … let me get the story out, okay? Then you can lay into me, whatever.”
“Okay, go ahead.”
Alice wondered if she should give Carter space—as much as she could in the confines of the car—but with the phone onspeaker it wasn’t like she could pretend not to hear. As if to settle the question, Carter put the phone on the seat beside him, covered her hand with his and held on.
“Like I say,” Randolph began, “I can’t give you the where and the who, but we were on a covert op and I made a bad call—got us involved with something we shouldn’t have been involved with. She wasn’t comfortable with it, but she answered to me, and I told her she had to trust me. We ended up in a gunfight in a jungle area at night—remote as it gets—bullets flying everywhere. I got shot in the leg and the arm, and I lost track of her. I managed to crawl out, but she… Look, I didn’t see what happened to her, and by the time we could get back in there, a flood had swept through and there was nothing to be found. If it helps, I’m certain she died that night. So many bullets flying around and she was stuck in the middle of it all. It was a miracle I only got hit twice. And nothing showed up in any of our intel afterward to suggest she’d been taken or anything. If she’d survived, she would have found a way back to you—you know what she was like. Maybe I should have reported it as a death rather than a disappearance, but I guess I was still hopeful she’d turn up somewhere. I waited a long time for that to happen—something you’ll know all about.”
“Ah shit, Randolph,” Carter said, pinching the top of his nose and shutting his eyes tight, like he had a headache. When his fingers released, his eyes were red. “I always knew there was something you weren’t telling me.”
“I wanted to. I hated that you didn’t know. I could see in your eyes how heavily it weighed on you, every damn time I looked at you. But I broke the rules that day, and I vowed I’d never do that again. I think about it every day of my life—and I know that’s nothing compared with you, but… Shit, I gotta go. Look, the whole reason I want to get into politics is to fix some of the bullshit from on high that made our jobs so damn frustrating,that left me and Vanessa on a limb, that shut down the Moscow investigation—and then my own goddamn campaign gets infiltrated… Call me later if you want.”
