Carter was forcing himself to resist looking around too much, but even so, potential FSB operatives were popping up like dolphins. Of course, by the time he casually turned to check, all he ever caught was a ripple. Was this the paranoia afflicting Nika? One of his trainers at The Farm had warned that it was a fine balance between instinct and paranoia: “Not every loose thread in the fabric of your day is a sign you’ve been burned. If you want to find something suspicious, you will, every time.”
“So how do you know what’s real and what’s not?” he’d asked. “The imagination is a powerful thing.”
“It’s not something that can be taught,” the trainer had said. “We spend a fortune training a single case officer, but so much of what we do is only learned in the field. You’ll get to the point that you know the streets of your posting better than those of your hometown, because you notice things, commit things to memory.”
Carter could hardly remember his hometown. Four years in this gig, three before that on shorter assignments, mostly in Kabul, a year in training, six years in the military, four at college. Most of the time he had a handle on what was real and what wasn’t, but instinct could steer you wrong. You risked getting to the point of convincing yourself of threats that weren’t there, or of reaching a place of dangerous complacency. Maybe itwastime to get out of Moscow, to level up the cover into something that came with diplomatic protection. But the trouble with an embassy job as cover? It immediately put you under suspicion from the host government, which endangeredeveryone you spoke to. What was the alternative, though—a day job at Langley? Working regular hours, going home every night to his silent apartment, where Vanessa’s clothes still hung in the closet.
“You should sell it,” his mom had said, the very day Vanessa’s death certificate was issued. “Too many memories.”
Which was exactly why hecouldn’tsell it—or live in it, or rent it out.
As Carter trod the mottled snowy path behind Nika and the tourists, he adjusted his scarf to cover a patch of neck that had become exposed. This winter was proving as brutal as the first he’d spent in Moscow. Which had to make it four years nearly to the day that he’d recruited Nika, after months working up her dissident fiancé as a potential asset. A software engineer, the fiancé had contacted the U.S. Embassy to say he could supply intel from sources in the Kremlin and other government bodies. Carter, new to Moscow and posing as an American in the import/export trade, had landed the job of assessing him, but had concluded he was too outspoken and had already come to the attention of the FSB. Carter, however, had discovered something the FSB hadn’t. Yuri had a tour guide fiancée—a relationship they kept secret because her wealthy, connected family had bigger plans for her. Carter’s surveillance confirmed that the girlfriend shared Yuri’s views and contacts and spoke impeccable English but exercised a whole lot more discretion. She was on no radar except Carter’s. Even before the fiancé died in a fiery car crash, Carter had become more interested in her.
He’d found her at the funeral. Well, not technicallyatthe funeral. She was too cautious to stand at the grave. She’d watched discreetly from beside an old tomb on a hillside as the snow-dusted coffin sank into the ground. Little more than her nose was visible beneath her unremarkable winter clothes, and she carried flowers, as if she were visiting a family grave. Ifyou didn’t know to look for her, you wouldn’t have noticed her. Another sign that his instinct was correct.
Carter had set off after her, hunkering into his gray coat, keeping out of sight among the tombstones. If she spotted him, she’d likely vanish. He’d rounded a sepulcher right beside her and her head had snapped up, her eyes rimmed with red. He’d approached her quickly, using her name, speaking English, coming straight out and telling her he was in contact with Yuri and that she’d been spotted by the FSB agents who were also surveilling the funeral.
“I didn’t see anyone,” she’d said in the flawless English he’d heard in his surveillance recordings. Neither had he, of course, or he wouldn’t have approached her.
“Did you seeme?”
“Yes, but I did not think…”
“You must be more careful in the future.” He took her forearm. In the distance, a figure disappeared behind a tomb. Probably a random mourner—a real one. Nika didn’t flinch at the contact, so Carter pulled her in and wrapped his arms around her—a meeting of thick coats, two walruses brushing up against each other, one wearing perilously high boots. “Pretend we’re together—meeting to visit a friend’s grave. You’re safe with me.” She went rigid but didn’t wriggle away. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“What loss?” she said, sniffing, her foggy breath trailing out from his shoulder.
“I know all about you and Yuri.”
She shook her head against his collarbone but didn’t resist. He pulled away slightly and found her right glove. Through the leather and the fur lining, he traced the outline of a ring.
“He gave you this. A synthetic sapphire but he planned to give you something worthy of you once he could afford it. Youoffered him money for it, worried he’d spent too much, but he refused to take it. You don’t wear it when you visit your family.”
Her eyes sparkled, almost as gray as the tombstone behind her. “I don’t underst—” Her mouth fell open. “He was … spying for the Americans? Is that why this happened?” She gestured down the hill, though the grave site was no longer in view.
“No. It never got to that point. He wasinterestedin working with certain people within the U.S. government who had the power and the resources to help him advance his cause. But the FSB were already onto him. I warned him but…”
“You knew him?”
“Yes. I admired his principles, his courage. He wanted to do something good, to work for change, and I wanted to make that happen for him. Unfortunately, it was too late.”
“He was fearless. Which made him stupid and selfish.” She spat the words. “A car doesn’t explode from a small bump, no matter what thepolitsiyasay.”
“He feared for you. He feared to lose you.”
“If he truly cared, he would have kept himself safe. Now I have been burned too—and I cannot even be seen to mourn.”
“You can to me.”
She pulled back to look up at him. “If you know about me, does the FSB? I assume that is who killed him.”
Carter shook his head. “Your precautions have been effective—and wise. Come,” he said, dropping a hand to her waist and leading her away to find a suitable grave to mourn at. Her boots crunched on the gravelly snow.
He had a lengthy pitch prepared in his head, about how he could give her a pathway to act on her conscience, help her country, make Yuri’s death worthwhile. He’d been prepared for the recruitment process to take months. To have to earn her trust. Bribery, blackmail, coercion—that was how it usually went. Small compromises, small confidences, gradually leadingto bigger ones, until she was in over her head. Turned out he wouldn’t need it.
“I won’t spy on my family,” she’d whispered. “That is where I draw the line.”
“They’re not what this is about.”
