“Which either means that she was in on it, or that whatever bargaining material she had, it was enough. There is a lot here that I’m not privy to, which makes it hard to defend myself against it. But I’ve come too far to let my campaign be dismantled by this.” Randolph halted. “This is as far as I go. Follow this corridor to the loading bay and you’re clear.”
“One more thing, Randolph. The leak. The list. What happened with all that?”
“That’s another reason level seven is liking you for this. Once you and Annika got what you wanted, it magically fixed itself. The list of operatives was never leaked.”
“In the book, that’s becauseyouwere scared straight.”
“Straight as an arrow, me. Just like in the book.”
“So … what? They’re liking me for the murdererandthe traitor?”
“In for a ruble…”
“But there’s no evidence of either,” Alice protested. “It would never make it to a trial.” She looked from one grave expression to the other. “And now you’re both looking at me like I’m insufferably naive.”
“Evidence can surface,” Randolph said, “especially now that Annika has effectively given testimony that puts her in the room. And Carter was her handler, plus they were in a relationship, which gives him an incentive to get her entry into the U.S.”
“We weren’t in a relationship.”
“I’m just telling you what I’m hearing. Which is that the two of you worked together on this.”
“Why would either of us kill him? She got what she wanted, what she went there to get, and she was on the train with me within hours. She would have known she couldn’t get away with killing him—we’d be the first people they’d track down, and we were.”
“Perhaps he was still a threat to her. Perhaps she thought she’d have disappeared into the U.S. by the time his body was found. Perhaps she knew he hadn’t told anyone where he was going. Perhaps he was holding out on giving her what she wanted, even though he had it right there in his hand. Perhaps it doesn’t matter. They’ll find a smoking gun, and you’d better hope they don’t find your prints on it.”
“Then why would she stay the night with me at a hotel ten miles from Langley, under my real name?”
“People in love can do strange things. If it was obvious to me when I met her that that was what it was about, for her, it would have been obvious to the FBI. Oldest motive in the book.”
“So what did she bargain with, and who has it now?”
“That’s the seventeen-million-dollar question.”
“Randolph, do you have people out there looking for her bargaining chips?”
Randolph tilted his head, surprised. “Not as actively as I’d like, why?”
“What does that mean—have you sent someone after it, after us?”
“No, I haven’t.” Randolph checked the spot where his watch would normally be, and grunted. “I need to go. My donors will be imploding, and I need to keep on their good side, especially now. And I’d rather not give the FBI any more excuses to come after me.”
“One more question,” Carter said. “That SDR you ordered on Nika and me in Moscow, before the burn notice…”
“Ah,” Randolph said, obviously expecting the question.
“There was no one watching us, was there?”
“Yes and no. See, here’s the thing. The guys were adamant no one was physically following you. But the counter-intel was clear—someone was tracking your every move on that trip, and Annika had landed on the Kremlin radar, for sure. They just decided it was better to let her leave. Well,” he said, rubbing his hands together, “keep in touch on this. I wish I could do more to help.”
“You could—I don’t know—use your national platform to exonerate me?”
“I can’t see that serving my campaign. But I’ll give you a ten-minute head start before I tell the FBI which direction you fled in. How’s that?”
“I see you’re just as much of a self-serving sonovabitch as you ever were.”
“I can’t stand it when people appear to be one thing and turn out to be another.”
“And yet you’re going into politics.”
