“She doesn’t see a missing wife as an acceptable excuse. And I’m her only chance at grandchildren, so…” He tossed a pillow that had ended up on the floor back onto the bed, not that itneeded one—it had more pillows and cushions than available space. “But I am serious about the walking around naked.”
He gave Alice a head-to-toe body scan, of the kind Nika had written about. Alice could almost feel the journey of his eyes along each pore of her body, before his focus came to rest on the boots, abandoned near her feet.
“Your boots,” he said, stepping toward them, his expression turning serious. “Did you say they were Nika’s?”
“Yeah. I never saw her wear them though. They would have been too big for her. They’re a little pinchy on me, and way taller and skinnier than the heels I usually wear, but sometimes I put them on when I want a little more excitement in my day. I didn’t count on this much excitement.”
“I remember them,” he said, sounding a little strangled as he picked them up and examined them. “She wore these on the train for a couple of days, after we left Russia. I hadn’t seen them before, but I remember thinking they were tame, for her usual taste. I wonder…”
“You wonder what?”
He reached inside and maneuvered his hand as if he was trying to pull up the insole. “Where’s that pocketknife?” Answering his own question, he grabbed his keys from the table, pushed the blade into the boot and dug around.
“What are you doing?”
He drew out a small plastic bag containing a tightly folded piece of paper.
“Holy shit,” Alice said.
Chapter 23
Carter
“It’s a list of names, maybe twenty of them,” Carter said, carefully unfolding the paper, which was worn to the point of resembling soft fabric. “Handwritten.”
“Thelist?” Alice said, following him into the living area. “The one that was going to be leaked to the Kremlin?”
He laid it on the table. In some spots the paper had dissolved, as if it were moth-eaten. It looked like it’d been well-handled even before it had gone into the shoe. All this time—the train trip out of Russia, the flight home, the hotel room, the last twenty-four hours—it’d been within arm’s reach. It took him a while to settle his brain enough to focus on the writing.
“I recognize some of these names—the ones that are complete,” he said. “Looks like it’s real names listed beside their aliases.”
“You’re not on it. Nor is Nika.”
“Or Randolph. Though we’re obviously missing some text—some of it’s crumbled to dust. Ours could have been on it once.”
“So what does this mean?Nikawas the one threatening to give it to the Kremlin? Was that why she got the travel documents—she blackmailed the station chief?”
“It’s not Nika’s writing—she had perfect script. Even if she was in a hurry, I can’t see this being her work.” He was surprised to find that he was relieved about that. As much as he’d believed in Nika—still believed in her—his faith had been shaken, given everything she’d withheld from him. Lying awake in the dead of night, as he often did, his mind couldn’t help but explore those dark places, those what-ifs. Though of course the fact she hadn’t written it didn’t clear her of involvement. “But these names,” he said. “This wouldn’t have been a high-value list. Some of these guys are pretty lowly. And the aliases aren’t even correct—the few I know. This woman, for instance… She was a CIA operative in Moscow, but that’s not the alias she used. There are a few other American Moscow embassy staff, some of whom weren’t CIA, as far as I know. But no Russian names, so no informants who would have been unmasked, which was Nika’s big fear. Some of these people aren’t even from the clandestine service, and as far as I know have served their entire careers in the U.S. The kind of people who’d have LinkedIn profiles. I mean, the goddamn CIA deputy director’s name is on this—Herman Folds—he’s a political appointee, not exactly covert. And this guy down here isn’t even CIA—he’s FBI: Benjamin Schneider—he interrogated me when we got to the U.S. This woman is a White House advisor now. What the fuck? You could assemble most of this list from a Google search. And this name here, right where the paper wears away…”
“Looks like ‘Leo’?”
“If it’s the Leo I’m thinking of, he was the consul-general in Vladivostok. Definitely not CIA.” Carter straightened, linking his hands behind his head. “If this isthelist, it’s not the smoking gun everyone thought it was.”
“So maybe the rumors got ahead of it. Or it was a hoax.” Alice peered at the paper. “Hey, check this out. It’s very faint but itdefinitely starts with a T-A, and that looks to me like an I-A. The rest of the name is missing but could that be our Tatiana?”
Carter leaned over. “Shit, you’re right.”
“A Russian agent for the CIA? On the tape, Nika said she had a tense meeting with Tatiana in Moscow just before we left, and they came to an arrangement. Do you think Nika could have threatened to expose her unless she helped get her to the U.S? You said it sounded like she was influential.”
“I can’t see Nika betraying another CIA asset to the Russians—or even threatening such a thing, no matter how scared she was. There’s gotta be more.” Carter sat heavily on a dining chair, and Alice carefully slid the list back into its plastic bag. “Just for once I’d like to have all the pieces. It’s always a fucking jigsaw, and I’m not used to being the one to assemble it.”
“There’s a quote I once read by some famous author about the journey of writing a novel—that it’s like driving a long distance through fog at night. You can’t see further than your headlights at any one time, but you can make a journey of a thousand miles like that. Totally paraphrasing.”
“So where do we drive to next?”
“I can’t believe I didn’t think about the shoes.” Alice pulled up a chair beside him, chewing on her bottom lip, and not for the first time he was grateful as hell to have her here with him in this batshit situation. He’d worked closely with plenty of people in his career—though he didn’t usually screw them. Some partnerships worked, some really didn’t. He wouldn’t have pickedthisto be one of the good ones, not in the moment before they’d met. But there she’d stood with those wide green eyes and blue scissors, terrified but defiant—and then she’d stuck with him because she genuinely cared.Can I help it if I don’t like to see anyone hurting? That had slayed him. Though she’d truly had him atThelma and Louise.
Shit. She really was under his skin. Maybe heshoulddrop her at a police station, whether she wanted it or not—for both their sakes.
