A car purred up the driveway outside, and the engine cut out. Alice swallowed, listening to car doors opening and closing, and urgent, indiscernible voices. For the last half an hour, she’d been waiting for Yuri, Rashida and the driver to be shoved into the shed—hoping for it, given the number of gunshots she’d heard at the apartment, combined with the pained look in Florence’s eyes and the splash of what could only be blood on her white jeans.
The door opened, and Tania Garrett strode in wearing a crisp navy suit, as if she were arriving at a business meeting.She passed an indifferent glance over Alice and Florence. Alice pressed her bound hands to her chest and closed her eyes for a second. Now would be a good time to find that courage that Kimberly was so sure she had. She managed to awkwardly adjust her blouse—it had been ripped in the fall and was hanging open—and pushed her fringe back from her forehead, refastening her hairclip. Even that small movement sent fire up her injured side.
“I have somewhere to be, so let’s make this quick,” Tania said. “You have something I want, I have something you want. Oh, for God’s sake, take off her gag,” she said to the nearest goon, the woman who’d captured Alice, who complied. “You’ll be wasting your breath if you scream, Alice—there’s no one to hear. Leave that one.” Tania waved a manicured hand in Florence’s direction, earning a dirty look. “I know her pedigree.”
“We found this in her pocket,” the woman said, holding up the dictaphone and nodding at Alice. “Some kind of voice recorder? It was switched on. Otherwise, they’re clean.”
Tania laughed. “Was that your big plan, Alice? A grand confession, caught on tape?”
Alice glanced at Florence and gave a little shrug, as if to say, “It was worth a shot.” Florence shook her head slightly, which could mean, “Don’t worry about it,” or, more likely, “You naive fool.”
Tania grabbed a chair from the side of the shed—from the same set of old dining chairs Florence and Alice were on—placed it in the center of the room and sat on it sideways, crossing her muscular, stockinged legs. “You’re out of your league, schoolteacher. My people have destroyed the flash drive and the list. What I want to know—what I might be willing to come to an arrangement on—is where the copies are.”
“The copies,” Alice echoed, breathlessly.
“I’m assuming you made copies.”
“Of … of course. We … uploaded them to the cloud. Emailed them to … the … the FBI, the CIA. To the White House. The media.”
“Well, well. You’re lying. You can sense that too, can’t you, Florence? See, the likes of Florence and me—we’re trained to be human lie detectors. We can practically hear your pulse racing right now, your blood pressure rising, your breath speeding up. You didn’t make copies. How silly. But this is how Carter Beck works, is it not? And if these documents were with the CIA and the FBI, I would know about it by now.”
“Your name is all through them. They’ll be coming for you.”
Tania laughed. “Oh, honey, just stop now.”
“It’s true. There are bank records, email trails, photos, videos. Silencing us isn’t going to help—it’s all out there. Just walk out of here, jump on a plane, leave the country, before you?—”
“That’s enough! You want that gag back on?”
“It’s true!” Alice leaped up, but the goon shoved her back onto the chair, while another leveled his gun at her.
“Honey,” Tania said, standing and strolling closer, “my name isn’t in those files.”
“It is!”
“You’re lying. Know how I know? Because I compiled them. Years and years of my life, assembling one of the most effective assets in Russia’s defense against American arrogance—not to mention fixing one of the biggest leaks the Kremlin has ever sprung. And you thoughtyoucould take it all apart? Some scared small-town schoolteacher?”
“We know who you are—everyone does, now—a spy for Russia. Born in Russia, not Canada, like you make out. We know about the people within the FBI and the CIA and the American government that you’ve bribed and blackmailed. Carter doesn’tneed the list, or the files. He remembers things. He can name names. He will already have told them.”
“Think he’s so infallible, do you? Your big, strong spy. He’s not the hero of your laughable book, you know. He’s as pathetic and impotent as you, and like you, living his final hours. You think I could have worked so hard to gain all this influence, and not have the power to make this small blip go away too? Now Annika,shewas impressive. Smart. She knew how to play with the big kids.”
“Nika playedyou.”
“No one plays me.”
“She knew all about your network, she knew it was you who had the station chief murdered because he was onto you, so she blackmailed you. You couldn’t touch her while she lived. And you’re not as smart as you think because now we have what she had.”
Tania scoffed. “But then her big plan to unmask me with the book didn’t work out, did it? She didn’t quite have enough time. No, honey, she didn’t play me. Just like you can’t play me, and Mr. Beck can’t play me. You put up a good fight—more than anyone would ever have expected. But today is the day I finally tidy up all the remaining loose ends.”
“Loose ends? You mean, your ex-husband?”
“At last he came in useful for something. I knew what he was up to, who he was working with, that he was looking for you, so I had his van tracked.” Tania checked her watch. “It’s almost a pity your spy won’t survive for long enough to be driven crazy by the mystery of what happened to his mom and the last woman he used and discarded.”
Alice straightened.
“Oh! Well now, thatdidtouch a nerve, didn’t it? Did you see that, Florence? Yes, Alice, heusedyou. Like he used Nika. Like he used dozens of people over the years to get what hewanted. That’s what men like him do. They make you believe in them. Did he sleep with you, like he slept with Nika? Did he make you feel like you were important? Like the two of youreally connected. Oh, no need to answer—it’s written on your face.” She adjusted the fall of her hair around her face with a manicured finger. “If it makes you feel any better, he has been shown a preview of the fate he’s brought on you and his mother. As he dies—tragically killing himself in FBI custody—the last image in his head will be the two of you bound and gagged and waiting for death. Never to be heard of again, bodies never to be found. It’s understandable that he’d choose to end his life rather than live with the pain of not knowing what became of you, and the guilt of being to blame. Not to mention his guilt about killing the CIA’s Moscow station chief. You can see how it all became too much.”
“You’re bluffing. He’s right now telling the FBI everything.”
