intelligence service wish to speak with him. He can meet them at our embassy. But he’s broken no French laws, nor is he a fugitive from French justice. No warrant has been issued. They just want some information from him. Nothing mote.”
“About what?” Elizabeth shot back.
“Don’t play hardball with us, young lady,” Moore said. “You’ll find yourself on the outside looking in.”
“If you want to fire me, go ahead and do it. But if you want my help, don’t tell me lies. It’s the thing my father hates the most. And I inherited the trait.”
“Tom spoke out of turn, Ms. McGarvey. We don’t want to fire you. As a matter of fact I called you up here this afternoon to offer you a job in Operations. We’ve got a class starting at the Farm the first of June. If you’re interested.”
“First I bring you my father.”
“Good heavens, I don’t know what you think we are. Fools, perhaps. Opportunists, maybe. But we’re not the enemy, Elizabeth. I’m offering you a job in Operations. You can take it or leave it. Frankly I think you’ll turn out to be a bigger pain in the ass than your father, but I think you have the potential of being almost as good as he was.”
“Don’t try to tell me—”
“Please hear me out,” Ryan cut her off. “I can show you your personnel file, if you want to see it. When you were evaluated for employment all three of your interviewers recommended Operations. In part because of your abilities, and in part, I have to admit, because of what your father has done for us.” Ryan studied her for a moment. “Now that is a fact, believe it or not. In the meantime we want to get a message to your father for the French. Nobody can find him, and I think you’re well aware that when your father wants to hide himself he’s very good. Possibly the best there ever was. At this moment we and the French have exhausted every means at our disposal short of an all out manhunt. Now that’s something very dangerous. People could get hurt. So we turned to you because you know your father probably better than anyone else, and if you should happen to show up on his doorstep his first reaction won’t be to escape out the back door, or shoot. We want your help.”
“What do the French want to speak to him about?” Elizabeth asked.
“Will you help us?” Moore asked. “Not until you tell me why the French are interested in my father.”
“Under the circumstances her request is reasonable, Howard,” Moore said.
Ryan seemed to consider it for a moment, and Elizabeth had the feeling she was being set up.
“Will you accept an immediate transfer to Operations?” Ryan asked. “Independent of whether you help us out with this assignment?”
“What would my job be?”
“Special field officer in training,” Ryan answered, Vexed. “But if you work for me it won’t be so easy as translating. I’m not an easy man to work for.”
She wanted to tell him that sudden flash of truth was refreshing, but she held her tongue. “Okay.”
“Welcome aboard,” Moore said.
“My boss will have to be told.”
“We’ll take care of it,” Moore promised.
Ryan selected a file folder from a pile on his desk. “You’re to consider this matter highly confidential. You’ll speak about it with no one outside of this room without prior permission, or face prosecution under the National Secrets Act. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir,” Elizabeth said. Don’t sell your soul for expediency, her father had cautioned her once. But don’t turn your back on whatever works. She was in!
“Does the name Viktor Yemlin mean anything to you?”
“He’s head of the Russian SVR’s North American Directorate.”
Ryan’s eyes lit up. “How do you know this?”
“We’re running programs for the DIon the current situation in Russia, his name came up. Until a few years ago he was the KGB’s resident here in Washington.”
“Your father never mentioned his name?”
Elizabeth searched her memory. She shook her head. “Not that I can remember.”
“They know each other,” Ryan said.
“Considering the work my father did, I’m not surprised. “
“What work is that?” Ryan asked, a flinty look in his eyes.
“He never discussed assignments, Mr. Ryan, if that’s what you mean. But my father was employed by the Company for a number of years. He would have been of great interest to Yemlin. I’m just saying that the connection between them wouldn’t be unusual.”
“Comrade Yemlin showed up in France last week. He was followed to a meeting with your father at the Eiffel Tower. The French managed to overhear a part of their conversation and it worried them sufficiently to contact our Paris Chief of Station for help. Specifically they wanted to know if your father was currently on assignment for us. We told them no.”
Ryan was in his formal mode, speaking like a New York attorney. It bugged Elizabeth. She wanted him to quit beating around the bush and tell it straight. But again she held her tongue. “Were you aware that your father is seeing a woman in Paris?” Moore asked.
Elizabeth smiled despite herself. “I’d be surprised if he wasn’t.”
“Her name is Jacqueline Belleau and she works for the French secret service.” *
“To spy on him,” Elizabeth flared.
“Frankly, yes,” Ryan admitted. “Your father met with Yemlin on Saturday. On Monday he kicked Ms. Belleau out of his apartment and disappeared.”
“Maybe he found out what she was, and he just got rid of her. I would have in his shoes.”
“It’s the timing that has the French most worried,” Ryan said. He slid the file folder across to Elizabeth. “That’s a transcript of what the French were able to monitor.”
Elizabeth reached for the file folder.
“Before you read that, I have to ask you something, Ms. McGarvey,” Ryan said, his tone suddenly gentle. “Did you know your grandparents, on your father’s side.”
The question took her by surprise. “No. They were killed in a car accident in Kansas before I was bora. But I saw photographs, and my father used to, talk about them. He was very close to them.”
“I don’t know of any other way to put this, except to tell you the way it was. Until recently this agency believed that your grandparents were spies for the Soviet Union.”
“Crap,” Elizabeth said.
“Yes, indeed, it was crap, as you put it,” Ryan said.
“An internal audit team is working to clear their names, but it’s something your father might not know yet.”
Elizabeth’s throat was tight, and her eyes smarted. “My father believed that grandma and grandpa were spies? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” Moore said. “It was apparently some kind of a Soviet disinformation plot to discredit him.”
Sudden understanding dawned on Elizabeth. “Around the time of Santiago?”
Ryan stiffened, but said nothing.
“It would seem so,” Moore said. “Amends will be made, believe me. But it’s a burden that your father has carried for a long time. Too long a time.”
Elizabeth was confused. She didn’t know how she felt, or even how she should feel, except that she was so terribly sorry for her father that she wanted to cry.
“It’s made your father, shall we say, vulnerable in certain situations,” Moore continued in his patronizing tone.
“Angry would be closer to the truth,” Elizabeth shot back.
“Yes, angry.”
Elizabeth opened the file folder and read the single page of transcript. She could hear her father’s voice, almost feel his presence in the few lines, and the ache in her heart deepened. She looked up finally, squaring her shoulders, stiffening her resolve. She was a McGarvey. Strong. Resolute. “Sometimes it’s all we have, Liz,” her
