Neither of them asked many questions and the doctor acknowledged that as she was leaving. She gave them both her card and told them that she was sure the questions would come. She closed the door behind her.
“Looks like I haven’t had my last cigarette,” Alice said.
*
His boss’s, boss’s, boss kept him waiting for over half an hour in his anteroom with nothing to do but trying not to stare at his perfumed administrative assistant. Every time he came back to Langley, he was reminded why he hated working there and why he never intended to return for a permanent posting. The sea of eager faces and dark suits, the frenetic display as people race-walked through the complex to make themselves appear to be hurrying to meetings of great import, the mind-numbing paperwork and bureaucracy. His appointment was with Dennis Correia, the Assistant Director, Europe Division of the NCS, the clandestine service. How Correia knew he was in town was a very minor mystery; Marcus figured there was some sort of HR-sourced alert within the NCS when a field officer was stateside on leave. He had been in plenty of in-person and video-link meetings with Correia, but had never had a one-on-one. He knew what the agenda was going to be. It was patently obvious.
Correia was appropriately apologetic when he finally arrived. He was about the same age as Marcus, a forty-something lawyer by training, Ivy-League polished, with a helping of smarminess. He had his assistant bring in a pot of coffee that he poured himself into weirdly dainty china cups.
“How’s your wife?” was his first question. “Alice.”
“How’d you know about her?”
“Jim told me.”
Jim Alicante was his immediate superior, the station chief in Paris.
“She’s home. Recovering.”
“Cancer, right?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m sorry. Must be rough. She stayed in Virginia for your deployment, I understand.”
There were a lot of secrets rattling around the Agency. His personal life wasn’t one of them.
“When we came back from Bonn, I promised her she wouldn’t have to do it again.”
“We didn’t make the same promise to you, I imagine.”
“I knew I’d probably get posted again.”
“You’re twenty-two years in, right?”
“Correct.”
“Came right in after college.”
“Correct.”
Correia pointed to his own head. “There’s a lot of institutional knowledge in that noggin.”
“I suppose there is.”
“And they’re hyper-aware of that.”
They was the FSB. The meeting had just pivoted.
“They know a lot about me, yes.”
“Is that his angle—Burakov? That he’s courting you—trying to take you to the prom?”
“That’s what he’s telling his people.”
“And what are you telling your people?”
Marcus felt his face flush. “Excuse me?”
He repeated the question, sipping from his dainty cup.
“I’m telling my people that I’m recruiting him. Want to know why I’m telling them that? Because it’s what I’m doing.”
Correia smiled. “Okay, take it easy. It’s my job to worry. FSB first-rank captains come around once in a career—ten-carat, flawless diamonds. Everyone in the building, right up to the director, knows you’ve got a big fish on the line. I get questions. Who’s recruiting who, I’m asked? Everyone’s scared shitless about every outcome but one—a nice clean deal where Vasily Burakov takes the leap, is exfiled to Maryland, and over the ensuing months, spills enough beans to compete with Starbucks. We don’t want blowback. Seeing as you were in town, I wanted to get briefed—horse’s mouth.”
Marcus didn’t like the guy, but there was nothing to be gained by making it obvious. He let his anger dissipate like steam from the release-valve on a pressure cooker and said, “Burakov is using the cover of grooming me to meet at FSB’s safe houses in Versailles, Saint-Cloud, other suburbs.”
“Purpose-built?”
“We think so. They aren’t properties we were aware of. Short-term rentals, probably.”
“How do you get to them?”
“Different every time. I take a taxi to this hotel or that hotel, have a drink in the bar and a cruiser puts a few eurocents on my table. The number of coins corresponds to a stall in the lobby men’s room—numbered left to right. Taped to the bottom of the tank is an envelope with a parking ticket for a nearby lot and car keys. Inside the car’s glovebox is an address and the location of a public parking lot. I drive, park, and hoof it to the house.”
“And Burakov’s the only one there?”
“He’s the only one who shows himself. Could be mice, though.”
“But everything that transpires is recorded on brilliant HD video and Dolby audio.”
“Every syllable, I’m sure.”
“And you feed him intel during these sessions.”
“The stuff that your people feed me, a mixture of noise mixed with a few nuggets. The nuggets are feeding the habit.”
“When do you do the real business with Burakov?”
“When we’re done at the house, he walks me to the nearest taxi rank. We exchange memory sticks. Mine has info, like on how we’re going to exfil him, his wife, and his sons who’re all with him in Paris, proposals on upfront cash and ongoing stipends, living arrangements in the States—the usual housekeeping. His contains the open-the-kimono intel he’s giving us to prove his bona fides. You’ve seen it. It’s mostly gold.”
“There’s some good stuff. It’s not the 1849 strike, but Burakov knows his way around the FSB. He knows where the bodies are buried because he’s buried a lot of them. When does his exfil happen?”
“About a month from now.”
“What about your wife?”
“What about her?”
“Come on, Marcus, you know what I mean.”
“I’ll deliver Burakov. Then I’ll request compassionate leave to tend the home fires.”
“I’m sure it’ll be granted.”
“Thank you.”
“How do you know he’s not going to double up?”
“I don’t. That’s going to be your job to figure out once he’s in Maryland.”
“And how do we know you won’t be the one to take thirty pieces of silver?”
He barely stopped himself from telling Correia to fuck himself and said, “You don’t. Want to polygraph me?”
More teeth. “I’m glad you offered. The lab
