Chapter 1 #2
“I’m going to listen, ask questions, and then I’ll decide whether I can and will work with you. If I can’t, I’ll tell you that, but I won’t recommend anyone else.”
“Why not?”
“If your situation is what Vivi suggested, I don’t want to put another contractor in your path.”
She hid her flinch. No one liked the CIA and all its secrets. “Fair, but let me emphasize that I’m not an agent. Just an archivist. This isn’t a dangerous assignment.”
He fiddled with the pen. “And I’m not a security operative. I’m trained for it, but I sit at a desk and find things. If you’re looking for protection or need it going forward, you’ll have to hire someone else.”
“I don’t need protection.” Katherine forced a soft chuckle. “I’m in need of a researcher with a particular skillset. I have the documentary side covered. I need someone who can build the digital picture in parallel.”
“Parallel to what?”
“To what I’m doing.”
“Which is?”
She held his gaze. The look he gave her wasn’t aggressive or uninterested, but she didn’t know what to do with that. Most men she’d worked with at the Agency leaned toward one of those poles.
“I’m going to need some assurances before I tell you that,” she said.
“Meaning?”
“Meaning if you decline the consultation, what I’ve told you doesn’t leave this room.”
“It wouldn’t leave the room anyway.”
“Your word on that.”
He stifled a sigh. “My word on it.”
This was where she had to push. “I need it in writing.”
One brow rose. “You want me to sign an NDA.”
“Yes.” She slid the document out from under her black notebook. “I have one here.”
It was three pages, single-spaced, that she had drafted herself the night before. He read it slowly, finger tracking down each page, then paused at one of her clauses and glanced up.
“This covers everything I might learn, including in the course of declining.”
“Yes.”
“It also covers everything you say verbally during this meeting.”
She nodded. “That’s the point.”
Another tight sigh. “It’s thorough, I’ll give you that.”
“It’s reasonable.”
He uncapped his pen and signed without further comment, then slid it back, almost like a challenge.
She tucked the signed copy into the back of the black notebook.
“Walk me through what you have,” he said.
This was it. Her pitch needed to give him enough to entice him without giving classified information away.
She opened the navy notebook. “Ten years ago, I joined the Agency’s History Staff.
My specialty is institutional records from the Cold War through the early two thousands.
I handle the kind of operational documents that get reviewed for declassification, internal histories, and occasional cross-referencing for active investigations. I’m a Senior Archivist.”
He sipped his coffee, seeming unimpressed. And wasn’t that annoying. “Go on.”
“Eight weeks ago, I flagged a 2019 internal memo. It referenced a cover name that belonged to a field officer who, according to every Agency record, was killed in action in 1994. But the memo treated him as an active resource, present tense. Operational, as in, he’s still in the field.”
“I know what operational means.” Jasper scribbled a few words on the notepad. “And?”
Her fingers tightened on the mug. “And I submitted the flag through proper internal review channels. It’s standard protocol for a records inconsistency.
Two weeks later, I was reassigned here to process the personal papers of a deceased Station Chief, Walter Vance, whose wife had donated them to the University of Montana.
The reassignment was framed as routine.”
His gaze was steady. “I take it it isn’t.”
“No, but here’s why it matters. I went back into the system after I got here and pulled the file on my flag.
The routing log had been altered. My flag had been reclassified as a clerical anomaly and marked resolved.
Without notification, without my input, and without—as far as I can tell—any actual review. ”
Jasper set the pen down. “Who has authority to do that?”
“My supervisor. The Chief of the History Staff. Anyone at the Associate Deputy Director level or above.”
“And your theory?”
“I’m not sharing it before I have evidence to support it.”
His mouth twitched again. “What does that have to do with the Vance papers?”
“I found a second reference to the same cover name. Handwritten and dated 2003—nine years after the officer’s supposed death.”
“Written by Vance.”
“Written by Vance.”
“To whom?”
She ran a finger along the spine of the notebook. “There’s no addressee. The letter is informal, most likely internal. I have eight handwriting samples to confirm authorship. The penmanship is consistent.”
“Eight samples.” He gave a bemused smile. “You are thorough. Content?”
“He references the cover name three times as an active assignment. The kind of language you use about a person, not their legacy.”
Jasper tapped his pen and stared at his notepad for a minute. “But Vance never sent it?”
“I assume it was a draft. He may have planned to give it to his secretary to type up. The real ringer, though? There’s another letter dated right after my flag that also references Cinder. Vance never finished that letter--the date on it is the same day he died.”
Jasper’s eyes lost their coolness. The same eyebrow rose again. “Are you suggesting a conspiracy?”
An ugly word. She pulled the black notebook toward her, opened it to the relevant pages, and turned it to face him. “There are nine years of nothing, and yet, Cinder is alive. I’m sure of it. And if so, he’s been operating in some capacity, and that capacity has to leave traces.”
The pen tapped the paper again. “Have you looked for any?”
“I can’t use Agency computers to do so without tripping unwanted attention, and I’m out of my element trying to find someone who doesn’t want to be found on my own. That’s why I need you.”
“Why do you care?”
“Excuse me?”
He shrugged. “Who cares if the CIA lied about a spy’s death and still has him on the payroll? Sounds par for the course.”
She blinked. “Why lie about it? And if it’s Top Secret, why not simply tell me hands off?
It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been instructed not to pursue certain data concerning operatives and their missions.
I have high clearance—I’ve co-authored six internal histories, three of which remain classified at the Top Secret level.
Why bury me in Montana and mark the file closed? ”
For the first time since they’d started talking, his focus dropped to his notepad and stayed there for a tense moment. She could see the wheels turning in his head, a crease forming between his brows.
She opened her other two notebooks and pointed to specific sections. “I have dozens of notes and cross references from Vance’s papers that may be part of this. I’m serious about my work, Mr. Perault, and I’m good at it, too. Something about this isn’t right, and I intend to figure out what it is.”
He scanned the sections she pointed to, then sat back and made notes. His handwriting was atrocious and seemed to be made up of symbols and code she couldn’t decipher. A man with his own cipher—how interesting.
She closed the books and stacked them beside her. “You understand that I can’t just log in to my Agency account and start digging into it, right? I’ll end up in a place far worse than this.”
Jasper folded his arms across his chest, giving her another of his looks.
“Not that there’s anything wrong with Montana,” she backtracked. “I meant—”
“Tell me what you want from a consultant,” he interrupted.
Right. She needed to close the pitch and make it good.
“I send you queries. You run them through whatever digital channels you can use that won’t alert the CIA.
I don’t need to know your methods; I just need to know the results.
We meet daily to compare findings. The work is yours, the analysis is mine, and final decisions about what to do with anything we find are also mine. ”
“Final decisions are yours.”
“Yes.”
“Even if those decisions affect the safety of people who are helping you.”
“Meaning you?”
“Meaning me and SPS. If the CIA gets wind of us investigating a spy they don’t want exposed, we’re all in danger.”
She paused. “If you’re good at your job, they’ll never know. And since it’s my personal investigation, I’m paying for the consultation out of pocket. Therefore, I make the calls about what to do with the results.”
“You’re paying me to find things,” Jasper said. “You’re not paying me to give up my judgment about what we do with what we find.”
He was stubborn. “I’m paying you to find things and report them to me. The judgment piece is mine.”
“With respect, Ms. Townsend, that’s not how I work.”
“With respect, Mr. Perault, that’s the contract I’m offering.”
They glared at each other across the kitchen table. Priss yawned at their feet.
“Hmm,” Jasper said.
“Hmm?” she echoed with no small amount of annoyance. She’d tried. She really had, but he was asking too much.
“You’re going to be a difficult client.”
She smiled ruefully. He had no idea how difficult she could be. “I prefer the word thorough.”
“Hmm,” he said again, but this time with a hint of amusement.
“If you were in my shoes, wouldn’t you be?” she asked.