Chapter 38 Hannah
Hannah
There was already one dead body on the floor.
Before the night ended, Maggie Bird’s would join it, although Hannah did not relish adding yet another corpse to her lifetime tally.
There was hardly any point to killing her now anyway, since the police already knew who Hannah was, and Maggie’s death would not improve Hannah’s dire situation.
The moment her house in Amesbury was breached, and she’d remotely viewed Jo Thibodeau’s face on her surveillance camera, she knew she’d been compromised.
After all the years she’d flown under the radar, all the years she’d lived as Hannah Murray, American, the masquerade had come to an end.
What a shame Andrei’s death turned out to be needless.
The young man’s body lay in the corner of the cabin, curled in a fetal position.
She had covered his face with a blanket because it pained her to look at him.
He was just an innocent, caught in the jaws of a ruthless machine that was bigger than both of them.
She was not often tasked with taking a life, and when she was, she did not enjoy it.
Andrei’s death was one she particularly regretted, but her hand had been forced when he’d spotted her back in Purity yesterday afternoon, sitting in her parked car.
Even worse, when he’d rapped on her window to say hello, he’d glimpsed Cyrillic on her phone, part of a message sent by her handler.
“Oh!” he’d said in surprise. “You can read Russian!”
That’s when she knew she had no choice. So she had invited him to tea.
Now his blood was spattered across the wall, where it had dried in a brick red starburst. Eventually someone would have to clean up this mess, but it probably would not happen until next spring.
Hannah would be thousands of miles away by the time the owner of this seasonal cottage returned to Purity and found the decaying body.
Or bodies. Because Maggie’s would be here as well, rotting in this rustic little vacation house with knotty pine walls and a picture window that faced the wooded lakeshore.
Like all the other cottages on Lake Cameron, it would remain dark and unoccupied all winter, and already, it smelled of dust and dampness and abandonment.
Hannah looked down at Andrei and gave a mournful sigh.
Such a tormented young man. In Belarus, he would have faced ridicule or worse because of his attraction to other men.
He’d tried to hide it from Hannah, but she had known, of course.
She, too, understood the challenges of trying to blend in, to appear unremarkable.
To look like any other middle-aged woman one might see pushing a housekeeping cart in a hotel.
Which was where she had first met Maggie Bird, in the hallway of the Cod Cove Resort, outside Mikhail Maslov’s hotel room.
“I hear you call yourself a farmer,” Hannah said.
“Who told you that?”
“I have sources. They know Ingrid Slocum is hiding in your farmhouse.”
She saw the flash of alarm in Maggie’s eyes. She must have been wondering who, in her circle of trust, had leaked that information to Moscow.
“Your sources have made a big mistake,” said Maggie.
“What mistake would that be?”
“They’ve sent you to kill the wrong person. Ingrid Slocum isn’t who they want.”
“I don’t care one way or another. I just do what I’m told.”
“Killing her will only make things worse for you. The police already know who you are. The FBI’s in your house right now.”
“You think I don’t know that? The instant they broke in, my security system alerted me. Now tell me about your security system.”
“What system?”
Hannah held up Maggie’s cell phone, which had been powered down to avoid being tracked. “It can be turned off remotely, I assume?” Hannah pressed the barrel of her gun against Maggie’s head. “Disable it for me.”
“Why should I, if you’re going to kill me anyway?”
“Because it would be a lot less painful. But we have all night.” Hannah tucked the gun in her waistband. “Let’s start over. Tell me about Ingrid Slocum.”
“She’s the wrong target. The woman you want is already dead.”
“How do you know this?”
“I have sources too. Ingrid Slocum is an American. She’s not the woman you’ve been sent to kill.”
“Prove it.”
“That’s a little hard to do at the moment,” said Maggie, glancing back toward the support post she was manacled to.
Hannah considered Maggie’s words as she paced to the picture window, then back again.
“Look, I know Ingrid,” said Maggie. “So does half this town. She serves on our library board. She’s American, a retired executive secretary.”
“Details that could be manufactured about anyone.”
“Then why are you even asking about her? It sounds like you’re going to kill her no matter what I say.”
“If this really is a mistake, I want to know how it happened. And why.”
“Oh, dear. Did Moscow screw up and send you after the wrong woman?”
Hannah slammed her fist into Maggie’s cheek. The blow was so sudden that Maggie didn’t have a chance to brace herself. She slumped sideways, groaning in pain. Hannah crouched down in front of her, and when Maggie opened her eyes, their faces were so close their noses almost touched.
“Who is trying to kill me?” said Hannah.
Maggie stared at her, clearly bewildered by the question. “What?”
“The disasters in Amsterdam and Madrid. Those were obviously traps to lure our operatives and eliminate us. Those stupid Vory walked right into it. Hiring them is like sending in a chainsaw when what’s needed is a scalpel.”
“You’re the scalpel, I take it?”
“I don’t make mistakes. I’m in and out. They always assume Vory did it, and I’m happy to let them think so.
Because then no one looks at me.” Hannah rose to her feet and started to pace again, in a tight circle.
“Now I just want to go home. After all this, I deserve to go home. I was promised a house in the country. A house with a garden, where I can wash away the blood.” She halted and turned to Maggie.
“Who’s setting these traps? Who wants me dead? ”
“Why are you asking me? I’m just a farmer.”
“Ingrid Slocum is part of this. She’s CIA, isn’t she?”
Maggie stared back, expressionless, her eyes revealing nothing.
“And who are you, really?” Hannah asked. “Surely not just a farmer.”
Again, Maggie’s answer was a blank and silent stare, a response that could only come with training. She, too, must be CIA.
“I think my question has just been answered,” said Hannah.
“If you believe this is a trap, why are you doing this?” asked Maggie. “Why don’t you just walk away and disappear? Go someplace where even your handlers can’t find you?”
“It’s too late for that now.” Hannah turned to the window and stared out at the night, thinking about the impossibility of starting over and rebuilding a life from scratch.
She was fifty-two years old, she had no friends she could trust, and the money she’d hoarded for emergencies would last her no longer than a year.
Without Moscow’s help, she truly would be on her own.
This was the price of living a lie your whole life. Loneliness.
No, her only way forward was to do what her handlers ordered. Only then would they finally bring her home. This, they’d promised, was her final task.
Hannah turned to Maggie. “Tell me the code for your security system.”
“I’m just a farmer. Why would I have—”
Again, Hannah slammed her fist into Maggie’s jaw, and the blow whipped the woman’s head around. Slowly Maggie raised her chin to look at her, blood trickling from her torn lip.
“What if we make a deal?” asked Hannah. “No one ever has to know about it.” She crouched down and stared straight into Maggie’s eyes. “Help me get into your house, and I’ll let you live.”
“Why would I believe you?”
“You don’t have a choice, do you? Isn’t any chance to live better than no chance at all? I don’t really need to kill you. They already know who I am, so your death serves no purpose for me. But if you agree to help me, you gain everything. You live.”
“And Ingrid dies.”
“That’s the exchange, you see. Her life for yours.
” She leaned in close enough to see every fine wrinkle on Maggie’s face.
Hannah was younger than this woman, but tonight she felt profoundly older.
A lifetime of deception had taken its toll on her body, her soul.
All she wanted was to fade into obscurity, to return to her homeland and claim the reward she’d been promised.
But first she had to kill Ingrid Slocum.
“Which will it be?” Hannah asked.
She waited as Maggie considered her options.
Loyalty versus her life. A simple choice on the face of it, and how important was friendship, really?
Hannah couldn’t answer that, because she’d never allowed herself such a luxury.
Every acquaintanceship had been based on lies, and every lie was rooted in self-preservation.
“Well?” said Hannah.
“Fuck you.”
Hannah sighed. “No matter.” She powered on Maggie’s cell phone and aimed the camera at her. “There’s always another way.”