Chapter 6
Carter
Restaurant Fyodor, Moscow
Eighteen months earlier
Once the One Percent were toileted, relieved of their heavy coats, dusted of snow, re-lipsticked, re-coiffed, settled into leather banquettes in Restaurant Fyodor off Tverskoy Boulevard and dosed with their first vodkas of the night, Carter caught Nika’s eye and indicated he was headed for the men’s room.
She gave an indifferent nod without pausing in her explanation of the menu: the most expensive potato pie, borscht, bone marrow and dumplings in all of Russia.
She knew what Carter’s withdrawal meant, whom he’d be meeting, and what they’d be discussing.
Nika being Nika, if she were nervous about the outcome, not even a polygraph could pick it.
True, her cheeks were rosy and her eyes watery, but so were everyone’s after their brief walk from the limousines.
Behind her, outside the Palladian windows, fairy lights illuminated drifting flakes of snow.
Carter passed a string quartet dressed in satin and velvet gowns, and jogged down a marble staircase, pulling on the collar of his tuxedo.
The building, and everything in it, was a facade, like nearly everything his tour groups saw.
A brand-new “authentic” Baroque palace. “The oligarch theme park,” Nika secretly called it.
A lot of coin went into making tourists feel like they were having a genuine Russian experience.
He nodded at the guy at the coat check and pushed open a set of double doors toward the bathrooms.
The illusion dropped away. The bathroom wing was bland and modern, shared with several businesses that backed onto the restaurant: a vodka bar, boutiques, a barbershop. But it did have other attractive qualities: multiple entrances and exits, no security cameras, and no bathroom attendant.
Carter held a door open for one of his tour group—the husband of the birthday girl, coming the other way. “Restrooms aren’t up to standard, are they?” the man said as he passed. Carter let the door close behind him, in lieu of responding.
On every trip, the One Percent wondered aloud why such an atmospheric place had a secret so dark as a bathroom without gilt faucets and rolled towels.
But then, they paid handsomely to never see behind the facades.
Five-star hotels, first-class travel, luxury shopping, private after-hours tours…
They pretended not to notice the housekeeping staff, believing instead their shit didn’t leave skid marks—until they couldn’t find their emerald and diamond earrings, at which time the maid ceased being invisible, when really they’d left them in their third-best Cartier purse.
(True story. St. Petersburg, four long days ago.) They accepted without question that musicians wore ball gowns and tour guides wore tuxedos on any old day.
And Moscow knew just how to treat the wealthy—and how to relieve them of money.
The Russian government was fond of oligarchs, even American ones.
Randolph was already in the men’s bathroom, dusting tiny crescents of snipped hair from his shoulders. Carter raised his eyebrows in a question. Randolph would already have swept for cameras and bugs.
“We’re good,” Randolph responded. “What’s up?”
“Elena thinks she’s been compromised,” Carter said, using Nika’s code name. “She wants an exfil.”
Randolph arched a perfectly shaped eyebrow. The skin between his eyebrows was red—he’d had it waxed? But then, he needed a pretense to meet up regularly. A mid-level commercial attaché at the embassy, as he supposedly was, could get only so many haircuts. “You think there’s something in it?”
“I don’t know.” Carter quickly relayed Nika’s suspicions. Even to him, they sounded flimsy.
“Paranoia?” Randolph said, when he’d finished.
The door opened. Silently, they each shut themselves into stalls, as if they were already headed that way.
Carter took a leak. When the intruder had finished and the bathroom door whooshed close behind him, Carter stepped out of his stall, just as Randolph left his.
Carter checked the other stalls were still empty.
“She thinks someone’s searched her apartment.”
“If they were pros doing a sneak and peek, she’d never have known they were there. She didn’t have counter-intel equipment?”
Carter began washing his hands. “No, a neighbor saw them. I’ve known her four years—it’s not paranoia, it’s instinct.”
Randolph looked in the mirror and scratched bristles from his sideburns. “It’s normal for an asset to get jittery at some point. Sometimes you gotta push through.”
“After this long? She’s never been worried before. She’s always cautious, but this…”
“Doesn’t mean it’s real. Is it about this list that everyone’s on about?”
“Could be a factor. You guys know anything more?”
“Nothing’s verified. The picture we’ve formed from the rumors, as of now, is that it’s a piece of paper with the names—real and assumed—of CIA operatives and agents that’s supposedly on its way to the Kremlin.
Handwritten under duress by one of ours in Moscow who was about to lose a hand, an ear, a child, or a marriage, depending on which story you listen to.
Can’t help noticing you still have both your ears and hands, so perhaps it was you. ”
“Or you. Whoever it was, whether or not it’s real, my assets are getting jumpy.”
“Unless she has something to bargain with, she’s not a candidate for an exfiltration.”
“She wants it to look legit. Wants us to get married and go to the U.S.”
Randolph paused in his grooming, his finger at his temple. “You got a zipper problem?”
“I don’t have to be screwing her to feel responsible.”
“Feelings are below your pay grade,” Randolph said, with only a drop of humor.
“The Agency won’t want to lose her. Her sources won’t report to anyone else.”
Randolph smoothed an eyebrow. “You know as well as I do that if she leaves Moscow, she’s no longer an asset. In fact, she could be a liability. And if she is under suspicion, if she is on this list, disappearing will only serve as confirmation.”
“Staying in Moscow won’t rule out suspicion, either. We can make a marriage look legit—we’ve known each other long enough. I can escort her out.” Shit, now he was trying to talk Randolph into it? Five minutes ago that hadn’t been his plan.
“You’re willing to go through with this? Not that I’m saying it’s on the table. You know that would be the end of this posting?”
Carter gave a no-big-deal shrug but his stomach twisted.
Of course, it wouldn’t be him getting married, just his alias.
And there wasn’t anything stopping him remarrying for real, legally.
After the obligatory seven years missing, Vanessa was officially declared dead.
Hell, maybe if he faked a new marriage, his mom would stop nagging him to move on.
You’re like an aircraft in a holding pattern, you have to land sometime.
You know she’s been gone far longer than you were together—who knows if you would have lasted, given your jobs, given how you butted heads?
It’s easy to be madly in love when you’re young.
You have to be careful you don’t remember it to be something it wasn’t.
“Have you seen anything amiss?” Randolph said.
“No. But I’ve been gone a few weeks. I’m taking this seriously.”
Randolph pursed his mouth. “As you should. We’ll run an SDR on you both tomorrow. Do some basic dry cleaning.”
“I run surveillance detection constantly. You know that.”
“And you’ve failed to pick up anything, so maybe she’s seeing ghosts.”
“But if she’s right? If she’s been made?”
“We pull you out straightaway. Shut down the operation. If she’s compromised, you’re compromised.”
“What about her?”
“If there’s already counter-intel on her, they’ll never let her out of the country. If there isn’t, she’s probably okay.”
“Come on, Randolph. We can do better than that. She’s earned this.”
“That’s not how it works and you know it.
Look, I can run it by the station chief.
” Randolph slowly shook his head, since they both knew what the answer would be.
“But, buddy, she chose this path. She had her reasons. We didn’t have to coerce her.
She came willingly, she passed the tests, she agreed to the rules.
Whether this is cold feet or she’s been blown, it’s not on you.
You’ve had a good run in the greatest environment in the world for our profession.
Possibly the most successful clandestine operation in the modern era. Could be time to call it a day.”
“Shut down the network? You know what a blind spot that’ll leave in the intel.”
“You gotta play it carefully, moy droog. You’re a NOC. Without official cover, we can’t give you diplomatic protection. Walk away now and you won’t have to run later.”
The door opened and Carter resumed washing his hands. As the newcomer headed for the stalls, Randolph left without a word, his slight limp marking a stilted patter down the echoing hallway. Every conversation they had, Carter was left wondering what Randolph wasn’t telling him.
Carter ran his hands through his hair, which still felt cold from the thirty-degree temps outside.
Holding pattern or not, he liked this all-consuming non-existence, where he was at the same time backpedaling and doing something endlessly interesting.
The job filled his life right to the edges, shoving all the other shit out of the way.
But what now? If he caught that train in forty-eight hours, what fate would he leave Nika to—and would he even find out what became of her? He’d always wondered if there was more he could have done to find Vanessa—still wondered. He sure as hell didn’t need another missing woman on his conscience.