Chapter 17
Carter
FBI Field Office, D.C.
Eighteen months earlier
The FBI interview room was just on the uncomfortable side of small, with bare gray walls, a desk and three plastic chairs, a strip of windows too high to see out of, and a two-way mirror to give you the sense people were watching—and they probably were.
But it wasn’t the close confines that worried Carter, or even the rank of the two people sitting across from him.
There was Silvia, the CIA’s number-two for Russian operations—thinner and grayer than he remembered but with the same unflappable air—and the balding guy from the hotel room, who’d introduced himself as Benjamin Schneider, assistant director of the FBI International Operations Division.
Of greater concern was the fact that no less than the deputy director of the CIA, Herman Folds, was observing by video link.
Nika had been whisked away in a different vehicle, and he guessed they were keeping her waiting in another room.
He hoped they’d removed her handcuffs, as they had his.
She’d be getting nervous. Carter would give it ten minutes before he called in a lawyer.
Figure out where they were coming from and then stall for time.
“We just want to get your side of the story,” Schneider said after they’d run through the pleasantries, his nasal voice deadened by the room’s soundproofing.
“My side of what story?”
“Let’s start with the death of the station chief. When did you last see him?”
“I’ve only met him a couple of times—hadn’t seen him for years. Randolph was my contact. You know this,” Carter said, directing the comment to Silvia.
“Just establishing a baseline,” Schneider said, leaning forward, crossing his arms and resting them on the table, his white shirtsleeves rolled up. His black suit jacket was hooked over one side of the chair, threatening to slide off at any second.
“Hate to admit it, but I’m way out of the loop on any of this.”
“Let’s run through a quick summary of what we do know,” Silvia said, referring to a printout in front of her.
“We know that there have been indications for several years of a leak in the Moscow CIA operation. We know that the body of the Russian CIA station chief was found overnight in an address in Moscow used as a safehouse. A local pathologist has put the time of death just over a week ago—around the day he visited the safehouse to meet the Russian asset with the code name Elena, and an autopsy is expected to confirm that the cause of death was multiple gunshot wounds. Later in the day in question, Elena left Moscow with you on the Imperial Princess, with marriage, travel, and immigration documents, all apparently obtained from the deceased station chief. She would not have qualified for these under normal circumstances and would certainly not have normally received them in that short a period of time. We know that you first requested these documents from the deputy COS and were turned down, and subsequently you received a burn notice regarding Elena. You claimed to the deputy COS that you were not in a relationship with Elena, and yet this morning you were found in flagrante delicto with her. You can see how this sequence of events looks bad for you.” When Carter didn’t respond, she prompted him. “Mr. Beck?”
“Was there a question in that?” He leaned back in his chair. Better to be doing the listening, not the talking.
“I’m not going to waste my time and yours playing games,” Silvia said. “This is not an interrogation. We simply need your help to establish the chain of events.”
“Happy to help where I can. But you’re gonna need to be a little more specific about what you wanna know.”
“How would you describe your relationship with Elena?”
“She is—was—an asset I recruited and ran. I was her handler.”
“And when did it become more than that?”
Carter gave a grim, wry smile. “Approximately nine p.m. last night.”
“You’ll forgive me if I find that difficult to believe.”
“It’s the truth.”
“Can you prove it?”
“Can I prove that something didn’t happen until last night?”
Silvia waited for Carter to expand, but he wasn’t the type to worry about filling in awkward silences. He was aware he looked like an asshole who’d taken advantage, but that had nothing to do with the reason they were sitting there.
“Considering a man has been murdered, you don’t seem very cooperative.”
“Let me be straight up, then. Anything that did or did not happen between Ni—Elena and me has nothing to do with any of this. You want to know if I was channeling intel to the Russians? I was not. If I killed the station chief or was involved in any other way in his death? I did not, and was not. Didn’t know he was dead until you told me this morning.
If I conspired with Elena to get her an exfil to the U.S.
? I did not, apart from presenting her request to Randolph Jeffson, which, as you are aware, was turned down.
If I was involved with her intimately prior to last night? I was not. Anything else?”
“And what about her?” Silvia said, rolling a pen around in her fingers.
“What about her what?”
“What do you know about her involvement in these matters?”
“I have no knowledge that she was involved in channeling information to the Russians, or the death of the station chief. If I had even the wildest suspicion of any of that, I would tell you. I have no idea how she managed to get the documents and permissions she did.”
“And you claim to have not seen her on the day in question until she arrived at the train station at 7:13 p.m.?” Silvia said, checking the time on the printout.
“That’s correct.”
“Since then, you’ve been traveling with her for more than a week. She didn’t tell you any of this?”
“No.”
“You asked her?”
“About how she got the documents? Of course.”
“And she said?”
Carter went to speak and then closed his mouth, feeling a twinge of something unpleasant in his stomach, which wasn’t just down to the vodka they’d consumed the previous night.
“She said…?” Silvia prompted. The FBI guy—Schneider—raised his eyebrows.
“She said it was better that I didn’t know the details,” Carter said, feeling like he was betraying Nika.
They’d talked a lot over the years about how she would handle an interrogation by Russian authorities, but never U.S.
authorities. He hoped she knew better than to lie.
She was innocent, that he was sure of, and if they both stuck to the truth, they wouldn’t risk contradicting each other.
“That’s all? You didn’t press her?”
“Of course I did. Look, I know Elena pretty well…”
“Evidently,” Schneider muttered.
“As in, we’ve had a close professional relationship for four years. I’ve always found her entirely trustworthy.”
Silvia’s turn to raise her eyebrows. “I’m not sure someone who routinely sells a foreign power information about her country’s secrets can be considered ‘trustworthy,’ but go on.”
“And yet we trust people all the time. It’s how the system works. We constantly assess people’s integrity.”
Silvia tapped her pen on the printout, leaving indented dots. “You’ll forgive me for not trusting your instinct on that point, given the circumstances in which the two of you were found this morning. An undeclared illicit relationship with an asset lowers your credibility somewhat.”
“Whether you’re looking for a mole or a murderer or both, you’re looking in the wrong place,” Carter said, slowly and deliberately.
“My job was to get the intel from the Russians and get it out. I didn’t have anything to channel back the other way, and neither did Nika.
I knew more about what the Russians were doing than what our side was doing, and even that was only snatches of intel.
Neither of us would have been much use to the other side. ”
“Mr. Beck, let me share with you a few pieces of evidence that might move this conversation along,” Schneider interrupted, pulling several photos from a cardboard folder and sliding them across the table.
“These were taken by the embassy staff member who found the body while visiting the safehouse to search for the deceased, having discovered he had planned to meet Elena there. I apologize for the graphic nature of these photos. You’ll see there’s a lot of blood, though fortunately for the autopsy, the body was well preserved, given the freezing temperatures in Moscow that week. ”
He wasn’t kidding about the blood. The poor guy lay on a pale carpet, a bullet hole through his chest, another through his forehead. Another angle showed a bullet to the neck. Carter guessed that was the first shot—a little wild but enough to take him down so they could finish him off.
Schneider leaned forward and tapped a spot on the photo. “What do you make of these marks on the carpet, here beside the body?”
“Not an expert, but they look like bloody shoe prints.” Carter had to fight to keep his voice level.
“Anything distinctive about those shoe prints?”
“Not for me to say. I’m sure your forensics guys will tell you.”
“They look like high-heeled shoes, don’t you think? There’s the sole and there’s the heel. The kind of print stilettos would leave, yeah?”
“Could be.”
“It’ll interest you to know then, that we have retrieved a pair of red stiletto boots from your hotel room that exactly match the print. Here’s a photo. I’m assuming these are not yours.”
Carter resisted the urge to swallow, aware that both Schneider and Silvia were watching his reaction intently. “No, they’re not.”
“You can confirm these are Elena’s then?”
“Again, that’s a question for her—she has a lot of shoes.” Carter made a point of keeping his tone casual.
“What’s more, we have detected what appears to be traces of blood on one heel. The sample is being analyzed to determine if it’s a match for the victim.”
“Okay.”