Fidelity (12 page)

24

D
OING SURVEILLANCE
on a potential recruit was not fundamentally different from doing surveillance on a drug dealer or crime lord. There was a lot of sitting around, drinking coffee, trying to keep yourself sharp despite the mind-numbing moment-to-moment boredom of the task. On the plus side, the surveillance that Kay was responsible for, a potential recruit at the Russian mission, at least kept her in nice neighborhoods. Surveillance in Baltimore meant angling down in a Bureau car in the dreariest and most impoverished portions of the city, watching crackheads fidget past aimlessly, staring at shiftless young men on stoops in the middle of the day, all of the ugliest aspects of American urban decay. Here in New York it meant being in the passenger seat across from Agent Marshall, parked on a lovely Manhattan residential block, towering apartment buildings filled with million-dollar condos. Middle-aged women kept young through shots of attenuated botulism and frequent plastic surgeries carried purse dogs to their weekly SoulCycle class.

“You ever think about what an odd job we have, Marshall?” Kay asked, shifting her legs about in an aimless effort to improve blood flow.

“Do it as long as I have, Malloy, and the whole thing starts to
feel normal.” He was fiddling with the lens on their long-distance camera, more to kill time than anything else. The better part of surveillance, Kay had long ago realized, was finding creative ways to make time a corpse.

“What's normal?”

“You got me,” Marshall said. In a park across the street, a man had painted himself silver and was perched motionless atop a bench. A number of East Asian tourists were happily taking pictures of him. “In this city especially.”

“You think we got a shot with this guy?”

“These living statues don't make very much,” Marshall said. “I think if we pitch it to him the right way, he'll probably give us what he knows.”

Kay made a motion as if to punch Marshall, and Marshall put his hands up apologetically. In the months since she had come to New York, Kay had grown closer to her comrades in counterintelligence, although she would have to admit that she had not yet found a friend to compare with Torres. Probably this was as much about Kay as it was them. She had come to Baltimore a fresh-faced new Agent, anxious for camaraderie. Here in New York she was, if not a hardened veteran, then at least not so desperately unsure of herself as she had been after leaving the Academy.

“Honestly, Kay,” Marshall said, having avoided his beating, “it's hard to say. A recruitment is never a sure thing, as much work as you try to put in ahead of time to make sure otherwise. Of course, Jeffries thinks he's worth taking a look at, and Jeffries isn't wrong all that much. I mean, we're all wrong sometimes, but she's not the sort of person you'd want to make a habit of betting against.”

Kay did not disagree.

Counterintelligence is not passive, and the investigation into
Black Bear included far more than simply staring at a computer. The information for the matrix, after all, had to come from somewhere. Some portion of it might be communications intelligence—or COMINT, as it was more popularly called—tapping phones and intercepting e-mails, the endless ongoing twenty-first-century game of encryption and decryption, of ­electronic cat and mouse. But COMINT was only part of the picture, and perhaps not the most important part, either. Human intelligence, or HUMINT, was still critical, and would remain so for as long as countries tried to spy on one another. An RIP, someone inside the enemy's operation who could provide not only specific details but background on the competition, was crucial to an ­effective counterintelligence operation. Identifying these potential recruits, tracking them, finding out their weaknesses, recruiting and finally running them, were key responsibilities of an FBI Agent working counterintelligence, albeit ones with which Kay was largely unfamiliar.

Over the course of the last few months, the Black Bear squad, spearheaded by ASAC Jeffries, had begun to assemble a complex dossier on the history, character and habits of one Artur Vadim, a Suspected Intelligence Officer, or SIO, working cover at the Russian mission. It was a strange sort of way to get to know someone. Kay did not know what Vadim's voice sounded like, or if he had a good sense of humor, or if he was the sort of person who would hold the door open if someone else was coming by, carrying a package. But she knew where he had been born and where he had gone to school and when he had started working at the Russian mission, and some of the intelligence work with which he was affiliated, and the contents of his bank account, and his spending habits, and dozens of other intimate, personal details.

It beat staring at the matrix, at least. “Artur Vadim,” Kay said as if she had just heard it for the first time.

“Artur Vadim,” Marshall seconded, because he was bored also and didn't have much else to say.

“What's our in with this guy?” Kay asked.

“Money,” Marshall informed her. “It's almost always money. Back in the good old days, I suppose, you had the occasional recruit coming in for philosophical reasons. Like Polyakov.”

Major General Dmitri Polyakov had been the crown jewel of the U.S. intelligence service's foreign assets throughout much of the Cold War, a high-ranking Soviet military officer who had passed on key secrets from his native country. Unlike the vast majority of placements, even during the Cold War, he had no interest in money, felt ideologically estranged from the regime of which he was a part, did his best to bring it down from the inside—until his identity was betrayed by CIA traitor Aldrich Ames, and he was tried, convicted, and executed for treason.

“Look what happened to him,” Kay said.

Marshall grunted. “Vadim's no Polyakov, I'll give you that. But he's high enough in the Russian mission to be of real potential value, assuming we can hook him. And some of his ­habits—the cocktail bars, the opera tickets, that custom-tailored suit which we saw him walk out of work wearing—are difficult to indulge on his salary.”

Kay nodded. “When do we make the approach?”

“Up to Jeffries,” Wilson said. “But you only ever get one shot with these. If you blow it”—he drew a finger across his throat—“you're iced. Best to be damn well prepared first.”

“So what you're saying is I ought to get used to sitting in the BuCar?” Kay used the slang for a Bureau-issued car.

“It ain't all honor and glory.”

“You said that already,” Kay said, trying without success to find a comfortable way to position her legs.

25

T
WO MONTHS
after the beginning of Black Bear, Kay met Andrew in the basement of New York's Penn Station, one of the busiest—and unquestionably the ugliest—train stations in the country. Kay was early, as she was to most things, and spent half an hour drinking coffee out of a Styrofoam cup and watching the departures board. Five minutes before nine and she started to get worried that she'd be making the trip solo, and then there was a tap on her shoulder and there he was.

“So sorry,” Andrew explained, smiling that smile of his. “Shall we grab a seat?”

Before she could say anything, Andrew was off again, and Kay followed him through the mob and down into the bowels of the station, onto a crowded platform and then into the air-conditioned
Acela Express
. Kay was annoyed that he was late and also annoyed that his being late hadn't cost them anything, that they had gotten a comfortable seat without much trouble. Andrew was the sort of person for whom things worked out naturally: that rare, lucky breed that draws as much jealousy as it does admiration.

He offered her the window seat but Kay refused it, mostly out of pique, because she actually would have preferred it. Andrew didn't seem to mind. He headed to the dining car and came
back with two cups of coffee. Kay grunted thanks and turned to her book.

Kay would have liked to think that representing the FBI in today's meeting with Mike Anthony was a select honor, although she lacked such a capacity for self-deception. This was a hassle, not a privilege. The train ride down to Union Station, a cab to CIA headquarters, a few pleasantries, then down to the meat of it—which was, in short, that thus far Jeffries's crack counterintelligence squad had come up with nothing firm as to the possible identity of the CIA's penetration. For that matter, they didn't have anything flimsy, either. Months of working the matrix; grueling months; months that Kay had not found overwhelmingly entertaining; months that had, unfortunately, gotten them no closer to the end of the Black Bear investigation. As the newest member of the squad, it had seemed only reasonable that she would be the one to make the haul to D.C.: seniority had its privileges, after all.

Andrew seemed cheerful enough about the whole thing. But then, Andrew always seemed cheerful. Whatever interagency tension might have been expected was swiftly soothed by his good humor, competence and willingness to handle the duller and more burdensome aspects of Black Bear. Indeed, it was hard to dislike Andrew. He smiled easily; he held doors for people in an unself-conscious and gentlemanly sort of way. He brought in donuts. In meetings he spoke succinctly, and what he said was worth listening to. Which was why Kay could not quite explain her own feelings towards him, which were somewhat more towards the negative side of mixed. Maybe it was that things seemed to come so easily to him, as if all of the props and levers of human existence had been greased and twisted to his advantage. Or maybe it was that she found him so handsome.

The train ride passed smoothly. Kay dodged all attempts at small talk, an evasion that didn't seem to bother Andrew, assuming he had noticed. They grabbed a cab from the stand at Union Station. Langley, Virginia, where the CIA is based, is only a few miles west of the capital, but with midday traffic it took nearly an hour to get there. The cabdriver was Pakistani and enormously entertained by Andrew's facility for Urdu, which Andrew claimed was fledgling but which seemed to Kay to be more than competent. By the time they were dropped off in front of CIA headquarters, the driver was shaking their hands vigorously and Andrew could add another name to his seemingly endless list of casual friends.

Kay and Andrew passed through security without any particular difficulty, and Kay was unsurprised at the good humor that greeted Andrew's return, the security guards laughing and waving, people slapping him on the back when they passed in the hall. The meeting with Mike Anthony went quickly and smoothly, primarily because there wasn't very much to report on. The Black Bear squad had identified a number of potential targets for recruitment, but nothing firm. An old hand like Anthony wasn't fool enough to expect results so swiftly, not in an operation like this. He listened carefully, asked relevant questions, thanked Kay and Andrew for their work and requested that they relay similar feelings to the rest of the team. Was he just the slightest bit brusque with his younger colleague, casually or not so casually unfriendly? Having only met Anthony once, Kay couldn't say with any sort of certainty, although she made a mental jot on the subject in the impeccable ledger that she kept stored between her ears.

Andrew and Kay had lunch at the CIA cafeteria, which honesty forced Kay to admit was way better than its FBI counterpart. She had a cup of coffee and an Italian sandwich. Andrew
had sparkling water and a salad. It was not a fair thing to hold against him, but she found she couldn't quite help herself. They spoke little, and when they did it was about the case. Andrew was as up-to-date on the matrix information as anyone involved in the Black Bear investigation, despite the fact that he was kept entirely in the dark about how exactly the FBI had acquired their data.

The cab ride back to Union Station took longer than the one going out, and they barely made their train, cramming in with the rest of the evening commuters heading north back to Manhattan.

“You're from New York, aren't you, Kay?” Andrew asked on the way home. The train ride from D.C. to New York, the most heavily commuted portion of the country, is not what you would call particularly scenic: mostly gray suburbs and highways. But there is a short portion between Baltimore and Philadelphia that cruises north through the Chesapeake Bay, offering the occasional view of grass and water, one that Kay had been enjoying in the interim before Andrew had spoken.

“You pulled my file?” Kay asked, half kidding.

“It's the best part of being a spy,” Andrew answered toothily. “We have files on everyone at the CIA. During the annual Christmas party we drink heavily and read from the funniest ones.”

“That's interesting,” Kay said. “We do the same thing. But I bet our jokes are better.”

Andrew laughed. “Just office scuttlebutt.”

“I spent my childhood years in Westchester,” she said, then added, “but when I was ten I moved to the Upper West Side to live with my aunt and uncle.”

“Why?” Andrew asked, shining those eyes on hers—eyes that Kay did not doubt had entranced many a woman into revealing her secrets.

“It's a long story,” Kay said uncomfortably.

To his credit, Andrew knew enough not to push her. A brief silence, but not an awkward one, which Kay chalked up to Andrew's easy sociability. “And you? Where are you from?”

“I'm from outside of Dallas, originally.”

“Do you get out there much?”

“Not really.”

“No family?”

“Not for a while,” Andrew admitted. “I'm an orphan, actually. My parents died when I was twelve.” Said with that false casualness that Kay knew intimately, that she had mastered during her own long years of answering questions about why the couple coming to graduation looked nothing like her.

“I'm sorry,” Kay said, knowing how hollow it sounded, because she was usually the one hearing it but not able to think of anything else.

Andrew received the condolences with more grace than Kay usually managed. “Thanks,” he said. “It was a long time ago. I've turned the page.”

“I hadn't . . .” All of a sudden Kay found herself feeling very foolish for her false assumptions about Andrew, for supposing his friendly manner was all there was to him. “I hadn't known.”

“I don't really advertise it,” he said, smiling.

“My parents died young also!” Kay found herself blurting out after a long moment of silence.

“Really?”

“When I was about ten.”

Andrew's eyes lost some of their usual casual friendliness, that veneer of good humor that covered what went on beneath. “I didn't know that.”

“That wasn't in my file?”

“We'll have to update it,” he said.

Kay found she was smiling, their shared intimacies, tragic
though they were, bringing out some measure of good humor. “What happened to yours?”

“Drunk driver.”

“Jesus,” Kay blurted out.

“Had his license suspended, but that didn't seem to matter to him. Actually he had a number of outstanding warrants, should have been in jail, but . . . he wasn't.”

“I'm sorry.”

Andrew shrugged. “The world isn't always a nice place.”

“No,” Kay agreed. “It isn't. Is that why you joined the Agency?”

“Maybe. Who can say? Who knows why we do anything? Even the reasons we give ourselves are usually false, self-serving, comforting lies.”

“I thought the CIA made a living off dishonesty.”

“Is that what Jeffries told you?”

“Was she wrong?”

“No,” Andrew admitted. “She wasn't. But it's one thing to sell a falsehood—it's entirely another to believe it yourself. I suppose in that sense, maybe what . . . Maybe what happened with my parents did play a role in my joining the Agency: the lies they feed you, the lies most children believe. I never really bought them. Didn't you ever feel that way growing up? All the ‘Tomorrow will be better; things work out for the best.' You learn early on that none of that's true, that the certainties people cling to are nothing of the sort.”

“Yes,” Kay admitted. “I have often felt that way.”

Andrew looked for a while like he was going to say more, but in the end he just smiled at her—not his usual smile but an authentic one, or at least one that seemed authentic, and turned back to his work.

They spent the rest of the ride in comfortable silence, Kay sifting through one of her Russian textbooks, or pretending to, although in truth she was spending very little mental effort on verb tenses and much more on Andrew's shoulders and on his clean, strong scent. They said good-bye at Penn Station, and when he asked if he could call her sometime, Kay did not say no.