Two Lies and a Spy (15 page)

Evan sighs. “You two done snickering yet?”

“No. At least I’m not. Charlie?”

My little brother thinks about it. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“Tell us another one, Evan,” I challenge.

“I’m not joking. I’m in training as an Interpol agent.”

“And M gave you your diploma, right?” I’m so not swallowing this huge lie.

Evan stands up and pulls his wallet from his pocket. He opens it and fishes out an ID that says he, E. Kincaid, is a junior agent with Interpol.

I give it back to him. “I can buy a shiny plastic sheriff’s badge in Walmart.”

He nods, then pokes his tongue into his cheek. “Call the number on my ID. See who answers.”

“Good bluff, since they took our cell phones.”

“For the last bloody time, Kari, I’m not lying to you. I’m with Interpol.”

I stare at him, look right into his eyes, and he’s never been more serious. Unless he’s the best con man in the western hemisphere, Evan is telling me the truth. They say the truth will set you free, right?

But it will also make you angry beyond belief. “If—
if
you are with Interpol, then what are you doing attending Kennedy Prep in Washington, DC?” I demand.

“What better place to put me during training?” Evan asks. “I become known and loved—”

I snort again.

“—by the sons and daughters of America’s power elite.
I keep my ear to the ground and report on any suspicious goings-on, and I train with the best agents and weapons experts in the business.”

I look down at my hands, which are clasped fiercely in my lap so that they won’t shake with rage. The tips of my fingers are white with the pressure. “You’ve been spying on all of us. Slithering around like the snake that you are.”

He sighs. “I knew you would take this brilliantly.”

“Do you not have a conscience? Don’t you feel the least bit ashamed of yourself?” My voice is rising, but I can’t help it.

“Kari, you don’t understand—”

“I understand perfectly!” I flash. “There’s nothing wrong with my powers of deductive reasoning! You are scum, Kincaid. I should have driven a Kennedy Prep pen through your carotid artery the first time I met you—”

Charlie winces and I force myself to shut up.

Evan shakes his head. His eyes have gone blue again. I should have known not to trust a guy whose eyes don’t even stay the same color from moment to moment.

“God, you’re beautiful when you’re angry,” he says. “Even under that hideous troll makeup.”

I grind my teeth together. “You just can’t stop, can you?”

He looks at me quizzically. “Stop what?”

“Manipulating and flirting and . . . and . . . being snaky.”

“Snaky,” he says thoughtfully. “I don’t think that’s a word.”

“Yes, it is!” Charlie informs him. “You can find it in
Roget’s
under ‘cunning.’ ”

“Ah. Well. I stand corrected,” Evan concedes.

“Actually, you’re sitting,” Charlie points out.

“True. You’re very observant, Charlie-my-man.”

I’m ready to bang my head against the wall.

“Kari,” Evan says. “I’m sorry. It’s not as if I set out to deceive you—”

“Yes, you did.” I get up and stalk to the other side of the room. “Just don’t talk to me right now. I have nothing—less than nothing—to say to you. I only want to get out of this place and find my dad and free my mom, and never see you again.”

I kick the wall. “How long is it going to take to get some answers and get out of here?”

As if someone is listening, the handle on the door depresses. Then the door opens, and Mr. Carson walks in with an old-fashioned accordion file. “Evan. Charlie. You’re excused for the moment. Agent Smith, outside, will take you to another office.”

“Charlie stays with me,” I say.

“Charlie,” emphasizes Mr. Carson, “will be just fine. He will not be interrogated without you present. All right? I need to speak with you alone, Karina.”

I give Evan a long, menacing stare. “You owe it to me to make sure he’s okay.”

“Hell-o,” Charlie announces. “I’m right here, people. Will you stop talking
about
me and talk
to
me, instead?”

“Sorry, kiddo,” I say. “I just want to make sure you’re all right.”

“I’m fine. And I want to ask Evan questions about Interpol. So stop worrying.” Charlie walks over to the loathsome Brit and slips his hand into his, which makes me want to throw up. Evan himself seems a little taken aback, but he looks down at Charlie with a smile that can almost be described as sweet.

“Karina?” says Mr. Carson.

“Yes?” I turn and stare into his eyes, so like Luke’s and yet harder, more tired, and older.

“Have a seat,” he orders.

I do. So does he. And then the door closes behind Evan and Charlie, leaving me completely alone with the director of the Agency.

The atmosphere in the room is thick with my own attitude and resentment and fear. It’s just as thick with something weighty Mr. Carson has to tell me and his annoyance that a bunch of prep-school kids have made a mockery of Langley’s agents and its security guards, and done it with his own son’s help.

I guess I can’t blame the man for being pissy.

But I’m feeling the same way because of this royal screwup with my mom.

Mr. Carson pulls over a table so that it’s positioned between us. He takes the elastic band off the accordion file and sets it in his lap. Then he removes a bunch of white papers and places them on the table for me.

I scan the headings, which scream things like
AGENCY INFILTRATED BY RUSSIAN SPIES.

How dramatic and deluded.

I know my parents. My mother is a person of total integrity, and she would never do this. I know my dad, too. He wouldn’t be a party to any of it—ever. Neither of them would expose their children to the dangers of becoming double agents either. They may be gone a lot, and that’s hard, but they are gone for the right reasons.

I curl my lip as I read the paper on top of the stack.

TOP SECRET—EYES ONLY

SUBJECT:
Agency employees Andrews, Irene and Andrews, Calvin

SUMMARY:
Two veteran Agency employees have worked as double agents loyal to Russia for over twenty years.

BACKGROUNDS:
Andrews, Irene (nee Irina) is of Russian extraction. Parents entered U.S. as poor refugees seeking political asylum from Communism. Irene Andrews first traveled to Russia on a study-abroad program in Moscow during her junior year at *Georgetown University. It is likely that she was first recruited for Russian intelligence work during that time.

Andrews, Calvin is American born, of Scots/English extraction. Parents also American born. He appears to have had no formal education after the high school level as he joined the army at age 18 and
quickly distinguished himself as a sharp-shooter of great skill. Andrews was stationed at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow in 1989, where he met Irene and established friendships with Russians of dubious character.

ANALYSIS AND CONCLUSIONS:
For the past decade the Agency has tracked the Andrews’s movements, investigated their contacts, and gathered evidence, tracing a complex trail of payments for their services. The money originates with a former faction of the KGB and is laundered through several international banks and businesses until it finds a home with a shell corporation in the Caymans, owned by a mysterious conglomerate.

Since Irene Andrews has not only been an analyst for the past seven years but travels extensively to lead missions and head up field analytics, she is in the ideal position to pass information and sensitive documents through her husband, a field agent. They have taken full advantage of their positions and the couple has profited handsomely from them, as the internal sting operation has revealed.

I finish reading this preposterous document and stack it neatly on top of all the other ones. I push the pile back toward Mr. Carson and fold my hands on the table in front of me.

There are times when it’s best to be Miss Manners, and then there are times when force and crudeness
are the most effective approach. I choose the second option. “With all due respect, Mr. Carson, this is a load of crap!”

He keeps his own hands flat on the table. His nails are square and trimmed, but not manicured. His wedding band is plain gold, as nondescript as they come. It screams WASP, just as much as his haircut and dark suit and tie do. No gaudy stones or textures for Mr. C. He’s as conventional and “by the book” as they come. “I can understand that you don’t want to accept this, Karina. This isn’t information that anyone wants to discover about his or her parents.”

“No, see, what you’re not
getting
here is that none of this is true. I have spent sixteen years around these people, and”—I break off to laugh, while his expression doesn’t change at all—“and I have seen them at all hours of the day and night, eating, working, talking, showering, cooking, parenting, paying bills, and stressing about things just like every normal American does. What I have
never
seen them doing is spying for Russia, or any other country than the United States. Don’t you think I’d know, Mr. Carson? I cannot tell you how completely ridiculous and unfounded and . . . and . . . just
bullshit
this all is! These accusations are the biggest load of garbage.”

Mr. Carson says nothing. He opens his handy-dandy accordion file once again and starts pulling out more stuff.

Mr. C. drops a stack of phone records in front of me that detail calls from my mom’s cell phone to a local
number that then routes them to numbers in Russia.

“Big deal,” I say. “She speaks Russian; she runs ops there. Of course she calls Russia!” Too late I realize that this information is more damning than helpful.

“Exactly. So why would she try to cover her tracks by routing these calls through a DC exchange?”

I can’t answer that.

Luke’s dad then drops a pile of transcriptions in front of me. These are texts of Mom’s phone calls, with a bunch of names blacked out, and even I have to admit they’re suspicious.

“Of course she runs double games,” I tell Mr. C. “That’s the only way she can catch the bad guys.”

He raises his eyebrows and dumps a bunch of papers having to do with my dad’s calls and phone conversations in front of me. These are followed by stacks of pictures: Mom and Dad, both together and individually, leaving different buildings, talking on pay phones and unmarked prepaid phones like the ones in our backpacks, and meeting people whom evidently they’re not supposed to meet.

“Did you track them to the toilet, too?” I ask. “Did you think a double flush was
sinister
?” My sarcasm has no effect on Mr. Carson. “What about to the pharmacy or the grocery store? Do you think it’s suspect that Mom buys Flintstones vitamins for Charlie? Is it a sign of treason that sometimes Dad uses coupons? Or that sometimes we buy two steaks and freeze one?”

Mr. Carson sighs. He pulls a last stack of papers from the accordion file, followed by a small object that fits in
his fist.

The papers are bank records from a private brokerage on Grand Cayman. My parents have made a number of deposits and transfers there.

And the object is a tube of lipstick that I swear I’ve seen before. It’s pale pink.

“Not my color,” I say, “but thanks.”

He taps it on the table, then uncaps it.

“You? I really think you’d look better in a red or a coral,” I tell him.

He sets the tubular cap on the table, and then twists the bottom counterclockwise twice. He yanks it off. Inside is a tiny recessed compartment. He hands me the bottom, and I examine it.

“What is it?” I give it back.

“That is a device that replicates microchips,” Mr. Carson says. “And it was found in your mother’s purse.”

I stare at it, then shake my head. “My mom doesn’t use that brand.”

“No?”

“She uses a lip palette and a brush, not a tube.”

“Is that a fact?” Mr. Carson starts to gather up all of his documentation.

Too late I realize that I’ve made yet another damning statement. If my mom doesn’t use lipstick like that, then the unspoken question is, why did they find it in her purse?

“Look, there has to be a mistake,” I insist. “Maybe Mom lost her palette and brush on her last trip and had
to buy a tube in the airport.”

“Karina. Don’t be willfully naive. Your parents have somehow been passing copies of top secret information to the Russians during their missions. More accurately, they’ve been passing it to a faction of the KGB that never dissolved.”

“Ridiculous!”

“So you’re not helping them?”

I gape at Mr. Carson. “Me?”

“What about your brother?”

“
Charlie?
Are you
insane
? He’s seven years old!”

Mr. Carson spreads his hands, palm up. “How is that relevant?”

I jump to my feet and push back from the table. I have listened while he’s talked trash about my parents. I can even take him accusing me. But I will not tolerate this attack on an innocent kid. “We’re done here,” I inform him. “With all due respect, Mr. Carson, you must have gotten into a cache of LSD left over from Agency experiments in the sixties. Are you seriously asking me whether Charlie is a mustache-twirling, international villain?”

“Calm down, Kari.”

“I won’t!”

“Please. Sit down. These are questions that, unfortunately, I have to ask. And it’s possible that you and Charlie have been used without your knowledge.”

I shake my head. “No.”

He gets up, rounds the table, and positions my chair again in front of it. He extends a hand in invitation for
me to be seated.

To tell the truth, I’d rather kick his ass. But even as upset as I am, I know that’s not a constructive way to proceed. So I sit down again.

Mr. Carson does too. He sighs. He reaches out and pats my hand with sympathy. “Kari, I don’t mean to upset you. I don’t want to harass you. Perhaps you could think of this as an opportunity to help your parents and the Agency—to clear their names.”