So they weren’t poor, not by any means. But the cost of housing around Washington meant ninety-nine K in D.C. was more like fifty in Texas. No joke. They didn’t have a prayer of buying a house here, not anywhere that wasn’t an hour-plus commute. They couldn’t afford private school, so they needed a town with decent schools. After a frantic search, they found a rental in Chevy Chase. Thirty-five seventy-five a month, on a busy street, and not half as nice as their house in Houston.
The taxes were brutal, too. Everything seemed to cost more. Electricity, food, laundry—Rebecca didn’t know why dry-cleaning a skirt cost twice as much in Maryland as Texas, but it did.
She tried to spend less. No new suits. She hung on to the 330, though she’d already put more than a hundred thousand miles on it. All those trips to the border. She had teased herself with a test-drive of a 335, the new model. She shouldn’t have. It had 300 horsepower and tons of torque. Every so often she would drive by the dealership in Rockville just to torment herself.
Fine. She didn’t have to have a BMW. But she didn’t want Kira and Tony to feel like they were the only poor kids in a rich town. They needed clothes, new bikes, decent vacations.
Fact was, money mattered way more in Washington than Houston. Houston was fundamentally a middle-class place. River Oaks was rich and the east side was poor, especially down toward the refineries. But mostly the city just stretched on and on. The neighborhoods blended into each other. The schools were not-great-not-terrible. People just wanted to work and drive their trucks and play catch with their kids.
Not Washington. The most powerful person in the world lived in the middle of the city. The biggest business in the world—the US government—filled it. D.C. was filled with people who wanted power and money, money and power. They judged one another ruthlessly, by their jobs and cars and clothes. And the Unsworths were not keeping up.
During the first year in D.C., they fell into a twenty-grand hole. Rebecca started paying the minimum on credit cards, got the rent in the last day it was due. Luckily—though luckily wasn’t the right word, she knew—her grandfather Jerome died, leaving her thirty thousand dollars, enough to square them up.
But she couldn’t lie to herself, she only had one rich grandfather. That bequest was a one-time windfall. They needed to be careful about money. All the time.
Being careful about money all the time sucked.
* * *
Of course, the problem had a solution. Dear hubby could find a job that paid decently.
Only he wouldn’t. Or maybe he couldn’t. She wasn’t sure anymore. He insisted he was looking, he seemed to be looking, but the months stretched on without an offer.
She stopped being polite. Every night after they put the kids to bed she pushed him to find a job.
“You’re smart, you’ve got ConocoPhillips on your résumé—”
“All the coding work up here is classified. They want guys with more experience than me.”
“You know I can help. If you’ll let me.”
He shook his head like she’d wounded his pride. And she guessed she understood. But they were way past wounded pride.
“I’ll bet, a little push, you can get into the NSA.”
He’d walk away, and she’d follow, trying not to lose her temper.
“You like living this way, Bri?”
“I’m trying, Becks. Just let me be.”
Trying, sure. Sometimes he’d go downstairs. Sometimes he’d walk out the front door and she’d hear him drive off. Always quietly. He wasn’t a door-slammer. Didn’t raise his voice. If she started to yell he would silently nod at the children’s bedrooms, put a finger to his lips, Shh. He was right, too, she knew. Tony and Kira were old enough to understand these fights.
She feared she was turning into a shrew. A pushy middle-aged wife. But they needed the money, and he should find a job. Wasn’t like he was taking care of the kids. Between classes and after-school activities Kira and Tony were scheduled until six.
Maybe if she’d stopped asking, he’d come through.
Or maybe he’d just sit on his ass and watch the past-due notices come in.
* * *
She had no one to talk to about what was happening, either. She was too new in D.C. to be close to anyone. Though she’d made a few friends in Houston and Birmingham, she’d always known she was leaving, so she’d never tried too hard.
Her friends from high school and college were hardly part of her life these days. They viewed her choice to join the FBI as exotic and bizarre. Must be so interesting, they said. They weren’t being sarcastic. They would have listened to her stories, if she’d shared. She didn’t.
She told herself she kept her mouth shut because so much of what she did was confidential. But she had another reason. Somewhere along the way, she’d become a cop through and through. Like her uncle, she didn’t think anyone outside could truly understand.
But Ned and his buddies didn’t need to vent to civilians. They had each other. They had lived and worked in the same city their whole lives. She didn’t have close friends inside the bureau. Partly because of the moves. And she couldn’t show weakness to male agents. Most of all, she couldn’t hint at problems in her marriage. She would be inviting any guy she told to caricature her as a ball-buster—or hit on her. With the possible exception of Fred Smith. He was retired now and every time she asked him how he was doing, he said, Bored to death. But she just couldn’t see asking him for marriage advice.
She wanted desperately to talk to Ned. But Ned had suffered a stroke while she was in Houston. Too much whiskey, too many unsolved cases. He’d died quickly, a small mercy. She couldn’t have imagined seeing him in some hospital bed, unable to speak.
She wasn’t pitying herself. She’d put herself in this box. She should have been less stubborn, done more to keep her old friends close.
* * *
Turned out she hadn’t given Brian enough credit.
“Guess who’s got two thumbs and a job in Fort Meade?” Home of the National Security Agency.
“Working for the man. How’s that feel?”
“Like sixty-eight thousand a year, plus a 401(k), plus vacation. Full and productive member of society. Once they confirm I’m not a serial killer.”
“They don’t care if you’re a serial killer as long as you’re not a Chinese spy.”
“Noted.”
Of course, the background check would take six months to complete. Until then he’d be stuck on part-time unclassified work. But just knowing he had a job changed everything. For the first time since Houston, she felt safe financially. She even bought a couple of new outfits.
Sure enough, he completed the check, no red flags, and to the NSA he went. He didn’t talk much about the job, but he seemed to like it. Then he took an internal exam and wound up at Tailored Access Operations—the NSA’s most elite division, its hackers. A genuine accomplishment.
For the first time in she didn’t know how long she was proud of him. Though even then her pride had irritation mixed in; she wondered why he hadn’t managed to be more successful before.
Whatever their problems, they had never mentioned divorce. Not once, not in Houston, not in Washington. Maybe their marriage had never been that bad. Maybe after what he’d seen growing up, Brian believed divorce would cut the kids too deeply. Or maybe he was simply too passive-aggressive to suggest ending the marriage, while she was too worried about her work. Being divorced was no longer the kiss of career death it had once been at the bureau. But the FBI still preferred its agents to have a spouse, two kids, and a dog. She also couldn’t help thinking how expensive divorce could be, how she might be on the hook for child support and alimony.
In other words, maybe they stuck together for the exact reasons their marriage had been crummy in the first place.
Rebecca wondered sometimes what might happen after Tony graduated high school. She would still be in her forties at that point. Just young enough to start again. She wasn’t exactly
ticking off the days on the wall prison-style, but she couldn’t pretend the possibility didn’t offer relief. Like watching the flight map on a turbulent plane ride, miles scrolling slowly by. This won’t last forever.
* * *
Still, she didn’t have much to complain about as she left her thirties behind and began the long march through middle age. Her job became more interesting as the Russians became more aggressive. Then a flaw in a CIA communications system exposed whole networks of the agency’s spies in China and Iran. One by one they vanished. The dead spies were not Americans, but foreign nationals whom the CIA had recruited. So the agency could hide its failure from the public for years. But the episode taught Rebecca that espionage really was a life-and-death business. Like China and Iran, Russia would not hesitate to execute anyone it caught spying for the United States.
Brian’s NSA pay ended their short-term money worries. Of course, a house was still out of reach and she wondered about how they’d pay for college. But on a week-to-week, month-to-month basis they were okay. She even traded in the 330i for the 335i.
She wondered about Todd Taylor, whether he’d found someone else. Sometimes when she closed her eyes she saw his. She sometimes dreamed about him, dreams that usually ended in disaster. Once they were line dancing and an earthquake hit. But she never called him.
Watching the kids become actual independent people was both terrifying and gratifying. Kira turned twelve and hit puberty and turned gorgeous and skinny and then too skinny. Tony found a couple of dorky friends and started to play Dungeons & Dragons, the old-fashioned version with the twenty-sided dice.
And then they got rich.
Thanks to Brian.
One day at dinner, apropos of nothing, he announced he’d sold his app.
He’d mentioned some gambling app a couple of months before, and even gone out to Las Vegas for it. She’d hadn’t paid much attention, to be honest. She figured he’d earned the right to a trip to Vegas, and if he wanted to dress it up with a work excuse so be it.
But it turned out he wasn’t exaggerating. He’d created an iPhone and Android app called Twenty-One. It charted the best possible plays in blackjack and other games. Simulated versions of the games themselves, too, and fantasy sports betting, all in a simple-to-use format. Then he’d linked the app to the phone’s GPS so casinos could target ads and even message players directly. More than twenty thousand people had already downloaded it. A casino consulting firm in Nevada liked it and wanted it.
“Guess how much they paid.”
What were apps worth? She had no idea. But it turned out the answer was two million dollars.
The money changed everything.
Even after taxes they had well over a million. They set aside a chunk for the kids’ college funds, put most of the rest toward a house. He even bought her a used Steinway. He started working out four days a week. In a year he replaced ten pounds of fat with ten of muscle. She could see the sharp lines of his face, the edge in him that had drawn him to her. Okay, truth, he looked good.
Not to put too fine a point on it, she fell for him again.
She didn’t think the change in her feelings was about the money, or even what the money could buy. Not exactly. The money was proof. Proof that Brian could be a partner. In their marriage, in their life. Proof he’d been working and not just watching porn all those years.
Proof that she’d been right about him, right to fall in love with him. She hadn’t chosen a loser man-child. She’d chosen a genius coder who could create a multimillion-dollar app in his spare time. Maybe money couldn’t buy happiness, but it made unhappiness easier to avoid. Even when Kira slipped into near anorexia Rebecca felt somehow if they didn’t overreact the phase would pass. It did.
Her career took off, too—and again she had to give Brian some credit. As the FBI investigation into Russian election interference accelerated, he warned her to stay away. Doesn’t matter who wins, it’s gonna be a mess, it’s gonna get political. If you have a choice, stay out. Stick to traditional counterintelligence, nobody can argue about that. She trusted his read. So while other agents asked to join the investigation, she stayed away.
He was right. After the election, the investigation turned toxic. Within a few months, everyone involved faced such severe blowback that the bureau had to sideline them. Meanwhile, the Russians had taken advantage. They’d become even bolder, opening new operations against the DoD, CIA, and big contractors. Rebecca’s unit could hardly keep up.
Sometimes, she felt like she was back in Houston, working nights and weekends. Fortunately the kids were older now. They had their own lives. They knew the importance of what she was doing. She liked to think she was setting an example for Kira, thriving in the FBI.
* * *
Life was good. Good job, healthy kids, a house, a marriage that had survived turbulence and was growing as it entered its third decade. She decided they should celebrate their twentieth anniversary in style, take a summer trip to Europe. Nice hotels, fancy restaurants. When they were old they would look back and remember.
Instead here she was, staring at the ceiling as the morning heat began to rise. Wondering where her daughter had gone. She’d wanted to believe exhuming the past would give her the answer. But she couldn’t imagine the Russians would be crazy enough to go after Kira to get at her. Even during the worst years of the Cold War the two sides had avoided targeting each other’s agents, much less families.
Other possibilities were even more far-fetched. Had Draymond Sullivan decided to spend his golden years taking revenge? Had the Border Bandit followed her to Barcelona? Nothing made sense.
The kidnapping was random. Had to be.
It had to be. Unless it wasn’t.
Her last thought as she fell back to sleep.
III KIRA AND REBECCA
(NOW)
16
Barcelona
Somehow she slept.
When she woke, everything was fine, the smell of strong fresh coffee filled her nose and—
Kira was back. Must be, or else Bri wouldn’t have wasted time making coffee. He would have woken Rebecca as soon as his eyes opened. Nine forty-eight already, her phone said.
She pushed herself from the bed, leapt, really, thumped against the wooden floor, half ran into the living room. Saw Tony slumped on the couch, staring at his phone, and knew.
“Nothing?”
He shook his head.
“You’ve called her?”
“Like twenty times.”
She could almost see the panic rolling toward her, a tsunami, silent and huge and sweeping aside everything in its path. “Brian!” she yelled. She couldn’t help herself.
He walked out of the kitchen, a mug of coffee in each hand. He was freshly showered and shaved, like they were due for another day of sightseeing. She hated him. Then she saw the way his hands were trembling and forgave him, a little.
“How could you let me sleep?”
“You needed it.” He pushed a mug of coffee at her. Like she needed coffee. Like adrenaline wasn’t pouring into her blood.
“What I need is to call our Legat here, set a meet with the Mossos.”
“The Mossos?” Tony said. “Is that the Spanish police?”
Not exactly, she told him and Brian. Barcelona was the capital of Catalonia, the country’s northeastern province, which had a tense relationship with the rest of Spain. People here spoke their own language, Catalan, in addition to Spanish. They wanted full independence. As a compromise, the Spanish government gave Catalonia some autonomy, including its own police force—the Mossos d’Esquadra, the Squad Lads. The Mossos now had almost twenty thousand officers and a multibillion-dollar budget. They operated independently of the national Spanish police agencies, the Guardia Civil and the Policía Nacional. All three had offices in Barcelona, but the Mossos took the lead in policing the city.
“Sounds complicated.”
“A little bit. In a way it’s more like the US than Euro
pe, overlapping agencies. But it shouldn’t matter. The Legat here will know everyone.” She hoped. She looked at her phone. Nine fifty-eight. She’d wasted ten minutes. “Let me call him.”
* * *
“Rob Wilkerson here.”
Brisk and efficient. She liked him immediately.
“Rob. I don’t think we’ve met, my name’s Rebecca Unsworth, I work out of D.C., I’m in counterintel…” She explained the situation, including the man and woman she’d seen in Paris.
“I have to ask,” he said, when she was done. She knew what was coming. “You’re sure there’s no way she just went home with this guy Jacques?”
“You have kids, Rob?”
“Two. Fourteen and sixteen.”
“Good kids?”
“Pretty good.”
“Then you know. I’m not saying it’s impossible she would have spent the night with him. Not her style, but we’re on vacation, maybe she decided to go for it. But she would have called or texted one of us. Her brother for sure. One hundred percent. If she lost her phone she would have borrowed his to let us know. If he said it was dead or wouldn’t give it to her she wouldn’t have liked that, she might have walked away right then and either way she would have found another phone before she went anywhere.”
Rob went silent.
“It’s how they are, Rob.”
“True.”
“She wasn’t mad at us when she left, not trying to make a point—”
Rebecca stopped herself. She’d mostly beaten her old habit of arguing after she’d already won, but it came back sometimes when she was nervous.
“Maybe she’s in a hospital, got hit by a car or something,” Wilkerson said.
“She had her driver’s license.”
“She could have lost it. That case, if she’s unconscious, they won’t know who she is. And even if they have her name—Are you in an Airbnb?”
The Power Couple Page 14
