by Taylor Smith
“Honest. But I’m pretty beat. I may not stay too long tonight.”
Lindsay’s face fell. Carol reached out and touched her arm. “Lindsay? Would you like to sleep at my house? You could stay longer at the party.”
Lindsay brightened, but then looked back at her mother and shook her head. “No, I’ll go with you, Mom.”
Mariah held her by the shoulders and kissed her cheek. “I’m okay, honey—really. I brought an overnight bag for you. Why don’t you spend the night at Carol’s? That would give you a chance to play with this little guy in the morning.” Lindsay hesitated, then nodded.
They leaned over the bed, where Alex was happily waving his chubby arms and legs. Lindsay dropped back down beside him, and he grabbed her hair, gurgling in delight. “Isn’t he cute, Mom? He calls me La-la. At least, we think he does—he says it whenever he sees me.”
“La-la,” Alex obliged, giggling and kicking excitedly.
“He’s beautiful. I can’t believe how much he’s grown!” Mariah exclaimed. “And look at the hair!”
Tight auburn curls covered the head that had once sprouted only peach fuzz. As Carol snapped his outfit together and Lindsay picked him up and bounced him on her lap, Mariah was struck by how much the two children resembled a Victorian postcard: Lindsay in her high-necked, lace-trimmed dress of deep green velvet and the baby in a matching velvet outfit trimmed with red, the pointed toes of his cloth booties jingling with bells. Carol picked up a little peaked elf cap off the bed and placed it on his head, but he pulled it off again and happily waved it around. They laughed and headed back into the party.
“You must be hungry, Mariah,” Carol said. “Let’s get you some food.”
“I could use something. Have you two eaten?”
Lindsay shifted baby Alex onto one slim hip. “I have,” she said. “I even tried that squid thing Uncle Frank made.” She curled her lip, leaving no doubt as to her judgment on the recipe.
“I think it’s an acquired taste,” Carol said, laughing. “You should try it, Mariah. It’s…interesting.” They watched as Lindsay carried Alex over to the Christmas tree to show him the shiny decorations. Then Carol turned to Mariah and laid a hand on her arm. “Are you really all right?” she asked quietly.
“Yes,” Mariah said slowly, watching the children backlit by the dancing flames in the fireplace behind them. “It seems like a bad dream now. This is real,” she said, waving her arm around the room, “and that was just a nightmare that happened to someone else.” She touched her hand to her throat and looked at the woman by her side. “But I really thought I was going to die this afternoon, Carol. And it was weird, because all I could think was, I can’t let him kill me—I can’t leave Lindsay all alone. I have to be there to help her grow up.”
Carol put an arm around her shoulder. “That doesn’t sound strange to me. Before I had Alex, I don’t think it would have made sense. But then this little person comes along, and you love him so much and he depends on you so totally that you know nothing could ever be as important as keeping him safe—not even your own life.” Carol’s gaze drifted off for a moment. When it returned to Mariah, her eyes were bright. “Now that I have a child of my own, I can’t help thinking about my mother, and how hard it must have been for her to know that she wouldn’t be there for Stevie and me one day—how that must have hurt her.”
Mariah nodded soberly. “Speaking of Stephen, did he come?”
“Yes, he’s here somewhere. I had to threaten to disown him before he finally agreed to show, though. Honestly, Mariah,” Carol said, exasperated, “he may be my twin, but sometimes I just can’t figure him out.”
“He’s not gregarious, is he?”
“Tell me about it.”
“Here, I made you a plate.” Hearing Pat Bonelli’s voice behind her gave Mariah a start. She smiled and thanked her as she took the food and utensils Pat was holding. Then Mariah glanced over at Paul, who was patting an empty spot on the sofa beside him. She excused herself and went over to join him, balancing the meal on her lap as she settled in, wincing at a sudden stab of pain in her wrist as she lifted the fork.
“Just ignore me if I end up with this all over my lap,” she warned, trying to figure out how to proceed.
“Not a chance,” he said. “You’re the only one here, aside from your friend, Pat, who isn’t avoiding me like the plague. I find your clumsiness charming, I can assure you.”
Mariah looked around the room. She could see by the furtive glances in their direction that Chaney’s presence was unsettling to some people and was the object of considerable curiosity.
“We all spend too much time together, and it’s hard to talk to outsiders sometimes,” she said. “But it’s not difficult to understand. If you ever want to know what it feels like to have a communicable disease, try telling someone that you work for the CIA and see how fast the conversation dies. Also,” she added, “a lot of these people don’t have much use for the media. They’ve been burned too often. The Agency’s mistakes get blown up all the time, but we never get good press when we do something right.”
“Well, whose fault is that?” Chaney asked. “To know you may be to love you, but it’s not like the Company encourages familiarity.”
“It’s changing—slowly. A lot of what gets done at Langley is pretty basic political analysis, and we’ve got some really bright people. We’re trying to get them to circulate a little more, especially among the media and academics.”
“Maybe, although I think your friend, Tucker, would like to circulate me right out the door.” Chaney launched hungrily into his food. “But you should see that spread, Mariah, it’s unbelievable. I think your boss could give you a run for your money in the cooking department.”
“Oh, no. He’s the grand wizard—I’m just his humble apprentice.”
“Tucker taught you to cook?”
“In a manner of speaking. Let’s say he challenged me to learn.” She winced again at the effort of cutting into the beef roulade on her plate, finally ceding the utensils to Chaney, whose own hand, despite the bandaged cuts, was functioning better than hers. He put his dinner aside momentarily and cut up hers. “Thanks,” she said, taking the fork awkwardly in her left hand.
“What do you mean, ‘challenged you’?” Chaney asked, retrieving his plate.
“Frank was my first boss when I joined Langley,” she said, poking at the food. “He and his wife kind of adopted me—she died a couple of years later. Anyway, I was young and on my own and my eating habits were pretty awful—I think I told you that my mother wasn’t exactly Betty Crocker. Frank used to give me a hard time about it. He started bringing me the same leftovers that he brought himself for lunch. Incredible stuff—chicken cordon bleu, lamb curry, you name it. If I liked something, he gave me the recipe. Pretty soon, I’d collected a lot of recipes, and I started feeling guilty about not reciprocating, so I learned to cook in self-defense.”
Just then, Tucker himself appeared, carrying two glasses of wine, which he handed to Mariah and Chaney. The reporter raised his glass. “To the chef and grand wizard.”
Mariah also raised her glass to Frank, then clinked it against Chaney’s and took a deep swallow. Tucker frowned, clearly puzzled. “I was just telling Paul how you forced me to learn to cook,” Mariah explained. She took another long sip of wine, welcoming its anesthetic effect on her throbbing emotions.
“There’s Lindsay. Don’t you look pretty!” Chaney said as she squeezed between them on the sofa, the baby on her lap. She blushed. Chaney shook Alex’s little hand. “And who’s this? If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’d suddenly acquired a baby brother. He looks just like you.”
“It’s their outfits,” Mariah said, smiling and stroking Lindsay’s hair. “I was just thinking how much they look like a couple of characters out of Lewis Carroll.”
“This is Alex,” Lindsay said. “He’s Carol’s baby—Uncle Frank’s grandson,” she added, looking up at Tucker.
“Ma
riah?” Frank said. “Could I have a word with you when you’re done eating?”
Mariah glanced at Chaney and Lindsay, then drained her glass and nodded. “I think I’m finished. Great food, Frank, but I haven’t got much of an appetite tonight.”
Tucker led her into the bedroom and shut the door. Mariah sat down on a chair while Frank paced.
“I don’t like it,” he growled.
“What?”
“Chaney being here. Showing up out of the blue like that.”
“A few hours ago, the guy took a knife in the gut for me. It’s a miracle he wasn’t killed.”
“How do you know it wasn’t staged? He could have been working with that creep.”
“That’s crazy! I saw that knife coming at me—it was meant to kill. No sane person would have stepped in front of it on purpose.”
“I still don’t trust him,” Tucker said, scowling darkly. “And neither should you. You know he was involved with that Müller woman in Vienna.”
“He’s got an explanation for that.”
Tucker’s black eyebrows shot up. “You called him on it?”
“Yes. He knows I’m with the Company, Frank. I told him I knew about Katarina Müller and it didn’t take him long to figure it out.” She sighed. “Chaney’s not stupid—and it’s not like it’s a national secret, you know. I’m obviously not going on any more overseas assignments and our side of the house doesn’t hide itself. This is the age of the new, open CIA, remember?”
But Tucker just shook his head. “I don’t like it. Something’s wrong here.”
“You don’t know the half of it.”
“What do you mean?”
She rubbed her eyes with her hands, feeling the rough bandage on her wrist scratch against her cheek. Then she told him about the envelope containing the photos and David’s hair, gritting her teeth to keep her emotions in check. She was determined not to cry for David anymore—he had made his fate when he slept with Katarina Müller.
Tucker slumped onto the bed. “Bloody hell!” he breathed, staring at the floor. “What are they up to?”
Mariah’s head snapped up. “Who? Who, Frank?”
But Tucker only glared. “You need to lie low. Get away for a while. It’s only three weeks till Christmas—why don’t you take Lindsay on a vacation? Maybe back to California, show her your roots.”
“Are you out of your mind? In the first place, my family’s gone, so what I am going to show her? Some crummy rented cottage where my mother and sister and I lived after my father ran out on us? I couldn’t get away from that place fast enough, and I have no desire ever to see it again.” Mariah shook her head. “And in the second place, I’m damned if I’m going to just sit back and be victimized. I want to fight back. Just point me in the right direction, for God’s sake!”
“No,” he said firmly. “I’m going to put a stop to this once and for all, I promise, but I want you out of the way.”
“Is it Neville and his boys in Operations?”
Tucker wasn’t listening. He stood up and started pacing again. “You and Lindsay can stay here. Someone will keep an eye on both of you around the clock and I’ll—”
Mariah leaped out of the chair and grabbed his arm. “No! Listen to me—I’m not hiding.”
His own hands came up and he shook her by the shoulders, bringing his face to within centimeters of hers. “You listen to me,! I want you out of the line of fire. Leave it alone—for Lindsay’s sake, if not your own.”
“What are you talking about?”
He turned away, scowling. “It’s one of Neville’s covert operations. I was providing some technical advice, but you should never have gotten caught up in it like this. The thing’s gone sour. Someone’s out of control and it has to be shut down. I can get Neville to do it.”
Mariah studied his face. She had never seen Frank look so worried. “It was the CHAUCER file, wasn’t it?” He hesitated, then nodded. “Was betraying Tatyana Baranova part of the operation? Did we sell her out?”
He dropped his hands and shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. I’m not sure,” he said. “I don’t know what the hell happened, but that’s when it started to go bad—the day she disappeared.”
The CIA station in Vienna had a safe house—with an attached garage through which visitors could be taken in and out unobserved—in one of the city’s suburbs. It was there that Tatyana Baranova was driven three days after the rendezvous with another station operative at the Hofburg Museum. When she was led into the paneled study of the old house, her face registered both shock and relief at the sight of the officer assigned to debrief her.
“Hello, Tanya,” Mariah said, stepping forward, smiling warmly.
“Mrs. Tardiff! Mariah, I mean. It’s you? You are CIA?”
“Me? No, I’m just a friend. They thought you might prefer to talk to someone you know.” She signaled to the officer who had driven Baranova to the safe house. He stepped out of the room and closed the door behind him.
Tanya watched him go and then turned to Mariah. “Just the two of us?”
“Just us,” Mariah said. There were two other case officers watching and listening from the next room, recording everything, but she had convinced the station chief that their presence in the study would only frighten the Russian woman. “Here, let me take your coat. Would you like some tea or coffee? I’ve made both.”
She folded Tanya’s coat over a chair, then led her in front of a warm fire crackling in the hearth, where cups and carafes were laid out on a low table between overstuffed armchairs. Tanya stood before the fire, warming her hands. “Tea would be very nice, thank you,” she said.
Despite the warmth of the fire, Tanya was trembling, Mariah noted. She busied herself with the cups, giving the younger woman time to compose herself. “It feels like it’s going to snow out there, doesn’t it?”
Tanya turned, startled, and then nodded. Mariah smiled and indicated one of the big chairs. When Tanya sat down, Mariah handed her a cup of tea and held out the milk and sugar. There was also a plate of sandwiches and pastries on the table, but Tanya declined these, obviously too nervous to eat. Mariah fixed up her own cup and sat back in the chair across from the Russian, sipping the tea, gauging how far to take this first meeting.
“Did you have any trouble slipping away?”
“No. I said I was going to do some shopping on my lunch hour, as the man at the Hofburg Museum told me. Things are quiet at the office today, and no one will notice if I am a little late—everyone takes long lunches.”
“We’ll get you back in good time,” Mariah promised. “And we’ll have a shopping bag with a few things in it for you to take back to the office—just biscuits and a couple of jars of jam and such.” It was a reminder to the boys in the next room to make sure they had something pulled together to support Tanya’s alibi. They kept on hand a stock of plastic carrier bags and little goodies for just this purpose.
Baranova seemed to relax a little.
“Tanya,” Mariah said, beginning slowly, “when we met at the hockey rink, you said there was something my people needed to know. You were worried about something that your government might be planning to do. Can you tell me what that was?”
“Perhaps not my government,” Tanya said quietly.
“Who then?”
Tanya shrugged. “I am not certain. But people here—in the West—you do not understand how it is in my country now.”
“In what way?”
“There is a struggle for power going on. Gorbachev has broken up the old guard, but he is not fully in control. There are those, especially in the military, who would like to destroy him and the changes he has made, and they have the power to do it. He will not last long in the Kremlin.”
“Are you aware of something in particular?”
The younger woman traced the pattern on the china cup, her finger following the complex ins and outs of the old Royal Doulton design. “There is a secret research facility in the southern part
of my country,” she said at last.
“The town where you were raised?”
“Yes. I told you that my father was a weapons designer. He has been involved in a project to perfect a small, portable nuclear weapon. Like—what do you call them? The big guns soldiers rest on their shoulders?”
“Bazookas?”
“Yes, bazookas—maybe a little smaller, but like that,” Tanya repeated, smiling. “It is a funny word in English—bazooka.”
Mariah smiled back briefly. “What about these weapons, Tanya?”
The younger woman’s face sobered. “They are very dangerous. Their explosive effect is not very large, but they emit a high level of radiation. They are a modified version of the neutron bomb that your own government was working on a few years ago.”
“We agreed to cease work on that weapon.”
“Yes, I know. But my government never acknowledged that we were doing similar work. And because these weapons are so small, they are difficult to detect. Your spy satellites are useless against them. They can be transported in a suitcase.”
Mariah stared at the woman, realizing full well the implications of what she was saying. A small weapon like that could be smuggled easily into any city in the world, or aboard an aircraft and set to explode at a predetermined time, raining a deadly radioactive shower on the population below.
“The weapons were never acknowledged to exist,” Tanya went on, “and so they have never been included in any of the arms reduction talks my government has held with yours.”
Mariah watched her closely. “There’s something else, isn’t there?” Tanya nodded slowly but seemed unable to speak. Mariah leaned forward and touched her arm. “Tell me,” she said softly. “You’ve come this far, Tanya. It was the right thing to do. Now tell me what we need to know.”
Tanya put down her cup and stared at her hands. Finally, she looked up. “No one seems to know who ordered it, but the weapons are going to be shipped out—very soon, perhaps.”
“Where, do you know?”
“Astrakhan.”
“On the Caspian Sea?” Mariah asked. Tanya nodded. And from there by boat to Iran, Mariah thought, and right into the international terrorist arms bazaar. And wouldn’t they fetch a pretty price?
