Need to Know

by Karen Cleveland

  “I know,” I say, as much to convince myself as anything else.

  “I wouldn’t do that.”

  “I know. I know.” Do I, though?

  His eyes search mine, and then something crosses his face, a brief flash of panic. “Yury’s going to be back soon. He just ran out for coffee. You need to go, Viv.”

  “What?”

  His voice is urgent. “You need to go. You need to get out of here.”

  A jumble of emotions swirls inside me. Panic, confusion, desperation. “I need that file. What they’re using to blackmail me.”

  He gives me a long look, one I can’t read. “This is dangerous. The kids—”

  “Where is it?” I watch him, unblinking. You’ve had time to search.

  His eyes are boring into me. Then they soften. “Upstairs.”

  He did look. He found it. Relief surges through me. “Can you—”

  I stop midsentence, pivot toward the door. There’s a key in the lock, scraping, turning. I raise my gun and aim at the closed door, the edge that’s going to open, any second now. He’s back. Yury’s back.

  I watch the edge of the door through the sights. It opens, and I see him, head down, a disposable tray in his hand, two cups of coffee. He hasn’t seen me yet. I keep the sights on him. He takes a step in, starts to close the door.

  And then sees me.

  “Don’t move,” I say.

  He goes still.

  “Close the door.” I make sure the sights are in the dead center of his chest. If he makes even the slightest move to leave, I’ll shoot him. I swear to God I will. This is the guy who frightened my son.

  He slowly, carefully closes the door.

  “Hands in the air,” I say. I’m surprised by how calm my voice sounds. How commanding, how confident, when I feel none of those things. What I feel is utter terror.

  He complies, sort of. Holds his hands in front of him, the tray extended toward me in one hand, the other open to show me his palm.

  “Try anything, and I will shoot.” My voice sounds deadly serious. A dizzying sensation creeps over me, like I’m watching myself in a movie.

  He looks at me, impassive, then his eyes shift to Matt. They stay expressionless.

  I need to look like I know what to do. I need to stay in control. I try to force my mind to work, to come up with a solution.

  “Tie him up,” I say to Matt. Yury shifts his gaze back to me. His eyes narrow slightly, but he doesn’t make a move.

  I don’t look over at Matt, but I hear him leave the room. Yury and I stare at each other. There’s that hint of a smirk on his face, one that ratchets up my unease. His goal, probably.

  Matt comes back moments later. I glance over, and he’s carrying a straight-backed wooden chair and a roll of duct tape. Yury shifts his gaze to Matt, looks at him in a way I can’t read. I wish he’d talk. I wish he’d say something. It would be better than this silence. My hands tighten on the gun.

  Matt sets the chair down and Yury sits, without prompting, gingerly, slowly. He sets his gaze on me and puts his arms behind the chair. No resisting, no fighting back. Matt starts wrapping his wrists with duct tape. Then his ankles. Then his body—first around chest and chair, then lap and chair. Yury keeps his eyes on me. There’s a confidence in them, one that shouldn’t be there, not when he’s helpless like this, not when I have a gun trained on his heart.

  When Matt’s done, he sets down the duct tape and turns to me, his expression blank. No fear, no anger, nothing. I lower the gun, but I keep it at my side. “Can you get the file?” I say to him, and he nods, heads up the stairs. I watch him go, and I have a strange sensation that I shouldn’t have let him out of my sight.

  Yury watches him go, too, then turns back to me. Another smirk flickers across his lips. “You think that’s going to make this all go away?”

  The question makes my chest tighten. “Yeah, I think it will.”

  He gives his head a shake. Doubt creeps over me. But if the evidence is gone, then at least I won’t be in jail. He won’t be able to blackmail me. The rest I can figure out later.

  I hear Matt’s steps on the stairs and glance up. My fingers tighten around the gun at my side, my muscles tense, ready to move. All I can picture is him coming down these stairs moments earlier, apparently at ease. He comes into view, fully dressed now, and my eyes go straight to his hands. There’s nothing in them but a slim stack of papers. My legs feel suddenly weak.

  What am I thinking? This is Matt. I loosen my grip on the gun, watch as he comes closer, wordlessly extends the papers. I take them from him with my free hand, look down at the first page, a screenshot that I recognize. It’s the exact same set of printouts Yury left in our mailbox. But this isn’t right. This isn’t all they’d hold on to.

  “Where’s the rest?” I say, looking up.

  “The rest?”

  “The digital copy.”

  Matt gives me a blank look. “That’s all I found.”

  There’s a sinking feeling in my chest. I fold the papers in half, stick them into the waistband of my pants, against my back. Then I turn to Yury. “I know you have another copy. Where is it?” I try to keep my voice hard, but I can hear the panic creeping into it.

  He’s still staring at me with that hint of a smirk. “Of course there’s another copy.”

  I’ll find it. I don’t care how I have to threaten him, what I have to do to him. I take a step closer, and he tilts his head to watch me. “But it’s not here. I don’t have it.”

  I go cold.

  “Oh, Vivian. You thought you outsmarted me.” It’s a full-blown smirk now. Patronizing. “Someone got us these search results, remember? Someone with access to Athena, to all your sensitive information. Someone on the inside.”

  Nausea ripples through me.

  “My friend has a copy. And if anything happens to me, those papers go straight to the FBI.”

  —

  THE ROOM FEELS LIKE it’s spinning. “Who?” I say, and my voice sounds foreign, like it belongs to someone else. “Who has the copy?”

  Yury smiles, a content smile, one that breeds fury inside me. Destroying that evidence was my last hope. I had actually started to believe that it might work.

  “It could be a bluff,” Matt says, and I don’t turn around. It’s not. I can tell by the look on Yury’s face that it’s not.

  “Who?” I say again, and I take a step closer, raise my gun. Yury’s face shows no fear.

  I feel a touch, one that sets all of my nerves on fire. I swing the gun around, and it’s Matt, behind me. His hand’s on my forearm. He lets go, raises both palms in the air. “It’s just me, Viv,” he says calmly.

  I keep the gun trained on him. He looks down at it, then back at my face. “It’s okay, Viv. I just want you to think. Don’t be impulsive.”

  My brain feels broken, like it can’t process what’s happening. Don’t be impulsive. “He threatened Luke,” I say. I turn to Yury, aim the gun back in his direction. “I’ll kill him.”

  Yury’s expression doesn’t change.

  “What good would it do?” Matt asks. I stare at him. He doesn’t want me to shoot Yury. Because he’s on Yury’s side? “You won’t learn anything if you do that.”

  Why is he so calm? But I try to process the thought. It’s true, what he says. If I shoot Yury, I’ll never know who has that other copy. Maybe there’s still a sliver of hope, a chance that I can find that evidence.

  Matt gives me a sympathetic look, then puts a hand on my arm, pushing the gun down gently. “Viv, we have him,” he says quietly. “He can’t hurt the kids.”

  I search Matt’s face, and I know he’s right. Yury’s here, restrained. The threat to my kids is off the street, finally. If I call the authorities right now, he’ll be in prison for life. He’s a Russian spy, one who directed a cell of deep-cover agents. He won’t have the chance to get anywhere near my kids.

  The gun feels suddenly heavy in my hand. “So what do we do now?” Do we call the p
olice, even though Matt and I would both spend the rest of our lives behind bars?

  Uncertainty flickers across his features. “Maybe if you just do what they asked, insert that flash drive…,” he suggests, a glimmer of hope on his face, and I feel like the floor has dropped from under me. This again? Is he really still stuck on this? Why is it so important to him?

  “It won’t protect them.”

  “Yury said—”

  “They’ll ask for something else. They’ll threaten the kids again.”

  “You don’t know that. And anyway, this would buy us time….”

  My throat feels incredibly tight. All these conversations we’ve had about inserting the flash drive. He’s desperate, almost. Why does he care so much, why does he want so badly for it to happen, unless he’s really part of them?

  “And then what?” I say. “Matt, this is a man who targeted our kids. He told you he’d kill Luke. You really want to just let someone like that go?”

  He shifts his weight from one foot to the other, looks uncomfortable. And I can’t take my eyes off him. In my mind I see him walking down those stairs, relaxed, about to chat with Yury.

  I see him promising me he didn’t tell the Russians anything about Marta and Trey. Lying to me. And I believed his lie. I believed it was the truth.

  I feel like, for the first time, I’m seeing who he really is.

  Something changes in his face, and I have that unsettling feeling again that he knows exactly what I’m thinking. “You really don’t trust me,” he says.

  I voice the thought at the forefront of my mind. “Okay, maybe you couldn’t leave. But shouldn’t you have done something?”

  He twists his wedding band around his finger. “I tried to call you once….Your phone was off….” He’s struggling to get the words out. “Yury found out what I did. He came back with Luke’s backpack. Said if I tried anything else, next time…”

  Luke’s backpack. That’s why it was missing. They were that close to my son. At his school, in his classroom. Reaching into his cubby, the place he stores his lunch. And their message couldn’t be more clear: They can get to him, whenever and wherever they want. I look over at Yury, who’s watching us with a smile.

  I feel like I’m going to be sick. Of course Matt didn’t do anything after that. How could he? Luke’s life was in danger.

  I force my mind to focus. It’s not just the fact that he’s here. It’s everything. The lie about Marta and Trey. Suggesting again that I insert the flash drive.

  “Nothing I say is going to make a difference, is it?” he asks.

  “I don’t know.” I hold his gaze, hold my ground. “I think you want very much for me to do what he asked. And I’m trying to understand why.”

  “Why?” He gives me a look of total disbelief. “Because I know these people. I know there’s no way out.” He reaches out for me, then drops his hand. “And because I don’t want anything to happen to our kids.”

  We stand, staring at each other. He’s the first one to break the silence. “If I was on their side, Viv, if I wanted it so badly, why didn’t I do it to begin with?”

  “What?” I say, but it’s more to stall than anything, because there’s a perfect clarity to his question.

  “I gave you a flash drive. You inserted it. Why go through all this, if that’s what I wanted? Why wouldn’t I have just given it to you to begin with?”

  I can’t answer him. He’s right. That doesn’t make sense.

  “Or why didn’t I lie to you? Tell you the second flash drive was nothing, just another server reset?”

  If he had, I would have done it. I would have inserted the drive.

  “I’m on your side, Viv,” he says, softly. “I just don’t know if you’re on mine.”

  My mind feels like a jumbled mess. I don’t know what to think, what to do right now.

  And then my phone starts to vibrate, deep in my pocket. I fumble for it and see the number. Luke’s school.

  He should be there by now, right? He must not have arrived. Oh God, what happened? I should have called my parents, checked in, made sure they got him on the bus, maybe even driven him there. Kept him safe. I hit the green button.

  “Hello?” I say.

  “Hi, Mom.”

  It’s Luke. I exhale a breath I didn’t know I was holding, feel my world spin. And then a new torrent of panic crashes over me. Why’s he calling from school? “Luke, honey, what’s wrong?”

  “You said to call if I saw him again.”

  “Who?” I say, an automatic response, but even as the word comes out of my mouth, I know.

  “The man. The man who talked to me at school.”

  No. This is not possible. “When did you see him, Luke?”

  “Just now. He’s outside. By the fence.”

  This can’t be. I glance at Yury, who’s listening to all of this, a smile still on his face. “Luke—are you sure it’s him?”

  “Yeah. He talked to me again.”

  I can barely force out the next words. “What did he say?”

  He lowers his voice, and I hear the tremor in it. “He said to tell you time is running out. What does that mean, Mom?”

  Full-blown panic takes hold. I look at Matt, and I know he heard the conversation. There’s a flash of anger on his face that looks almost animal, and in that instant he’s my husband again, the man who’d do anything to protect us, to keep our family safe.

  “Go,” I say to him, covering the mouthpiece with my hand. He glances at Yury, then back at me, looks uncertain. “I’ll be fine. Go take care of Luke.” He’d never let anyone hurt the kids; of that I’m sure. We exchange a look, then he grabs the phone from me.

  “Luke, you stay where you are,” he says. “Don’t move, buddy. I’ll be right there. Dad’s coming to get you.”

  The door closes behind Matt, then there’s silence. I’m trembling, fear and anger and desperation churning inside me. This won’t end with Yury in prison. Whoever’s at Luke’s school right now just made that clear. Someone else already knows. Someone else is a threat.

  Calling the authorities won’t protect my kids.

  Will anything?

  Yury’s watching me with an amused expression. I bend down to his level, look him in the eye. “Who is threatening my son?” I say in a way that sounds frightening, even to me. How could I have been so wrong? If there’s one thing I’ve had drilled into me, in my job, it’s never to make assumptions. And yet didn’t I do exactly that? Heard there was a man, someone with an accent, and assumed it was Yury.

  An accent. That’s what Luke said, right? Wasn’t that why I thought it was Yury? I struggle to think back to the conversation, remember Luke’s exact words. He had a weird voice. God, I don’t even know for sure it was a Russian accent.

  Is it the person that Yury said was on the inside? No one I know of with access to Athena has an accent. Could it be someone higher up in management, someone in IT?

  Or could it be another Russian agent?

  “Who is threatening my son?” I say again. He says nothing, just mocks me with his eyes. And then instinct takes over. I bring the grip of the gun down hard against his forehead, as big a shock to him as to me. I’ve never hit anyone in my life. “I will kill you,” I say, and I mean it. If it would protect my kids, I’d kill him in a heartbeat.

  He sneers at me, squinting, a welt already forming on his forehead. The force of the blow, the way his neck snapped back with it, has left the opening of his shirt askew around his neck. The pendant on the gold chain has slipped out from under his shirt, catches the light. It’s some sort of gaudy cross. “Why not?” he says. “You don’t have anything to lose.”

  Rage simmers inside me. “Who?” I jam the gun into his temple. Whoever it is, he’ll probably be gone by the time Matt arrives. How on earth will we find him?

  “Could be any number of people. I have so many friends I can call on.” Yury smirks. He’s toying with me. I turn away from him, so he can’t see my face, can’t
see the desperation, the terror that I’m feeling.

  So many friends. There’s a thought swirling around in my mind, slowly forming into something distinct. Whoever Yury has on the inside knows Matt’s identity. And shouldn’t they be hiding his identity from everyone, if the cell’s really so compartmented?

  And what about all the agents at my wedding? All gathered in one place, at one time. Maybe it’s not as compartmented as we think. Maybe our understanding of the program is flawed. Maybe…

  Dmitri the Dangle. His name suddenly fills my mind, crowds out all else. Dmitri the Dangle, the walk-in who claimed there were dozens of sleeper cells in the U.S. The man we thought was a double agent, someone the Russians sent to us bearing false information. But he was right, wasn’t he? If there were that many agents at my wedding, he was right.

  He was telling the truth.

  I rack my brain, trying to remember what else he said. What other claims didn’t fit with what we knew, so we ignored them, chalked them up to being false leads?

  He said the sleepers’ names were stored on the handlers themselves. On their bodies, at all times.

  I look at Yury. My mind is churning, fitting together the pieces of a puzzle I didn’t even know existed. Names stored on handlers’ bodies at all times. And what we’ve always believed to be true, based on all our other intelligence: names stored electronically. Something clicks in my mind.

  Could it be? I pull my eyes away, up to his face, and my breath catches. It is. I see it in his face, the realization that I know. There’s a helplessness there, the same kind I’ve been feeling for weeks now. He’s bound to the chair, can’t hide it, can’t protect it. The smirk’s gone now.

  I take a step toward him, then another, until I’m standing over him, and he has no choice but to stare up at me, exposed and vulnerable. I can see the fear grow in his eyes. I take hold of the pendant, look at it, the contours of the golden cross, the size of it. Turn it over, see four tiny screws.

  I clasp my fist around it. I look him in the eye as I pull down with one swift, forceful yank. His neck jerks forward, then back again as the chain snaps, cascades down around my hand.