“A case,” she said sharply.
He sighed. Poor abused Alfredo. As the gatekeeper, she could only imagine the number of assholes like her he had to deal with on a daily basis. “Give me a moment.”
He lifted his phone and dialed an extension. He spoke quietly enough that she couldn’t hear him, but when he held out his hand for her ID she passed it to him without hesitation. He read her name into the phone, nodded his head even though the other person couldn’t see him, and hung up. “Technology is in the basement. Walter Tukey will see you. He’s one of our cell tech experts.”
“Thank you.” She waited for him to come out from behind the desk and walk her to the elevator bank. He swiped a card over the scan pad and punched in the button for the basement. When the elevator car arrived she stepped in and gave him a cheeky wave. He stared humorlessly at her in return.
The doors slid shut and the elevator dropped smoothly into the bowels of the FBI building. When the panels reopened, a dark-suited woman wearing an earpiece was waiting for her. The agent led Leah to another locked door, swiped her key card, and ushered her into a quiet wing of offices. Leah was disappointed to realize the FBI technology lair was just another boring administrative suite.
A man’s disembodied head popped over the reception partition. “You the chick from the DA’s office?”
“Yes.” Leah’s eyes followed the agent, Walter Tukey she presumed, as he rounded the partition and appeared in front of her. He was a good half a foot shorter and at least four times wider than she was, and his white shirt had a mustard stain down the front that he’d tried to conceal with an unevenly dangling black tie. A can of Red Bull was clutched so tightly in one of his fists that his fingers left imprints in the aluminum.
“You can follow me back to my office. You’re in luck, I normally have a packed schedule.” He chuckled to himself but Leah didn’t get the joke.
Leah followed him down the beige carpeted hallway, thinking that at some point the FBI must’ve scored a sweet bulk deal on ugly carpeting. Walter pushed through a glass door into a small, cubed office that sounded alive with the humming of computers and electronics. Glowing blue screens illuminated The Game of Thrones and Deadpool posters tacked to the walls. Tiny pieces of electronics were scattered across a work table, and crumpled Doritos bags formed a halo around the keyboard. Red Bull and Mountain Dew cans spilled out of the trashcan in the corner and the air reeked of old onion rings.
“So whaddya need that’s so urgent?” Walter asked as he sank into a stained office chair and stacked his hands behind his head.
“I think my phone is bugged.”
She was grateful he didn’t ask why. He just held out his hand and she placed her iPhone into his sweaty palm.
“Probably not,” he said. “Someone would have had to jailbreak your iPhone. Been having any battery life problems? Issues with shutting down the phone, or with it being too hot while it’s on? Using more data than you should be?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I’m on it all the time so it’s always hot or running out of battery.”
“Passcode.”
She recited the six-digit number and he released the lock screen. His fingers flew across the screen, opening and closing apps and programs she hadn’t even known existed. After a few minutes his brow creased. He rummaged in a drawer for a cable and connected the phone to his computer.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Might be nothing.” He went to take a gulp of the Red Bull, found the can empty, and threw it behind him in the direction of the trashcan. He missed. “Could be something. I found a duplicate ghost calculator app so I’m just gonna take a closer look.”
Her knees felt a little weak and she looked for a place to sit. There were two black visitor’s chairs, each piled with a mountain of food wrappers. Choosing to remain upright, she instructed herself to take a deep breath and stop jumping to conclusions. Walter had just said it could be nothing.
Walter’s fingers skimmed across the keyboard with surprising agility. “Goddamn lady,” he finally said, his chair groaning as he leaned back in it. “I thought you were just a paranoid DA nut job, but it turns out you’re right. Someone’s got ears on you.”
Chapter 3
Leah gripped the strap of her bag. “What do you mean? Are we being listened to right now?”
“The program is designed to activate when you speak into the phone, such as when you pick up a call, but it also gives the operator the ability to turn on the microphone and camera when the phone is dormant, too. Whoever installed this software can read your texts, searches, and emails. Basically if you can see it, he can see it. It’s actually an incredibly sophisticated program.” Walter looked at her through black-rimmed lenses, his expression serious. “I’ve only run across this particular program a few times before.”
Please don’t say it’s Russian. Please don’t say it’s Russian.
“The U.S. uses it occasionally but they generally prefer a different type of software. The only other time I’ve seen it was when the Secretary of State’s phone was tapped by Russian intelligence.”
Leah walked over to one of the chairs and sat down on top of the trash mountain, crushing it beneath her weight and not caring that she was sitting on days old hamburger scraps.
She couldn’t breathe. This could not be happening to her. Why the hell would Vincente—no, a Russian terrorist—want to spy on her? When it came to the ladder of political importance, she was about two rungs up from the building landscaper. She’d once paid the last twenty dollars of her rent with bottle returns money. She was no one.
“But you’ve got a bigger problem,” Walter added. “When I opened the app it triggered an electronic tripwire of sorts.”
“Meaning he knows I know about the tap?”
“Yuppers.”
She glared at him. “Then why did you open it?”
“Couldn’t be sure it was what I thought it was until I did.”
Leah groaned. “Can you trace who put it on my phone?”
He shook his head. “Not unless it’s being activated remotely, which it won’t be now. That’s why the virtual tripwire is in place.”
The implications were overwhelming. Panicked thoughts corkscrewed through Leah’s brain until she was two shallow breaths away from an anxiety attack. Get it together. Hysteria will not help. She needed to breathe, just breathe. She dropped her head between her knees as black spots danced in her vision.
“You okay, lady?”
“I need a minute.”
“Yeah sure. Want a drink?”
She nodded, her ponytail swinging upside down, and a moment later a cool can was pressed into her hand. She sat up and took a sip of Red Bull. Her system hardly needed the caffeine shot, but now wasn’t the time to be choosy. “Okay,” she said. “What do I do now?”
“You gotta alert your supervisor that your case has been compromised.” He’d assumed, as she’d led him to believe, that the phone tap had to do with one of the DA’s cases, but she knew it didn’t. Why would a Russian spy care about a custody abduction case or a domestic assault charge? “I have to report it, too. You should go to the third floor field office and see the investigative division. You got a real problem, lady. That ain’t software you can just buy online. A professional installed that.”
“Okay. Thanks, Walter.”
He unplugged her cell and spent some time scribbling down the serial number and whatever else he needed before handing it back to her. His fingers left grease smudges on the black case. “I’ll call upstairs and let them know you’re coming.”
She waved him off. “Don’t bother. I’m already working with Agent Ashill on this case. I’ll go straight to him.”
Walter hesitated. “I’m supposed to call, but since you’re already working with an agent . . .” He set the phone back in its cradle.
Leah thanked him again and walked blindly down the beige hallway to the elevator banks. When the female agent swiped he
r card, Leah stepped inside the elevator and said, “Lobby, please.”
There was no way in hell she was going to the investigative division, at least not yet. She needed time to piece everything together, a few hours to think of a way to present her case to the FBI so that she didn’t sound like a raving lunatic when she claimed her ex-boyfriend was a Russian spy.
Destiny would help. Leah latched onto the idea like it was a lifeline. Destiny always knew what to do. Vincente typically worked until five and it was just noon now. Leah had plenty of time to chart her course of action before he discovered his system had been breached.
If he was the person who’d installed the software on her phone. If he was Sokolov, and she still couldn’t believe that he was. His mother had told her baby stories, even making Vincente blush when she recalled the time he wedged his head between the stair railing slats at the age of eight when he should have known better and they’d had to call the fire department to free him. Leah couldn’t imagine why Vincente would hire an actress and go through such an elaborate ruse in order to trick his paralegal girlfriend into thinking he was from Boston. It just didn’t make any sense.
There had to be an alternative explanation.
Leah exited FBI headquarters and was blinded by the sun. She rummaged in her bag for her sunglasses and slipped them over her nose. There was a small hole-in-the-wall café two blocks away that catered mostly to local government workers and the occasional tourist who wandered off the beaten path. It would be a safe, public place to buy a coffee and collect her wits while she waited to meet with Destiny.
She strode down Pennsylvania Avenue with her bag slung over her shoulder and her phone buzzing continuously in her hand. She looked down but ignored the rolling texts appearing from the Boss from Hell. Amanda Schneider and the Nordstrom receipts were just going to have to take a backseat for once. She had a crisis on her hands.
She’d reached the intersection between 17th Street and H Street NE when a sleek black Mercedes pulled to stop directly in front of her. The passenger door popped open and her heart plummeted. She knew that car. She took a step back, bumping into a tourist holding a map, and opened her mouth to scream.
“Leah, get in the car. I’ll explain everything.”
She was about to tell Vincente like hell when her eyes fell on the ID he was holding out in his palm. It read CIA.
For the love of God, was it possible that he was undercover CIA and the FBI didn’t know about it? If she’d learned anything while working for the DA’s office, it was that when it came to the government, duplication and crossed-wires were a constant, not an anomaly.
She ducked her head to peer in the car. Vincente lounged behind the wheel, his compact body relaxed in the luxurious leather seat. He looked as cocky and arrogant as any James Bond character, with his aviators pulled low and the collar popped on his two hundred dollar white Armani polo. Would a Russian spy who’d just been outed look so fresh and relaxed? She didn’t think so.
Ignoring her humming instincts that demanded she turn on her heel and run, Leah slid into the soft leather seat of the Mercedes and shut the door. As soon as the child safety locks clicked, she knew she’d made a mistake.
Chapter 4
Leah flinched as the Mercedes peeled into the street, nearly clipping a cyclist wearing bib shorts.
“What’s going on, Vincente?” Her bag was on her lap and blocked his view of the phone clutched in her hand. She discretely began thumbing 911 into the call app in case the meeting went south. Before she could hit all three numbers Vincente’s hand darted past her purse and snatched the phone. He hit the automatic button on his door and tossed her cell phone out the window as if he were discarding a cigarette butt. Leah’s immediate anger was eclipsed by icy fear sliding down her spine. His next words didn’t assuage the feeling that she was in the company of an unpredictable man.
“I’m CIA.”
“You’re Alexei Sokolov.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “The Russians certainly think I am.”
She gripped the handle of the door as he took a sharp turn that left behind a half inch of rubber on the street. “I don’t understand.”
“It’s a long story and I’m not authorized to tell you any of it, but considering you almost just blew my cover, I don’t think I have any other choice.”
She was only half listening as she mentally inventoried what she had in her purse that could be used as a weapon.
“Nothing, babe,” he said coldly. She jerked her head in surprise. “You have nothing in that giant purse that’s going to help you. The only way you’re getting out of this car is when I decide to let you out.”
She’d never heard such condescension from him before. “What makes you so sure you know what I’m thinking?”
“I spent six months learning to read your expressions.”
“Who are you?”
“My real name is Carl Benning.” It was a lie, and she knew it. She’d also learned to read him a little during their relationship. “I was recruited by the CIA ten years ago for their Russian intelligence program. My grandmother taught me the language so I was an ideal candidate to embed in the GRU—that’s Russia’s version of the CIA.”
“I know what the GRU is,” she scoffed. She hadn’t.
“Course you did, babe.”
She ground her teeth together. “So if you’re actually CIA and not some Russian terrorist, why are you on the FBI’s Most Wanted list?”
“Ah.” He nodded as if she’d just solved a mildly troubling puzzle for him. “That’s how you figured it out. I should have known you might brush up against that poster in the course of your work at the DA’s office. Babe, they had to put my old photo on the Most Wanted list to keep my cover intact.”
She had so many questions she didn’t know where to start. Old photo? Had he had plastic surgery, and if so, why? Who were the “they” that put his photo on the Most Wanted List? And what cover was it that needed to stay intact? She went with the most pressing question. “What cover? Why are you in D.C. if you’re supposed to be embedded as a spy in the GRU?”
He remained silent, waiting for her to figure it out. It didn’t take long. “Oh,” she said. “Russia sent you here to spy on America. You’re a double agent.”
“Bingo. Whoever said you were nothing but big eyes and a nice body?”
She gave him a strange look. “No one’s ever said that.”
He smirked. “To your face.”
God she hated him. She wished she could break up with him all over again just to wipe that smug look off his face. “So if the Russians sent you to D.C. to spy on Americans, why do you have a tap on my phone? I’m just a paralegal.”
Vincente veered sharply into the left lane, cutting off a cab. The driver blared his horn and Vincente tossed him the middle finger and began riding the bumper of the car ahead of them. He looked over his shoulder at her and shook his head. “Jesus, it’s like listening to a sixth grader try to solve a division problem.”
Leah flinched. Until that moment she’d still retained hope that their relationship had been real, no matter how imperfect. The stunning realization that he’d played her for six months to fulfill an agenda she still didn’t understand sizzled along her nerves and heated her temper. How dare he make sport of her emotions? How dare he jerk her along puppet strings for six long months? “Then make like a teacher and spell it out,” she snapped. “I’m tired of this little guessing game.”
To her surprise he threw his head back and laughed. “I always did like you best sassy. Too bad you’re usually a doormat for that bitch boss of yours. You know I tried to hook up with her first at the gala, but that woman is colder than a polar bear’s asshole. After she shot me down and I saw you drinking champagne by the dessert table, I knew you were the one.”
So what, now a woman couldn’t drink by herself at the brownie tray without looking lonely and desperate?
“The CIA asked me to make connections with the DA’s office,” he
continued. “They wanted it to appear as if I were actually in a position to gather the intelligence I was feeding the Russians. In actuality, the U.S. was giving me the intel they wanted passed along.” When she opened her mouth to speak he held up his hand to halt her. “Before you say one more time that you’re just a paralegal, the Russians don’t know any halfwit can be a paralegal over here. They think you’re important because you assist the prosecutor.”
Leah sucked in a breath. “Not any halfwit could be a paralegal! My job is hard.”
“Right babe, because buying bagels takes a college degree. Anyway, I tapped into your phone to make sure you didn’t get suspicious and start asking questions that could blow my cover. Thank God I did, because that’s exactly what happened.”
Leah closed her eyes as Vincente sped around a slow-moving truck and nearly sideswiped a cab in the far right lane. The Vincente she’d known—the fake Vincente—had been a sedate, considerate driver, but the man behind the wheel now was reckless and cold. The mellow vibe he’d always given off was glaringly absent, and in its place was a callous confidence she did not like.
Questions crowded on the tip of her tongue, but before she could ask any of them Vincente pushed up his sunglasses and gave her an assessing once-over. There was a calculating gleam in his eyes that gave her the uneasy feeling she wasn’t going to like whatever he said next. “You know, maybe the timing of you finding out the truth is providential.”
“What’s that mean?”
With exaggerated patience he said, “Providential is when something occurs at a favorable—”
“I know what providential means!” She closed her eyes and forced her voice down. “I meant what about the timing is providential?”
“You know that business trip I told you I had to go on? The truth is that it’s actually an assignment for the GRU.”
“You never told me about a business trip.”
He heaved a disappointed sigh. “You never listened to me, Leah. I told you I had to fly to Oslo. A white jihadist recruit just returned from training in Syria, and Russia is very interested in getting its hands on him. Considering the man has plans in the pipeline for lone wolf attacks on both European and U.S. soil, for once the higher ups at the CIA are more than happy to have me carry out Russia’s assignment.”
Finding Lies Page 2
