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The ambassador reached for a napkin and began to mop up the spill. “All of that I can handle. It’s part of the job. What I can’t handle is dealing with more fallout from busted CIA operations. I know you have a mission. I’m just asking that you refrain from doing it until we get the issue with Miss Henrik resolved. Does that sound reasonable?”

It did sound reasonable.

It was also completely untenable.

“I understand, sir,” Irene said.

“Good,” the ambassador said as the red hue faded from his cheeks. “Welcome to Moscow. I hope you get to see some of the city.”

“Me too,” Irene said as she shook the ambassador’s hand before getting to her feet, “but I’ll probably be too busy.”

That was a lie.

Irene intended to see a great deal of the city.

CHAPTER 48

WASHINGTON, DC

SIR,Irene is on the phone for you.”

Thomas Stansfield closed the folder on his desk before acknowledging his assistant.

The cover sheet glared back at him, adorned with a combination of abbreviations in capital letters meant to announce its classification level. In theory, there were fewer places on the planet more secure than the office of the acting director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

In theory.

In practice, classified operations had begun to unravel with startling alacrity. That the majority of these operations involved Russian assets seemed to suggest that the security breach was localized to the CIA’s Near East, or NE, Division, but that was scant comfort to the agents who’d embarked on one-way trips to Lubyanka Square or the agency handlers who’d lost them. Only after ensuring that the paperwork was properly shrouded did Stansfield look up.

“Thank you, Meg. Please put her through.”

“Yes, sir.”

Stansfield was a spy and so he approached the penetration from aspy’s perspective. It did not escape his notice that many of his agency’s most prized recruitments had been low-level functionaries with access to vital information. People who worked adjacent to the real decision-makers.

People like Meg.

Stansfield had known his assistant for almost two decades. While not on the level of his relationship with Irene, he felt a familial affection for the mother of two. Meg was not his adopted daughter, but she could have been a much younger sister or perhaps a favorite niece. He no more suspected Meg of passing secrets to the Russians than he did his own wife.

Which was exactly why she would be perfect for the job.

With a sigh, Stansfield made a mental note to ask the agency’s counterintelligence division to refresh Meg’s background investigation. This was what it truly meant to live as a spy—questioning a twenty-year friendship because the leak had to be coming from somewhere.

One of the two phones resting on Stansfield’s spotless desk trilled. The red phone. He reached for the handset a bit too eagerly, just as much because he was anxious for an update from Irene as he was relieved to have an excuse to abandon the dark path his thoughts had been traveling. It would rend his soul if counterintelligence found cause to believe Meg was a Russian asset, but part of him would feel relieved. Until the source of the burnt operations was discovered, the hemorrhaging would continue.

Hemorrhaging and dead agents.

“Irene?”

“Good day, sir.”

Whether this was actually the case remained to be seen.

His counterpart at MI6, Rollie Smith, had forwarded him the CCTV footage of the shooting in London. While Irene still hadn’t heard from Rapp, Stansfield was now reasonably certain the assassin was not the newest member of the Orion team. On the not-so-positive side of things, someone had leaked Youssef bin Muhammad’s name from theOrion’s supposedly secret kill list, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence had formerly requested that he return to testify a second time, and the wife of one of his CIA officers was still in a Russian jail. This was not a banner day to be the acting director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Even so, he refused to allow his pessimism to infect his interaction with Irene. Things weren’t good at the moment, but as a veteran of World War II, Stansfield had a unique perspective on what was truly bad.

“How is Moscow Station?”

“I apologize for jumping straight to the chase, but I’ve sent a rather urgent cable. I’d appreciate it if you could read it and respond as soon as you are able, sir.”