Red Widow by Alma Katsu (interesting books to read .txt) 📕

charms as well as her threats. His name was Jimmy Purvis, a case officer retired over twenty years now and had undoubtedly been well past retirement age when he was finally forced out. Unmarried and childless, with nothing to fill his days, he’d dunned the Agency into giving him a position so he’d be able to continue walking through the security turnstiles in the morning and getting lunch from the cafeteria.

When she came for him this time, however, he already knew her. And she knew him, had heard all his stories from the old days and knew that he liked the crumb cake they sold upstairs in the coffee shop. So, she brought a square with her, tidy in its cling wrap jacket, and watched him eat it with his cold coffee as she sat in the battered old chair next to his desk.

“You’re the only one around here who’s nice to an old man,” Purvis said as he chased the remaining clumps of sugar with his plastic fork. “Everyone else is too important.” Behind them were rows and rows of shelves, on each shelf archival boxes filled with reports. A label on each box bore the dates and subjects and cover terms of the reports inside. She had a good idea where the records for Richard’s case were, knew the general ballpark.

She smiled at him, but in the back of her mind, she was calculating. He had to be close to eighty. What could he possibly want, what could she offer him that would be worth fifteen minutes alone in the vault? Not her body: he barely looked at her. He might be insulted if she offered money. Or tried to trick him.

She leaned forward, touched a hand to his arm. He raised an eyebrow.

“Jimmy, I have a favor to ask of you—”

He drew back—but barely. “Not this again. You know I can’t—”

“This is different. I’m only interested in one report. Just one.” She slid a scrap of paper to him. On it was the date, cover terms—everything Jack Clemens could remember about the report. “I just want to see what it says. For my own peace of mind. Tell me what you want for it. Name your price.”

She was thankful that he didn’t erupt in fury, didn’t try to throw her out. It meant he was considering it. His mouth twitched, eyes narrowed. Silently, he pushed back from the desk, picked up the scrap of paper and read it as he shuffled to the shelves. She listened to the sound of heavy boxes being pulled down, put back. Papers rustled.

Finally, five minutes later he was back with a thin folder bearing a triple red stripe along its border. He held it up, showing it to her like a boy who’d captured the flag.

“You still got Richard’s car?”

The XKE. So beautiful, it was like the Mona Lisa on wheels. Purvis was a sports car nut and had long admired Richard’s vintage Jaguar, had pored over the photo she’d shown him once. But the car was worth a fortune. That was like an insurance policy for Brian. She couldn’t just give it to him, not in exchange for one single report.

She felt blood drain from her face. “You want me to give you the car?”

“What? No—I’m not greedy. Just a drive. Let me take it for a drive, someplace nice.”

This seemed like a terrible idea. Jimmy Purvis was an old man, so old that he had shrunk too small for his clothes. He wore Coke-bottle glasses and his hands shook. Should he even be driving at all? Did he still have his license?

Still, on the list of things he could’ve asked for, this was benign. What the hell—he was doing her a bigger favor than he could imagine, and . . . he was an old man. This might be his last thrill.

She nodded. “Sure. I’ll give you the keys for the whole weekend. Do we have a deal?”

He handed the report to her.

—

For two days after reading it, Theresa was in a fog. She managed to get by on autopilot, making sack lunches for her son and seeing him off at the bus stop. At work, she sat at her desk seething with resentment, her brain on fire. She wasn’t herself and she knew it. She was giddy in the company of others, dangerously so, the truth pressing from inside, desperate to be free. It was all she could do not to run down the halls, telling the whole bloody story to anyone who’d listen. You have no idea what your precious Agency is capable of. Our lives mean nothing to them, we’re nothing but pawns, and not one of us is safe.

As she sat at her desk, struggling with the urge to set the place on fire, to burn the whole house of cards to the ground, she began to grasp the terrible truth.

It had all been there in the few lines of that cable from Moscow, just like Jack had said. One of their assets, a most reliable one, had heard the FSB had captured an American agent in a botched exfiltration. The asset didn’t know that captured man’s name, but who else could it be? Everyone else involved in the mission had already been named dead.

Richard had been alive—and was still alive. She had to believe that.

And they’d kept it from her this whole time. Brought her back in to work—of course! So they could keep an eye on her, make sure she didn’t get any funny ideas, would be able to control her if she did.

Could they control her? They shouldn’t be too sure, she smirked.

She wasn’t dumb. Quite to the contrary. And she was resourceful.

If the seventh floor wasn’t going to help Richard, there was only one option open to her.

Russia.

Only the Russians could free her husband.

This went against everything she knew. Russia was the enemy, the target: this had been ingrained in her in eleven years of service. To go to them, hat in hand,