Page 81 of The Shadow Friends

“While we figure this out,” said Ben, “you need a safe place to stay. I was going to offer my house.”

“Bad idea,” said Maggie. “You live in the village, and you have neighbors on either side of you. They’ll notice that you have guests. Same problem with Declan’s house.” Maggie looked at Ingrid. “You’re staying with me.”

“It’s a lot to ask,” said Ingrid.

“No, it isn’t. I have two spare rooms and no nearby neighbors except for Luther Yount. Trust me, Luther will keep his mouth shut and his shotgun loaded.”

“She’s right,” said Declan. “Blackberry Farm is the logical retreat.”

Retreat. To Ingrid, that word had always been synonymous with surrender. She had never been one to cede command of her life, but now hers was hurtling completely out of her control and down a dark and dangerous path. She suddenly thought of Sophie, the doomed young woman who’d willingly walked the same path, only to bleed to death in a stone house in Provence. When you are prey, you are always listening for the hunter’s footfall, always waiting for the punch of the bullet.

“I think it’s the best option,” Lloyd said quietly. “Staying with Maggie.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I never meant for you to—”

“It’s all right. We can deal with this. We’ll fix this.” He squeezed her hand and looked at her. “But we’re going to need our friends.”

Chapter 30

Maggie

This evening was like so many others they had enjoyed at Maggie’s dining table, sharing cocktails and gossip over dinner. But tonight’s gathering was different. It felt different. Tonight they were all on edge, and while the liquor flowed as usual, there was almost no laughter and few smiles. They had driven straight from Boston to her farm, without stopping at the Slocums’ house, so their dinner was uncharacteristically spartan, thrown together from the week-old contents of Maggie’s refrigerator. Eggs were on the menu, of course; when you own a hundred laying hens, you are seldom short of eggs. Maggie had ceded control of her kitchen to Lloyd, who could always be counted on to conjure up a decent meal, whatever the circumstances, and he’d transformed a dozen eggs, a few limp vegetables, and six ounces of Comté cheese into a more than decent frittata. Even so, no one seemed to have an appetite.

Not even Lloyd, who usually dug into his food with gusto. Tonight, he barely picked at his meal, then he put down his fork with a sigh. Maggie handed him the wine bottle, but he waved it away.

“I need my wits about me. We need to think about what we should do next.” He looked at Ben. “Your friends at the Agency. Do they know Ingrid’s name has just been added to the kill list?”

“They’re aware. They asked if she’s in a safe place, and I assured them she was. But I didn’t tell them where.”

“You don’t trust them?”

“Until we know exactly what’s happening in the Agency, we can’t trust anyone.”

“What are they going to do about this?”

“Since they know she’s safe for the moment, they have time.”

“To do what?”

“They don’t want to alarm whoever’s feeding this info to Moscow. If they move too fast, the mole could slip out of their reach.”

“So we put our lives on hold while they take their sweet time deciding what to do?”

“Lloyd, you know how this works. Even if they’ve already identified the mole, they’ll leave him in place. Watch to find out who his contacts are, monitor his comm channels. They can’t alarm him.”

“And Ingrid is safe here,” said Maggie. “We’ll see to that.”

Ben leaned forward, and the ominous thump of his elbows on the table made the glassware clink. “Now we need to get to the meat of the matter. We’ve avoided this issue long enough, but we’re all thinking the same thing.” He turned to Ingrid. “Why are you on the list?”

She said, wearily, “I told you, Ben. I really don’t know.”

“Consider the other people who ended up on Moscow’s kill list. Dmitry Surikov, in Amsterdam. Zoya Larina, in Madrid.”

“I’m well aware of the names.”

“They were all Russians who changed their loyalties and decided to play for our side. From Moscow’s perspective, that’s an inexcusable sin, a capital offense. Any Russian spy who defects will spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder. Most of them try to stay hidden, unless they’re like Maslov, who said fuck it and went on with his life, out in the open.”

“Again, Ben. Tell me something new.”