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“Is this what you wanted to talk about?” I ask. “Trying to convince me your man is innocent with some cut-and-paste video files? Why don’t you send this to the State Department? I don’t need to be wasting time here.”
“Konstantin is at the edge of something terrible you have found, Reese. You are groping at shadows. You’ve wandered into something you don’t understand. I have information that I think can help you, and I am willing to trade that information for Konstantin.”
Brennan.
I’ll do anything to get him back. I’ll release a hundred Russians if that’s the price. This is why our love is so dangerous. Where is my loyalty now? What wouldn’t I give up for him? I don’t know the answer. “Do you know where he is?”
“Do I know where who is?” Anatoly asks slowly.
My teeth scrape against each other.Anatoly called me here. Anatoly wants to trade. Let him be the one to say it.
“Here’s what I know,” Anatoly says, stepping closer. He lowers his voice, and his accent thickens. “I know that accident last night is more than your government is pretending. I know something terrible has happened. And I know you are operating on your own, deep in the darkness. You and—” He jerks his chin toward where Sheridan disappeared. “Is he your errand boy? Or is he spying on you? Who do you trust right now?”
“Not you.”
“I wouldn’t trust me, either. Which is why I want to trade. Information for Konstantin. We both come out ahead.”
“I can’t agree to a trade until I know what information you want to give me.”
“I know what has your government in spasms. The secret that only your president is supposed to know.”
The briefing. Where Brennan was going. “Tell me.”
“There is a spy inside your government at the highest levels. Someone who works with President Walker.”
“What?” It’s like I’m on a roller coaster that’s falling apart, parts and pieces and rails flying off in every direction as I plummet to the ground.
“This spy has been sending Kirilov all of your president’s decisions. How do you think the Russians know how to counter your every move? Predict them, preempt them? Kirilov was able to spring a trap on your SEALs not because he was lucky. Because he was warned.”
I can count the men and women who were in the Situation Room that day. Who among them could pass that information—information that cost American lives—to Russia?
“How do you know this?”
Anatoly studies me. “These are dangerous times. Events have been set in motion that cannot be taken back. What your president did at the UN was the final straw for many in Russia. Now, decisions are being made, and Kirilov is growing desperate.”
“Decisions? You’re talking about a palace coup?”
Anatoly’s stare is dark and hard. He can’t confirm, but he’s not denying, either.
“What’s your part in all this?”
“I’m trying to survive.”
“Like all good Russian boys.”
“Kirilov is old FSB, yes? He still runs spies and informants, even inside his own government. He plays the most important close to his chest, so no one knows who they are. This person in your government, he is one of these spies. It’s his ace. It’s his last gasp.”
I can’t believe this. I can’t even fucking imagine it. I pace away from Anatoly. I’ve just been injected with raw adrenaline. I’m shaking, all the way down to my cells. I’m playing sudoku with a gun to my head, and someone keeps changing the numbers on me.
All I want is Brennan. Damn these secrets and lies. Damn the politics, the subterfuge, the knife waiting to plunge into my back. I’ll stand there and let it sever my spine if I can bring Brennan home.
Where the fuck is Sheridan? I turn and spot him leaning against the tailgate, staring at the ground. He’s spinning the burner phone Marshall gave him in his hands.
I march back to Anatoly. “How could Kirilov recruit someone from the president’s inner circle? Everyone is watched. Everyone is monitored.”
“Kirilov turned to someone he trusted, another spy of his, to bring this American in. Someone he has been working with for a very long time. They have been acting as a cutout between Kirilov and the American.”
“Do you know who the cutout is?”
