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It wasn’t until she was mostly through her training that she realized why the CIA was so desperate for agents; everyone they had in the Soviet Union had disappeared and they didn’t yet know why. Would they assign a green twenty-one-year-old to the Soviet–East European division? Surely not!
They did hold her back, for over a year, because she excelled at basic interrogation, and they wanted to beef up those skills. She also took Czech along with more Russian-language classes. In alot of ways, it was like she’d never left school, only now they were paying her instead of her father writing checks.
Annie landed in Leningrad completely fluent in Russian and German, close to fluent in Czech, and with orders to pose as a university student. She was to look for political students ready to turn on their country and for the wealthy children of known KGB agents. They also told her—informally—that if she could figure out the leak, that’d be great.
Twenty-three, first time out of the country, in over her head.
In the beginning, she was only so-so at actually recruiting potential informants, but she was great at talking to people and found that once she got them warmed up, it was better to hand them off to a more experienced agent for the hard sell. No, what she mostly did in Leningrad was interrogate the CIA’s own people. Other agents, support staff, even her superiors. She easily got them talking about nothing, about anything, about everything. Half the story was out before they realized what was happening. Everyone told her over and over that it was a gift, a rare one, and she thrived on the praise. She even had a crack once at a suspicious senior agent named Aldrich Ames, though he was too drunk to really be useful. She had soon discarded him in her mind as too incompetent; on top of being intoxicated, he had been sloppy and arrogant.
She spent nine months in Leningrad before being recalled to the States, not because she hadn’t accomplished her goals there but because there was no one left to interrogate, and no one wanted to talk to her anymore.
That became her modus operandi—Berlin for six months, then home for six, working at Langley. Eight months in Ankara and then home just in time for her parent’s thirtieth wedding anniversary. Four months in Kyiv before someone broke her cover and she had to tuck tail and leave. She took more language classes here and there, sometimes by mail, and after Ukraine,she asked for a stateside assignment to finish up the coursework and ended up with a master’s degree in Slavic languages. After that, she wanted to stay put, tired of the travel, but they sent her to Minsk, where she befriended the wife of a midlevel politician. She tried for nearly three months to get her husband to flip.
One day, she showed up to their meeting place, a small shed at the edge of their property, and discovered the woman and her two-year-old daughter shot in the head. The husband was never found. Two agents assigned to figure out what happened were killed too, and the whole unit was pulled and sent home. All because of Annie.
Annie was unused to failure of any sort, and she arrived back in the United States rattled, immediately resigning. Director Clifton was livid, yelling at her until he was red in the face, telling her she would regret leaving, that no one left his division until he said they could. At the time, she was sure it was a bluff.
She showed up at her parents’ door in Ohio, underweight and alone, everything she planned to keep packed into her car.
They let her stay, of course, but she couldn’t, and wouldn’t, explain herself, and they hadn’t been happy about it.
She never did find the mole.
* * *
“Please tell me how you did that,” Helen Everton said.
On the one hand, Annie knew more about the mysterious professor now than she could have ever gathered from watching the building, but on the other hand, she desperately needed a place to live. There was no easy way to ask for something as personal as a room in someone’s house. Maybe this baby was the icebreaker she needed.
“Oh, sometimes babies just want a change of scenery.” Annie smiled down at the baby and then back up at Everton. “I mean, you have two older children, so you know what I mean.”
“You must have a special touch,” she said. “Usually, once he starts fussing, he cries forever. He’s nothing like my first two.” She looked at her watch.
“Everything okay?”
“I have a lot to do today.”
“I’m happy to walk back up with you if you need to get back to work.”
“Up?”
“To your office.” Annie nodded toward the building. “You said you worked here.”
Everton looked at Annie uncertainly. “Did I?”
“Well, you certainly don’t look like a student here.” Annie tried to steer the conversation away from suspicion.
“Hmm.”
Clearly, Everton was not going to be swayed by Annie’s charm alone, so she would have to go all in. If she failed, she failed, and she’d figure out a new plan.
“Actually, I know you work here.” She held the baby a little tighter. “Helen Everton, I’ve been looking for you.”
* * *
Everton was quiet as they entered the building and rode the elevator to the top floor, her mouth a hard line. She kept a tight hold on the stroller and a sharp eye on the woman carrying her baby. Annie let her stew; it was better to explain herself once they got to the privacy of her little office.
Deb was at her desk and smiled when she saw Annie, but her smile froze when she saw Everton. There was some bad blood there, or at least a clash of personalities. Or maybe Deb just didn’t like babies. Annie shrugged at the older woman as if to say,What can you do?Deb nodded at her gravely. If Everton saw the exchange, she didn’t acknowledge it. But then Everton didn’t look at Deb at all. She walked past with her nose in the air.
