American Spy by Lauren Wilkinson

Author:Lauren Wilkinson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2019-02-11T16:00:00+00:00

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I SPENT A FEW DAYS sunken in a mire of self-loathing, scolding myself, although for what I didn’t actually know. I’d done what Ross had asked—if he thought I hadn’t that was his fault for being so vague. Still, when he summoned me for a lunch debriefing at a diner downtown, I arrived with my stomach in knots.

When I told him that I didn’t believe Thomas knew about the CIA’s involvement in the ULCR, he nodded and said, “Were you able to get him alone?”

“No,” I said, assuming he was asking if I’d slept with him.

“Never once?”

“Only for a few minutes when he changed his clothes at my place.”

He opened his briefcase and handed me an envelope. “That’s half the amount we talked about.”

I didn’t have to ask why. After seeing the surveillance van I finally understood why Ross wanted me to sleep with him. It wasn’t for the sake of intel. It was only obvious in retrospect: SQLR was about using me to blackmail Thomas. They wanted photos of us together. And Thomas had known that was a possibility even when I didn’t—that’s why he’d slipped my arm out of his and said what he had at the lounge.

I tucked the money into my purse. “When can I talk to Daniel Slater?”

He shook his head. “He’s not in New York.”

“We had a deal.”

“Did we?” he said.

“Maybe I could speak to him on the phone, or go to him. I just want to ask him a question or two about Helene.”

I was leaning forward, practically begging.

“I’m sorry,” he said, not sounding at all contrite. I hadn’t given him what he’d wanted and he was punishing me. It was an ugly side of him.

After the meeting, I returned to the field office. I’d thrown myself into my work at the bureau, even though my days were still filled mostly with paperwork, and seemed especially gray after the flashy excitement on an undercover assignment.

When Rick Gold called me to his office in the late afternoon, I had the uncharacteristically optimistic idea that it was because he’d noticed my hard work and was going to put me on the surveillance squad monitoring the suspected spy in the Foreign Mission.

Gold’s office smelled like brand-new carpet and was garishly decorated with a number of gold-colored accessories on the walls and shelves (the man wasn’t the most original thinker I’d ever met). To my surprise, Mr. Ali was there. I tried to catch his eye but couldn’t.

The SAC, my boss’s boss, was there too, clutching a paper cup of coffee. I’d never exchanged more than a few words with him; he wasn’t a particularly friendly man.

“Close the door,” he said to start the meeting. “You understand why you’re here today, don’t you?”

“No,” I said truthfully, with a small shake of my head.

The SAC frowned at Gold before he turned to me. “Your ASAC informs me that you’ve been falsifying paperwork. Is that true?”

Gold had laid out a few forms on his desk: Aisha’s termination papers.

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