Red Widow by Alma Katsu

Author:Alma Katsu [Katsu, Alma]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780525539438
Google: EtDtDwAAQBAJ
Amazon: 0525539417
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2021-03-23T00:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-FOUR

Theresa returned to the office the next day, though she would’ve liked to stay home, to play hooky like a schoolchild. When she showed up pale and rattled, teammates asked if she was feeling better. “Fine, thanks,” she mumbled. She remembered to cough occasionally to keep them at arm’s length. Let them think I’m contagious. Let them be mad at me, thinking I’ve brought some disease into the office. She wasn’t fine—she wouldn’t be for a while—so she didn’t want anyone looking too closely.

Her son, on the other hand, was not so easy to fool. She’d only been able to hide it from him for a couple hours. By evening, he knew something was wrong. “Are you scared, Mommy?” he’d asked at dinner. Unused to seeing his mother frightened, he was skittish, afraid to get close. “Nonsense, what would I be scared about?” she’d answered with false bravado. It was best to pretend around Brian. He was a sensitive boy, prone to worry.

The meeting with Tarasenko haunted her at work. She’d underestimated her conscience. Guilt coursed through her veins and swelled her throat shut. Going through the security turnstiles that morning, she’d felt like she would burst into flames, like a demon trying to enter a church. One of the damned trying to pass for normal. Nothing happened, of course, though she was still trembling by the time she got to her desk. The usual eyes were on her from the time she left her car to when she arrived at her office. Look, it’s The Widow. Did those curious faces see that something was wrong? Was it written all over her face, etched in the lines around her eyes, hanging from the edge of her frown, engraved in the furrow in her brow? That woman is a traitor.

How long before she would hear from the Russians? A month, two? Never? Volunteer spies were generally problematic. CIA took a long time to decide whether to trust the embassy walk-ins who offered to turn over the secrets in their heads for money, or for a plane ticket to the U.S. and a new life. They were hot messes, unraveling mentally and emotionally, beset by financial troubles, alcoholism, difficult personalities that cost them family and friends. But Theresa’s motive was pure as the driven snow: to free a loved one. She was blameless. How much more trustworthy could one be?

There was nothing she could do except wait. She felt helpless and vulnerable, and she didn’t like it.

Her fingers moved by habit on the keyboard at work as she checked email, read through reports on her targets—not that she cared about her job anymore. The words didn’t even register, falling on her and melting like snow. Her mind was back in the museum, the chill of fear on her afresh, Tarasenko’s wolfish grin impossible to forget.

But she wasn’t helpless. She had two names now—Dmitri Tarasenko and this General Morozov. She would get to work.

Tarasenko had probably been lying when he said Morozov had intervened with Putin to save her husband’s life.

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