After forty years, she sensed her days of espionage coming to a sudden end, and she was glad to be done with them.
But also afraid.
They would come for her. They would come with a vengeance. Sokalov had let slip what had happened to the sisters who had been captured, the brutal torture and interrogations they had undergone. Their deaths must have been a blessing.
Sokalov had much to lose if the depth of Maria’s betrayal were revealed. If the president did not kill him, his father-in-law surely would. Maria’s one hope was that she knew everything about the man, the way he thought, his survival instincts. She knew Sokalov pulled the strings on the task force set up to find the sisters, and that the information had been compartmentalized and tightly controlled. Few knew of it. Sokalov would not order the task force to capture and interrogate Kulikova. She would destroy him. His only choice was to kill her and silence her before she could ever talk. To ensure she had not told others, he would also order the deaths of anyone he suspected might have knowledge of her betrayal or her infidelity.
Helge for certain.
If this was to be Maria’s end, so be it. She had never believed she would survive this long, and she had long ago decided she would never allow those in power the gratification of her capture. She kept a cyanide capsule in the tip of a pen she had carried in her purse every day for thirty years. When the time came, she would not hesitate to bite down and end her life, taking to her grave the extent of her betrayal. Her death would be her greatest triumph; her only regret would be that she would not remain alive to witness Sokalov’s punishment, which would finally bring her some pleasure.
Helge, however, was innocent, so much so that he had no idea the magnitude of his disclosure to Sokalov. He had no idea he had just signed his own death warrant. Perhaps Maria had underestimated the depth of the pain she had caused Helge, the damage to his pride, and the insult to his Russian virility. Perhaps Helge had gone to Sokalov to save face, hoping Sokalov would punish Maria for breaking one of the tenets of her position—to see her suffer, as he had suffered, all these years.
Maria emerged above ground across from the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour and again paused at the bus stop to go through the ritual of removing her lipstick and her compact mirror to scan behind her, searching again for anyone watching her. Seeing no one, she drew a check mark on the glass shelter, but this time she put a line through the stem to signify she was done. She needed to get out. She pocketed her cosmetics and hurried for home.
It had been a risk divulging the plan to kill Ibragimov to her handlers. When she had learned of Operation Herod, Maria had done what she’d been instructed to do whenever the Kremlin got too close. She’d cut off all communication with her handlers. She stopped making dead drops or responding to brush-bys. She stopped answering the phone at night or responded, “There is no one here by that name” to indicate her refusal to meet. She ignored the advertisements in the Moscow Times with hidden messages seeking to set meeting locations and times.
But she could not remain silent when she learned of the plan to brazenly kill Fyodor Ibragimov on American soil. It was not just about Ibragimov—or his wife and his children, who would mourn the loss of a husband and a father. His assassination would eliminate the final sanctuary for those seeking a better Russia. It would accomplish what the president had long sought to accomplish: sending an undeniable message that those who betrayed Russia were never safe. The repercussions would silence dissidents. Silence any opposition. It would send them into hiding and cause the country to hearken back to Soviet times.
The plan to kill Ibragimov had once again given Maria a purpose, and if finding her purpose cost her life, so be it.
But it should not cost Helge his.
What did you do, Helge?
In the building’s marble entry, Maria greeted the doorman.
“A hot one today, was it not?” the doorman said. “I’m glad to be in an air-conditioned lobby.”
Maria smiled and stepped past him to the elevator, repeatedly hitting the button to close the doors. She exited on the twelfth floor and rushed down the carpeted hall, her heart racing. She took a deep breath and inserted the key in the deadbolt. It was not locked. The sound tripped Stanislav’s Pavlovian response. Helge’s lightweight jacket did not hang on the coatrack. Maria stepped past the dog and called out her husband’s name. “Helge?”
The chair in which Helge ritually sat was empty, a glass on the side table half-full. Maria had intended to suggest that he visit his older brother in Poland, with whom he was close and with whom he occasionally hunted. She had intended that Helge go away.