The Innocents Club. Taylor Smith
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position. The press release announcing his appointment had said Geist was an eighteen-year veteran of the agency who’d served in a variety of positions, mostly in the Middle East. Only eighteen years, Mariah reflected—a relatively meteoric rise in a bureaucracy as large and byzantine as the CIA. It was safe to assume the man was both ambitious and ruthless.
“We have no mandate for operations on domestic soil,” she said, pointing out the obvious. Was that why she was here? So he could keep his hands technically clean by using a non-Ops employee for whatever scheme he was brewing?
“Who said anything about an operation? I’m talking observation. Simply keeping an eye on Company interests. The FBI’s worried about Russian moles and organized crime. Fair enough, but we’ve got bigger fish to fry. Zakharov’s making a big push for the presidency. He’s probably going to be the next man with his finger on the Russian arsenal. It’s not much direct threat to us these days, but the Russians have plenty of potential for mischief. You, of all people, are well aware of that, Mariah. Why, just the level of their arms shipments to sleazy customers is enough to turn my hair gray.”
She was tempted to point out that the Russians would have to quadruple their activity to begin to approach the level of American arms sales abroad, nor were U.S. clients any less unsavory, on the whole. But she let it slide. Her job was to monitor the other team, not her own. In any case, she was curious to know where this conversation was heading. Curious, and more than a little uneasy.
“Zakharov is a thug, but if he’s going to take over Russia, he’s going to be our thug,” Geist said. “We’re already working to ensure he’s in our pocket, but to be on the safe side, I’d like a little extra insurance. A reliable source in his inner circle would make me very happy.”
A source in Zakharov’s inner circle? That sounded suspiciously like co-opting a foreign agent—a covert operation if ever there was one. Mariah waited for the other shoe to drop. It didn’t take long.
“That’s why you’re going to attend the Romanov opening,” Geist said.
Bang. Just what she’d been afraid he was going to say. “Excuse me, sir—”
“Call me Jack.”
“—this doesn’t make any sense,” she went on, ignoring the invitation to familiarity, which, she suspected, could only breed contempt. “If you’re planning to mount a recruitment operation, you should send someone from your side of the shop with experience in this kind of thing.”
“I understand you’ve done some work for us in the past.”
Much to my everlasting regret. “Nothing of this order of magnitude,” she said. “I wouldn’t know where to begin identifying a susceptible target.”
“Ah, well! That’s the beauty of it, you see. The target has already identified himself. Someone you know. Yuri Belenko, Zakharov’s executive assistant.”
“Belenko? Really? I have met him,” she conceded.
“Twice in the last year, if I’m correctly informed. First, at last fall’s U.N. General Assembly session in New York. Then again in March, at the European security conference in Paris.”
She nodded. “I was seconded to the State Department to work with their disarmament delegation, but—”
Geist leaned forward, elbows on his knees, fixing her once more with that intense, thousand-yard stare. “Tell me about Belenko, Mariah.”
“I filed contact reports both times I met with him.” It sounded defensive, she knew, but what did Geist think had gone on between her and the Russian?
“I know you did, but I want to hear it from you. What’s he like?”
“He’s…nice,” she ventured, wincing internally. Oh, that’s brilliant, Mariah. What a wonderfully insightful analysis. She tried again. “Intelligent and personable. Well-educated, well-traveled. Forty-three. Divorced, apparently. Speaks excellent, idiomatic American English of the kind taught in KGB training courses—which we happen to know was his original stomping ground. We have to presume he still represents the FSB.”
“Personal quirks?”
“I’m not sure I know of any—unless you count the fact that he’s an avid collector of proverbs and American slang. It’s quite the running joke.”
“Proverbs, eh? What else does he collect?”
Mariah frowned. “I don’t follow your—Oh! Right. Well, yes, he is a bit of a ladies’ man, I suppose.”
“You suppose?”
“As I said, he can be charming, and he tends to turn it on around women.”
“Especially you.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I’m led to believe that our man Yuri’s somewhat smitten with you, Mariah. Is that true?”
“What are you suggesting?”
“I’m not suggesting anything. I’m just waiting to hear what you have to report.”
“There’s nothing to report,” she said. “Look, I don’t know what you’ve heard from your watchers, but there’s nothing between me and Belenko. The idea’s ridiculous, not least because I lost my husband a year and a half ago, and my hands are full doing my job here and raising a teenage daughter. I’m hardly in a position or mood to carry on a wild social life with the likes of Yuri Belenko or anyone else.”
“You do get around, though.”
“How do you mean?”
Geist sat back and studied her for a moment. Then he got to his feet, walked back to his desk and reached for one of the files he’d been reading when she walked in. With-drawing a piece of paper, he returned and stood over her, holding it up.
Mariah’s heart sank. It was a photocopy of a Washington Post article that had appeared a few weeks earlier. The photograph accompanying the piece hadn’t copied well, but she knew exactly who the two shadowy figures in it were.
“For someone who claims to be out of commission, you do lead a high-profile life,” Geist said. He turned the article back toward himself. “The National Press Club awards. My, my! And there you are, recognizable enough, even though this is a lousy copy, gracing the arm of one of our top TV newscasters.”
“Paul Chaney’s an old friend of my husband’s. And mine,” she conceded, realizing it was stupid to pretend otherwise, despite her own ambivalence on the subject. “He was getting an award that night. He needed a date and I went along as a favor.”
“This article’s not about Chaney, though, is it? It’s about you. And your father. There’ve been a couple of others since this one, too.”
“Unfortunately.” She exhaled heavily. “Look, the whole thing was an accident. Some reporter found out I was Ben Bolt’s daughter and latched onto a rumor that an unpublished novel of his had been found.”
She should never have gone to that dinner. Not for the first time, she cursed Paul for letting slip the information about her father and his papers. Not for the first time, either, she wondered whether his gaffe had been as accidental as he kept claiming.
“Your late father’s considered to be one of the biggies of American lit, I guess.” Geist pursed his lips and shrugged. “Not surprising news like that would create a stir.”
“I suppose, but I certainly never intended to get caught at the center of a controversy.”
“So? Is there a novel?”
She shrugged. “There’s a draft manuscript and some journals that showed up in an old storage locker. My father’s agent is wading through the mess now, trying to see whether it adds up to much. I’m planning to see him next week to discuss what, if anything, we should do with it. In any case,” she added, “that’s all beside the point.