And Ariel Pryce would still end up dead.
Griffiths has probably learned all she’s going to learn; now it’s time to report it all up the chain of command. She places the necessary call.
“Sir, I’m sorry to wake you.”
“Oh please. You think I was asleep with this going on?”
“I’m not calling with good news.”
“No, I don’t imagine you would be.”
“The kidnapped man is now in the wind; he took great lengths to evade surveillance and disappear from the airport. He has a female accomplice, and their trail went very cold, very fast.”
“Professionally fast?”
“Looks that way. I’ve just been interviewing the wife in Seville, where we intercepted her after they fled Lisbon in the middle of the night. I’m confident that she doesn’t have anything to do with this.”
“And him?”
“There’s an old drug bust. A name change. Plus the army service and two years with us in the Agency. That employment history doesn’t necessarily make him dodgy, but it definitely does make him someone with the tactical training, the skill set, and the disposition to plan and execute a covert active measure.”
“Where was his army service?”
“Afghanistan.”
They both know that plenty of soldiers came home disillusioned from there.
“And for the Agency?”
“His only posting was in Serbia.”
“The Balkans, huh?”
The Balkans have been overrun with Russian operatives since World War II. It’s certainly possible that a CIA officer could have been turned by the SVR during a Belgrade posting.
“If this guy is just a solo operator who stumbled into a payday,” Griffiths says, “maybe we’d be inclined to simply hand our intel to the Bureau and say you’re welcome. But if this is an ongoing active measure by a hostile foreign entity? It’s dangerous as hell. It almost doesn’t even matter who’s responsible, that’s just a question of punishment, or retaliation, or whatever. But regardless of who’s behind this—even if no one is behind this—we now know that Wolfe can be extorted, because it just happened yesterday. Why won’t it happen again two weeks from now when he’s vice president? Or two years from now when he’s president?”
The deputy director sighs. These conclusions are hard to dispute. “So what do you recommend we do with her?”
Griffiths looks up again at the two-way mirror, at Ariel Pryce slumped in defeat and despair and utter exhaustion. Griffiths very well may be ordered to keep this woman in custody, or to abduct her for extraordinary rendition to an Eastern European black site, or even to kill her, right here, right now. What did Ariel just say? The truth has a steep price.
“I think we should let her go, see what she does. She has a kid to get home to, so she’s not going to simply disappear. She herself is not the foreign agent, if that’s what’s going on; she’s an innocent bystander. We’ll keep close tabs on her. That is, we’ll ask the FBI to.”
This conversation might end up in a case study, or congressional testimony, or as evidence in a criminal trial. Griffiths shouldn’t admit aloud that the CIA intends to conduct covert surveillance of an American citizen within US borders. That’s illegal. Though that’s exactly what’s going to happen.
“Within a few days,” she says, “we’ll learn a lot. I’m confident.”
“Maybe,” Farragut says, sounding unconvinced. “But maybe we can’t afford a few days.”
No, Griffiths thinks, maybe we can’t. But what’s the alternative?
Something new is now tickling her consciousness, but Griffiths can’t isolate it among the many theories jockeying for position in there, one after another surging to the forefront, only to be pushed aside … Something about paying a price for everything. Pryce mentioned this, when was it? A day and a half ago? She was talking about the costs of her old pampered life. Griffiths had been about to ask for specifics, but their conversation was interrupted by the ringing phone.
She looks again at Pryce through the glass, and wonders: What happened to you?
*
“Everything okay?”
John is gazing at the washed-out Spanish landscape, the olive groves spilling from the highway, the Sierra Nevada in the distance, snowcapped even in the middle of summer.
“Just tired.”
The driver lets her right hand fall off the wheel, reaches to take John’s, gives him a squeeze.
“Thank you so much,” she says. “I know you did it for me, and I know it was very hard. I hope you know how much I appreciate it.”
John tries to smile. He should feel better. He should feel great, speeding across Europe with someone he loves and two million euros in the trunk. Maybe it’s the sheer exhaustion; maybe it’s a physiological reaction to all the spent adrenaline; maybe it’s the inevitable letdown after momentous events. Or maybe it’s because despite everything, he’d actually gone ahead and fallen in love with Ariel Pryce, which wasn’t at all part of the plan, and now he’ll likely never see her again. How could he not be sad?
“Hey.” She still has one hand on the steering wheel, the other atop his. “Look at me.”
He does. She’s beautiful, always has been. For a long time he thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world.
“I love you,” she says.
“I love you too,” he answers.
CHAPTER 47
DAY 3. 12:51 P.M.
They are making their way through the crowded departures hall, Ariel clutching a new boarding pass for a new connecting flight, a new arrival time to New York, a new ETA to her house, her kid, her mom whom she just called from a pay phone to give a bare-bones update. Ariel still has seventeen hours of travel in front of her. If all goes well.
“When’s the last time you saw your sister-in-law?” Griffiths asks.
“I told you,” Ariel says without slowing her pace. “I only ever met Lucy once. At our wedding.”
“So you didn’t see her in Lisbon?”
The CIA officer is apparently going to make one last run at this. The security checkpoint is just a minute away.
“No.”
“And that wasn’t her at the wheel of the little white car? Whisking John away?”
“Come on.”
“Did you know that Lucy Reitwovski flew into Madrid a couple of weeks ago?”
“The Lisbon police told me that.”
“What is she doing in Spain?”
“I have no idea.”
“What are you doing in Spain? Why did this new husband of yours trick you into coming to Europe? Haven’t you asked yourself?”
Ariel’s mouth falls open in exasperation; she stops walking. She has no good answer, and no more energy even to say so.
“You don’t want to hear this, Ms. Pryce, but your husband is not who you think he is.”
Ariel shuts her eyes tight, fighting back the tears. “Even if that’s true, what am I supposed to do about that now? Seriously? What is it you want from me?”
Griffiths is extending her hand, and Ariel looks down. A business card.
“I want you to give me a call when you hear from him. If you hear from him.”
Ariel is not going to call this woman, ever, but there’s no harm in taking the card.