Page 63 of The Shadow Friends

“Go on.”

“First, about this fellow Jon Marcus, who pulled you out of the fire. You described him as early forties, six feet plus, brown hair, blue eyes . . .”

“That’s right. Is he really Agency?”

“When I asked my source about Marcus, I got their classic Glomar response.”

“Ah. ‘I can neither confirm nor deny.’”

“That’s about what he said.”

“Which means Marcus probably is Agency.”

“That’s my take as well. I think Jon Marcus is just a cover name, because we can’t find anything on him.”

“You said we’d need more than vodka for this.”

“Right. Here’s where it gets interesting.”

“That doesn’t sound good.”

“You know those two names you gave us, Dmitry Surikov and Willem Dekker? That combination turned out to be the magic key. Ben reached out to a friend at Langley who used to be one of the tech whiz kids. But time marches on, and now this guy’s closing in on retirement. He’s royally pissed about the Agency’s new policies. All the layoffs and loyalty tests, all the directives to play nice with Moscow. When he heard we already knew about Surikov, he told us to run the names Surikov and Dekker, along with the Amsterdam address, through the Tor and Kilos search engines because we might find a little surprise. So we did, and up popped a website that Ben’s friend has been quietly monitoring. Strictly speaking, he didn’t actually reveal the site to us; he just told us how to go about finding it. His secret little act of rebellion before he retires.”

“This site is on the dark web?”

“Yes. It doesn’t contain much, just a series of names, addresses, and photos. There are eight individuals listed on the site. Six of them are now dead.”

“A kill list?”

“That’s what it looks like. It appears Moscow is using the site to put out death contracts. Their own operatives have had a few spectacular failures lately, resulting in a lot of bad publicity. But if a contractor does it, no matter how sloppy the job, who’s to know the kill was ordered by Moscow?”

“You said Ben’s source at Langley is quietly monitoring this kill list. Am I to conclude he doesn’t trust his own colleagues with this info?”

“Kudos to the great Maggie Bird. You’ve read the situation correctly. He knows they have a mole in the Agency, someone who’s been exposing defectors to the Russians. I suspect the Agency already knows who this mole is, and they just haven’t acted on it yet. But they are monitoring the kill list, and proactively pulling the targets to safety. The question is, how does Ingrid fit into all this?”

“I think we can answer that. Partly, at least,” said Maggie. “Lloyd thinks she was assigned to handle Surikov when he defected in Naples. Maybe that’s what Ingrid was doing here in Amsterdam. She saw Surikov’s photo and realized he’d been exposed and needed protection.”

“Why not tell us that?” said Declan. “Why keep it a secret? It makes you wonder what we’re missing.”

“And Dr. Maslov? I assume his name was also on this kill list?” Maggie asked.

“No. It wasn’t.”

She paused. “Well, that’s not what I expected.”

“Maslov was different. First, he wasn’t just a defector in hiding; he was a continuing thorn in Moscow’s side, speaking publicly about their bioweapons program. Second, his murder happened on US soil, which isn’t easily accessed by Vory. We think Moscow assigned one of their own operatives to kill Maslov, someone who was already placed in the US. Right now, I’m sure Langley’s doing a deep dive into Ingrid’s past, and you can understand why. She was in Purity when Maslov and Karen O’Brien were murdered. Then someone sends her Surikov’s photo, and off she goes, to Amsterdam. You know they have to be thinking . . .”

“That Ingrid’s the killer.”

“This is insane!” blurted out Lloyd. “The Agency can’t seriously be thinking that!”

Maggie looked at Lloyd, who was flushed and agitated at the mere suggestion his wife might be a traitor. She held up her hand to silence him. Said, into the phone, “Declan, you said there were eight defectors on that kill list and six are now dead. Who else is still alive, besides Dmitry Surikov?”

“A woman named Zoya Larina.”

“Her current address and cover name?”

“Cover name is Beatriz Guerrero, and she lives in Madrid. I’m sending you the info now. If the pattern holds up, that’s where Ingrid will head next.”