Page 69 of The Shadow Friends

Again, the men glanced at each other. Again, it was a look of Should we or should we not trust her?

Declan tapped on the keyboard and highlighted a name on the attendee list: Rodrigo Estrada.

“Who’s that?” asked Jo.

“An old colleague of Ingrid’s. Thirty years ago, he was stationed in Paris, the same time she was there. Last week he was here, attending the conference, and he introduced himself.” With a few more keystrokes, Declan pulled up another page. On-screen was a web page with an accompanying photo of Estrada, a man with striking dark eyes and a handsome mane of black-and-silver hair.

“The Argus Company,” Jo read from the website. “What’s that?”

“A private intelligence firm,” said Ben. “Rodrigo Estrada is the CEO. We did a deep dive into Argus. Found out that the company is the registered owner of three aircraft. One of their planes is a Piper Seneca.”

Jo looked at Declan. “Like the plane that picked up Ingrid at Belfast airport? She went off to join this guy?”

“It appears so.”

Jo focused on the photo of Estrada. “Well, I can kind of see it.”

“See what?”

“He’s nothing to sneeze at.”

“Aside from his looks,” snapped Ben, “we think he’s pulled Ingrid into something connected to the Maslov assassination. We just don’t know what that connection is.”

“Ingrid could just tell you,” Jo pointed out. “She’s the one with all the answers.”

Ben nodded. “We just have to wait until she’s ready to share them.”

Chapter 26

Maggie

Wednesday

They sat at an outdoor table of a cervecería on Plaza de Agustín Lara, sipping sparkling water as they watched the apartment building across the street. It had been years since Maggie last visited Madrid, and she did not remember seeing this many tourists thronging the sidewalks, or so many shops hawking trinkets and tee shirts and paper-thin slices of jamón. The steady stream of people strolling past their table made Maggie and Lloyd feel comfortably anonymous as they picked at another platter of olives and cheese. This was not a grand plaza, certainly not as popular as the eternally crowded Plaza Mayor. Its major attraction was the historical marker dedicated to Mexican composer Agustín Lara, whom Maggie had never heard of until today. It was yet another gap in her knowledge. As she grew older, as she felt the years slip away, she realized there were so many facts she would never have time to learn, skills she would never master. Once, she could think: Someday I’ll pick up the guitar, or I’ll learn to speak Arabic. Now she’d come to accept that those things might never happen, that there were not enough years left in her lifetime.

But today, she’d learned who Agustín Lara was, and she’d discovered this plaza, where she and Lloyd had stationed themselves all afternoon, watching the building where Zoya Larina, now named Beatriz Guerrero, lived. It was just the sort of unremarkable residence you would choose if you were trying to keep a low profile, which Zoya had clearly been striving for. The modest ocher-colored building was like many others in the neighborhood, three stories high, with six apartments and balconies that featured wrought iron railings. On the first floor was a panadería, offering tempting-looking baked goods. In the apartments above, the smell of fresh bread would probably waft upstairs from the bakery, a lovely aroma to wake up to. Zoya/Beatriz lived in the second-floor unit at the corner of the building, and although they’d spied a dark-haired woman move past one of the windows, they could not catch a clear glimpse of her. From where they watched, she was nothing more than a featureless silhouette.

Like the woman herself.

Ben and Declan had been unable to find any details on Beatriz Guerrero, aside from the fact that a woman with her name had been living in this Madrid apartment for the past eight years. Prior to that, she’d left no footprints, digital or otherwise. She had no known prior address, no marital or occupational history. Her true past, like that of Willem Dekker, had been expunged from any records, and no wonder; those who betrayed Moscow were marked for death, often a painful one. Every assassination was a message to other Russian sleepers who might contemplate defection: Betray the motherland, and we will find you. We will punish you.

No wonder Zoya had cast off her old identity and now lived quietly under a new name, in a city where she could move freely among neighbors who had no idea who she really was, or had been.

“Why is she still there, in that apartment?” said Lloyd. “Someone should have warned her by now. We should warn her.”

“Two complete strangers walk in off the street and tell her she’s marked for death? How do you think she’ll react?”

He sighed. “Not well,” he conceded.

“No, we need to sit tight and watch what happens next. If we play our hand too soon, we could blow an ongoing operation.”

“It just feels so passive.” He fussed with his napkin. Took off his glasses, wiped them, and put them back on again. “I want to be doing something.”

“We are doing something. We’re gathering intelligence. Watching Beatriz to see where she goes, whom she meets.”

“What if someone tries to kill her while we’re watching? It wouldn’t be hard, you know. Fire a bullet through that window.”

“I don’t think that’s how they’ll do it. A sniper bullet is too painless, too anonymous. They want her to suffer. They want to make her an example, to warn anyone else who’s thinking about defecting. This death has to be hands on. A shove out a window. A slashed throat.” Maggie frowned at the apartment window. “Although I do wonder if we’re misreading the situation. Why hasn’t she been relocated? There’s something going on here, something we haven’t—”