City of Spies (36 page)

And Devin. His need to make up for his past had trapped him in their net, too.

God, she wanted a drink. She made herself look away from the menu over the counter of the ice-cream parlor. They probably didn't sell alcohol, but it was better not to entertain the option.

She dipped her head down, fighting the self-disgust threatening to smother her like an itchy wool blanket.

This life she had chosen, so like her mother's, led to death. But she could get out from under it, and so could Devin. Maybe if she showed him this file and talked to him rationally she could save him from this cynical life of lies.

She had to move, to get out into the fresh air, feel space around her. Pagan shoved the file back in the briefcase and made her way blindly toward the exit.

As she opened the door to the ice cream parlor, a familiar profile caught her eye.

Alaric Vogel was sitting in a dark corner, eating a cookie.

It was an almost ridiculous sight. Normally she would have thrown out a funny remark—something about how he could use some sweetening. But not today. If Vogel had someone following Lev, Pagan could only wish the East Germans luck. Let them deal with the Mossad.

She didn't nod or indicate she'd seen him. She pushed through the door and down the sidewalk, heading for a taxi stand. She needed to get back to the hotel room, to reread the file.

The taxi stand was right around the corner. She came around it and looked up to see Devin Black waiting for her. His face was dangerously blank.

“What have you been doing?” His voice was silky smooth.

Warning bells went off in her head at the sound of his voice. He knew very well what she'd been doing. Lev had said she was being followed. Turns out it was both Alaric Vogel and Devin.

“Are you checking up me?” she said.

“Are you secretly meeting with agents of foreign governments?” he said, imitating her indignant tone.

Trust had never been their strong suit.

“I need to talk to you,” she said.

“And this?” He snatched the briefcase out of her hand. “What's in here?”

She didn't bother to grab for it. He was far too strong, too dexterous to outmaneuver that way, and he needed to see the truth.

“It was a gift,” she said. “You should read it.”

Devin moved in close, his eyes like the ocean before a hurricane. “Who was that man?
What have you done?
”

“What had to be done,” she said. “It's for the best, you'll see.”

He stared at her thunderously as the car pulled up to the curb with Carlos driving. Devin walked over and jerked open the door. “Get in.”

His anger was understandable. He thought she'd betrayed him. But he'd understand once they talked.

The short ride back to the hotel took place in complete and ominous silence as Devin opened the briefcase and read the file. Devin probably didn't want to discuss it in front of Carlos. But as soon as they entered his suite, he threw the file down on the desk with a smack.

“That is a Mossad file. How long have you been working for them?”

All the blood drained from her face. It hadn't occurred to her he'd think she'd been a double agent all along. “I don't work for them,” she said quietly. “I never have. I didn't ask for the file. They gave it to me. Did you read it?”

He took a deep breath as if trying to remain calm. “Yes. I read it.”

She was having trouble staying steady herself. It was difficult to say the next words. “Then you know the CIA killed my mother.”

“No,” he said, looking at her very directly. “I don't know that. I only know that's what the Mossad wants you to think.”

Heat flashed through her. “A second set of ligature marks, Devin. No autopsy. No note. The CIA knew she was a traitor and wanted to make an example of her.”

“An example—to whom? Everyone thinks it was a suicide. It probably was a suicide! This whole file could be a lie, Pagan. At the very least it's been doctored.”

“But what if it isn't?” She got up and walked slowly over to stand within a foot of him. She wanted to take his hands, but they were on his hips, clenched in fists. “We can't work for people like this anymore, Devin. It's time to get out.”

He frowned at her. “You're already out, remember?”

“But you...” She put a hand up to his cheek. “You can't work for people who would do this—for murderers, for people willing to overlook war crimes...”

He flinched and took a step back. Her heart shrank as he did it. “What makes you think I can't?”

She stared at him, trying to see past the flat mask that had become his face. “Because it's wrong. We may not be as bad as the Nazis, but our governments are doing unspeakable things. You've got to get out before it's too late.”

“They'd never let me go,” he said. “Even if I wanted to.”

She couldn't quite believe what she was hearing. “You want to keep working for them? After all this?”

“The fact that the US and United Kingdom have their secret services do questionable things isn't news to me, Pagan. Governments have the right to defend themselves.” He moved in close to her, his face near hers, trying to persuade her. “It doesn't matter what you believe. They're going to keep doing it. Whether you like it or not. Whether I work for them or not.”

She nodded, swallowing hard. “But I don't have to be a part of it. And neither do you.”

He stepped away from her again, as if her nearness was unbearable. “And if I told you I wanted to keep working for them?”

She was speechless. Inside her, a safe warm place was breaking apart like the set on a movie shoot that was over. She'd spent many happy hours there, but the walls were hollow, the furniture fake. One swing of the sledgehammer, and it all came crashing down.

Devin paced away from her, his posture and voice crisp. All business. “Why would you meet with an Israeli agent in the first place?” As he said the words, his eyes widened with a realization. “You told them where we're keeping Von Albrecht, didn't you?”

“I...” She'd thought she could persuade him that, too, was for the best. But that possibility was fading fast. “Yes.”

His face had gone slightly gray. “You overheard me say the address. You've used me to get your revenge!”

He was taking this all wrong. She said, “No, no—don't you see? It wasn't revenge. It was justice!”

“I never should have let you overhear the address.” He rubbed a distracted hand through his hair, his eyes casting about as if he was lost. “But I trusted you.”

“I'm sorry,” she said. “But the CIA will never know it was me, or that I learned it from you. Not if you don't tell them.”

Ignoring her, he strode over to the phone, and gave the operator a number. “I need Pope,” he said into the phone. “It's Black. Seven-seven-four-four-three-two-three.”

He was going to warn Von Albrecht's keepers. She moved over to his side and put a hand on his arm. “Don't, please don't.”

Devin shrugged her hand off. She recoiled. He'd never pushed her away like that before.

“Pope, there's been a leak. Unfriendlies may know your location.” Devin would not, could not, look at her. “Either they've gotten better at tracking me, or I got worse at losing them. I didn't see them on my way there today, but as I left, I noticed a tail. Maybe the East Germans. They know to follow me because of Pagan Jones.” He paused. “Yes. I'll see you later.”

He'd fudged the truth, covering for her and himself. But still, he'd warned them. The CIA would get Von Albrecht to a different location as soon as possible.

Lev had said his people would move quickly. She'd have to hope it was quick enough. If the Mossad agents got to 35 Avenida Garibaldi soon, they might be able to follow wherever the CIA took Von Albrecht next.

But there wasn't anything more she could do about it. Forces were at work now that she couldn't control. Forces she had unleashed.

She moved closer to Devin, trying to get him to look at her. “You said yourself that as a spy you're forced to do things that aren't much better than what you did as a thief. You and I wanted redemption for our pasts, but the CIA and MI6 can't redeem us because they're beyond redemption themselves. Only we can save ourselves. That's why I went to the Mossad. That's why we have to leave.”

One hand still on the phone, Devin turned slowly to look at her. “You speak to me of redemption? You who lied to me and took my trust...” He stopped, struggling with something—anger, betrayal, sadness. “And still I covered for you. If I hadn't... My God, what were you thinking?”

“Justice,” she said. “For Von Albrecht's victims. That's what I was thinking. That's it. That's all.”

“If the CIA ever finds out what you've done, you could land in jail. For the rest of your life. Was it worth that risk to yourself, to me, to what we have?”

“There's no risk if you don't tell them about it,” she said. “And we can't let him get away with it, Devin. We can't let Von Albrecht off the hook.”

“We?” he said in a tone that reminded her of Alaric Vogel. “You did this, not I. Who are you to decide whether or not he gets away?”

Wrath edged out pain. How could he so quickly forget the evil Von Albrecht had done? “Don't play that card with me, Devin Black. I'm a human being with a conscience. That's all anyone needs to understand what justice is in this case. If Von Albrecht doesn't pay for what he's done, then all of this, everything that's happened—it's all been for nothing.”

Her anger seemed to cool him down. “It's not for nothing. You said it yourself. We stopped a bomb from going off in Berlin.”

“Yes, we did that. Hooray.” The words came fast and short. “But what about Emma? She's devastated. The death of her brother and those other boys, the deaths of those animals, of all the innocent people Von Albrecht tortured and murdered during the war. If we let him live a nice quiet life, what's the point of all of that? What's the point of anything?” She circled around him, as if trying to find a weakness in his armor. But there was none. “If we don't draw the line somewhere, the meaning of right and wrong disappears, and we all descend into hell. How is it you can't see that?”

“Because life is complicated!” His hands were open, palms up, almost pleading with her. “You used to value all life. You didn't want anyone to die. You know the Mossad won't kidnap Von Albrecht and put him on trial as they did with Eichmann. The US is their ally, and they won't embarrass us like that. No. They'll try to track him if we don't get him out of there fast enough. Then they'll wait for their moment. They'll kill him, quietly and in such a way that the CIA never suspects them. You've sentenced a man to death today.”

“Good,” she said, and she meant it. “I should have killed Von Albrecht when I had the chance. If I'd shot him at the docks, you would have shrugged and walked away. But I didn't pull the trigger because I thought you and your agencies would do the right thing. I thought making myself their instrument was enough. But they were too deeply flawed. I had to become my own instrument instead.”

“My God.” Devin's voice was low, almost a whisper. “I've turned you into a killer.”

“It isn't you.” She felt a thousand years old all of a sudden. Looking back on the Pagan Jones who had agreed to go on this adventure was like peering through the wrong end of a telescope. “I was so eager to please. I thought working for them would make me different than Mama. Instead, it began to turn me into her. I won't let that happen.”

“There's a difference between working for the Nazis and working for the CIA, and you know it,” he said.

“Yes,” she said curtly. “But the CIA killed my mother.”

His eyes on her were reddened, distant. “That file is not proof. You can't trust the Mossad, either.”

“Maybe not,” she said. “Maybe the CIA killed Mama or maybe she killed herself. Maybe it was the Mossad or maybe it was little green men from Mars. But the Israelis won't give Von Albrecht a cushy job in a bomb factory. So I gave him to them. I had to. I couldn't live with myself otherwise.”

“Well, so long as you can live with yourself, what does treason matter?” he said with vicious sarcasm. “You betrayed our trust, my trust!”

“And I trusted you. But governments and their creatures can't be trusted to do something simply because it's right.”

“Government creature?” he said slowly, his voice low and deadly. “Is that what you think of me?”

She looked him in the eye without flinching. It was killing her to say this to him, to feel this about him. “You work for the agency that may have killed my mother, that's happy to work hand in glove with a man like Von Albrecht. What else should I call you?”

“So not only do you betray my trust, but you think I'm as bad as a Nazi war criminal.” He was looking at her as if he'd never seen her before. “You know me better than that!”

“Do I?” she asked. “I came here today hoping to save you from living your life like this.”

“Give me, at least, the courtesy of finding my own redemption.” His voice was flat. All the life in it had been drained away. “You think you alone know what justice is.
This
is how the world works. Governments do shady deals to gain an advantage. Not every criminal is punished. Justice is not always done. But the world goes on.”

Some part of her wanted to recant everything she'd said, to tell him he was right, to go back to how things were so they could be happy together again. But she'd crossed a line somewhere. There was no going back.

She said, “If we don't punish people for torture and murder, what's to stop more people from doing it? What's to stop
us
from doing it?”

“You're one girl! You can't regulate the world's governments!” He was almost shouting, but he looked so troubled, so lost.