A Hostile State Adrian Magson (reading e books txt) 📖

to go comes sooner or later. And you’re the best I’ve worked with. It would be a waste.’ As endorsements went it was unvarnished and down-to-earth, but I figured he’d understand.

‘Thank you,’ he replied. ‘Don’t worry – I’m not done yet.’ He cleared his throat, then said, ‘Send Lindsay home, will you? We have work to do.’

FORTY-NINE

It was six a.m. when Special Agent Bill Warner unfolded himself from his car and walked into the apartment block where Carly Ledhoffen had her home. The air in the street felt suitably early-morning fresh and he shivered slightly. He nodded at three other agents on the door and stairs, and was surprised at how calm he felt at what he was about to do.

No law officer can feel great pleasure at arresting a spy discovered inside a government agency; it’s too close to home and too much of a threat to personal and national security. But Warner couldn’t help but feel a quiet satisfaction at being able to finish this. It set the seal on a career which had been long and dutiful, made up of successes and failures, like every other agent he knew. But this one at least made up for the number of cases he’d worked on that had ended in a blank sheet. However, that was the way the cookie rolled, as he was fond of telling his younger colleague Special Agent Charles Cahill.

Cahill was walking several paces behind him with a female colleague alongside him. They were content to allow Warner to go ahead and perform the knock, as it was known. Further back were a number of other agents sent to provide support and keep the press and any early onlookers away, their cars blocking the street at both ends.

Warner knew his job would not end here, in this high-end section of Woodley Park. There would be paperwork, procedures to go through and a host of careful briefings and reports to endure before this reached anything like a court of law. But that was much further down the line and he was happy to wait, to bide his time.

For now he was interested in getting Ledhoffen’s first statement, if any, which would open up the game, and making sure he had everything prepared so that some clever lawyer could not wipe the case off the board.

The air inside the apartment block smelled nice, faintly perfumed with what he thought of as class. The fact that his reason for being here rendered that description largely fake didn’t matter. He’d been in too many places where desperation and death had been long absorbed in the brickwork and seeped out at you the moment you walked through the door, invariably following you out as you left and taking a long time to dispel.

He wondered what Ledhoffen would say when she was told cousin Bradley Dalkin had rolled over on her and provided the proof needed that would nail her feet to the floor. She would undoubtedly lawyer-up, which would be interesting to see as it might prove whether she really did have as many close friends in Washington’s elite as she had claimed.

His bet was that most of them would run for the hills and want nothing to do with her. The sour taste of treachery was like that; it tested friendships and divided families. It would certainly send seismic ripples through the Intelligence community like no other. The CIA would be the one to suffer most, and he felt for the hard-working and proud Americans who worked there. It wasn’t their fault that they had harboured a traitor in their midst, but they were the ones who would have to live with that knowledge.

By the time Cahill and the female agent caught up with him he was leaning on the bell to Ledhoffen’s apartment. Seconds later the door opened and the woman herself appeared. She blinked owlishly in the light, looking as if she had been torn from a deep sleep. Her usually immaculate face, which he’d seen from many of the photographs sent to him by David Andrews, was devoid of make-up and looked a little puffy. But along with the faint look of query on her brow was a hint in her eyes of, what – realization?

Being woken at such an early hour when you figured life was yours to enjoy, with all the benefits you had acquired, probably did that to you, he decided wryly. Which was why early-morning arrests were chosen as the most effective by most law-enforcement agencies.

‘Miss Carly Ledhoffen?’ he asked politely, and held out his wallet and badge.

As he did so, he wondered if, along with giving away the locator information on the CIA asset to the Russian sleeper, Desayeva, this woman had also sent her the message which had led to Desayeva leaving her apartment and disappearing out of the country just before he and his colleagues had closed her avenue of escape.

If they could prove that, no way would she be able to claim innocence.

Ten minutes later the three Special Agents walked Ledhoffen out in handcuffs and led her along the path to one of the cars. They were watched in silence by the other agents in the street, their faces blank. Ledhoffen looked pale and drawn, stumbling a little with shock as she walked, and staring around as if unable to believe this was happening to her. She was placed in the rear alongside the female agent, who had stayed with her while she dressed in jogging pants and a loose top.

Nobody spoke, nobody showed any emotion. It was their job.

Minutes later they were gone, the street deserted of the agency cars and the atmosphere back to normal. Only a few moved curtains, disturbed by the sight and sound of so much low-level movement at this early hour, were evidence that anyone had seen them.

FIFTY

Talking to Lindsay proved to be a lot easier while we’d been on the move. Sitting across a lunch table from her in