Leah Connolly was having a good quarter.
For starters, she was dating again. For a long while she’d been near celibate, because trying to find love in Silicon Valley was a nightmare of sorts, a market failure of inaccurate pricing and lopsided supply and demand. But after too long on her own she became miserable, not just in her own feelings, but also a more miserable person, and so she’d resolved to try. For her last date, she had met an Iranian named Dana at Evvia in Palo Alto; Dana had both paid and refrained from asking to share Leah’s galaktoboureko, upon which they’d returned to Dana’s, a cute three-bedroom cottage in Waverly Park. By the next morning, Leah was at her own apartment, where she microwaved a day-old cup of coffee before signing on to Navient and making her final $1,800 payment. Her four years at Georgetown now free and clear.
Hell, Leah thought, I’m having a good year.
Her professional streak had begun six months earlier. She’d been on a different squad then, financial crimes, on an insider trading case with some finance directors at a software company. The finance guys (and one woman) were “closers,” which meant they were responsible for the numbers reported to Wall Street each quarter. During this period they were barred from trading, but that didn’t mean there weren’t other methods of getting out the information. One of the directors, a mid-level controller, lived next door to a man named Reddy Sahib. Reddy was a real estate investor with properties in San Jose and Sacramento and an expensive lifestyle he buttressed through options trading.
“I’ve got tenants,” Reddy said in the interview room. Not even bothering to sit before talking, clearly shitting himself at the idea of prison. “I’ve got drug dealers in my buildings, I’ve got all kinds of criminals.”
“Oh yeah?” Leah had said. She paused. “What makes you think they’re criminals?”
He had caught himself then, stopped talking. Gauging her. As they both knew what he’d been about to say: because my tenants are Black; because they are Mexican; because they are undocumented, pay in cash; because they look “ghetto.” When she first started this job, there were few things that turned her off more—some quip about white extinction, and instantly Leah would categorize the person: fucking useless. But she’d since learned that racists could be savvy in other areas. They could even be intelligent—just one of the many inelegant, inconvenient aspects of her job.
She saw Reddy sneak a look at her complexion, technically a medium beige, NC35 at the MAC counter. Just a regular white lady with a tanning habit? Or something else? He made a decision. “I’ve got a guy. A white guy.”
“Oh, a white guy.” She made a jerk-off motion. “We don’t have any of those.”
“No, I’m serious. There’s something wrong with this one. He pays in cash, right? For my most expensive place. Each month, five thousand dollars. I ask him once, what does he do? You know what he says?”
“What,” Leah said, though she was already bored. People were always convinced their neighbors were secretly depraved. Mostly, she thought, because they hoped others believed interesting things about them.
“He’s a waiter. A waiter! You know who lives in my apartments? I got Google, Uber guys. Not drivers. Corporate. With RSUs. I don’t got waiters.”
“Okay, so he has rich parents.”
“No, no.” Reddy shook his head. “He don’t look the type.”
“What’s the type?” Leah asked, before deciding she didn’t care anyway. “Never mind. If that’s all you’ve got, a waiter who can live in one of your tacky apartments and pays his rent on time—”
“I promise!” Reddy had screamed. “I promise, there is something wrong! You don’t believe, but I know people. If you follow him you will see!”
“Fine,” Leah said. “We’ll take a look.” And then tossed him over to the SEC anyway.
It was something in Reddy’s agitation, Leah would later decide, that made her think of his tenant when she moved to the Russia squad; the distress in his eyes, the tenor and depth of his outrage. It certainly wasn’t what he said, because by now she’d met countless people who thought they “knew” human behavior—an unfortunate by-product of all those serial killer podcasts and shows on TV.
Now Leah was waiting. In a parking lot, in the shade, in the back corner of a strip mall that contained a Whole Foods and two exercise studios and a Starbucks. If you spent too long in certain Bay Area suburbs, it was easy to believe daily life was all variations of the same: hot yoga and overpriced prepared foods never more than a few miles away. Even though she’d spent her childhood in Mattapan—being walked to elementary school by a ten-year-old uncle, buying her breakfast at the bodega, waiting as the cashier made change behind bulletproof glass—sometimes now Leah was annoyed when she had to drink the shitty coffee, not the good kind. When the Pilates instructor was too hyper. That was how easy it was to get used to a nicer life. She thought about this as she sat half dozing in the car; it wasn’t her own but rather a gray Honda Odyssey, and in this lot there were at least four of the same color and model.
She watched the Whole Foods. Leah calculated the doors opened on average once per minute. A woman was leaving now, late thirties, with the brown splotch of a birthmark on her cheek. No style. Limp hair. Large eyes a little too wide-set. The woman carefully returned her shopping cart and then went and grabbed two others that had rolled off, pushing them into the row. Leah stared at her.
It was only when she was in her early twenties, just starting at the bureau, that Leah really discovered she loved women. Bad timing, because by her mid-twenties she hated them. Women being such deceitful, unpleasant creatures: giving their children to pornographers; blowing up their lives for the worst kinds of love; setting rapists free because it wasn’t their fault, not when bad women teased and taunted and made spectacles of themselves . . .
But still, they were usually better than the men.
The one she’d been waiting for came into view. Oblong shaped, pleasant-faced like a roadside daisy. Chester wasn’t his real name, but Leah still liked to call him that. He was the only Chester she knew. He slid open the door.
“So,” Leah said. She looked to confirm he’d shut the door, and then climbed from the front seat into the other captain’s chair in the back.
“Yeah,” Chester returned. He was in a similar getup as when she last saw him, a gray tee and black jeans.
“I’d like to ask you some questions.”
“You ask, I come, right? That is the deal.”
That was what Leah liked about the Chesters of the world: they knew the rules, how to behave when someone else held the leverage. She’d just happened to be following him when he parked in front of a UPS Store and spent what she considered an inordinate length of time inside. From the store’s footage, obtained via FISA warrant, he’d been scanning documents onto a USB stick, the papers later revealed as having been stolen from a components manufacturer. Pure dumb luck, because even though she’d decided to tail him that morning, she could have used those hours in a myriad of other ways, as the bureau didn’t possess nearly enough resources to manage surveillance on all their targets. Leah herself had over two hundred identified persons of interest operating in the Bay Area, and received dozens of tips a month. So when she’d been passed Sean’s name she hadn’t thought much, just another rich dick to pacify so that he didn’t go squalling off and making things difficult. She happened to have another errand in Berkeley that day, and missed Cheese Board, so thought: Why not?
But then that name: Jefferson Caine. Caine’s handler on the FBI end, Scott Seton, had been one of Leah’s instructors. He’d called after it happened, asking her to watch for the name. “He’d started talking to some of his old friends,” Scott said. “Even though I told him . . .” Leah said she was glad to assist, surprised to hear the unsteadiness in Scott’s voice before he thanked her and hung up.
Chester was calm, his breath steady. Some in his position couldn’t handle the pressure: they were swarmed by guilt, they had to spill, Poor me, my life is so complicated! Chester, however, was cool. Nerves of steel actually, given that his lazy tradecraft would certainly get him censured, if not detained in some nasty place like Lefortovo back home—but he accepted his exposure, continued to clock in at the Rosewood, no problems there. He was a low-level get, and he knew it: Leah had met with him only twice and his residence and person weren’t actively monitored. Their second rendezvous he’d even brought her some leftover mushroom flatbread. She’d thanked him and set the box in the back, thinking she should get it tested; by the end of their hour the aroma had gotten to her, and she’d ended up eating it all.
She was slightly disappointed he had brought her nothing today.
“I’d like to go over our situation so far, if that’s all right with you,” she said. As if he had a choice. “You’ve been working as an intelligence asset for the SPB in the United States for eight years. Prior to that, you were trained in Donetsk, on the edge of Ukraine.”
Nothing.
“You came over on a tourist visa and, through marriage to an American, Deborah Griffin, obtained citizenship.” Poor Deborah. In the beginning, there’d been the theory she was in on the deal. She was a real estate agent, specializing in Burlingame and Hillsborough, with wealthy clients. She’d been innocent, though, had apparently truly married Chester for love, wringing from him three torrid years before he abruptly dropped her. Based on her emails, Deborah still held hopes for a reconciliation; occasionally she messaged, asking if they could meet, did he need anything, a home-cooked meal, some money, honey?
He smirked. “Yes.”
“You communicate on a regular schedule with your handlers.”
“With the account,” Chester corrected.
“Oh, right. The account.” This useless “account” he claimed: some generic email address Chester supposedly received orders from and sent intelligence to, with no other communication, as if he were sticking little scrolls into glass bottles and shoving them out to sea. Normally Leah would press but she wanted to keep the conversation light, flowing. “And what have the requests been lately, from this account?”
“The usual.” He bit a loose piece of nail off his thumb. “To observe in my job, identify those easy to compromise.”
“And how do you identify who is easy to compromise?”
“I listen to conversations. What they speak of, if they are interested to have more power or money. Who is having an argument, who is there with their mistress. Or mistresses. You know. Sometimes, the men, they like to bring two.”
She knew he was trying to disgust her. “And how often do candidates crop up?”
“Every day,” Chester said evenly.
Silicon Valley, Leah thought. You’re going to destroy us all. She checked the clock: twenty minutes until the end of the hour. Reaching into her bag, she removed a Givenchy lipstick. She took her time applying, checking her accuracy in the cap’s small mirror. “And what,” she asked, still staring at her reflection, “do you know about the Golden Hand Spa?”
She’d surprised him, she noted. “What’s that? Hand Spa? I don’t know. Sounds like a massage place, yes?”
“So you think it’s just massages there?”
“Are you a client? Perhaps you could tell me.”
Leah groaned. “We know you own it. Or that your name is listed as an investor.”
“If you already know, why are you asking?”
“I was wondering how forthright you’d be. And I have to say: not an encouraging response, Chester.”
They sat in companionable silence. Emerging from the store was either a young grandmother or an old mother—in the Bay Area, one had to be careful—leading two sisters; the girls had matching pigtails, their hair like bicycle handlebars.
“How long have you known about the spa?” Chester’s voice was unconcerned, but Leah knew the fact that he was asking meant that somewhere there was a worry.
“About a year.” She couldn’t have sat on the knowledge much longer—the place was trafficking too many girls, the ADA would have to move.
“Ah.” His face returned to its earlier blankness. “Your people, they’re watching?”
Why, was there something interesting? It would be almost comical, Leah thought, if Julia was meeting her handler at the Golden Hand—actually, it would be extremely funny, if not for a huge fuckup with their surveillance. They’d obtained a FISA for both video and sound, only to realize too late that the team had merely covered the little-utilized front entrance, next to a Panera Bread. Even now, when she considered the miss, Leah still raged.
Chester was watching her, his fingers stroking the underside of his seat. Leah decided now was the time, when he was distracted:
“Are there any SPB operations currently in play at Tangerine?”
Chester froze. For less than a second, but it was enough. “What’s this? Tangerine?”
“Yes, the company. Not the fruit, just to be clear.”
“Where did you hear this? Who tells you?”
“I didn’t know this was a conversation. I thought we had an agreement: I ask, you answer.”
“Huh.” He kicked his legs against the front seat. “I don’t hear anything.”
“About Tangerine at all? I don’t know, Chester, that seems like a miss. They’re a big company. It would almost be negligent not to target them.”
“A company. There are too many companies here. I don’t know such things.”
The van was becoming warm: multiples bodies, no open windows. Leah reached into the front seat for two bottles of sparkling water. “I think possibly you’ve been mistaken about the nature of our relationship,” she said, uncapping one. She offered Chester the other bottle, but he waved it away. “You believe we’re friends. Colleagues, maybe. You think that because you still have your job, because you operate with some freedom, because the FBI isn’t on your ass, I’m doing you a favor. Is that right?”
“You’re not doing me a favor. You know I am too small for you to care. You do not have, what do you call it, the manpower.”
That even Chester knew of their strained resources was painful. “You’re lying about Tangerine. I know, and you know. So now you’re going to tell me what you do know, otherwise I’m going to speak with the district attorney and have you charged.”
“You cannot do such a thing.”
“Uh, yeah I can.” What did he think, that she was a paralegal or something? “You’re a citizen now, aren’t you? That means the diplomatic processes aren’t in place, and I can do what I like. As I would with any petty burglar or carjacker. And you know what else? I can also put it out that you’ve turned, that you came in voluntarily. That you’ve become a believer in the American way, as it were. I’ll do it subtle. Send a message through some of our looser cables. Real storyteller style.”
For the first time she saw fear. Yes, that’s right, start sharing, or else you can say goodbye to the free flatbread, Reddy Sahib’s $5,000 apartment, random bangs with crumpled ex-wives at the Rosewood. Come clean, little Chester, otherwise I’ll put out the video of your idle ass in the UPS Store, and we’ll see what the SPB thinks about that . . . This was when people broke, it was coming, she could feel it—
Chester bent forward, elbows on knees. “I don’t know anything. You can do what you want.”
And then, furious, Leah told him to get out of the car; once he was gone, she went into Whole Foods and bought the first full-fat ice cream she saw, a single serving of strawberry. Opened it in her car, savoring it, but still watching the clock, as she had only a few minutes. Because there was always some other task waiting for her.