On the way to the Central Intelligence Agency in Langley, Virginia, I called Bree to tell her that the FBI had optioned my contract.
“Senator Walker’s case?”
“Can’t talk details.”
“The FBI’s gain and Metro’s loss,” she said. “Remember, the game’s tonight.”
“I haven’t forgotten,” I said. “I’ll meet you there.”
“Promise?”
“Absolutely.”
Bree paused, then said, “Got to go. The chief wants me in his office in ten minutes.”
Our connection died just as we pulled into the parking lot outside the CIA’s security facility, a rectangular block built of bulletproof glass next to two solid steel gates that rose out of the ground to prevent unauthorized vehicular access.
We presented our credentials. The guards seemed to have been alerted to our arrival beforehand because, with no further ado, one of them took our photographs, printed visitors’ badges with our faces on them, and clipped them to our jackets.
“Main entrance,” he said. “Wait in the lobby. Someone will meet you there.”
“Someone,” Mahoney said after we passed through screening devices and were walking toward the main building. “Do you think they always say that?”
“Makes sense.”
“I suppose.”
The wind picked up and blew granular snow at us, so we hustled to the entry. We entered a vaulted lobby with a large CIA seal set into the black-and-gray polished granite floor. We stood near the seal and watched as academic-looking folks in suits and others who were buff and more casually attired passed us.
“Analysts and operatives,” I murmured.
Before Ned could reply, a woman said, “Special Agent Mahoney? Dr. Cross?”
We turned to find a trim, unassuming brunette woman in her thirties wearing a frumpy blue pantsuit walking across the lobby to us. She squinted at us through nerd glasses perched on the end of her nose, and she did not extend her hand.
“Would you follow me, please?”
She didn’t wait for an answer but spun on her heel and marched off with us following close behind. We went down a long hallway, passing doors that had no identifiers. There were a lot of them, so I had no idea how she chose the right door to stop and use her key card on.
There was a soft click, and she turned the door handle and led us into a nondescript conference room with an empty table and chairs. She went around the table, took a seat, and folded her hands.
She squinted at us again. “What can I tell you about Kristina Varjan?”
That surprised me. I thought she’d been taking us to see the spy.
Mahoney’s eyebrows rose. “You’re the operative who spotted her this morning?”
“I am. You can call me Edith.”
“You look more like a soccer mom than a spy, Edith,” I said.
“That’s the point,” she said dismissively.
Mahoney said, “Tell us what we need to know to catch Varjan.”
“Catch her?” Edith said, and she laughed caustically. “Good luck with that, gentlemen. God knows I tried. Here’s what she gave me for my troubles.”
She took off her jacket and tugged a red sleeveless T-shirt off her left shoulder to reveal a nasty scar like interwoven spiderwebs below her collarbone.
Edith said she’d gotten the scar three years ago when the CIA began to suspect that Varjan had been responsible for the murder of two U.S. operatives in Istanbul. Edith’s assignment had been to lure Varjan in, subdue her, and see her brought to an interrogation facility in Eastern Europe.
“I found her, and I thought I had her cornered entering an apartment building near the Bosporus,” she said. “I was armed. She was not, or at least, not with a gun.”
Varjan surprised Edith and stabbed her repeatedly with a sharp pottery shard.
“I should have known better,” Edith said, shaking her head and crossing her arms. “Varjan’s an improviser. Invents weapons of the moment. Kills without hesitation.”
She told us that INS records showed that Varjan had entered the U.S. that morning on a Eurozone passport under the name Martina Rodoni, a woman born in the former Yugoslavia who was now a resident of Ljubljana, Slovenia. Her occupation was listed as “fashion consultant,” and she said she had come on business.
“Count on not finding her under that identity,” Edith said. “She’ll have shifted to another by now.”
“Then how do we figure out where she is?” I said. “And what she’s here to do?”
The CIA operative twisted her head to one side and pursed her lips a moment.
“I wish I could say I knew a habit of hers, a hotel chain she frequents or the kind of meals she likes to eat, but Varjan is a chameleon. She speaks eight languages and changes identity constantly. She knows it’s her best defense.”
“So we’ve got nothing to go on?” Mahoney said.
“Well, you could do what I did to find her.”
“And what was that?” I asked.
“Figure out who she’s here to kill and then lie in wait for her.”
I thought about that. “Does she ever target politicians?”
“Dr. Cross, Kristina Varjan will target anyone if the price is right.”