She hadn’t seen her father this nervous since—when? Probably not since the first summer after the divorce, when he tried so hard to make that ugly apartment in Fairfax feel like a home. He’d gone to the trouble of painting her bedroom purple, and buying a bunk bed, and decorating the walls with posters of Whitney Houston and Jonathan Taylor Thomas. He let her have ice cream every night and watch as much TV as she wanted. Amanda, despite being only eight years old, wasn’t fooled. That summer was when she began feeling strangely protective of her father.
That night he was banging around the kitchen, narrating each action: “Oh, good, there’s butter, I couldn’t remember if I was out of butter, but right, right, I just went to the grocery store on Sunday, butter was on special.” He asked her questions, but Amanda kept her responses terse, determined to smoke him out. Ever since his remark in the car, about Osmond Brown, her guard had been up.
When dinner was ready, they sat down at the kitchen counter, side by side on two stools. Charlie sliced into his steak and nodded. “Phew,” he said. “I was worried it might be overdone. Although I forget, I always forget, what are you, more of a well-done girl? You know your mother, she’s very sophisticated, but that was the one thing she couldn’t abide. Rare meat. She always liked it well done.”
“It’s fine, Dad.”
“Oh, good. Well, good. Good.”
But he didn’t seem to have much of an appetite. Finally, after a heavy silence, Charlie set down his fork. “So.” He clasped his hands like a white-knuckled prayer. “So. Amanda. The reason I wanted to talk to you. I got a call the other night from a woman named Jennifer Navarro. She is—she was—Senator Vogel’s chief of staff.”
Amanda, taking a bite of steak, froze mid-chew.
“She asked to meet me,” Charlie continued. “Yesterday, at the Grant Memorial. A couple of days after Senator Vogel died, she was cleaning out his office. There was a folder with some papers she didn’t recognize. The last piece of paper had my name on it. Honey, look. The elephant in the room. Let’s just say it. Bob Vogel didn’t die from a stroke.”
She cleared her throat. “Is this just, um, a…”
“The papers made it obvious. Jenny said they were in sync on everything, but she had no idea about this. If he kept it a secret from her, it’s obviously important. And the people mentioned in these papers—well, they’re people who can be dangerous to piss off. And then Vogel just happens to keel over from a stroke while working on this? No. I don’t buy that.”
Were it anyone else, Amanda would have feigned skepticism. Yeah, but. Would have gone for jovial dissuasion. He was an old man! You’ve been watching too many movies. But this was her father, a former clandestine officer, and what had he just said? Dangerous to piss off?
He knew something; she wanted to know that something, too. So she said, mildly: “Yeah. I guess I could see that.”
Charlie turned to her. “That’s it? I’m surprised you don’t want to know what was in the papers. Especially given your involvement.”
All night, something had felt off. She’d wondered whether she was reading too much into his nervous demeanor. But now? The only people in the world who knew about Semonov’s warning were Amanda, Osmond, and Gasko. Her heart beat harder. “Um,” she said. “My involvement?”
“Your promotion. Honey, I can put two and two together. You’d told me Osmond wasn’t planning to retire. So, obviously, there was a reason he left. I won’t pretend to know exactly what happened, but I know it had something to do with Bob Vogel.”
“Dad, I really… I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“And I was glad to hear about your promotion. Not just because I’m proud of you—and I am proud of you, honey, I hope you know that—but because it also makes this… I won’t say simpler. Definitely not simpler. But more feasible.” Charlie was growing calmer. He seemed to be gaining in confidence. “And please, sweetheart. There’s no need to look at me like that.”
“Like…?”
“Like you’re so surprised I still understand these things.”
She blinked dumbly. This job required you to lie, even to the people you loved, especially to the people you loved. She knew that, and he knew that, and, oddly, this was why their relationship had strengthened in past years: there was an understanding of the limits. He’d seen through her previous evasions, surely he had, but he had never before been so unkind as to point them out.
Charlie stood up and walked across the kitchen. He opened the drawer next to the stove, withdrew the manila folder, and slid it across the counter to Amanda.
“Dad,” she said. “What’s going on?”
“The information in there is what got Bob Vogel killed.”
“But why are…” Her mind was whirring. Konstantin Semonov walks into the embassy with a warning. Five days later, her father hands her a folder taken from the desk of the dead man. Was it some kind of trap? “Dad. What do you have to do with this?”
“Nothing.”
“But that doesn’t make any sense.”
“Take a look.” He tapped the folder. “You’ll see what I mean.”
For a second, she hesitated. But who was she kidding? She shoved aside her half-eaten dinner and opened the folder. Links to Moscow. Fuck. Gruzdev. Fuck fuck. She flipped the pages faster. This was bad. Well, also, it was good. Because, right away, it was obvious how these papers might fit together with Semonov’s story. When she got to the end, to the piece of paper with his name on it, she shook her head. “Obviously you have something to do with this. So, what? Were you talking to Vogel about this?”
His mouth twitched toward a smile. “I’m flattered you think I’m still privy to this kind of thing. I’m just a PR flak. You know that.”
“Well, yeah, but you could be lying about that.”
The smile vanished.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” she insisted. “There’s some reason your name is in there.”
Charlie closed his eyes and rubbed his temple. Oh, I’m sorry, she thought, irritation curdling in her chest. Are you tired? Is this stressing you out? You started it, you jerk! “Dad,” she snapped. “Come on! Just tell me. You’re making this worse.”
“There are things I’m not proud of,” he said. “Things I would rather leave unsaid. But it’s… It has nothing to do with this. Algorithms? Meme stocks? Amanda. Can you really imagine me understanding any of this stuff? Look. I’m not going to stand in the way. Whatever Vogel was uncovering, I want it to continue. I want there to be justice. I’m only asking that you leave me out of it.”
“This doesn’t make any sense.”
“Can I see that?” He plucked the last piece of paper from the folder. Then he stood up, walked over to the stove, and turned the burner on. He held the paper to the flame, where it twisted and curled. When the flames had nearly reached his fingertips, he dropped the remaining fragments in the sink. He turned back to Amanda. “I’m retiring next year. I just want to make it to the end. Then I’ll be gone. It won’t matter anymore. So. I’m only asking that you leave me out of it.”
“I still don’t understand.”
But he just shook his head wearily, as if explaining himself any further would require energy he didn’t have. If this was his exhausted appeal to her tenderness, a plea to take pity on her old man, then it wasn’t working. If anything, she felt herself recoiling. Yes, it was true. Her love for her father had sometimes verged on pity. But now? If he asked for her pity, but refused to tell her the truth—then why on earth did he deserve it? “So, what?” she said caustically. “There’s some deep, dark secret you don’t want anyone to find out. So then what was even the point of showing me that piece of paper? If you’re going to ask me to leave you out of it. Why even mention it?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“I don’t know. I thought it should be up to you.”
She laughed, disbelieving. “Yeah, except you just lit it on fire.”
“Well, you could still tell Gasko what you just saw. You could tell him exactly what I just did. Including asking you what I’ve asked you to do. Including burning that piece of paper. It’s up to you, Amanda.”
Heat rising in her cheeks, she looked down at the papers. In places the spidery scrawl was hard to decipher. Vogel had never intended for anyone to see this. Amanda felt a sudden desire to be alone with these notes, to start piecing them together without this hovering extra presence of her father. She couldn’t think straight. She had to get out of here. (Thank God she was staying with Georgia.) She drew a deep breath and closed the folder. “Okay,” she said. “Well. Fine. If you want to be recused from this, I guess we should stop talking about it.”
In the taxi back into the city, she considered it. Charlie would only ask Amanda to do this if he had something seriously bad to hide. But what he was asking her to do was a big fucking deal. The choice would come down to this: compromise him or compromise herself. How did he not see the impossibility of that position? Or did he see it, and he just didn’t give a shit? Did he see it, and he was simply banking on her filial obedience?
The Vogels lived at the corner of Park Avenue and Seventy-First Street. The penthouse, as well as its contents, was a testament to the financial success Bob Vogel had enjoyed before entering politics. The living room alone had a Picasso above the fireplace, a Degas figure on the credenza, a Rembrandt sketch near the bookshelf. He hadn’t cared much about the art per se. Mostly he’d enjoyed the reminder of how far he had come from his one-room-apartment childhood in Queens.
The family had done a private service earlier that morning. In the coming weeks, there would be the requisite memorial service, the military salutes, the flag-draped casket in Washington National Cathedral. This gathering, high up in the Vogel penthouse, was for just a few dozen people, close friends and Senate colleagues, and the occasional luminary like John Gasko. Amanda was most definitely not invited, but Gasko had insisted she come along. She’d taken an early Amtrak up from D.C., nursing a hangover with bad coffee from the café car, deeply regretting her decision to have that extra martini with Georgia at the Hay-Adams the night before.
Gasko was waiting for her in the lobby. “Ready?” he asked. “Good. Let’s go.”
They rode the elevator to the top, which opened directly into the apartment. A waiter whisked over, offering glasses of white wine. A second waiter followed with a tray of tiny cucumber sandwiches. In the living room, Gasko quickly spotted Diane. “Stay here,” he said. “I’ll go ask if we can speak to her in private.”
They talked for a minute, then he turned and nodded at Amanda. Diane nodded in return. Amanda followed them down a hallway to a small book-lined study.
The space was almost unbearably intimate, borderline claustrophobic. Amanda and Gasko squeezed together on the love seat. On the end table, within easy reach of Diane’s armchair, sat an old-fashioned landline with a spiral cord. Next to it was an address book, a notepad covered with copperplate script (nothing like her husband’s scrawl), a pair of reading glasses, a half-drunk cup of tea. Entering this room was like stepping behind the penthouse’s pristine stage set. This was where actual life happened.
“So,” Diane said to Director Gasko. “You have something to tell me?”
“This isn’t easy to say, Mrs. Vogel, but I want to get right to the point. We have reason to believe Senator Vogel didn’t die of a stroke.”
She blinked at Gasko, once, then twice.
“More specifically,” he continued, “we have intelligence suggesting that Russian operatives in Cairo administered a lethal chemical agent, which caused symptoms that are designed to mimic those of a stroke. We are reasonably certain this was an assassination.”
She was silent for a while. Then she said: “That makes sense.”
Gasko cocked his head. “It does?”
“I knew it wasn’t a stroke,” Diane said. “It couldn’t be a stroke. Just the other week Bob had his physical, and the doctor said he would live another twenty years. You know he quit smoking? He hasn’t touched cigarettes in years. He had that scare, and then he turned everything around, and now he is, or he was, healthier than ever. Not that you’d know it from reading the newspapers. Poor health. Bad lungs. Bad heart. Good grief. You’d think at least one of those reporters would check their facts.”
Gasko nodded sympathetically. “I see. So, Amanda,” he prompted. “How about you tell Mrs. Vogel what’s going to happen next.”
(They had rehearsed what to say, and what to leave out. It was delicate.)
Amanda offered a redacted version of the last week’s events, the timeline left vague at Gasko’s behest. “So, we learned from our source that there were GRU operatives in Cairo at the same time as Senator Vogel,” Amanda explained. “But our source has limited access. He doesn’t know why the GRU was targeting the senator. And this is where we’re hoping you might be able to help us, Mrs. Vogel. Why the Russians would target him. Does anything come to mind?”
Diane shook her head, but before she did, there was the slightest pause.
“You’re sure?” Amanda pressed. “Even the smallest thing. Even if it’s just a suspicion, a hunch. It could be helpful to us. You were closer to him than anyone in the world.”
“Yes,” Diane said crisply. “Yes, Amanda, I am sure. And I don’t particularly like the implication of what you’re saying.”
“Of course. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to suggest that.”
Diane offered a cool smile. “I’m sure you didn’t.”
Gasko stood up and buttoned his suit jacket. “We’ve kept you long enough, Mrs. Vogel. Let’s let you get back to your guests.”
While Gasko mingled (“Ah, the distinguished senator from Florida,” he said. “Excuse me while I go remind him of the budget currently atrophying on his desk.”) Amanda scanned the room. There she was, standing by the buffet, recognizable from the picture in the Politico profile. Walking across the room, Amanda nodded at the people she passed, conveying vague sympathy, hoping it tricked them into thinking they knew her. With her resolutely dull wardrobe, she tended to blend into this kind of Northeast Corridor crowd. At the buffet, she selected a crostini with cherry tomatoes. The woman next to her was staring vacantly at the crudité. Quietly, Amanda said: “Jennifer Navarro?”
Jenny startled. Then squinted. “Do I know you?”
“My name is Amanda. I was hoping to talk to you about the papers you found on Senator Vogel’s desk. Maybe somewhere more… private.”
Briefly, terror rearranged Jenny’s features. “It’s okay,” Amanda said reassuringly, touching her on the arm. A gift of her small stature was that no one was ever that scared of a woman who stood five feet, two inches. “I’m from Langley. I’m working with Charlie Cole. You did the right thing, by the way. I just wanted to ask a few questions. Standard procedure.”
This appeared to calm her down. When Amanda suggested they take a walk, Jenny said: “Yeah. Okay. Actually, I’m kind of dying to get out of here.”
Had he known what Amanda was about to do, Gasko would have been furious. But he was too busy working the room to notice her absence. “Nice evening, isn’t it?” Amanda said, as they strolled toward Central Park. “The weather, I mean. Much less muggy than D.C. Let’s go in this way. We can find a place to sit.”
In the park, they found a bench on the Mall. Jenny looked around at the hectic panorama, the tourists with their selfie sticks, drummers and saxophone players with money-filled hats, rollerbladers weaving through pylons. “You don’t want to find somewhere a little quieter?”
“This is good,” Amanda said. “So. Jennifer. Or do you prefer Jenny?”
“Oh. I guess… Jenny, I guess.”
“Great. Jenny. As I was saying, I’m glad you called. That was the right thing to do. Senator Vogel was working on something important. We’re going to make sure that work continues. What I’m hoping is that you’ll agree to do the same thing Senator Vogel was doing, and keep this quiet.”
“Yeah. I mean, of course. I’m not going to tell anybody.” Jenny shook her head. “It still kind of hurts, though. I thought he trusted me.”
“This didn’t have anything to do with trust.”
Jenny frowned, not seeming to buy it. If she had one shortcoming, Amanda thought, it was the pride she took in her own integrity. The idea that Vogel might have doubted that integrity was clearly torturing her. And so, rationalizing that this was the kindest path forward (although, yes, it was also the path that was going to get her what she wanted), Amanda said: “It wasn’t trust. It was to keep you safe. I’m going to tell you something I’m not technically supposed to tell you. Senator Vogel didn’t die of a stroke.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean he was assassinated by Russian operatives. For reasons that have to do with those papers you found.”
“You’re kidding, right? Wait. You’re not kidding? But that’s… that’s not the kind of thing that actually happens, is it?”
“I’m afraid it is.”
Jenny blinked at her, mute with shock. This was always the least pleasant part of the job. The Grim Reaper in Talbots: that was what Amanda felt like. When Jenny finally gathered herself, drawing a deep breath, she said: “Does Diane know?”
“About the assassination? Yes. But not about the papers you found. The less she knows, the safer she’ll be. The same goes for you. That’s what I wanted to say. That’s why I would suggest, I would strongly suggest, that you don’t talk to anyone about what you found. We can leave you out of this entirely. No one needs to know that those papers came from you.”
“But you know they came from me.”
“Well, yes.”
“And obviously Charlie Cole knows they came from me.”
“Yes.”
“But how do I…” Jenny shook her head, trying to compose herself. It was impressive, her determination to think clearly while in the grips of an entirely rational fear. “I’m sorry. No offense. But how do I know I can trust you guys?”
“Well, how about this. I haven’t yet told you my full name. It’s Amanda Cole.” She paused. “Charlie Cole is my father.”
“What?”
“Charlie Cole is my father,” she repeated. “I’m not sure what he led you to believe. Maybe that he was Senator Vogel’s source for this intelligence. But that’s not the case. The truth is that Charlie is hiding something. He may not be involved directly in this scheme, but he’s worried about something coming out. He gave me those papers on the condition that I leave him out of it. Which is, obviously, completely stupid. He’s asking me to obstruct the investigation of a major assassination. He thought I would agree to it because I’m his daughter.”
“And that’s… I’m sorry, what does that have to do with trusting you?”
“Two reasons. One, our incentives are aligned. Just as much as you, I want to keep the origins of the folder as quiet as possible. And another thing. I’ve just handed you a very sensitive piece of information. So I know the truth about you, but you know the truth about me, too. You have something on me. Do you see?”
Jenny stared at her. Possibly she thought Amanda was spouting nonsense, but the longer she stared, the more it became clear that she could follow this logic. “Huh,” she finally said. “Wow. Okay. So did you agree to it, then?”
“I didn’t say anything, one way or the other.”
“So then what are you going to do?”
For some reason, this question surprised Amanda. She hadn’t really considered that there might be more than one path forward. She was struggling with what to say when Jenny added: “Well, in any case. It’s pretty fucked up that he’s putting you in that position.”
They were silent for a while.
“You know,” Jenny said. “You didn’t need to tell me that stuff about the assassination. I wouldn’t have told anyone about the papers anyway.”
“I thought you deserved the truth.”
“The truth.” Jenny sighed. “Yikes.”
Amanda cocked her head. “Would you rather have been left in the dark?”
“Honestly? Maybe. That’s probably inconceivable to someone like you.”
“Well, tell you what. In a few minutes, I’m going to stand up and walk away, and that’s it. Tomorrow I’m going back to D.C., and then, after that, I’m going back to where I came from. You’ll never see me again. You’ll never hear from me again. Nothing.”
“You promise?”
“I promise.”
“Well, good.” Jenny looked grim. “No offense.”