John Dale sat on the deck of his mountainside home, admiring his work. It was almost four thirty on Sunday afternoon and the sun was already low. Here on the eastern side of the Cascade Range, which roughly divided Washington State into wet and dry halves, the temperature was in the forties and the sky a crystalline blue. In the unfiltered sun it was almost warm.
He was leaning back in his Adirondack, enjoying a beer as he looked at his art, the product of the last several hours’ effort. The IPA, the chair, and the late-afternoon vista constituted something of a ritual whenever he finished a painting.
Some people even said he was pretty good. There were five of his paintings on display at the touristy watering hole over in Roslyn, a few miles up the road. A few more at the steak place in town. Three others had already sold for about five hundred bucks apiece at a little gallery in Ellensburg. One lady had asked him to sign an exhibit program when he visited. That was cool.
Dale had spent the cold, clear day near the top of the mountain ridge on which he lived. In the early-morning dark, he’d loaded up his portable easel, a small canvas, and his converted fishing tackle box full of oils into the cargo hatch of his snowmobile. He’d headed uphill on a well-groomed track in the dark, using his aging government-issue night-vision goggles to find the way around the mountain switchbacks.
Since the gray wolf population had been growing in this part of the Cascades, he’d also slung over his back his hunting rifle with its high-end thermal scope, another remnant of his former life. Having seen all manner of wolves, bears, and cougars in these mountains, he never set off into the backcountry unarmed. Especially in the dark.
His idea had been to try to get up early enough to capture the morning view of a big granite mountain across the valley called Peoh Point. In this stretch of clear winter weather, Peoh was majestic, revealing deep shadows and subtle snows that would glow pink in the morning light. Every morning the river valley at the monolith’s feet sent wisps of fog upward, where they evaporated to clear air as they reached the peak. By ten, the glowing veil would be gone.
But it had been crazy cold for plein air brushwork—colder than he’d ever attempted before. To fight against the freezing temperatures, he’d prepped his snowy painting site the day before with the fixings for a campfire and a portable heater powered by a propane tank big enough for a barbecue.
He finished his beer and set it down on the cedar planks of the deck, further admiring his work, thinking about what he had to do in his studio to finish it up. His outdoor speakers were playing an old country-western ballad full of slide guitar. With the sun sparking on the snowmelt, he considered this to be one hell of a fine moment. He wanted it to last.
And then his phone chirped, ensuring it wouldn’t.
Another text from Meredith, his ex. She’d announced on Friday that she needed to see him about something in person, and she wasn’t the type to be denied.
He hadn’t responded at first. She’d upped the ante by saying it was about their daughter. But Dale figured that was a ruse. He and Grace traded letters now and then. His daughter seemed fine, probably more stable than her parents.
Playing along, he’d asked Meredith to just call him so they could discuss it on the phone. Nope. Meredith had insisted it had to be in person. She was on her way out to Seattle one way or the other. She was like that.
Whatever this was all really about, Dale had been guessing that it wasn’t going to be good. Meredith, the trained covert-asset handler, liked to take on conflicts in person. Her superpower was reading people—more like seeing through bullshit with X-ray vision. She’d been Dale’s boss, his wife, the mother of his child, and now his ex. He’d been on the other side of that penetrating glare more than once.
He tipped a fresh bottle to his mouth, wishing her away.
Not much point to that. Seeing her one-way messages come steadily pulsing in as the sun went down was like receiving intelligence reports of an invading force. She’d left Dulles. She’d landed at SeaTac. She’d made it to the freeway. Soon she’d be getting close to the pass that held back the Pacific storms.
But it wouldn’t hold her back. He glanced at his chunky diver’s watch. About an hour out now. Shit.
Her arrival was extra vexing since it had forced Dale to break a date with a wealthy, just-divorced Seattle housewife who’d gotten the family’s fancy mountain vacation house as part of the settlement. She’d bought one of his paintings out of the touristy bar two weeks ago, and they’d been on a texting relationship ever since.
She’d hung the painting and invited Dale over to see it, along with other sundry hints. The hints had been escalating to the point that Dale was now pretty sure that tonight was going to be the night. But now he’d done a last-minute putoff until next weekend. The divorcée had sounded pissed. Really pissed.
There goes another one, he thought, rising from the Adirondack.
With a sigh, he dropped the dead soldiers into a trash can and decided he’d better tidy the place up.
His two-bedroom house stood at the northern, uphill end of a sloping forty-acre plot. It was of a stacked-log-cabin style, its four big gables framed by large Doug firs felled right there on the property by the builder. In addition to the house, there were a barn and a couple of other outbuilding sheds, mostly for his hunting or painting gear.
The rocky, tree-studded property was only three miles up the hill from the little town of Cle Elum, Washington, which billed itself as “the Heart of the Cascades.” Cle Elum was a Yakima Indian phrase that meant “swift waters,” in reference to the river that bisected the valley.
Dale had owned the place for two years now. He liked it for the solitude, the painting, the hunting, and the high-altitude trail runs through the mountains to stay in shape. It was also only a few hours’ drive over the mountains to Puget Sound, where he moored a small sailboat. He liked to spend at least half the summer sailing the San Juan Islands, fishing for salmon and closing down the occasional marina bar.
When he’d left the Agency under duress and lost half his assets in the divorce, he’d been pretty well broke. Figuring he couldn’t sink much further, he’d pooled his remaining assets to buy this fixer-upper, then spent a year doing the handiwork himself. He was still pretty well broke, but at least he had a house he liked.
And it turned out he didn’t need nearly as much money as he’d always thought. He spent most of the year painting landscapes, hunting big game when in season, and sailing in the summers. The paintings were an all-cash business and kept him in groceries. He didn’t have a family to support anymore. As far as he was concerned, he was doing fine.
Meredith texted again. She was in Easton, forty minutes out. Looking around at his leathery living room with the massive stone hearth he’d built himself, Dale decided he didn’t much like the idea of her showing up here at his house. Like the former spook he was, he much preferred meeting his contact at a neutral location, incognito.
He texted her back that he would meet her for dinner in town at Owen’s, the local steak place. He could use a steak. He’d make her buy.
Meredith brought her rented Explorer to a halt in the parking lot of Owen’s well after the shy winter sun had sunk behind the mountains. She wore jeans, a black wool shawl, and knee-high boots. She walked briskly across the parking lot with her ever-present bag over her shoulder, zigzagging to avoid the puddles of snowmelt. Every other vehicle seemed to be a jacked-up pickup with fat tires. She was definitely outside the Beltway now.
As she made it around the building to the Old West Main Street sidewalk, she and John locked eyes through the front window. He was in a back booth with a clear view of the door. He nodded toward her with a mildly amused look that she knew well.
Meredith entered and breezed purposefully past the hostess. It was a slow Sunday evening and the place was half full at best.
Dale stood when she approached. They traded an awkward hug.
She smiled as she slid into the booth across from him. “You look good, John,” she said. “Fit. Almost like you’re still operational.”
She meant it. As an ex-wife, she’d been secretly hoping to see more gray in his hair, maybe a bit of a beer gut. As his soon-to-be managing case officer, she was delighted to see he was in shape.
Dale nodded and returned the smile. “I try.” He leaned back and took her in. “You look tired, Meth.”
Meredith smiled through her irritation. First of all, other than John, she hadn’t been called Meth by anyone since her training days at the Farm. Second of all, why the fuck were people always telling her she looked tired?
She looked around at the small-town restaurant: red booths, hundred-year-old oak floors, brick walls, a few elk heads on the wall, the smell of roasted meat. “Little early for dinner, isn’t it?”
Before he could answer, the bell at the door rang. It opened with a cold blast of air and an elderly couple. The hostess helped them to a booth.
“Nah,” John said. “I’m starving. Besides, you look like you’ve been hanging out with the vegan set on the seventh floor. You can get a steak the size of a hubcap here. Oh, and also, I humbly wanted to impress you with this.”
He pointed at a three-by-five painting over his head. It was of a distant valley view with farms, a river, and a sweeping mountain range in the distance captured in a dusty golden sunset. In the corner there was a small red signature: Dale.
Her eyes widened. “One of yours? Wow. It’s good, John!”
“It’s okay.”
“Okay enough for you to want six hundred bucks for it. Hell, I think you could get a couple grand. Life must be getting pretty good out here at those rates.”
Dale nodded. “Keeps me from panhandling. Barely.”
“How many have you sold so far?”
“I don’t know. Like five. Maybe it will plug the hole of that pension your bosses decided to deny me.” He smiled to show he didn’t blame her for his situation with CIA.
“Yeah,” she said awkwardly. “Would be nice to straighten that out one of these days, wouldn’t it?”
The waitress came. Dale ordered a beer, Meredith a Diet Coke.
They said nothing to each other for a while. But then, in spite of everything, they couldn’t help but fall into the pattern of any one of their former relationships: officer-handler, husband-wife, mother-father.
Meredith could read enough of John to see that he was somewhat happy, somewhat healed. He’d endured so much. It made her hate herself for having to pull him back in.
“Well,” she said after a while, her voice softening, “I know I forced you into this meeting. Thanks for doing it.”
“You’d have found me one way or the other,” he said. “You have the resources for it.” He stopped smiling and looked earnest. “But honestly, Meth, it’s been too long. Just one look at you and I’m already jealous.”
“Jealous? Of who? Of what?”
“Of what’s-his-name, whoever he is.” He took her hands in his, stretching over the table. He caressed the top of her knuckles, pinched her fingers. “You’re still smoking hot, Meth. Sexier than the day we met. Please don’t tell me you’re getting married. I’m begging you.” His face molded into that faintly amused look again.
Meredith pulled her hands back with a jerk. She’d almost fallen for it. Idiot. “Married to the work, John. You know how it is. You can be jealous of Charlie-India-Alpha.”
“Yeah, right,” he replied, leaning back. “Seriously, Meth, if you’ve come to break my heart, do it quickly. Have mercy.”
“Does this act work on the local talent?” she asked, regaining her footing. “Where was all that charm a few years ago when I really needed it?”
“Right here, baby.” He tapped a fist over his heart, looking wounded. “You were just working too hard to see it.”
“I was?”
“Yes.”
“You mean, when I was stuck at that crappy condo in Arlington and you kept re-upping for paramilitary ops in Iraq?”
“What can I say? You’re good at kissing the brass’s ass and I like to kick in doors. Maybe you should’ve joined me over there.”
“Couldn’t. Remember? Had a daughter to raise.”
He paused. Something in his eyes changed. The spell was broken, the nerve struck. “Yeah. So did I.”
“You know what I mean. We had our respective duties.”
“Yeah.” He lifted his hands, cracked two knuckles. “But my duty kind of fucked me over in the end, didn’t it, Meth?”
“Didn’t have to. You’re the one who left the Company. It was your call, holing up out here like Ted Kaczynski. We still have a daughter who needs raising, if you want to come down from your mighty mountaintop.”
Dale maneuvered one leg out of the booth, about to stand and leave. “I don’t need this shit,” he said with a grunt.
But just as he was about to get up, the wide matronly waitress arrived, blocking him. At the same time, Meredith put her hand on his, holding it in place on the red-checked tablecloth, shooting him an apologetic look.
The motherly old server, witness to at least a thousand of such confrontations in this small town, lightened the mood by talking about the approaching snowfall, about how rough the roads had been up on old Route 97 two nights back. The old gal knew what she was doing. She wasn’t about to let this handsome young couple go at each other like that. And besides, she didn’t want to lose their tip. Things were slow this time of year.
Boxed in by all this feminine guile, Dale shifted his leg back under the table. Neither of them said anything for a while.
Meredith made the first move. She touched Dale’s calf with the toe of her boot beneath the table. “I really shouldn’t have said any of that. I’m sorry.”
“Bygones, Meth,” Dale replied after a few seconds, warming again, the amused look coming back to life. “Enough venom. Let’s chase it with something useful.” He looked at her Diet Coke. “It may not look like it, but they make a hell of a Manhattan here.”
She looked up at the elk heads on the wall. “We’re a long way from Manhattan. But fuck it. I could use one.”
Maria Borbova slowed the Audi to a stop on the far side of the parking lot from Meredith’s rental Explorer. Over her earpiece, she told Leo and Vasily, the two Spetsnaz Alphas in the black SUV somewhere behind her, to keep moving until she developed a plan. They’d hastily changed into clothes appropriate for tourists in the mountains, with new Gore-Tex coats, jeans, Sorels, and hats, gratis from the clever SVR planners at the Seattle consulate.
Maria stood in the gravel parking lot at the back of the building, listening, watching. She held her phone in front of her to act like she was thumb-typing, but she was really making sure she was alone. After a few moments, she walked to Meredith’s Explorer and attached a magnetic GPS tracker, about the size of a deck of cards, to the underside of the SUV.
She then studied the back of the old building. It was a cold, clear night and the stars fired away in the mountain setting. Beyond the town, there were only a few scattered lights on the surrounding ridges. Vehicle traffic was intermittent.
She noticed what appeared to be a kitchen door that led to a dumpster. She also noticed that the second floor of the old Main Street brick building had drawn blinds over dark windows. Whatever was up there was either vacant or closed. This gave her an idea. But first she had to see what her surveillance target was doing.
She ratcheted her knit cap over her blond hair and yanked her zipper all the way up to hide her mouth. She went to the front of the building and walked past the window to see what was happening. This put her on the prominent sidewalk of the town’s main drag.
In about ten rows of booths, she saw a handful of diners. The Morris-Dale woman was in the last booth, facing away from the front door, not far from the restrooms. To case it further, Maria kept moving, looking down at her phone as she walked. Using the phone’s glass screen like a mirror, she was able to keep her head down as she passed right in front of the restaurant. She saw Morris-Dale and her husband turn their heads to look at her as she passed. Not a problem, but interesting to note their level of awareness.
She took a right at the next street to circle the building, ending up back in the rear parking lot. Now having a better understanding of what she was up against, she studied the second floor. There was a rusty metal staircase on the side of the building that rambled like a fire escape up to the second floor.
After pausing to ensure she was still alone, she jogged up the stairs to find a heavy fire door, locked. Maria fumbled through her jacket pockets to retrieve her wallet-sized pick kit. The lock was ancient, maybe from the forties. She had the second-floor door open about three minutes later.
Once inside, she saw a few desks, laptops, filing cabinets, and posters on the windows. It appeared to be a small independent real estate office. The floor was bare wood planks, very old, probably original. It smelled musty.
She spoke softly into the encrypted UHF radio, connected to her ear with a voice-activated microphone via Bluetooth. “Alpha One, this is Bravo. Park at the street around the corner and meet me on the second floor of the building. Targets near the window on the street, eastern side of building. Bring the equipment up to me.”