Shadow War by Sean McFate Page A

jobs was supervising the contractors hired to do what the Agency used to do.
    â€œYou know I can’t talk about that.”
    Which meant he had no idea who Locke was. “I’m just saying, Chad, you wouldn’t believe some of the things this guy did in Africa.”
    â€œYou wouldn’t believe some of the things I’ve done.”
    Like getting drunk with mistresses and junior staffers? Or taking mental notes at cocktail parties? Or paperwork? First-year agents were so enthusiastic about their paperwork. Spotting new agents to recruit. Running human networks. They never realized the bosses back in Langley didn’t read reporting by FNGs.
    She let it drop, turning her back and wandering the room, fingering a few of his books. He wasn’t brilliant, but he was a hard worker. Very organized. Passably neat. Probably bootstrapped himself to top of his class at the Farm. Even though he spoke Russian and Ukrainian, he probably wanted an assignment to the Middle East, because everyone did, that was where the promotions were. Europe was over. Nothing but old-timers. But then he stumbled into this Ukraine crisis, and all those old movies came back. Dead drops in Nyvky Park; midnight meetings under bridges; surveillance of Soviet operatives. There was something romantic about fighting the Russians. It was the KGB, after all, who killed that poor man in London with the poisoned umbrella.
    And all he had been doing for the past three months was stamping visas in the consular section and meeting with schnooks. Then Locke comes along, and she drops an opportunity right into his overeager lap.
    If she’d stopped to think about it, she would have realized she was in a similar place: jammed in a career cul-de-sac and latching on to Locke as a way out. But Alie had stopped thinking about her motivations years ago. It was less painful that way.
    â€œI’m doing you a favor,” she said.
    â€œWhat?”
    Wrong tactic. Let him think he’s doing the favor. “I said don’t forget me, Chad. When you’re in the field.”
    â€œI can’t take you into the field, Alie.”
    We’ll see, she thought, setting down her drink. She knew it was time to leave. There wasn’t much more she could do to setthe hook. She already had the first half of what she’d come for—Greenlees’s name—even if, when she’d arrived, she hadn’t been acknowledging the second.
    Even now, it didn’t cross her mind, at least not the conscious part, that her next decision had anything to do with Thomas Locke standing her up three hours ago.
    But Hargrove understood. He was grinning behind his Bowmore, contemplating what to say next. She almost rolled her eyes. You can’t let them think everything is their idea, she thought, as she put down her glass and stepped toward him.
    â€œI’ve never been with an older woman,” he said, sliding his hand around her waist.
    Don’t blow it, she thought. I’m only thirty-four.

CHAPTER 10
    Nikolay Balashov, known as the Wolf, squinted as he entered the dark club in downtown Poltava. Last night, it had been thumping so loudly it could have shaken the radar installations in Stalingrad, he thought, with quick nostalgia for that old town name. This morning, it felt like this hole of a country: dreary and depressing, the bartender half asleep, the women slumped apathetically at the tables.
    He walked slowly along the empty bar, the bartender not even moving from his slouch, until he saw what he was looking for: the red dress, the one so short that it barely covered her. She was with Ivan in the back, as he knew she would be, four men and two women, drinking horilka at 7:45 A.M.
    She looked up and saw him. For a moment, she held his gaze. He didn’t change his pace. She leaned in and said something to Ivan, who laughed.
    He didn’t care what she thought of him. She was an idea, one that recurred every few months in a dozen