THE PEN

Face it, 'the pen' should have been over the line. What a dunce. In the tug-of-war between head and heart, my brain was completely absent in that one.

I play it over and over again in my head, the morning Clark had first shown me the devices. I was so focussed on Clark and his troubles. His work required him to get to the bottom of what was going on in C.I., and particularly Agent Gaad's office. I was absolutely convinced he was doing an 'in house audit' for the Justice Department. Then again, as I replay it I probably didn't care if he was or wasn't.

I placed the pen, fully knowing what was inside it. Then, there I was, marching in and out of the office each day, the recording device in my purse. Thinking I was doing my government a service. I remember as if it were yesterday when he'd pulled out that little package. The pen itself, it was a near clone of many of them in the FBI offices. When Mr. Taffet had questioned me, Walter Taffet, I hung on his every word. Not just because he was quizzing me on my access to Agent Gaad's office - which was unlimited - but because Taffet was a drier version of Clark Westerfeld.

Pen be damned. Meeting Taffet meant that Clark was someone else. Not OPR. There must have been a reason why Clark had held back from me.

I run it through my mind again and again. It should have been Clark investigating the office, not Walter Taffet. I play it again and again. I needed to know why I never challenged Clark - well, except for demanding finally to see his apartment. I half expected that there wouldn't be one.

Taffet: same job, but more confident. Less personally vulnerable. Not attractive at all. My mind wandered with Taffet, dangerously given that I was not supposed to present to him as 'preoccupied'. Clark and I had rehearsed the questions Taffet would ask, but also what Taffet would look for in my body language. Even the lack of hesitancy at a question…. that one made me ask Clark, "Should we then not be rehearsing?"

Who was Clark now? I put that out of my mind. He and me were now involved together. A dangerous intimacy. Clark gave me tips on how to avoid getting sucked into, or intimidated by Taffet's gaze. I passed with flying colours, never once asking the obvious - why does Clark know all this?

I still dream it. When my daughter is asleep and the noise of the building is gone because of the hour, I dream it. I demand of Clark, "Who are you?"

His answer? "I'm the guy who loves you and who married you." It's only then that I calm myself enough to fall asleep.

AGENT AMADOR

I promised I'd get to Agent Amador. Me, I'd been spared most of the obnoxious men in the FBI offices, agents and others. Just about every other girl had a story. About being trapped in an elevator with an agent twice her size with wandering hands, that sort of thing.

Clark had even played for me one of the things the guys in the office had said about me. Agent Gaad had called me unattractive, and not someone he'd hit on. Please Lord, not Agent Gaad.

Chris Amador at least stopped pestering me when I drew a line for him. The fault may have been mine that he'd gone that far. I mean, I had gone out with him. Once again, I play it over and over and over in my mind, especially when it's quiet in the building and my daughter is asleep. Nothing else for my brain to do.

I was desperate to tell Chris that I was unavailable, attached. I try to remember the exact words I'd used, but more importantly the tone. Was my tone off? Had I led him on, as my boyfriend back home had said? (That was one of the reasons why he said he was dumping me, even though I'd been pregnant.)

I never told Clark, but I half expected Chris to show up unexpectedly at my suite. In off hours.

Which is to say that Chris disappeared. Then his body was found in an abandoned parking lot. Had I had something to do with Chris's murder?

From this vantage point, me now a Russian(!), I go through the logic of it all. If Clark had been involved in Chris's death, why would he not tell me? I mean, he told me about Gene Craft. I'd freaked out about that one, I have to think that Clark would not have lied about something like that.

It made no sense. Of all the things I obsess about, this is one of them. What had me and Clark talked about after Chris's disappearance? I strained to remember.

Back in Colorado, I'd not been like that. Confused and in a dither. Before Clark, I'd not been like that. Agent Gaad had called me his rock. But can I really blame Clark for me becoming a ditherer? He'd been so verifiably honest - about Gene, about not joining me here in Moscow. Why would he lie about some things and not others?

It makes no sense.

THE SKILLS OF A KGB AGENT

Are/were KGB agents that well trained, that skilled?

Me, I had never worked for undercover CIA men. I had been saturated in FBI counter-intelligence. I never once saw myself in the role of a Special Agent, but c'mon I kept Frank Gaad as well as his predecessor on an even keel. Pens or no pens, the KGB should have kidnapped me and I could have compromised years' worth of FBI secrets and methods.

I mean, I spent a cold, Moscow evening last week obsessing about Gene Craft's 'mail robot'. That thing was a computerized security flaw, even I could see that. It wasn't bad enough that agents left top-secret files on their desks overnight, they'd often leave them unattended on the mail-robot, which itself went to every corner of the Bureau.

In the face of that, the Russians had Clark. The man was so vulnerable. Are KGB trained to be vulnerable? To make sweet talk after making love? There were so many times when Clark could not find the words, times when he'd get angry and leave in a huff. Why would an agent risk that?

Clark had dug his heels in about children. How on earth could that be interpreted as 'playing' me? It was more than that, I always believed that I could convince him. Why would a KGB agent admit to a 'deal breaker', if his intent was a long-term relationship with me? It made no sense.

SEMYON ANDREYEVICH PETROV

Also known as Gabriel. On our lone meeting here in Moscow, I kicked him out. Even after assuring me that either he or Clark (I can't remember which) had made contact with my parents, I kicked him out.

That was then.

I'd told him that I understood everything. I probably did. I mean, I'd run it through my mind enough, all of it. No need to overthink Gabriel. He was harmless, I'm sure of it. How does one overthink an old man?

For instance - why was it back in Washington when I'd been on the run, why had Clark and/or Jennifer left me at that house, alone with and guarded by an old man who needed a cane to make tea?

His manner had been grandfatherly, not intimidating at all. He never said everything, but he also never lied. I wondered if he'd been related to either Clark or Jennifer in some way, by that I mean related as family back here in Russia. I'd not written it down at the time, but he said he had a cousin and a nephew here - not exactly a large family!

I'd inquired about him at TASS. A week later, the FSK called me from my desk, and I spent a morning in a TASS conference room answering questions. At the end, the FSK agent cautioned me to stop my inquiries, that Petrov had died a few years ago in Leningrad. That 'yes', he had had little family, but he was a hero of Russia just like I was.

Through that process, my mind wandered, too. I imagined that they were Stan Beeman and Chris Amador, maybe even the new guy, Dennis Aderholt - the one who had taken me out to dinner. I was older and far less intimidated now by a man with a badge, even if I'd heard the stories of similar inquisitions in Russia. Mine was mild.

So it was my SVR pension remained untouched, and my daughter's school had not been contacted. I got the feeling that the FBI office I had once worked at simply did it better. It was no effort for me to forget about Gabriel anyway.

Except, I wanted to know - had he really contacted mom and dad?

DENNIS ADERHOLT

A nice man. Unattached at the time, because of a divorce. Not a typical macho G-man. The opposite of Chris Amador. Dennis was a patient agent, I could see him rising through the FBI ranks quite easily. Dennis was thoughtful.

Quite frankly, I'd said 'yes' to his invitation to dinner to spite Clark. That did not work. Clark seemed to not care at all that I'd been invited out by a man, just that I'd remember the story I was to tell. It's as if Clark knew I'd eventually have to have something to say about 'being single', which I wasn't.

Not that Chris would have ever done it, but after telling him that I was seeing a married man, I had half a mind to invite him back to my suite for a nightcap. And to see how far he would go. I'd invented a scenario where I had been in bed with Aderholt, and Clark was forced to watch.

Even in that fantasy, Clark had not cared about me being unfaithful. Just about how much I'd let on. God, I wasn't even listening to the logical outcomes of my fantasies!

THE WOMAN ON THE TROLLEY

There she was again. Jennifer. Or so it seemed. Got off at the next stop from where I had got on. Outside the SVR building near the Kremlin, with my stop at TASS a half-dozen stops down the road. As the trolley passed her on the street, I strained my neck to get a better look without being too obvious.

That night as the sounds of my building abated and I was drifting off, I replayed that wine-soaked conversation she and I had had about Clark and his sex-life. I was now conflating it with her at Gabriel's house, where she droned on about how much Clark loved me, and about how all of this was going to work out.

Never telling me how. But then again, I'd not really wanted to know 'how'. I had just wanted to hear the comfy words.

Truth be told? I still do.