Chapter 9
Annie is on her way into Langley. Officially, she is no longer employed by the CIA, but she was invited back by Joan Campbell and Calder Michaels for debriefs in the aftermath of the attempted bombing and Caitlyn Cook's death at the hands of Aleksandre Belenko. Annie was willing to gain access to what the CIA had uncovered. Her gut tells her that what Belenko had in store was far from over. Their best bets are to track down Roger's contact in the Russian Embassy. The CIA knew the Russians had gathered intelligence on Borz Altan and surely would have intelligence on Aleksandre Belenko and perhaps Nathan Mueller too. But US-Russian relations hit a wall and Joan was iced out from her contacts at the Russian Embassy. It was now up to Calder to work his back channels to gather intel from the Russians. Calder welcomed an excuse to contact a certain high-end professional he had recently sworn off.
The CIA and NCTC were led astray with the evidence that McQuaid had used his Flint operatives to plan and execute Chicago. Another debacle after the Mueller droning. American intelligence branches needed to work on fact checking and not reacting. But, the DCI and Calder Micheals had moved on from their investigation into Mueller's droning and Auggie's involvement in covering up Annie's heart condition. Annie still wanted to find out how Mueller might have been connected. There seemed to be a larger sphere of people involve. It seemed that Auggie and Calder were back on the same page. The same could not be said of Auggie and Annie just yet.
As Annie drove to Langley she thought about how to handle Auggie when they met and they would surely meet at Langley. She was certain he got over his initial anger towards her because she was right. She may have trusted her heart, but sometimes your heart and your gut tell you the same thing. She hoped he would be able to understand why she kept him in the dark about McQuaid.
At McQuaid Securities, Arthur and Annie weren't sure who they could trust, who wasn't in on the conspiracy to frame McQuaid, was Caitlyn working with anyone else within the company? Arthur had become acting CEO. He was trying his best to maintain clients, regain the confidence of McQuaid Security's recently lost clients and win over a number of key contracts to help the business stay afloat. It was a good thing that the State Department felt indebted to McQuaid after one of their employees thwarted the attack, they seemed to overlook the fact that another one of their employees was pressed the detonator.
Arthur was still vetting a few of the guys Annie knew from her operations in the field with Ryan. They had Jim, Dex and Fitz on the list and were reviewing their bank, phone, email, and various records. The few Arthur had cleared were digging deep into Caitlyn Cook and Aleksandre Belenko. They were working nonstop and using all their Russian and Georgian assets to unearth intel. They found a link between Belenko and Istanbul, he had many calls made to different numbers in Turkey, none used more than once. The group also found Allen Langer had traveled to Turkey recently. They were examining all the Flint operatives and all of Cook's files to find connections. How much did Cook know about Flint? She wasn't around to question and McQuaid could not provide answers. The CIA had already swept Caitlyn's home so they didn't have access to what was found, but Arthur was going to work on Joan to see if she would share their intel. Everyone is on all cylinders pouring through the evidence with new lenses they were trying to learn how long Cook had been working with Belenko and how she was turned.
During the rest of the drive from the hospital to Langley, Annie's thoughts turned to Ryan again after thinking about what she knew regarding Cook and Belenko. The moment she met McQuaid he had been trying to figure her out and get her to trust him, at first she questioned his motives not wanting to accept that he was attracted to her and interested in a deeper relationship. . She replayed his conversation with her in Paris after he saved her from Kravec and in Azerbaijan after they took down Mueller. She spent many months alone with no one to talk to or count on, her family still thought she was dead. Eyal had told her that it was sad for her to say being a spy was all that mattered. Those words stayed with her too. The moments she shared with Ryan had introduced some light back into her life. Then that light was snuffed when she thought McQuaid was hiding something, they very quickly got back to a place of mutual trust in the face of insurmountable obstacles. Annie helped Ryan unconditionally and at a great cost to her career, but then the rug was pulled out from under her when she learned Ryan was shot. Annie just couldn't catch a break from the roller coaster ride.
For Annie, watching Ryan hooked up to all the machines and unsure whether he would pull through or not brought back the feelings of loss and abandonment she felt most of her life. Ben, Jai, Simon, Teo, Auggie, Danielle, and now Ryan. Most people would have had a mental breakdown by now. Earlier, she was so hopeful that he was waking up, but then nothing. She needed to protect herself, protect her heart from another hit. She couldn't just sit by the hospital bed watching him. She figured whether he lived or died was not in her control. She went back to the mission and what she could control. Regardless of whether he recovered or not Annie felt he deserved to have his name fully cleared. McQuaid was always an honorable man, she regretted ever doubting him and distrusting her instincts. She was determined to fully exonerate McQuaid of all accusations and provide clear evidence that Caitlyn Cook was behind framing McQuaid.
Over at Langley, some details emerged about Caitlyn's involvement with Belenko. She had known him during her college years as Belenko studied in the States as the son of a Georgian diplomat. Georgian-US relations had always been collaborative in nature, we were allies for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and remain strong allies. Theories on Belenko's motives were multifaceted, perhaps he wanted to derail Russian-US relations in hopes that the US would back rebels in his country. In many ways the Russian-US relations were already deteriorating to near Cold War levels over a variety of human rights and sovereignty issues. Maybe they wanted it to appear as if jihadists were behind the attacks to draw attention away from the real culprits. That is where Khalid Ansari came in as a diversion, he had a history of funding terrorists abroad that made him an easy patsy. They were looking at all the angles this time and trying not to jump to conclusions. Joan and Calder knew heads might roll after everything settled down. There would be more investigations into their division. Joan feared how deep they would dig.
All Belenko's plans were laid out and he had spent many years planning his attacks and cultivating assets, there was no turning back. He had a huge web of people involved. But, it was in a split second that he decided Caitlyn Cook was expendable. After the failed motorcade bombing, he knew it was only a matter of time before the CIA figured out Caitlyn's hand in everything and dragged her in for questioning. He was about to shoot Annie Walker, but then Caitlin looked at him and said, "You'll never stop us," he didn't have time to shoot Walker as well before she pulled her gun on him and the authorities arrived. Belenko felt no remorse for using Caitlyn.
Caitlyn was a good friend of Kelly McQuaid's. In fact, she was her best friend, but she spent years pining away for Ryan McQuaid after he was widowed, a chance meeting reunited her with her former classmate, Aleksandre Belenko and they became occasional lovers when they were in the same city. She hid her new relationship with McQuaid, part of her still held out hope that one day he would get over the Kelly's death. Cultivating Caitlyn as an asset was all part of Belenko's plans. He uses her connections at McQuaid Security over the last couple of years and her bitterness over her unrequited love to turn her. Belenko was keen in his observations and knew what to say to convince Caitlyn to frame her friend and boss of many years. At first Caitlyn was reluctant, but seeing Ryan's infatuation with Annie, someone he only just met steeled her and thus sealed Ryan's fate and the fate of his company. Caitlyn no longer cared about McQuaid or McQuaid Security.
Belenko was nothing but thorough, he was tasked to be by the mastermind behind the attacks. Were the attack personal or did they have greater purpose, were there were political statements to be made. Soon someone would uncover a more personal motive, Belenko's boss had old business with Arthur and Joan Campbell that could only be resolved if he inflicted the maximum amount of pain on their family and associates. His hatred for the pair dated back many years. He had been planning his revenge for what seemed like a lifetime.