Free The Cutout by Francine Mathews

“To buy time, I suppose?”
    “To divert attention from Eric. Per Atwood’s instructions.”
    “That might work … until 30 April makes contact.”
    “And won’t we look like idiots if they do.” He glanced at her sidelong. “What was Eric really like in Budapest, Carrie?”
    “You visited us in Nicosia,” she said tiredly “Multiply that by ten. On good days, he was jumping out of his skin. On bad days, he was comatose.”
    “Was he close?”
    A sudden, sharp memory of Eric’s hands roamingover her body. The Mediterranean heat, black olives and lemon. How long had it been since he had touched her?
    “Close? Not to me. I suppose it makes sense that he walked away without a backward glance in the Frankfurt airport. I don’t know what happened, Cuddy. How he managed to drift so far.”
    “Not close to you,” he corrected impatiently. “To penetrating 30 April. Was he jumping out of his skin because of the danger? Or because he’d already turned on all of us?”
    “I don’t know.” Her throat was tightening despite her best efforts. “I just do not know, Cuddy. He stopped talking.”
    “Even to you.” A flat statement.
    What kind of wife were you, anyway?
    She could not trust herself to reply.
    “That’s strange,” he muttered. “Even the polygraphers recognize a case officer’s right to pillow talk. They’ve practically canonized it.”
    Pillow talk. From a man who had walked the streets at night, while she tossed alone and restless? Cuddy, Caroline thought, would make a damn good polygrapher himself. He had a genius for posing the brutal question.
    “Maybe he wanted to protect me—” She bit off the words. A more credulous woman could go on believing that Eric was protecting her—that the whole elaborate lie of the past thirty months had been designed to shield her from terror. But Caroline refused to be credulous any longer. The credulous impaled themselves on swords of their own making.
    “Scottie tells me Atwood wants you polygraphed.”
    She laughed at the abrupt change of subject. “I supposeit’s inevitable. She has to know whether I’m telling the truth about believing Eric was dead. Let’s hope the polygraphers keep their questions confined to MedAir 901.”
    “I think we can assume they will. Atwood is unlikely to share the fact of Eric’s existence with Security. Just keep your mind on the plane crash and forget about Sophie Payne. You’ll be fine.”
    “Scottie likes to add a column of numbers when he’s hooked up to the machine.” Caroline spoke with an effort at lightheartedness she was far from feeling. “He swears it keeps him from reacting to the questions. But I’m lousy at math.”
    “Then try spelling. Anything is preferable to nerves. Nerves can look like guilt to the box, and guilt might register as deception.”
    “Thanks. You’ve no idea how comforting that is.”
    He studied her, then said, “I wish I could go with you.”
    “But some things, as my grandma told me during potty training, we are forced to do alone.” Caroline unclipped the clandestine report from Krucevic’s file and slid it across the desk. “Take a look at this, Cuddy. There’s a DO asset who’s close to 30 April.”
    “Hungarian desk.” Cuddy flipped to the second page, brows knit, instantly absorbed. “This guy could be in Buda. Hell, by this time Sophie Payne could be in Buda.”
    “Exactly. We’ve got to send out a tasking cable.”
    “And how do we phrase that cable, Carrie? ‘Hey guys, the official Task Force line is that the Palestinians are responsible for the Berlin bombing, but chat up your 30 April asset and ask whether he’s ever heard of Sophie Payne’?”
    Caroline frowned. “I’ve read weirder tasking cables, thank you very much. Case officers are used to working blind. And with the Veep snatched, Scottie will have every terrorist expert the Agency owns sniffing the ground—the reports will come flooding in. This is a lead , Cuddy—”
    Cuddy tossed