The Spy's Wife

THE SPY’S

WIFE

By Shawn Davis

Copyright 2011 Shawn Davis

Smashwords Edition

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CONTENTS

Foreword

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Epilogue

FOREWORD

In the entry way of the Original Headquarters Building of the CIA, just before you reach yet another security checkpoint and the metal detectors, perpendicular to The Seal on the floor, is The Memorial Wall.

At the time of this writing, there are 102 stars on the wall, each honoring an officer killed-in-action while engaged in the secret business of protecting their country.

Perhaps the most famous of those memorialized is Johnny Mike Spann, the first American casualty in Afghanistan during the initial invasion of 2001. The attention paid to his wife, Shannon, was the first time Americans were witness to the story and grief of those usually left behind in secret.

More recently in 2009, seven CIA officers were killed at Forward Operating Base Chapman. Those officers left behind families; husbands, wives, parents, and children. And yet, little is known of the officer’s lives outside this clandestine world.

Behind the enigmatic veil of the CIA is more than spies and special technology - there are families as well. Families that have learned to live dual lives, lives filled with secrets and compromise, in order to fulfill a calling. They support their CIA Officers psychologically and physically; taking care of the home duties that frequent absences and high stress levels make impossible, listening to hopes and fears that operational security forbids the officers from relieving anywhere else, and accepting the upheaval and constant uncertainty that goes along with the life of a Clandestine Service Officer.

They do it without support or recognition. While the CIA does offer family support programs, they are not practically available to those families whose affiliation with the Agency is not public. They often live within a lie, creating explanations for the seemingly absurd situations that arise in covert combat for all those around them, hiding their own fears and presenting a serene face to the rest of the world.

This book is fiction. Other than historical figures, no resemblance to actual persons is intended. The events depicted never happened.

But the strong families behind the CIA Officers do exist. And they have served their nation and suffered losses in dignified silence. While we can’t, and shouldn’t identify them, we should always be grateful.

CHAPTER ONE

The last time Kimberly Stannick saw her husband alive, she was kissing him good-bye at the secret facility all CIA Officers use as a jumping off point for the war zone.

Her life to that point had been remarkably normal and boring, which was not what people usually expect from someone married to a spy. She lived in an average sized town-house with a postage-stamp lawn and listened to her husband complain about his commute. She had to pay bills and budget, she had to clean house, she had to cook meals, and she had to bus her children around to their various appointments and activities in her less-than-sterile Suburban. With the exception of her husband being gone on lengthy business trips, her life really wasn’t that different from someone whose husband didn’t have passports in three different names and an intimate familiarity with a large arsenal of weapons.

Unless, of course, you counted the fact that she had to lie to everyone about what her husband did for a living. Even that wasn’t too hard after the first six months or so. It came naturally to Kim, which often made her question her personal character. Not that she could rectify that issue by going to confession, either. The CIA does not provide vetted and approved priests for the wives of their officers.

Kim actually felt quite blessed. There were the usual bumps in the road that occurred with any bureaucracy, and which tend to get magnified in the secret ones: for instance, pay wasn’t always on time. And if you were missing money somewhere you weren’t guaranteed to get it back. Actually, you rarely got the money back. The finance people were the only employees paid on time, and if you so much as looked at them wrong they’d blacklist you for the rest of your career. When you aren’t an official employee, you don’t have much redress.

All in all, though, Kim loved the dual life her family lived. It was exciting and comforting at the same time, even if the reality of being married to a spy was involved more paperwork than secretly developed super-weapons.

That all changed the day that Kim was notified that Jon would never be coming home.

The world is used to the military-standard casualty notifications. Casualty Assistance Officers in full dress uniforms, along with a religious professional, come to the door of the deceased’s next-of-kin at a standard morning time. If the next-of-kin is not present, they will wait until they can make personal contact. Nothing is done over the phone, and the spouse or parents are usually well versed in the routine. They know what that car and those uniforms at the door mean. There is comforting familiarity in the horror and tragedy of the routine.

The worst day of Kim’s life started with a phone call.

Hey, Kim? This is Jess, from Jon’s office.

Jess? What’s wrong with Jon?

Kim, how about we get together? Are you home? I can come pick you up and we can go do something.

Kim knew from the moment the caller identified herself that something was wrong. Her husband was either hurt or dead. The CIA does not bother with or check on the spouses of their deployed personnel. There would be only one reason someone from the office would be calling.

The moment Kim registered the voice on the other end of the phone line, her mind clicked off. Later, when she tried to recall the moment she was told of Jon’s death, she would only be able to call to mind a series of vignettes; scattered and jerky, the black and white of an old movie, and the feeling that she was watching someone else’s life unfold.

Picture: sitting at the cluttered dining room table, the phone dropping from her hand as an garbled voice spoke on, then darkness...

Picture: sitting barefoot and disheveled on a bench along the walking path, the one she and Jon were using when they agreed on him taking one last deployment to Afghanistan, surrounded by wind whispering in the trees, then darkness...

Picture: Exploding in anger at the casualty notification team that came to her house, and the feeling of shame that she could not control her emotions, then darkness...

Picture: Enveloped in Jon’s old shirt, curled up on his pillow, fingering the saint’s medallion he had worn as protection from danger, then darkness...

And a thread, running through all the memories that was more of a feeling than words - this wasn’t how it was supposed to be.

Two weeks passed by in a blur. Kim met the plane when her husband’s body was returned to the United States. Her parents stayed to help with the children, because although Kim tried to be there for them, she was sleepwalking. She knew she wasn’t meeting her obligations as a parent - that her children had lost their father just as she’d lost her husband - but she was so numb. She couldn’t process anything, couldn’t effectively empathize with anyone.

Every morning Kim woke up having forgotten that Jon was dead. And every morning when the realization that he was gone hit her, she’d head to the shower, where she fooled herself into thinking that no one could hear her sobbing and moaning. She would stay under the water until all warmth was gone and the freezing drops made her skin red and rough to the touch. Then, she would wrap herself in the thick folds of Jon’s tactical jacket and lay on his side of the bed, pretending it was his arms encircling her body and warming her up. Her throat was raw from trying to swallow her emotions in public.

The story came to Kim in bits and pieces. There were no volunteers to share the whole thing with her, but people let things slip here and there. No one wanted to answer questions, but she figured out that if she kept quiet she’d be able to puzzle together the entire story from their comments eventually.

Jon had always tried to reassure her that his job was more DMV than 007, with paperwork on top of paperwork to explain previous paperwork and prepare for future paperwork. He always joked that if the quintessential picture of one of their deployed Green Beret friends was of a blond guy in the traditional Middle Eastern dish-dasha attire, with his M-4 in a front harness and looking ready to roll; the quintessential war picture of Jon was one of him, dressed to the deployment-nines in Under Armour and 5.11 tactical pants, sitting behind a computer keyboard looking irritated.

Of course they both knew that wasn’t entirely true, but it was comforting to believe.

For one thing, Jon’s job was to get information. You don’t do that by sitting around Kabul typing and playing on Facebook (although there were many spies who tried to do precisely that). No, Jon was outside and running around Kabul nearly every day, talking to his contacts. And although there was a security team provided - complete with up-armored car, numerous weapons, and a plethora of creative tattoos - he didn’t always use them because he felt they intimidated his sources. There were other safety measures in place, of course: check-in calls and GPS systems, and things too boring to talk about when Jon shared windows into his deployed life. But, in the end, they weren’t enough.

Jon had been killed by a suicide bomber. And not just any off-the-street-jihadi, either. Jon had been killed by one of the sources he had recruited himself. Jon had trusted his source, and the source had killed him. It didn’t matter that Jon had done everything right, sometimes right wasn’t enough.

When Kim heard who was responsible for Jon’s death she had gasped.

It was Jaweed?

Mason Andrews, a co-worker and friend of Jon’s who made it a point to stop by Kim’s townhouse at least once a week, looked at her oddly with one eyebrow raised. He nervously adjusted his black rimmed glasses and began to pick at the fabric of his khaki pants.

I didn’t say any names. I’m not sure where you heard that name, but you need to keep it to yourself.

Oh my God, Mason. I know that name because I helped Jon with him! I mean, not really helped. I didn’t do much. I just helped him pick out gifts and solve a few problems of that sort when he was developing Jaweed as a source. I picked out things for his wife, since gifts for the female family members can’t come from a male. And Mason, Jaweed was modern! He valued his girls - he sent his daughter to university! Why would he do this, Mason? Why?

Kim, look. I shouldn’t have told you what I did. I just know that not knowing is... too much. I know it’s too much to ask so I was trying to help. I’m sorry. I’ve made it worse. I’m sorry.

Kim was so stunned by the revelation that she couldn’t move. As he got up to leave, she stayed on the couch, staring into space and remembering.

The CIA does make a sincere attempt to take care of those families left behind when an officer is KIA. It isn’t a personal type of support - they offered Kim a job as a matter of course. A GS-12 position doesn’t buy yachts and tours of Europe, particularly at DC’s inflated prices, but it would keep the bills paid on time. Most importantly, it would occupy Kim’s mind so that her every thought would not be replaying scenes with Jon or imagining the moment of Jon’s death.

Kim decided to take the job offered, but she also used the time-tested parental trick of discussing the change with her children. Sam and Josh were good kids, they listened and did their work on time. They rarely complained about the upheavals the family’s lifestyle wrought on their social lives. So, the decision made, she decided to let them in on it. At dinner, when their minds would be on something else. Preferably lasagna or pizza.

So guys, I think I’m going back to work. Kim let slip as she was handing out lasagna- laden dishes from her seat.

A few grunts broke the sounds of forks scraping on plates, but the reaction was decidedly less dramatic than Kim had expected.

So, what do you think?

It will be good for you to get out of the house, Sam said as she reached for the garlic bread. She flipped her long, red hair back over her shoulder and returned her attention to her plate. The Stannick family had always loved their food too much for heartfelt dinnertime discussions, although Sam’s slim figure made a stark contrast to her concentration on the large helping of lasagna.

Kim had been expecting a little more than matter-of-fact statements and complete absorption in dinner. Maybe a little trepidation. Maybe some of that clinginess the experts all said kids would experience.

Do we need to talk about this, you think? Kim tried again to elicit a reaction from her children. Sam, with her three year head start on Josh, finally got it. She stopped eating and focused her blue eyes on Kim, in an intense stare eerily reminiscent of her father.

Do YOU need to talk about this, Mom? Because Josh and I have been pretty much hoping you’d find something to do. It feels weird around here. Weird because Dad is gone, but weird because you aren’t really here, either. You need to do something. We all do. I was going to suggest Target, I saw a hiring sign there.

Kim was a little shocked. Well, I’m not going to work at Target. I was offered a job where Dad worked.

That got their attention. The kids looked at her warily.

I won’t be doing the same job Dad did.

What other jobs do they have?

Well, they have a lot of jobs. They have people who analyze things, people who invent things, people who do paperwork. I’ll be doing paperwork. I might have to travel some, to take care of paperwork for people in other places. But I won’t be doing what Dad did. You don’t have to worry about that. And I already talked to Mrs. Shah - she said she’d come stay with you two while I have to travel.

Kim could feel the children’s hesitation. They might be ready for her to move on, but they weren’t so sure about her working for the same organization their Dad died for. She hadn’t thought out this particular scenario when she imagined how dinner would go.

Okay.

Okay? Kim was surprised that their initial hesitation lost out to pre-teen desire for lack of parent involvement so quickly.

Okay.

CHAPTER TWO

Work wasn’t what Kim had expected. For one thing, she had to get up earlier than she remembered. It’s impossible to live anywhere in the Washington, DC metro area and not have to spend hours on congested, rage-inducing roads every day. Utterly impossible. In fact, the main topic of conversation, even in the hallowed halls of the CIA, was traffic.

How was your commute today?

It was hell. A truck jackknifed across the toll road. Both directions were clogged.

Both directions?

The truck was full of landscaping dirt.

The information about commuting went from anecdotal (Avoid Hunters Mill Road!) to informative (Have you thought of using that commute time to learn a new language? Joe over on the Africa desk learned Yoruba during his daily commutes.)

If nothing else, people stuck in a CIA elevator always had something to talk about.

Kim went from Hallowed Widow of a Slain Officer to Irritating Paper Pushing Chair Jockey the day she started in her branch. Suddenly, she was a part of the problem that Jon had spent so much time complaining about when he was alive. And the worst part was that the longer she sat in her non-descript grey semi-cubicle and filled in endless expense forms, then transferred the information to endless sanitized expense forms, the more frustrated she became at the lack of movement toward her own goals.

If she heard one more paper-pusher at a party brag about working at the CIA and then decline to give a job description using the words, I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you, she was going to resort to some vigilantism of the first order. She had visions of herself in a cocktail dress screaming, HE’S AN ACCOUNTANT! to the naive congressional aid being chatted up by Nate in Payroll at the bar.

Working at the CIA was not helping Kim move forward.

Kim had assumed that the issues Jon’s death had sparked: the insomnia, the lack of appetite, the nervousness - would all disappear when she started working. She thought the focus on something, and the need to be somewhere for a paycheck every day would help. Instead, she just found herself adding the description frustrated to her ever-growing self-awareness list.

Jon had complained a lot about the ridiculous bureaucracy; Kim remembered one rant in particular that involved the Payroll Mafia, a reimbursement for a plane ticket, and the delete button on the computer. Kim had thought working for CIA would give her the chance to exorcise the ghost of her relationship and feel some sort of vindication that the loss of her soulmate was at the very least meaningful to someone. What she was realizing was that, to the staff of the Directorate of Support, paper was the only thing that held any meaning. And paper was both the means and the end. The ongoing war meant little, and in fact was only an abstract concept that paled in comparison to the inter-office politics and vendettas of low ranking GS employees who wielded the power of request denial in their vindictive hands.

Kim? Kim, is that you? You’re working in Support now? What are you doing here?

Kim looked up to see David, one of Jon’s former co-workers, standing in front of her desk. He leaned his lanky body over the top of top of her cubicle, and flashed a genuine smile of pleasure in her direction.

David? It’s great to see you! Yeah, I’m here. Doing my part to increase global warming through excessive paper waste. What brings you down here in person?

Travel vouchers. What else? My parents have no idea why I’m constantly running a multi-thousand dollar balance on my credit cards. Cover is a lot easier to maintain when you are not the genetic result of financial planners meeting and falling into a sensible and well thought out type of love. Or something.

I can take care of those for you; or try to, anyway. Give me the paperwork, and in the future just email them directly to me. I can live vicariously through you that way.

As soon as the words were out of Kim’s mouth, she cringed inside. If anyone else had said it, it would have been a self-deprecating bit of humor poking fun at her hum-drum daily existence. When Kim said it, it sounded dangerously close to being a lament of all she had lost. David was well aware that Jon and Kim were scheduled to move overseas after Jon returned from his tour in Afghanistan; that was just one of many things that had changed.

One glance at David’s face let Kim know that was indeed how the comment had been interpreted, and a conversation that had been a pleasant and friendly distraction from the daily grind of papers, receipts, per diem calculations, and ill-edited explanations of requests for reimbursement turned into something strained. She had experienced more pleasant interactions with her mother-in-law.

David visibly shook himself and retreated into a forced gregariousness that fooled no one in the immediate vicinity. Well, I’ll make sure I do that, Kim! Thanks! I’m sure glad I ran into you down here!

It was great seeing you again, David. Make sure you forward me those receipts.

And just like that, he was gone. Kim imagined him throwing off the discomfort of the conversation in the halls of the building as he made his way back up to his desk. It was an uncomfortable situation - who wants to be reminded of death? CIA case officers have to believe in their own invulnerability because there is simply no other way to effectively operate by yourself in the middle of people who want you to die a horrific death. Kim had no doubt that was the last conversation she was going to have with David, or anyone else who had worked in Jon’s area.

As it turned out, though, Kim was wrong.

CHAPTER THREE

It was a Monday, and Mondays were never Kim’s best day. She usually woke up late, the kids didn’t want to get ready for school, no one had made their lunches the night before and there was never enough time to make lunches before she had to drop them off. The fact that Kim had to fork out five dollars per kid so they could buy the unappetizing school lunch colored the rest of her Monday a grumpy gray. And it didn’t help that it was raining. DC area drivers would never rank among the safest in the nation, and every time it rained it was as though they had never experienced moisture falling from the sky in their lifetimes.

Kim hated Mondays.

As she shuffled her way into the cubicle area that held her computer, phone, and scanner (but no personal family pictures - a habit that she carried over from her husband’s training experiences right after the Aldrich Ames fiasco), feeling strangely like some sort of after-school special. Although working at the nation’s greatest spy agency was a lot more normal than many novels would have you believe, there was still an air of vague secrecy, which included occasional back-of-the-neck hair raising and a feeling of being watched. This was one of those mornings. Kim felt like everyone was watching her the moment she turned her back. It was almost possible to hear a crescendo of whispers starting up behind her, like white noise underneath the suicide- inducing Muzak that the office manager claimed was the only thing that appealed to everyone equally.

But then again, Kim figured, this was the CIA. Occasional paranoia was probably not only normal, but to be expected.

As soon as Kim sat down and signed into the computer system a message appeared on her computer from a name she did not recognize, Hey! Can you come up to Jon’s old office at lunch time?

She knew better than to ask who was sending the message. Names - real ones, anyway - were verboten. Kim had agonized for three days over the name she had wanted to use, only to find out that everything from Battlestar Galactica and the Jason Bourne novels was already being used. She had finally settled on using Colditz, figuring everyone would recognize the reference to the World War II German prison for the most incorrigible escape artists among captured Allied troops. Instead, at least once a week someone asked her if she was of Polish descent.

Barring asking outright (something which simply isn’t done), Kim couldn’t think of a way to mine for more information before heading up. In any case, the invitation was probably just a duty-call for Jon’s colleagues. In a way she would always be their responsibility, because Jon had died on their watch. Most likely they were just ordering some pasta and salad and wanted to see how she was settling in and how the kids were adjusting to their new school. Kim could not think of many things she wanted to do less, but the flip side of Jon’s office assuming responsibility for her future was that she had to actually let them if she wanted to retain that benefit for future use. There was no getting around the invitation.

I’ll be there. 11:30 OK?

Excellent! We’ll have lunch. Bring whatever your poison is! See you then!

Poison? Really? Kim mentally ran through the list of people she knew in Jon’s old office to see if she could match a face to what could only be someone over the age of seventy, using that vernacular. And who refers to a beverage as poison in the CIA? Someone who had been on the Castro assassination team? That joke was not as funny as the mystery person online thought it was.

Kim sighed and turned back to her bulging receipts folder. As frustrating as the process had been to Jon, she was beginning to understand the antipathy of the support staff. Who tried to expense luggage, for goodness sake? If a case officer was stationed somewhere in Europe, where making a good impression was an imperative and there was an understanding of quality and branding, expensing necessary luggage beyond the salary of the typical beginning case officer made sense. But expensive luggage for a trip to Africa? Kim’s personal feeling on that was to suggest, in an attached note, that perhaps the officer would do better to buy something at Goodwill. She would be more than happy to sign off on the receipt for the duct tape necessary to hold the suitcases together.

That memo was going to get her a complaint. It did make her feel better, though.

Kim made it up to Jon’s old office slightly after 11:30, thanks to an elevator rush to the cafeteria area sparked when word spread that there was fresh garlic bread on offer. She had never been there while Jon was alive. Although there were quite a few functions, and even classes, for wives of case officers, most everything stopped short of giving them anything that could possibly be revealed by accident or design to foreign agents. That included details such as where the case officer actually worked and the names of the people he worked with. Although newbie CIA spouses complained bitterly about the isolation, The Company had learned its lesson well in the wake of double-agent disasters, the most publicized of those being Aldrich Ames and the FBI’s Robert Hanssen; both of which had resulted in the blown covers of entire generations of trained and effective American spies and the deaths of their overseas agents.

This was Kim’s third trip up to the office since Jon had died, however, so for once she didn’t need to stop and ask for directions. As ordered, she had brought herself a 20 oz bottle of Coke Zero. She normally tried to steer clear of sodas, but she figured she needed the jolt to get through this lunch. In fact, she was regretting not having spiked her drink with something slightly stronger than caffeine before setting out.

Kim! Come right in! We brought some spaghetti up from the cafeteria, and Jan even managed to score some of the fresh garlic bread! We’re ready to start, David opened the door to the office before Kim could knock, which didn’t help the neck-hackle issue at all.

The suite Kim walked into was a typical CIA mixture of understatement and overstatement. The waiting room was decorated in what many in the Washington, DC area describe as Bureaucrat Chic. There was white molding on the floors and ceiling which contrasted with a beige color on the wall. The furniture would have fit in any local dentist’s office as well as it did within the sanctuary of America’s secretive den of spies. The artwork on the walls looked as though it had been stolen from a Holiday Inn.

The conference room, however, was everything people imagined when they thought of the inner sanctum of the CIA. The stately oak table dominated the room and was surrounded by leather office chairs. The walls were the same beige as the waiting room, but nearly every conceivable space on the walls, on shelves, and the center of the table was taken up with tchotchkes that various officers had collected in their travels around the world on behalf of the United States. One wall featured a tattered and graffittied Russian propaganda poster that had apparently been taken from a Moscow subway system, while above the head of the conference table hung a frame intricately carved in African style with a picture of Mobutu Sese Seko. Balanced on the corner of the frame was a rather worn leopard skin hat; closer inspection seemed to suggest that the hat on the corner of the frame was the same hat Seko was wearing in the picture. There was nothing to suggest whether the hat had been a gift or, in the terms used by those in the espionage business, liberated from its former owner.

All the pictures paled in comparison to the reticulated python skin that stretched along the entire length of one wall like a nightmarish wallpaper border. Kim stifled an urge to ask for the story behind that decoration; she knew that asking for a war story was a recipe for a six hour lunch.

Arrayed around the conference table were about ten people, only three of whom Kim had actually met before. There was David, of course, and Daniel - the boss. Jan was also there, which Kim was grateful for. Jan was not a case officer, but she was the go-to person in the office for anything a case officer or family needed. As demonstrated by her ability to snag several servings of the coveted garlic bread before the rumor even got out that it was available, she had sources and methods that, if revealed, could make a seasoned officer cry with professional envy. Kim didn’t recognize anyone else in the room, which settled her into zoo-animal mode. Apparently, she was on display. Widowicus CIAicus, native to the Northern Virginia area.

Daniel gestured to a free seat near the head of the table.

So I hear you’re working in the Directorate of Support now?

Yes, I started there a few months ago. It helped a lot for me to get out of the house, and it was nice of you all to help me get a position with a good salary. I really appreciate it.

Oh, that wasn’t a problem at all. It’s our responsibility. How do you like it there?

Kim felt odd holding a conversation with her husband’s boss while everyone else watched and listened in. She managed to stifle a brief psychotic urge to ask for a glass of water and for everyone else to disappear behind one-way-glass in order to make the interrogatory atmosphere complete. The threat of waterboarding might have to play into the scenario somehow, as well.

It’s okay. I find myself shaking my head a lot remembering the things Jon would complain about coming across my desk. I do have to say that case officers can be tremendously irritating at times.

Nervous laughter was scattered around the table at that little revelation. They probably thought she was joking. She wasn’t.

Daniel joined in the wry laughter, I’m sure we are. My wife says the same thing nearly every day. He switched conversational gears smoothly. Now, I know you’re probably wondering why we asked you up here on such short notice, but we really do take an interest in what’s going on with you and the kids. When David came up yesterday and told us you were sitting in Support handling receipt reimbursement, we got to wondering if there wasn’t maybe something you might like to do more. As it turns out, we have a position opening up in London that would be perfect for you. It would be completely different than what you are doing now, and it would require you and the kids to move; but when your name came up, we immediately felt you would be perfect for the job. Are you interested?

London? Kim was reeling. Even without knowing what they were asking her to do, she felt like she could float away on an emotional high. It took someone offering her something different for Kim to be able to