A woman answers. Young, precise. "This is the duty officer."
Not Lindqvist's personal line. A CIA duty officer. Marcus lied about what the number was because he needed you to have a way to reach Langley directly, without going through him.
You understand now. Marcus is the one being watched. Marcus is the one who needed you to move without orders, to give him deniable intelligence. You have been working for him all evening without knowing it.
You tell the duty officer everything. The document, the cache coordinates, Lindqvist in the sub-basement right now, the SVR surveillance on your apartment. You give it all, clearly and fast, in the professional shorthand of someone who spent eleven years doing exactly this.
Then you put Lindqvist on the phone.
He talks for a long time.
Three weeks later, Erik Lindqvist testifies before a closed session of the parliamentary defence committee. The plutonium cache is recovered by a joint Danish-NATO team. The story is never made public.
You receive, by post, a Danish residency renewal stamped APPROVED with no further correspondence required.
Marcus sends you a bottle of Scotch with no note.
You are back in the work, whether you wanted to be or not.
✦ Ending B: The Double Agent