The premise of Robert B McCaw’s new Washington, DC-based political thriller, Traitors, is that a group of five Russian sleeper agents has, over time, worked its way up into the highest reaches of the US government. The new head of the Department of Justice’s National Security Division, Robert Cooper, must try to identify them and stop their plan to subvert the nation and remake the world order. It’s a high-stakes plot that draws on certain events and personalities of real life to make its case more believable.
The story is set in the near future. At its outset, Cooper is sought out by Mikhail Bortnik, yet another Russian agent who’s gone rogue, turning against Mother Russia and fearful of being recalled there. Bortnik tells him about the other Russian agents and leaves a tantalising bit of information to validate his claims. He’ll trade much more information to guarantee his own safety. There’s every reason to be suspicious of Bortnik, and Cooper starts a quiet investigation to verify Bortnik’s claims.
As a test of the value of his potential information, Bortnik reveals that the men’s room in a high-end Washington restaurant will be used as a dead drop. Cooper’s team hides a camera there, which indeed records a man secreting a small package in a ceiling panel. Later analysis reveals the package contains highly confidential US and NATO documents. The man who hid it there? Arch-conservative House minority leader Billy Byrne, a person with access to some of the most closely guarded secrets in the country. No need to worry about him, though, because soon he’s dead – poisoned by Russia’s preferred assassination chemical, Novichok.
Cooper is pushed and pulled in many directions, with both advantages and perils as he pursues the other operatives who have infiltrated the government. Throughout the story, his job is made harder because he can’t trust very many people – they may be members of this clandestine ring.
One of the traitors, he knows, is highly placed within the FBI. Yet, the labyrinthine US security apparatus gives him a few options, people with skills he can quietly call on. Also to his benefit, the recent promotion to head of the National Security Division gives him access to people and information. But that advantage is undermined by internal resentments and a campaign to discredit him before his appointment can be approved by the Senate.
To add plausibility to the plot, the story builds on current international developments and evolving US-Russia relations, including US efforts to weaken the NATO alliance and the damage to Russian leadership from the protracted losses in Ukraine. In McCaw’s plot, these trends have drastic consequences. Most important is the takeover of the Russian government by right-wing militarists. The new regime orders troop movements and positions military hardware perilously near the border of Finland, a NATO member. An invasion appears imminent. Then what?
Cooper, a widower, has two grown children. Through his daughter, a graduate student at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, he meets one of her professors, the predictably attractive and intelligent Catherine Burks, whose deep contacts within congressional staff help Cooper get to the bottom of the campaign against him.
There are a lot of characters in this novel: Cooper and the operatives around him; the several Russian spies; various other US leaders and their staff members, and Cooper’s family. Perhaps having so many moving parts prevents McCaw from developing deeper characterisations of anyone other than Cooper. Catherine Burks, for example, and his relationship with her are disappointingly superficial. It felt simultaneously unlikely and wholly predictable. All those soft kisses on the cheek. It’s as if he was advised he needed a love interest and did as little as possible to shoehorn it in.
Unfortunately, it’s pretty clear who the traitors are. No surprises. You have to know and understand enough about the characters in order to believe in what they do but I found myself reading Traitors with a bit of a sceptical eye. The Washington setting – mostly inside offices and the occasional restaurant – was adequate for McCaw’s purposes, though people did seem to get from one place to another with remarkable speed.
True to his training and experiences as a lawyer, McCaw makes sure his operatives obtain the proper FISA warrants when they need them. He’s not going to be dinged for going against the legal requirements. That was a bit of reality that was oddly refreshing.
Crime Fiction Lover has interviewed McCaw in the past about his series of crime novels set in Hawai`i, including Retribution. Traitors is his first spy thriller, and he says he was attracted to the challenge because of its broader scope and connection to real-world events.
Also see The Protocols of Spying by Merle Nygate or the estimable David McCloskey’s latest, The Persian.
Penguin
Print
£9.99
CFL Rating: 3 Stars
