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  More Praise for

  LIAR’S CANDLE

  “A propulsive, heart-in-your-throat thriller that’s loaded with unexpected twists and turns. Liar’s Candle is a shockingly good debut novel that kept this reader up much later than anticipated!”

  —Daniel Kalla, international bestselling author of Pandemic and The Far Side of the Sky

  “Offers a fresh voice and a unique perspective. Liar’s Candle is a tight and well-crafted novel with a compelling heroine and a breakneck-paced story that will keep you turning the pages until the early morning hours. What an extraordinary debut!”

  —Matthew Palmer, author of Secrets of State and Enemy of the Good

  “Impressively mature and assured writing . . . Liar’s Candle is a whirlwind of American diplomacy and espionage in modern-day Turkey that’s jam-packed with intrigue, conspiracy, and surprises.”

  —Todd Moss, bestselling author of The Golden Hour and Minute Zero

  “The kind of debut novel that makes you want to cheer for the hero, Penny Kessler. Author August Thomas is new to the scene, and clearly she’s a very talented writer.”

  —Robert Rotenberg, author of Heart of the City

  Thank you for downloading this Simon & Schuster ebook.

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  For my mother, Rosanne Daryl Thomas, with all my love

  A liar’s candle burns only until dark.

  —TURKISH PROVERB

  1

  * * *

  THE GIRL IN THE WHITE DRESS

  ANKARA, TURKEY

  14:45 LOCAL TIME

  In Ulus State Hospital in central Ankara, in private room 309, a young American woman lies unconscious. A laminated pain scale is taped to the antacid-pink wall behind her—from smiley-face iyiyim to gargoyle-grimace çok kötü—but she’s too far under to feel anything right now. There are no windows to let in the early-afternoon light.

  Her chart says that she has suffered a head injury through blunt force, that her name is Penny, that she’s twenty-one years old. Vulnerable as she looks right now, she could be a teenager. Her cheeks are freckled from six weeks in the Turkish sun, laced with red scrapes from shattered glass. The thick white gauze around her dark hair looks like a tasteless bridesmaid’s headband, except for the blood seeping through. Somehow, the flimsy bracelet on her left wrist, a tiny blue evil eye bead on a thin red cord, survived the blast.

  Outside the door, two Diplomatic Security special agents stand watch in black plainclothes. The Department of State isn’t taking any risks, not after last night.

  This middle-aged, practical-faced woman sitting in the chair beside the bed could be Penny’s mother, but she’s not. A mother wouldn’t put on a crisp black pantsuit with an American flag pin to identify her daughter in the intensive care ward. As a matter of fact, Brenda has two children of her own, shiny school photos in her wallet. The hospital isn’t air-conditioned. Her pantsuit is making her sweat.

  Does Brenda feel a maternal twinge, looking at her intern now? Is she remembering the last six weeks, Penny’s pink-scrubbed face and secondhand blazers, her straight-A student eagerness to please? The kid had been more useful than most summer interns, almost fluent in Turkish and a born translator. Anthropology major—too sensitive, too soft. Wore braids once to work and looked like she was going to cry when Brenda told her to dress like a fucking adult.

  But Brenda isn’t thinking any of this. She’s typing a cable into her BlackBerry.

  ANKARA 925311

  PELECCHIA #0092531167

  50X1-HUM

  051145Z JUL

  FM AMEMBASSY ANKARA

  TO SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE

  TOP SECRET ANKARA

  SUBJECT: (TS) HOSPITAL VISIT TO AMCIT PENNY KESSLER

  Classified By: Pol-Mil Counselor Brenda Pelecchia, Reasons 1.4 (b,c,d,g)

  1. (TS) Penny Kessler (USDOS intern, POL Section, Embassy Ankara) remains in serious but stable condition at the Ulus Devlet Hastanesi (Rüzgarlı Caddesi, Gayret Sokağı No. 6, Ulus, Ankara). She has been assessed with a head injury and is currently under sedation.

  2. (TS) Security camera evidence confirms that Kessler was standing in immediate proximity to suspect Davut Mehmetoğlu, and Intelligence Officer Zachary Robson in the Embassy garden, 20 seconds preceding the explosion.

  3. (TS) Until Kessler regains consciousness, it is not possible to interrogate her regarding Mehmetoğlu and possible accomplices.

  4. (TS) At this time, Kessler is likewise unable to provide any statement regarding possible whereabouts of Zachary Robson.

  Brenda pauses. Interrogate sounds bad. She substitutes debrief, hits ENCRYPT, then SEND.

  The doorknob turns, and a wiry man steps inside, vibrating with energy, his suit still crumpled from the eleven-hour flight. He has that ropy look, Brenda thinks, that lifelong desk potatoes get when they develop a sudden middle-aged mania for biking—as if Lycra and clip-in shoes can somehow help them outspeed time. His assistant—taller, much younger, clearly ex-military—trails behind, holding a briefcase.

  The wiry man sticks out his hand. “Brenda Pelecchia? I’m Frank Lerman.”

  She knows exactly who he is. Everyone at State does. She can picture Secretary Winthrop at his Independence Day barbecue—Bermuda shorts and that plastic hair of his. His aides interrupt to tell him about the bomb in Ankara. Winthrop’s first words: “Send Frank.” Brenda imagines him adding, “I won’t have another Benghazi on my hands.” By which Winthrop would have meant the PR side, because 256 people are already dead, 312 injured (including Penny), and there’s nothing even Frank Lerman can do about that.

  “I thought you’d be with the Ambassador’s widow,” Brenda begins.

  Frank Lerman isn’t listening; he’s examining the sleeping girl. “That’s her, all right,” he confirms to his assistant. Then, to Brenda, “Coma?”

  “Just sedated.” Brenda conceals her surprise with difficulty. “You know Penny?”

  Frank grins. “Everyone knows Penny. Haven’t you seen the papers?”

  Brenda stiffens. “I’ve been at the hospital since the explosion.”

  Frank turns to his assistant. “Briefcase.” The tall young man hands it to him. Frank pulls out a thick stack of colorful newspapers. “I had him buy one of each.”

  “You read Turkish?”

  “I don’t have to. Look.”

  The headlines vary from that of the sympathetic Hürriyet—APOCALYPSE AT THE U.S. EMBASSY—to that of the ruling-party mouthpiece Sabah—REVENGE ON IMPERIALIST AMERICA? Frank’s got the international version of the Wall Street Journal as well. Every single one has the same photo.

  A young woman in a white party dress, stained with blood from her head, dragging a huge American flag out of the wreckage of the Embassy Fourth of July party. It’s the kind of photo that wins awards and shows up on the cover of Time magazine—as this one will next week, and again on the tenth, fiftieth anniversaries of this tragedy. It’s exquisite propaganda—almost too perfect to be true. Six seconds after the lens shuttered, Penny collapsed.

  “Oh my God.”

  “I’ve got thirty journalists downstairs waiting to talk to her,” says Frank.

  “Obviously, that isn’t possible.”

  “We need something to throw at them, before someone does the math on Zachary Robson. Brave tragic heroine. America will survive, blah blah. We have t
o wake her up.”

  For the first time, Brenda feels almost protective of Penny—possessive, at least. Penny is hers. “Mr. Lerman . . .”

  Frank has already pressed the red panic button, to summon the nurse. On Frank’s orders (reluctantly translated by Brenda), the doctor is sent for. A minute later, a thin, well-kept man in his late forties walks in, bleary-eyed at the end of his fifteen-hour shift.

  The doctor moves at once to Penny’s side, dark eyes flicking to the monitor, the IV drip, Penny’s bandages. Is she . . . ?

  The girl is stable, the nurse quickly explains in Turkish, but these people . . .

  Frank sticks out his hand, but Brenda is quicker. She’s not about to let Frank Lerman take control. “Ben Brenda Pelecchia, doktor bey. Pleased to meet you. Çok memnun oldum.”

  The doctor smiles slightly at her accent. “Ali Denizci. The pleasure is mine. I’m sorry, but we still have over a hundred patients in intensive care. If this isn’t an emergency—”

  “Frank Lerman. Your English is great.” That ingratiating smile of his works on almost everyone.

  Dr. Denizci is no exception; he smiles back. “Should be. Johns Hopkins, class of ’98.”

  “No way. My brother was class of ’79. Way before your time.” Frank sidles closer. “Look, Doctor. My colleague says the girl’s sedated . . .”

  “Yes. After a head injury like this . . .”

  “Can you wake her up?”

  The doctor’s smile vanishes. “Wake her up?”

  “It’s very important.” Frank pulls out his clunky, official-issue BlackBerry, identical to Brenda’s, and grumbles as he waits for it to load. “At McKinsey even twenty-four-year-old pipsqueak analysts get top-of-the-line smartphones. That’s State for you.” He looks anxious. “Penny’s father needs to speak with her. As soon as possible.”

  “She may not be coherent, Mr. Lerman. Some memory loss is highly likely, at least in the short term. And she’ll be in a lot of pain.”

  “Please. Just for a little while. If he could even hear her voice . . .”

  Family counts for a lot in Turkey. The doctor softens. “If we stop sedation now, she should wake naturally in about twenty-five minutes.”

  “Any way to speed it up? It’s very urgent, Dr. Denizci.”

  “Urgent?” The doctor frowns. “I could give her methylphenidate.”

  Brenda interrupts. “Methyl . . . ?”

  “Ritalin, basically. She’d wake in a few minutes. But we don’t typically . . .”

  “Her father.” Frank looks away, fiddling nervously with his phone. “He . . .”

  Dr. Denizci takes the bait. “He’s an important man?”

  Frank exhales. “To put it mildly.”

  “Who can’t wait half an hour?”

  “He’ll be very grateful, Dr. Denizci. And so will I.”

  “And so will her Uncle Sam?” The doctor’s expression is sarcastic. “I’ve seen the news, Mr. Lerman. I’ll wake her up. But don’t tell me stupid lies.”

  With quick instructions to the nurse, the doctor excuses himself.

  “Penny’s dad is a sculptor in Saugatuck, Michigan,” says Brenda pleasantly, as the nurse turns off the drip of anesthetic into the girl’s arm. “She showed me his website. Giant crushed soda cans. Elephants.”

  Frank doesn’t react, at least not visibly.

  They both watch Penny. Thin brown eyelashes don’t flutter yet. Her brows are level, her mouth slightly, childishly open in the innocence of sleep. Her slow, shallow breathing hasn’t changed.

  “You can’t let her talk to journalists,” says Brenda. Rage and exhaustion have made her mouth dry.

  Frank keeps watching Penny, as the clear methylphenidate sluices into her arm. “Did you know Zachary Robson?”

  “There are only fourteen people in my Section, Mr. Lerman. Plus Penny. I know them all.” Brenda lowers her voice, so it won’t crack. “Knew them all.”

  “Did he ever mention Mehmetoğlu as a possible source?”

  “I’m hardly the person to ask.”

  Frank’s voice sounds accusing; his sweaty, shaved (clandestinely balding) head reflects the white-bluish glow of the fluorescent bars above. “Zachary Robson was your liaison.”

  “My liaison with them.” Brenda keeps her eyes fixed on the girl, her voice too low for the nurse to overhear. “So if you want to know about Zach’s other duties, I suggest you contact Christina Ekdahl at CIA.”

  “She said Zachary Robson never mentioned contacting Mehmetoğlu.”

  “Never mentioned it to me, either.”

  “Someone put Mehmetoğlu on the guest list, Ms. Pelecchia.”

  “Lots of questions, Mr. Lerman.” Brenda raises a carefully plucked eyebrow. She’ll be bidding for deputy chief of mission at her next post, and this high up in the Foreign Service, the aesthetics matter. “Aren’t you here to handle press?”

  “It helps if I know what really happened.”

  Brenda’s lips tighten. Back in her thirties, she trained herself not to purse her lips; she didn’t want her mother’s wrinkles. But it’s a better career move than telling Frank to take a long walk off a short pier.

  He nods at the bed. “Did she work directly with Robson?”

  “Once or twice, I think. She does open source gists and translations for the whole Section.”

  “You think maybe he recruited her to CIA?”

  Brenda snorts. “Penny?” She shakes her head, remembering that god-awful SAVE THE RING-TAILED LEMURS T-shirt Penny wore last casual Friday. “No way.”

  There’s a quiet groan, not self-aware, the noise of a weak and helpless creature.

  Brenda and Frank each move slightly closer to the bed. The nurse is holding Penny’s wrist. The monitor shows a quickening heart rate.

  “Is she waking up?” Brenda summons her best FSI Turkish. “Uyanıyor mu?”

  The nurse smiles, nods.

  * * *

  Nausea. Dizzy so dizzy so dizzy. Eyes hurt to open—only one can. Woolly light. White-blue woolly blur. Pain. Not sharp, but sick. Sick heat in her head. Sheets hot too hot. Giddy, as if the pain were in another dimension, getting closer. Tubes in her nose. Then they’re gone. Her head aches all the way around.

  Memories that might be dreams that might be real might be making her want to throw up. A needle in her arm, paper-taped, tugging when she tries to cradle her head. It stings. Her ears hurt hollow from the blast.

  Under the fireworks. A young man in a suit—wavy dark hair, smiling brown eyes that always find her. He has a name. Zach. Zach’s talking to someone else now, but he’s smiling at Penny. She’s listening, listening so hard, letting the patterns of their Turkish slide and lock into place. The man talking to Zach, the important one, holding a glass of cloudy iced apricot juice. Penny likes apricot juice. Better than sour cherry, which is too sweet and looks like fake Halloween blood.

  So thirsty . . .

  Carefully, the nurse lets her sip the plastic cup of water. Penny chokes a little, but gets it down. Brenda and Frank and Frank’s assistant watch in silence as the nurse goes through the drill, testing Penny’s reflexes. They come to the verbal stage.

  The nurse asks, in that lilting nursery-school voice Turks use with foreigners, especially young women, “What is your name, canım?”

  Throbbing head, but the voice is kind. The name comes out of the darkness. “Penny.”

  “Do you know where you are?”

  “Ankara’dayım.”

  “What day is it?”

  Penny answers in English this time, halting but certain. “The fourth of July.”

  “It’s the fifth now,” says the balding man.

  Penny looks up from the needle in her arm. A round dark bruise has already formed beneath the itchy tape. Her eyes focus on the balding man in the suit, and she frowns hard. She wades through the grogginess. “You . . . aren’t him?”

  “Penny. Penny, sweetie, do you know who I am?” Brenda is more shaken than she knows.

 
Penny clocks Brenda’s blazer, then her own hospital gown. Her cheeks are getting hot. “Brenda.” She shrinks into her pillows; pain triples in her head; her heart pounds. A surge of anxiety. Work. Why isn’t she at work? “Brenda. The party. I should . . .”

  The nurse hushes her, but Penny won’t be soothed. Her voice is getting faster, clearer. “I was going to get lemonade. Near the grandstand. Then . . .” She’s still too foggy to panic, but that won’t last much longer.

  “There was an explosion,” says the balding man, with the rubber gravitas of a soap-opera doctor. “You’re going to be just fine. My name is Frank Lerman. I’m from Main State. I need to ask you a few questions, Penny, and then you’re going to talk to some nice folks.”

  Penny is staring at the newspapers in his hand. The Wall Street Journal is on top, her own photo hogging half the space above the fold. “Is that . . . ?” Her voice trails off as she registers the headline.

  EXPLOSION AT THE U.S. EMBASSY IN ANKARA, 256 DEAD

  “A bomb?” A sick pounding fills her neck, her chest. Weak but determined, she reaches for the papers.

  “We think—” Brenda begins.

  Frank shakes his balding head. “Not right now.”

  “Please.” Fear and adrenaline are making Penny sweat under her bandages. “What happened?”

  Brenda sounds irritated. “It’s not exactly a secret, Mr. Lerman.”

  “We need her memories, Ms. Pelecchia. And we have to be sure they’re her own.” He looks over his shoulder at the young man still holding the briefcase. “Hey, what’s-your-name—”

  “Connor, sir.” The young man’s voice carries a faint Georgia drawl.

  “Whatever. Take these.” Frank shoves the papers into his assistant’s arms. Connor closes them back into the briefcase with an efficient click. Frank switches his kindly voice back on. “Now, Penny. What’s the last thing you remember, before the explosion?”

  Penny blinks hard, and her bruised eye throbs. “Two hundred and fifty-six people.” Her throat feels like it’s closing.