“What’s your point?” said Kealey.
“It’s no secret he had faith in you when others didn’t. That he’s been your guardian angel at the Agency,” White said. “What would you do if he needed, absolutely required you for a task he could entrust to no one else? An assignment that had certain vital elements you found . . . objectionable? Would you refuse? Or do it, anyway, because of everything you owed him?”
Kealey shook his head. “I don’t believe in guardian angels,” he said.
“Ah . . . but there is one who’s believed in you,” White replied.
Kealey was quiet for a while before he gave another shrug. “His problem,” he said.
And he returned his eyes to his window as the jet banked to the right, leaving the African coastline behind for the Red Sea, then climbing gradually through a blue haze to cruising altitude and the greater part of its flight north to Egypt.
“I’ve just received word that Cullen White has been placed aboard a direct flight from Cairo to New York,” President Brenneman said. He was at his desk in the Oval Office, talking to Brynn Fitzgerald, his back to the large bay windows looking out on the South Lawn. “He remains in the Agency’s custody.”
“And once he lands?” Fitzgerald asked.
“He’ll be air-shuttled to D.C. and brought to a safe house for preliminary interrogation,” Brenneman said. “I’m not sure a decision’s been made as to where he’ll be held after that.”
Fitzgerald nodded. It was gusty outside, and as she sat facing the windows, she could see the breeze rustling the magnolias on the South Lawn. “Have you put in a call to the DIA?”
“Yes.” Brenneman rubbed the bottom of his chin with his index finger. “Joel Stralen requested that his personnel have a role in White’s questioning. His preference was that it be active, but he would have settled for having one or more people there as observers.”
“And your response to him was . . . ?”
“Exactly what you would expect.”
“And how did General Stralen react to being refused outright?”
“He’s on his way over from the Pentagon right now. I suppose he intends to argue his case.” Brenneman shrugged. “You know, Brynn . . . as a kind of mental exercise, or way of getting a handle on a person, I try to imagine their thoughts in terms of printed typestyles. Been doing it since my early teens. I’ve known the general for a long time and have always imagined him thinking in boldface.”
“A large font, I’d guess.”
“Very large,” Brenneman said with a grim smile. “Joel Stralen is a hard-liner, and I wanted that perspective among my core advisors. We’ve all gotten so used to sticking our thumbs in the wind here in D.C., I felt it important.”
“You weren’t mistaken,” Fitzgerald said. “Our error was in letting ourselves be swayed too far by his point of view.” She hesitated. “May I speak personally of something? It’s a difficult subject.”
He nodded his head and sat there waiting.
“I’ve done a lot of soul-searching over the past several days,” Fitzgerald said. “In fact, I’ve turned my soul inside out and shaken it to see what falls loose. And I realized I wasn’t nearly as recovered from the trauma of my kidnapping as I’d believed. As a woman in the capital . . . in any position of authority, I suppose . . . you have to present a tough façade. I felt that if I didn’t appear to be over what happened to me in Pakistan, my effectiveness as an advisor and negotiator would be comprised. I won’t second-guess myself now, not in that regard. But where I erred, and erred terribly, was in buying my own act. I was swayed by Stralen because I identified too closely with your niece. I let emotions throw me off balance, overtake my capacity for making rational decisions—”
Brenneman raised a hand to interrupt. “Don’t beat yourself up,” he said. “You and I share the same essential regrets. Our emotions colored how we saw things. The timing was horrific, which does not mitigate our responsibility for what was done. We own the results of our decisions. . . . We will always own them. But all we can do now is move on and deal with the consequences.” He expanded his chest with air, slowly breathed out, his sober, weary eyes holding on her face. “Brynn . . . when I say General Stralen views things in terms of absolutes, it is not to imply he’s simpleminded. He’s a shrewd, calculating military man. A chess player. And what I’ve wondered, God help us all—”
Brenneman’s intercom line flashed, and he pressed the speakerphone button to answer his personal secretary. “Yes?”
“Mr. President, General Stralen is here to see you.”
“Right on cue,” Brenneman observed.
“Excuse me?” asked the secretary.
“Nothing, Fran . . . sorry.” Brenneman saw his secretary of state look at him, her eyes silently asking whether he preferred she stay or excuse herself from the office. He motioned for her to stay put. “Tell the general to come right in,” he said over the intercom.
“Joel, please have a seat.” Brenneman motioned the DIA chief into a chair without rising from behind his desk. “Brynn and I were just wrapping up our conversation about Cullen White.”
In his air force dress blues, his jacket buttoned almost to the collar, Stralen looked surprised to see Fitzgerald in the office. Quick to recover, he took her hand decorously but remained on his feet. “Sir,” he said, facing the president, “White’s the reason I’m here as well, and I intend to be brief. If you don’t mind, though”—he glanced back at Fitzgerald—“and with no disrespect to Madam Secretary, I’d ask that we speak privately.”
“I think it’s best we all stay,” Brenneman said. “There’s nothing that needs hiding between the three of us.”
Stralen nodded. “I don’t wish to hide anything. But my issue is strictly of concern to the DIA—”
“No,” Brenneman said. “If it relates to Cullen White’s activities in Sudan, it’s all our concern . . . mine, yours, and Brynn’s. You can forget about trying to compartmentalize.”
“Fine, sir,” Stralen said. “That is fully understood. Indeed, I might agree with it. But then why isn’t the DIA a participant in White’s interrogation?”
Brenneman looked at him. “Are you serious?”
“Of course.” The skin tightened over the well-defined planes and angles of Stralen’s face. “Do I sound like I’m joking?”
“Joking, no,” Brenneman said. “But in frankness, I don’t see how you think the DIA can participate. Only the CIA has clean hands here. DOD, State, this very office—we’ve all compromised ourselves.”
“How so? What precisely have we done wrong?”
“If you don’t already know, Joel, you are in pronounced denial,” replied Brenneman.
Stralen was shaking his head. “The worst we can be accused of is misappropriation of funds. And even so, the distribution of CINC discretionary resources has its gray areas. As far as seeming to run against our own embargo, we could argue—”
“My God, we shipped arms to the very people who killed my niece,” Brenneman said sharply. He inhaled, struggling to control himself. “Enough, Joel. You can save your argument for other ears besides mine. But while you’re here, I do have a question for you. A blunt one. And I would appreciate a direct response.”
Stralen did not budge from the middle of the room but simply met the president’s gaze. “I’m listening, sir.”
Brenneman felt his whole body tense. Every muscle, every tendon. He had not wanted to ask this of the man standing there in front of him, someone he had called a friend for decades. Had not even wanted to consider it.
“When you funded Simon Nusairi . . . did you have any inkling he’d been involved in Lily’s death? I mean, any knowledge he may have been responsible for what happened to her?”
Silence fell over the office. Both Brenneman and Fitzgerald were looking at Stralen now, but he kept his own eyes on the president’s face.
“Sir, I am heading to my Virginia retreat for the weekend. It has been a long six months, and my objectiv
e is to gather stamina for the political battles to come,” Stralen said. “Should you still want to ask that question on my return, I will answer fully and completely.”
More silence, Brenneman felt its weight press down on his shoulders, felt his very heart sinking underneath it.
“Very well,” he said. “Do as you wish.”
And continued to feel his heart sink like a rock as Stralen abruptly turned and left the room.
EPILOGUE
WASHINGTON, D.C. • VIRGINIA BEACH
The CIA safe house on Twelfth Street NW off Massachusetts Avenue was a very intentionally nondescript three-story redbrick building opposite Our Lady of Divinity Catholic Church and bookended by a pre–World War II apartment house on the corner of Massachusetts and another small walk-up heading toward the M Street intersection.
Stepping out into the fresh air after the preliminary debriefing that had taken just shy of four hours, Kealey looked down the short flight of stairs descending to the sidewalk and saw John Harper leaning against his double-parked black Suburban, hands in the pockets of the light raglan trench coat flapping around his knees.
“Ryan,” he said. “Seems I’m right in the nick of time.”
Kealey went downstairs, crossed the pavement, slid between the front and rear bumpers of two curbed vehicles. Harper took a hand out of his pocket and extended it as he approached.
“Same set of Agency wheels as ever,” Kealey said, eyeing the vehicle as they shook.
Harper shrugged. “You know what they say about old habits.”
“Yours or the Agency’s?”
“Some would say there isn’t a damn bit of difference.”
Kealey grunted. “Don’t you get a driver anymore?”
“My option. I’m on unofficial business today.”
Kealey looked at him in silence.
“This is a far cry from where we last met in Pretoria,” Harper said after a moment.
Kealey nodded. “No Springsteen music,” he said.
“No.” Harper smiled a little. “No jukebox either.”
They stood regarding one another in the shade of an elm tree as traffic and pedestrians moved quietly by on the street.
Harper checked his watch. “Almost five o’clock,” he said. “I’m wondering if you’d like to come over for dinner. Stay the night if you want.”
“That’s okay,” Kealey said. “Your people booked me at Best Western. It has room service, a decent view.”
“All the amenities one would desire for a visit to the capital.”
“Just about,” Kealey said. “I’m set there, anyway.”
Harper looked at him. “Julie knows you’re in D.C. and is hoping to see you,” he said. “It’s been a long time.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
“Things have happened,” Kealey said. “A lot’s changed. . . .”
“Nature of life,” Harper said with a mild shrug. “That and getting older.”
Kealey hesitated. “Listen, thanks for the offer. And regards to Julie. But there’s no point in her going to the trouble.”
“No trouble,” Harper said. “She invited a few friends over, anyway. Some staffers from back when she worked at Mayo. One of them’s a woman named Allison Dearborn. She hooked up with Julie through me . . . long story there . . . and they organized a little reunion.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I’m going to be bored stiff listening to their hospital war stories and complaints, Ryan. It would be a real favor.”
Kealey looked at him. “That’s another habit you can’t seem to shake.”
“Asking favors of you?”
Kealey nodded, prompting a chuckle from Harper.
“This isn’t quite as big or demanding as the last,” Harper said, “and it comes with Julie’s great cooking. Chicken Marsala tonight.”
Kealey turned his head, gazed up the street awhile at nothing in particular, then finally looked back at Harper and shrugged. “What the hell, John. But just so you know, it’s Julie, not you, that I’ve missed.”
Harper grinned, reached for the handle of his passenger door. “I’ll take that as a positive once removed,” he said, opening it for Kealey.
General Joel Stralen stood on the balcony of his Hampton Roads condominium, looking out over the white sands of Virginia Beach from ten stories up, watching the blue Atlantic waves lap at the shoreline. He had always loved this place, with its contemplative silences and placid vistas . . . always felt his most whole here.
Holding the balcony’s rail, he turned his face up at the cloudless sky, closing his eyes to let the warm sunshine beat against them. He had been something of a sun worshipper his entire life, not the smartest of habits, soaking up all those UVs. On the other hand, it took a while before they got to you, and they hadn’t gotten to him yet.
He sighed into the breeze. Cullen White was on his way to the United States with John Harper’s man Ryan Kealey, someone who was not even Agency anymore. On his way across the land and sea to testify that the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, and a friend of President Brenneman, had not only engineered an illegal arms trade with Sudanese militiamen but also . . .
His hands tightened on the rail. It had been done in the nation’s best interests. The world’s best interests. What else might it have been considered when you weighed one sacrifice against all the thousands that had stood to benefit from the removal of a dictator like Omar al-Bashir and the seizure of the oil refineries that were giving the Russians and Chinese economic dominance over the United States?
If the plan had been successful, all that would have been taken care of at once. Lily Durant would not have died in vain, but would have given her life for a greater purpose.
That said, he had told Simon Nusairi where she was, and had arranged for her death in order to jolt David Brenneman and Brynn Fitzgerald from their passivity. He had not counted on the brutality of the act....
The rape.
The torture.
No, Stralen had not counted on that. But would he have changed what he’d done if he had?
He took a slow, deep breath, moving closer to the rail. Would he have changed what he’d done if he had known not only that Lily would die but also the manner of her death?
He opened his eyes now, staring up into the dazzling brightness of the sky, gradually turning them toward the full glare of the sun. It was alone up there above him, not a plane or bird in sight.
Just him and the sun, the sun and him. And, of course, the sand and water below.
Stralen looked up into the glaring orb as long as he could, his eyes at once burning and filling with moisture.
He jumped without ever looking down.
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Copyright © 2010 Andrew Britton
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