Gray Day

by Eric O'neill

  “What is it, Eric?” Juliana asked.

  She tried to pull back so we could lock eyes, but I held her there. My sensible wife knew that an it existed, but she couldn’t pinpoint what it was, and I couldn’t tell her. “It is a little of everything,” I said. Half-truth. “School and Mom and the new job at HQ. I’m up late at night studying for law class and in early to manage the FBI’s computers.” Some lies, some truth. “I miss you.”

  “You’re stressed,” Juliana said. “I read a study about stress. Did you know it suppresses the immune system? You’ll get sick if you don’t find time to relax.”

  I tensed. Did she seriously just tell me to relax? “Honey,” I said through gritted teeth, “when am I supposed to relax? We have bills to pay. Two school tuitions! My law school average is slipping. That’s a cue to work harder, not relax. You relax! All you have to do is go to school.”

  She pushed herself away. “I’d get a job if I could! I barely got my school permit in time to make classes at American, and even then none of my German credits transferred. No one told me it would take so long to get a green card.”

  I reached for her. “Jule, I…”

  She took a step back and crossed her arms. “It’s my turn to talk. I came here for you. Not to become an American or chase some silly version of the American Dream in a tiny little apartment. We can move to Germany whenever you’re ready.”

  I’m good with words. Words have a long history in my family, from my politician great-grandfather to my auctioneer grandfather and litigator father. Juliana left me speechless. Each of those men had something else in common, too, which I’d also inherited: a stubborn refusal to admit fault. But Juliana was right.

  I bit my lip hard and squared my shoulders. “I’m sorry.”

  Her raised eyebrow softened the sharp way she glared at me. “For what?”

  When a man says he’s sorry, one of two things has just happened. Either he has already processed the entire argument, analyzed both sides, and concluded that in the final balance, he’s the asshole, or he’s apologizing because he doesn’t want to fight. Women want to know which.

  “I know you sacrificed to come here,” I said. “I know it’s hard for you.” I looked around our apartment. “If I could buy you a piano, I’d have one here this afternoon.”

  She held my eyes for a few painful heartbeats before stepping forward and touching her forehead to mine. We shared a silent moment of exhaustion, leaning on each other.

  “I don’t need a piano. Don’t get me wrong, I want a piano, but I don’t need one. I need you.”

  “I’m right here.” But I wasn’t, not really. My mind had already shifted from the compartment where it kept Juliana to worries about what Hanssen had in store for me and whether I’d embarrass myself in front of my law school class when the professor called me to task.

  “I have my piano recital tonight.”

  “You’ll do great,” I said. “I’m not supposed to say good luck, right?”

  She shook her head. “We say break a leg.”

  I kissed her instead.

  * * *

  Hanssen slouched in the chair across from my desk. He’d come in late and for once appeared almost cheerful, smiling like a college kid who’d finally gotten lucky after months of dates. It was an unsettling look on him. “I once organized a Beach Boys concert here in FBI headquarters,” he bragged.

  I couldn’t pretend to believe that one. “No chance that’s true.”

  “No, really,” he said. I mastered my surprise. Usually he screamed at people who challenged him.

  “The Hoover Building wasn’t always a fortress. A decade ago anyone could just walk right through.” Hanssen spread his arms. “You could walk straight across the courtyard from Pennsylvania Avenue to E Street.”

  “So what happened?”

  His lip curled in a sneer. “Islamic terrorists. Those disgusting scumbags tried to blow up the World Trade Center in 1993. They failed to bring down the tower, but every federal building became a fortress.” He looked at me. “You know all about this. Didn’t you work on a counterterror squad before coming here?”

  I’d told Hanssen that half-truth to trick him away from my counterespionage background, but I hadn’t lied. The FBI had hired me under President Bill Clinton’s counterterrorism directive, which lifted an FBI hiring freeze and staffed up squads of ghosts to conduct the fieldwork necessary for catching bombers. I received my FBI credentials and swore to support and defend the Constitution three years after the first World Trade Center attack killed six people and injured thousands. Two years after jihadists had tried to topple one World Trade Center building into the other, anti–US government extremists Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols parked a Ryder truck full of explosives under a day care in the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City. The bombing killed 168 people and injured more than 680 others. A year after that, Eric Robert Rudolph left a green US military field pack containing three pipe bombs surrounded by masonry nails near a concert at Centennial Olympic Park during the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games. Rudolph killed 2 people and injured over 100 more. When I received my FBI badge, Rudolph was still on the run; he wouldn’t be caught for another five years. These tragedies made terrorist targets an FBI priority, and my job, at least in theory, was to help stop them.

  “Sure I know about counterterror,” I said. “But how did you get the Beach Boys to play here?”

  “The FBI had a concert series,” Hanssen said. “One of the clerks I supervised had a friend who knew a friend. We were able to make contact.”

  I half believed him. The thought that the Beach Boys played “Help Me, Rhonda” next to the Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity statue in the central HQ courtyard was a truth-is-stranger-than-fiction moment. “Pretty cool, boss,” I said.

  He preened. “I had a lot of great ideas. Another was a robot spider that I developed that could crawl under buildings and listen in to conversations.”

  On that one, I called bullshit. “C’mon, boss!”

  He held his hand out, palm up. “I built it in my garage. So small it could fit into your palm. I used a small radio control to—”

  An alarm beeped. Hanssen dragged his Palm Pilot out of his back pocket. He checked it and smiled. “Ah, the Novena.”

  “The what?”

  He frowned. “I thought you were Catholic? Didn’t those Jesuits at Gonzaga teach you to pray?”

  “More like Sister Rose at de Chantal, but yeah.”

  Hanssen stood up. “Then you should know that novena is Latin for ‘nine.’ Nine days of prayer. I pray to Mary every day at one p.m.” He snapped his Palm Pilot shut and returned it to his left back pocket. “Come with me.”

  The gloom of his office made kneeling down before a small triptych feel oddly like being in church. Hanssen unfolded the triptych on his desk to reveal Mary holding a baby Jesus flanked by two angels on the surrounding panels. He gripped a rosary in one hand and started to pray.

  I matched him at first, letting the old prayer to Mary soothe me into a meditative mindfulness of God. “Hail Mary, full of Grace, the Lord is with you…”

  With each word, unease grew in my chest until the unbearable weight of it threatened to topple me to the floor. I stood quietly and walked back to my desk, surprised to find my hands balled into fists. I had poured everything into this investigation, into the last five years of investigations. I’d given the FBI my nights and weekends, sacrificed relationships and rest. I’d given them a promise to keep all the secrets they stacked onto my shoulders. I wouldn’t use my faith to break a case.

  Hanssen finished his prayers and didn’t mention my abrupt departure. His face told me everything his words did not. My mind spun with excuses and rationales for why I hadn’t finished the prayer, but the stubbornness of my convictions stilled my tongue. Kneeling beside Hanssen on his thin b
lue office carpet to pray the rosary was wrong in a way that didn’t merit explanation. I refused to let even a splotch of guilt into my face.

  Hanssen might have said something, but a firearms qualification appointment he had at Quantico for the remainder of the afternoon saved me from evangelization or proselytization. He paused on his way out, coat on his shoulders and scarf tight around his neck. He gripped his bag in one gloved fist. “Do you shoot?”

  “I hold my own,” I said.

  He pushed the door open. “I’ll take you shooting one of these times.”

  I couldn’t decide whether he felt the need to fill the awkwardness with words, or if his offer was sincere. With Hanssen, you could never tell. “That would be cool.”

  “We’ll see if you have what it takes to make agent.”

  Before I could think of a retort, the door shut behind him.

  I called Kate and let her know I wouldn’t need a ride to law school. Unless she wanted to hear about the Beach Boys and robot spiders, I didn’t have much to report. I’d include it in my log for tomorrow. Next, I called a friend and asked her to take notes for me in Corporations. Juliana’s piano recital at American University was starting in a few hours. I decided to skip class and go see her play. If I hurried, I could change trains and walk the final few blocks before she began. I considered commandeering Garcia’s Tahoe so I could roll up in style, but reconsidered. Hanssen had encouraged me to take more risks, but getting fired seemed a little overboard.

  I puffed into the concert hall and couldn’t miss my wife, seated in front of the piano in a stunning red dress. She raised her hands and began. Juliana moved with the music, lithe on the edge of the polished bench, her golden hair a bright contrast against the jet-black grand piano. When you truly love someone, you fall in love again and again. As Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 filled the auditorium, I forgot the investigation, buried thoughts of an upcoming law school exam, and returned from my self-imposed isolation.

  After the last notes echoed into silence, the stress of life rushed to fill the void. What was I doing chasing a dead lead instead of spending time with my wife? Hanssen was a suspected spy—but why? He believed in God and hated the Russians. What if I was throwing everything away for the wrong guy?

  “You came!”

  Before I understood what was happening, my wife grabbed my hand and pulled me away from the auditorium. I woodenly followed her through the empty halls of the music school, trying to find my way amid a tempest of thoughts.

  Juliana led me through a heavy door into a small, windowless room with an upright piano, a padded chair, and an end table. She sank into the chair and smiled.

  “It’s a practice room,” she said. “The doors are soundproofed.”

  I glanced around, thinking that it reminded me of a SCIF. “Do you need to practice more?”

  She stared at me like she’d only just met me and didn’t like what she saw. My eyes lingered on her outline beneath the red dress and the way her stockinged knees made shadows around her crossed legs. The single light highlighted the waves in her blond hair and cast mysterious shadows around her eyes. I froze when I should have acted.

  Juliana stood and smoothed her dress. “Forget it.”

  “Forget what?”

  “You just…” She shook her head and stood up. “Forget it.” Glancing at her watchless wrist, she walked out the door. “Let’s go. It’s late.”

  We drove home in silence and back to our routine.

  When we arrived at our apartment, I poured two glasses of wine. My sleep-deprived brain thought we’d celebrate her successful piano jury. She’d played the complicated piece perfectly. I honestly couldn’t tell—I have no ear for music—but the judges had clapped when she finished. Although Juliana had no harsher critic than herself, when she had taken her short bow, a smile had crinkled the corners of her eyes and flushed her cheeks.

  Juliana frowned at the glass of wine I offered her and turned away. I chased her into our bedroom and stood sentry while she changed out of the red dress.

  She scowled at me. “A little privacy?”

  “We’re married!”

  “That doesn’t mean I need you next to me every moment we’re home.”

  The wiser, older me would have simply nodded and walked out of the room, gently closing the door behind me. The younger, stressed-out me blurted out the one word probably responsible for the majority of fights across history.

  “What?”

  She speared a leg into her pajama bottoms and threw me a look that could melt ice.

  “What?” I said again. A little louder.

  Juliana’s head popped up through her pajama top and the look on her face should have sent me scurrying from the room. Instead, I stood my ground. I was dimly aware of what a ridiculous contrast we made: she with her flowered cotton pajamas, and me in my suit and tie, with a goblet of red wine sloshing in one angry fist.

  “How about you tell me what?” Juliana said, and advanced on me. “You’re working harder at your desk job then you ever worked when you were in the field.” She poked me in the chest. It hurt; all that piano practice had turned her fingers into weapons. “You’re right around the corner, but I can’t visit for lunch. You go in early and barely make it out before your law class. You worry more about this job than anything you’ve done in the past. Don’t think I can’t see it.”

  “So?”

  “You’re not telling me something. What is it?”

  Only one thing feels worse than repeatedly lying: getting caught in a lie. Juliana had the moral high ground, but instead of backing down, I charged. “Maybe if you didn’t nag so much about every little thing, I wouldn’t be so stressed. I’m doing everything around here, and you’re just playing piano.”

  The words sounded stupid to me even as I said them. I drew in a breath to take them back…

  “You idiot,” she said. “That’s the dumbest thing that’s ever crossed your lips.”

  All manner of insulting and scandalous words are written across the pages of the Urban Dictionary. Juliana and I kept a copy on our bookshelf as a joke. When she needed a bad word in English, as we all do from time to time, she only had to crack its dark spine and pick one at random. Any of those words would have been better than the one she’d just thrown at me.

  I spent my days hearing Hanssen calling me an idiot and my nights running from the word in increasingly chaotic dreams. I could stomach the word from the target of an espionage investigation. Juliana saying it turned everything into a red rage.

  “You’re cleaning that up!” she yelled.

  I looked from her scandalized face to the red stain spreading across the far wall. I couldn’t remember throwing my wineglass across the bedroom. I took deep breaths and had almost managed to calm myself when the Hello Lady started her nightly ritual.

  “Hello? Hello?” The soft voice drifted downward. Normally, Juliana and I would have both laughed and let the odd moment cut through the tension. Tonight wasn’t normal.

  “Shut up!” I hollered. “Just shut up, you crazy old nut job!”

  “Get out.” Juliana pushed me back out of the room. “Just get out.”

  She turned without closing the door. I thought she might have relented until my pillow hit me in the face. I caught it reflexively and stumbled back. The door missed my nose by an inch.

  I lay on the lumpy couch and replayed the night in my mind. The way Juliana moved on the piano, how we’d rushed out of the auditorium, the soundproof room, the way she sat on the padded chair. Waiting. Juliana had dangled the winning lottery ticket in front of me and I hadn’t opened my eyes to see it. Instead I had dragged us into a fight that might take days to repair. Everything was falling apart, and what would I have to show for it?

  The Hello Lady never performed her nightly serenade again after my outburst. Days aft
er our tempers cooled and we found mutual civility, we waited one night for the noticeably absent “Hello? Hello?” to fall toward us. It never came. In a moment of anger I had robbed an elderly woman of her routine and had struck away one of the best parts of mine.

  Idiot.

  CHAPTER 13

  JERSEY WALLS AND AIRPLANES

  January 25, 2001—Thursday

  I heard voices in Hanssen’s office when I returned from lunch. The boss rarely went to lunch. He either ran off to church services or sat in his office behind a closed door. Hanssen might enjoy his self-imposed fast, but I needed to eat, and sitting around the office during my lunch break would look odd. Normal people ate around noon. The most important way to keep Hanssen’s heavy suspicion from turning to paranoia was to treat this job like any other.

  “Good to see you, Gene.” Hanssen’s voice had never lost the toughness that came from growing up in Chicago. “We’ll get lunch one of these days.”

  “Thanks, Bob. Welcome back to HQ.” The door opened and a tallish man stepped out ahead of Hanssen. He saw me and extended a hand. “Assistant Director Gene O’Leary.”

  My smile was genuine. Gene O’Leary had an affable, no-nonsense manner that set you immediately at ease. “Investigative Specialist Eric O’Neill. Nice to meet another Irishman.”

  Gene laughed and shook my hand. His grip was vigorous, but it didn’t become the crushing test of strength that so many agents insisted on. “You’ll find a lot of us here, Eric. Irish took over the bureau years ago.”

  Hanssen dropped a hand on O’Leary’s shoulder and steered him toward the door. “Nice to catch up, Gene, but we have a lot of work to do, so…”

  O’Leary raised apologetic hands. “I won’t keep you, Bob. It’s good to have you here. No one knows computer systems the way you do.”