She walked over, her insides trembling. Except for the blood pooling at the back of his head, the man on the sidewalk looked exactly as he had in the souk in Ramadi. His eyes stared vacantly up at the sky and she didn’t have to bend down to check his pulse to see that he was dead.
Feeling as if someone other than her was controlling her movements, she aimed her Beretta pistol at Abu Ubaida’s face. This is for Ryan Dempsey, you son of a bitch, she thought, and ignoring the fact that he was already dead, squeezed the trigger.
CHAPTER 36
Central District, Beirut, Lebanon
Flying over the peaks of Mount Lebanon, approaching Beirut, the city spread out below her all the way to the Mediterranean, a distant blue in the afternoon sun. She hadn’t intended to come to Beirut. In fact, she’d been specifically ordered by Perry Dreyer and Saul to get her “ass back to Langley ASAP.”
She had gone back to the U.S. Refugee Aid Service, the CIA cover office at the Convention Center, escorted by Master Sergeant Travis, who made sure she was safe every step of the way, insisting on going with her right up to the door of the office before saying good-bye.
“Please thank Crimson for me. I’m sorry I had to leave. He saved my life today. Twice,” she told him.
“I’ll tell him. You did good today, ma’am.”
“Not really. I’m lousy at taking orders. And I was scared to death,” she said.
“So?” He shrugged and, giving her a little wave, left.
She went inside the CIA offices and called Saul via JWICS-based Skype with the code word “Home Run,” indicating Abu Ubaida was dead, no matter that it was four in the morning in McLean.
“You’re positive he’s dead? No question?” he said, and despite the excitement, yawned.
“One hundred percent,” she said. “It’s him. It’s over,” she said, suddenly sleepy herself. She hadn’t slept all last night and it was starting to hit her. Also, the adrenaline that was part of the battle was seeping away and she felt spacey. She needed her pills.
“Unbelievable. Truly, Carrie. That’s really something. How do you feel?”
“I don’t know. Numb. I haven’t slept. Maybe I’ll feel it tomorrow.”
“Of course. What about al-Waliki and Benson?” he asked.
“Why? Did Benson give the director an earful?” She tensed, imagining Benson demanding her head on a silver platter.
“Matter of fact, he was saying nice things about you. Says you acted appropriately, probably saved their lives. In fact, it made him feel part of the battle. He can’t wait to tell his war stories in the Oval Office. Actually had someone take a photo of him with the combat fatigues and the M4 you gave him.”
“No shit?” she murmured.
“We understand Secretary Bryce is fine. She’s supposed to meet with Benson and al-Waliki later today. They were setting the agenda when you broke up their meeting,” Saul said.
“Yeah. After her plane landed, they kept her in a secure bunker in Camp Victory while they made sure all was quiet in al-Amiriyah.”
“Listen, Carrie. David wants to debrief you himself. So do I. We need you back in Langley ASAP.”
A pang went through her. Was this like before with Fielding? An excuse to put her back in Intelligence Analysis?
“I haven’t done anything wrong, have I?” she asked.
“On the contrary, both Dreyer and David are writing letters of commendation for your 201 file. Congratulations. Hurry back, there’s lots to talk about-and we do need a full debrief,” he said.
“Saul, there are still loose ends. Beirut for one. Abu Nazir’s still out there, possibly in Haditha. And there’s something else. Something Abu Ubaida said when he was interrogating Romeo-sorry, Walid Karim, that I can’t get out of my head.”
“Be back in my office tomorrow. We’ll go over it all then. And, Carrie. .”
“Yes?”
“Helluva job. Really. I can’t wait to talk to you in person. There’s a lot to go over, even though Perry says he needs you there,” he said. A warmth shot through her like tequila. Saul was happy with her. She could lap up his praise like a junkie forever.
She’d booked her flight back to Washington, but on a sudden impulse, while waiting in Amman for her connecting flight to JFK and from there to Dulles, she’d changed her ticket and flown to Beirut.
Now, flying over Beirut, she could pick out the landmarks. The Marina Tower, the Habtoor, the Phoenicia Hotel, the Crowne Plaza. It’s funny, she thought. Everything that had happened had all started here with the aborted meet with Nightingale in Ashrafieh. It was like a single run, a kind of marathon that just hadn’t stopped. In a way, coming back to Beirut was like coming full circle, because this was where it began for her. Not just that night in Ashrafieh, but when she had gone back to Princeton after her first bipolar breakdown, the one that nearly ended her college career and anything resembling a future life.
Two things had saved her life, she thought. Clozapine and Beirut. The two were connected.
Summer. Her junior year at Princeton. She had gone back to class and spent all her time studying. She no longer ran, was off the track team. No more five A.M. runs. Her boyfriend, John, was also history. She was on lithium and sometimes Prozac as well. They kept adjusting her doses. But she hated it. She felt, she told her sister, Maggie, as if the lithium took away twenty IQ points.
Everything was harder. And it felt, she told the doctor at McCosh, the student health center, like she was seeing everything through a thick glass. As if she couldn’t touch it. Nothing seemed real anymore. Also, she had periods where she was excessively thirsty or she’d lose her appetite completely. She’d go two, three, four days at a time not eating, doing nothing but drinking water. She hardly ever thought about sex anymore. All she did was go from class to class, back to the dorm, thinking, I can’t do this. I can’t live like this.
What saved her was when one of her professors mentioned a summer program for Near East Studies students: the Overseas Political Studies Program at the American University of Beirut. At first her father wasn’t going to pay for it, even after she told him she needed it for her senior thesis.
“What happens if you have a breakdown there?” he asked.
“What happens if I have a breakdown here? Who’s going to help me? You, Dad?” Not saying, Remember Thanksgiving? because they both knew what she was talking about and that what had happened with him might happen with her too. What she didn’t tell him or anyone was that she was barely hanging on, that she wasn’t far off from suicide. Not far at all.
“I need this,” she told him. And when even that didn’t work, she added, “You drove Mom away. You want to drive me away too, Dad?” Until he finally agreed to pay for it.
And then, coming into Beirut, surrounded by this amazing city and ancient ruins, meeting students from all over the Middle East, walking on Rue Bliss with the other kids, eating shawarma and manaeesh, clubbing on Rue Monot, and when she was almost out of lithium, she made the great discovery. She went to an Arab doctor in Zarif, a small, clever-looking man who looked at her when she told him about the way lithium made her feel and said, “What about clozapine?”
Just being able to tell someone, finally, how it felt. And it worked. She was almost like the old Carrie, before the breakdown. When she went back to see him as a follow-up and to get a prescription refill, he was leaving on vacation. She asked, “What if I can’t get a prescription from another doctor?” and he told her, “This is the Levant, mademoiselle. For money, you can get anything.”