“The project would be terminated and all assets erased,” Smith said solemnly. “Unfortunately, we need him.”
“Doesn’t mean I have to like it. I’d like to keep that option open.”
“Of course. Mr. President? There’s something else. I told you I was looking for a successor? I found him.”
“You trust him?” The President took another sip of coffee, watching him over the lip of the mug.
“Yes. I have done my duty, sir, well and above what is required of any man. I need to know someone can take my place.”
“At least something good came out of this debacle. He’s a good man?”
“Above reproach.”
The President nodded and stood. “When that time comes, I’ll be glad to work with him. Fulton, I’ve never told you this, but your guidance has been a comfort.” He stuck out his hand.
Smith smiled at the still-young man from Texas and shook the proffered hand. “It’s been an honor.”
Jim Rumple snapped awake, heart pounding, struggling to sit up. The room was so dark he could barely make out the dresser against the far wall.
He strained his ears, but heard nothing except the normal sound of late night traffic. He reflexively felt for the soft spot where his wife slept, before remembering she had left years before.
He sighed heavily and scratched his balls, wondering if the urge to pee justified getting out of bed. He decided it didn’t, and was almost on the verge of sleep when he heard the noise again. He bolted upright and hit the light with one hand while his other fumbled for the Glock in the nightstand. He blinked, squinting, trying to make out the approaching shape, and then he screamed as something hard smashed into his wrist.
He dropped the Glock and rolled across the bed. He came up on the other side and saw the woman from Afghanistan with a gun in one hand and a collapsible police baton in the other.
He froze. “What are you doing in my bedroom?”
“Calm down, Jim,” the woman said. “Sit back. We need to talk.”
There was a cold knot in his stomach, his wrist hurt, and he could barely see. “You can’t do this. I’m CIA!” The woman said nothing but motioned again to the bed. He scrabbled back until his head bumped the oak headboard. “What the fuck is your problem?”
The woman took a seat on the edge of the bed. “Where’s your wife, Jim?”
“What? She’s-I don’t know. Somewhere in New York, I guess.”
The woman nodded. “Couldn’t handle the stress? I’m assuming you read her in. Was it the travel that got to her? Or the lying?”
“Something like that.”
“You almost got my team killed. You know that, right?”
“You didn’t provide official orders!”
“You were told to stay out of it, but you pulled the Delta team back. You’re a good officer. People respect you, even though they don’t like you. I can understand that. People don’t like me, either. We’re two peas in a pod. Why did you pull the team back?”
“I’m not telling you anything!” The sleepy confusion was gone and his heart was pounding. The woman was clearly insane. He tried to reason with her. “How was I supposed to know you’d get caught by Al-Qaeda? As soon as the orders came in I redeployed the Delta team to your location. I saved your life!”
The woman stood up, the pistol shaking at him with every word. “You. Saved. My. Life? My teammates saved my life. You don’t even know why you did it. You pulled them back because you don’t like what you don’t understand.”
As she talked, he remembered what his superiors said when he made it back to Washington.
Don’t ask more questions. You fucked up. Don’t talk about it. Compartmentalized security. Need to know. Take the paid vacation and relax.
He desperately tried to remember what his instructors at The Farm taught him about establishing a rapport. “That’s not—”
“That’s not what?” she interrupted. “Not true? You made a mistake. Like I said, I understand. You just had to know who I was and why I was in Afghanistan and how I got your orders countermanded. So, you asked around. You really shouldn’t have done that.” She shook her head.
“Look, I’m sorry. You’re right, I couldn’t let it go. That’s no reason to do whatever it is you’re thinking of doing. Just leave. Nobody will know you were here.”
He trembled as his voice broke. I won’t go out like this. I’ll knock the gun away, tie her up, then call the Agency. They’ll take her away and I’ll finally find out who she is and what agency she works for.
The woman smiled cruelly. “If you think you can escape, you’re wrong. You can’t.”
His surge of hope faded. “This isn’t right,” he said, deflated. “Someone will hear the gun.”
“It’s a .45 with subsonic ammo and an integrated silencer. It’s no louder than a sneeze.
“Why are you doing this?”
“I’m fucked up in the head,” she answered calmly. “I mean, I’m trying to be a better person. There’s a man I like, a good man, and I want him to like me, too. But, I’m like you. I just can’t let things go.”
He saw the look in her eyes and knew the conversation was over. He wanted to scream, to run for his life.
All those thoughts ran through his head in the fraction of a second it took for her to pull the trigger. As he saw the flash he wondered if his ex-wife would care when they told her he was dead, a bullet through his brain and his bowels released over the bed they had shared, and that was his last thought as the bullet stopped his thinking forever.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kevin Lee Swaim studied creative writing with David Foster Wallace at Illinois State University.
He is currently the Subject Matter Expert for Intrusion Prevention Systems for a Fortune 50 insurance company located in the Mid West. He holds the CISSP certification from ISC2.
When he's not writing, he's busy repairing guitars for the working bands of Central Illinois.