“That’s a confidential employee identifier,” Holman said, pointing at the screen. “That’s the number for an operative who can’t be named, even in classified documents. Do you want me to look up who it belongs to?”
“No need,” Hollingshead said. “I recognize it. The person you’ve identified is known to me.” He opened his eyes. Blinked a few times. Then he looked at Chapel and Wilkes and took a deep breath. “No point in hiding things now. That’s Angel’s identifier. Angel is the hijacker.”
“No,” Chapel said. “No. No way it’s her. She wouldn’t do this.”
“Son, I don’t want to believe it either,” Hollingshead told him, reaching for his arm. “But we have to at least entertain the possibility—”
Chapel brushed off the director’s hand. “After all she’s done for you. Everything she’s done for her country. You won’t even give her the benefit of the doubt?”
“That’s exactly what I want to do,” Hollingshead said. He sighed deeply and looked around him. Every eye in the room was watching him. “We’ll have to bring her in. Today.”
Chapel shook his head. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Hollingshead was going to arrest Angel just because the NSA claimed she was a traitor? It was unthinkable.
“She can tell us her side of the story,” Hollingshead went on.
“Somebody’s framing her,” Chapel insisted.
It was Moulton who responded to that. “If they are, they’re doing an incredible job of it. It took every resource we had to trace her. If this was a frame-up, you’d think the false evidence would be easier to find.”
Chapel glared at the man. “You don’t know her.”
“Looks like maybe you don’t, either,” Moulton pointed out.
Chapel took a step toward him, ready to drag him out of his chair and beat the smug smile off the analyst’s face. Before he could get there, however, Holman stepped in and cleared her throat.
Two decades, half of Chapel’s life, had been spent learning to respect his superior officers. It had become just a reflex — if a colonel cleared her throat, you shut up and listened to what she had to say.
“None of us likes this, Captain,” she told him. “None of us wants to believe the hijacker was one of us, a member of the intelligence community. And right now we don’t have to. Until we have more information we don’t have to make any decisions.”
“My analysis is sound,” Moulton insisted.
“Paul, be quiet,” Holman said. She looked over at Hollingshead. “How do you want to proceed?” she asked.
The director looked down at the floor. He shoved his hands deep into his pockets. “Wilkes, go and get her. Head north. I’ll send you the coordinates for her location once you’re on the road.”
“What?” Chapel said.
Hollingshead looked up at him and those genial professorial eyes that twinkled so effectively behind his spectacles were gone. They’d been replaced by the eyes of a rear admiral of the navy, a man who had sent men knowingly to their deaths. A man who had never shirked from a hard decision. “Do you have something to say?”
Chapel bit down his first reaction. Tried desperately to get a handle on his feelings. “Sir. With all due respect. Angel and I have worked together for a very long time. Let me do this.”
“I’m afraid I can’t allow it,” Hollingshead told him. “You and Angel have a… complicated relationship. No, son. You’re the wrong man for the job.”
Holman coughed politely into her hand. “Should it really be anyone from DIA? There might be a conflict of interests here. Maybe we should contact FBI. They’re trained for this sort of thing.”
“I appreciate your input,” Hollingshead told her. “But if I can’t send Chapel to fetch her, I won’t send a complete stranger, either. Wilkes is our man.” He turned to the marine. “Go on, son. Your country needs you to do this.”
Wilkes straightened up into a salute. “Sir, yes, sir,” he said. Then with one quick glance at Chapel he was gone, headed back to the elevator that was already waiting for him, its doors open.
Chapel whirled around, his breath catching in his throat. “You know — you know what will happen once she’s in custody!”
Hollingshead just stood there, no expression at all on his face.
“Goddamnit!” Chapel shouted. He grabbed one of the chairs away from its workstation and threw it across the room. In the cavernous space it failed to collide with anything. Instead it just slid across the ugly carpet, its wheels spinning pointlessly in the air.
“Thank you,” Hollingshead said to Holman. “You’ve been most helpful.”
“It’s what we’re here for,” she said. Then a furrow crossed her brow. “Rupert, I am sorry. I didn’t think we would find one of yours behind the hijacking.”
“How could you have?” the director responded. “One should never be sorry for telling the truth. Now. If you’ll forgive me — and I hope especially you’ll forgive my rather overwrought agent here — I think we’ll be going. There’s a great deal I need to do.”
“Yes, of course,” Holman said.
Chapel wanted to scream. He wanted to pick the chair up and start smashing screens. He wanted to do — something, anything to make this not have happened at all. But in the end, all he could do was take his place behind Hollingshead as they started toward the elevator bank.
“Oh, Rupert,” Holman said just before their elevator arrived. “You know I’ll have to contact the secretary of defense about this, right?”
“I’ll call him myself,” Hollingshead told her.
She started to say something else, but then she seemed to think better of it. Instead she just nodded and watched them go.
In the elevator neither of them spoke. The silence continued as they made their way through the Visitor Control Center and back out into the parking lot. Wilkes had taken the car, so Hollingshead made a quick call to request transport. While they waited for it to arrive the director fiddled with something in his pocket. Chapel did what he could to contain himself.
In the end it didn’t work. “She won’t get a trial,” he said, barely whispering.
“I’ll make sure she’s treated fairly,” Hollingshead replied. “It’s out of your hands, son. Let this go.”
“Let it go? Are you kidding me?”
Hollingshead’s eyes flashed for a moment. “I am not in the habit of doing so.”
Chapel wouldn’t be warned off. He didn’t even care if the NSA was listening to every word he said. “They’ll take her to Guantánamo. Or someplace worse! They’ll interrogate her, over and over, until she cracks and confesses to something she didn’t do. They’ll make her a scapegoat and no one will care that the real hijacker got away with attacking us, and—”
“Captain Chapel,” Hollingshead said, and his voice cracked like thunder. “I’ve given you your orders. Are you questioning my command?”
Chapel could feel his heart beating in his chest like artillery fire finding its range. Every bit of his training and discipline begged him to shut up, but his head roared with anger. “She’s a hero. She’s saved my life countless times. If you treat her like this—”
“That’s enough.” Hollingshead lifted his chin and looked over at a Humvee that was heading toward them — clearly the transport he’d requested. “Captain, I’m temporarily relieving you from duty.”
“What the hell?”
The director kept his eyes on the approaching vehicle. “Effective immediately. Your behavior today has been inexcusable. Am I understood?”