Nick piped in and asked, “How so?”
“Agent Reilly is wanted for questioning in the murder of an employee of the CIA. An employee with significant security access.”
“And how is that a matter of national security?”
“Reilly may be working with elements whose aims are as yet unknown. We need to understand what we’re dealing with and whether or not there has been a breach.”
Nick nodded sympathetically, then said, “I understand. On the other hand, they might have had a falling out over some chick.” He couldn’t have said it more flippantly if he tried. Then he added, “Unless you know something more specific you’re not sharing with us? Maybe about someone at the agency who goes by the handle of Reed Corrigan? You know, the one this office has put in more than one request about, only to be told he doesn’t exist?” He paused for a second, then before Henriksson answered, he said, “Oh, wait, sorry, I know-you can’t, ’cause it’s classified. Right?”
Henriksson’s spine straightened as his gaze bored into Nick. “Like I said, this is a matter of national security. My instructions are to escort Agent Reilly down to Langley where our people and the Arlington County CID can question him.”
“He’s not going anywhere,” Gallo said.
“The man is believed to have shot an employee of the Agency with B-2 clearance,” Henriksson fired back. “We need to understand what happened and contain any potential security breach. Urgently.”
“Look, I’m with you on this,” Gallo replied. “We’re on the same side, remember? But my hands are tied. There’s due process involved. Right now, all we have is Reilly handing himself in and saying someone tried to kill him. That’s all we have right now. He’s offering to tell us exactly what happened once his lawyer’s around, which should happen sometime this morning. We can’t even arrest him yet, not without a formal indictment. You have one?”
Henriksson’s jaw tightened visibly, then he said, “Not yet.”
“Not to worry. I’ve got the DA coming in shortly.”
“The murder took place in Virginia.”
Nick said, “Yeah, but he’s up here, isn’t he?”
Gallo added, “We need the paperwork sorted out. Until that’s ready, our hands are tied. We can’t process him-or release him.”
Henriksson took a breath, like he was deciding whether or not to share something-or at least wanting to give that impression. Then the jurisdictional tussle resumed. As I watched them argue, my mind took a step back and I couldn’t help but take note of how they perfectly encapsulated something I’d noticed years ago regarding the vast distance between the country’s agencies and their employees. More often than not, law enforcement seemed to attract passionate races like the Italians and Irish, fiery emotion-driven extraverts with inferiority complexes who shared an unshakeable moral sense bound-up with Catholicism-whether devout or lapsed-and an idea of society rooted in the extended family and a realism that meant being open to people’s better nature, even while accepting that humans are fundamentally flawed. The intelligence agencies, on the other hand, seemed to attract a far colder type: Northern Europeans like Henriksson-introverted, dour Puritan ideologues possessing a self-hating superiority, who see family as a tortuous chore to be endured and society as little more than a paranoia-inducing crowd of sinners who need to be permanently spied upon and are, even when under 24/7 watch, still sinning in their minds.
I also started to get antsy, like this wasn’t going to work out how Nick imagined. I started to think that I might have to find my own way out of here, which wouldn’t be easy-except that I knew the place inside out. Which meant that although I knew how virtually impossible it would be to escape, I was probably as qualified as it gets to find some minute weakness and exploit it.
Gallo and Nick stood their ground and won-for now. I wasn’t going anywhere yet. Henriksson and his minion were led out by Gallo while Nick stayed behind.
“You must be starving,” he said. “I’ll get you something.”
I nodded, wearily, “Thanks.” I wanted to also thank him for fighting for me, but I was still smarting from his bringing me in. Then my tiredness fell away long enough for me to remember what I needed from him first.
“Forget the food for a second,” I told him as I checked my watch. “Tess should have landed by now.”
“She’s coming in, right?”
“Later, she’s going home first,” I said, then I pointed up at the cameras. “Are they still off?”
Nick nodded.
I dropped my voice anyway and leaned in. “I need you to do something first. I need my laptop secured. I don’t want anyone tampering with it.”
“You want to call her and…?” He didn’t need to finish his thought aloud.
“No.” I kept my voice down. “I don’t want her implicated in any way, I don’t want to give anyone any cause to hassle her.” I looked at him.
“What, you want me to…?”
“I want you to keep it safe. We can do this officially. I’ll give you my formal consent to search my house for evidence. Go there on the basis that you’re bringing her in. Talk to her; tell her what’s going on. Try to give her some reassurance. And take care of that too.”
He held my gaze, then nodded. “OK.”
Despite everything, despite the hurricane of conflicting emotions raging inside me, I had to admit it was a bit of a relief to have him there, as my partner, knowing the whole story, looking out for me. I missed having my partner riding shotgun alongside me. I missed this.
Maybe, one of these days, I’d forgive him after all.
17
Ocracoke, North Carolina
“I just heard from our people in New York. They’re playing hard ball,” Tomblin informed Roos over their encrypted phones.
Gordon Roos was fuming, but, as always, he never showed it. He was too busy moving chess pieces in his head, anticipating reactions and counter-reactions and deciding on how best to handle the crisis that had mushroomed around them.
At least they knew more than they did before the screw-up in Arlington: Reilly had found himself a weak link inside the CIA and had leaned on him to help him find Roos. That leak was now plugged, and Reilly was being blamed for it. That wasn’t a bad result at all. But having Reilly in FBI protective custody-that was far from ideal.
“We need to get him out of their hands fast,” Tomblin added, “shut him up before someone starts taking his blabbing seriously.”
“Or we take care of him while he’s in there.”
“That’s the other option. Riskier, of course.”
“Do we have any assets in place?”
“A couple of promising candidates,” Tomblin said.
Roos knew he could count on the man’s judgment. Edward J. Tomblin wasn’t just Roos’s partner back when Roos was an active agent as well as his oldest friend. He was also a very capable man, one of a handful of top-level CIA employees to have survived six administrations.
They had both been recruited by the CIA straight from college and immediately sent with the legend of medical aid workers to the self-declared Republic of Biafra, where they had forged an unbreakable bond in the ocean of blood that had engulfed south-eastern Nigeria. Although their individual reactions to the atrocities they witnessed there were different-Roos experiencing the first flush of the kill-or-be-killed mindset that had defined him from that point on, while Tomblin established the Zen-like detachment that would serve him equally well, both had emerged with the absolute conviction that they could survive anything.
In the almost forty years since their first posting, this had indeed proved to be true. Together they had survived the final few months of the Vietnam War, the killing fields of Cambodia and Angola, followed by a few years at the spearhead of the Cold War, where they’d first used the two code names of “Reed Corrigan” for Roos and “Frank Fullerton” for Tomblin.