But something else struck David as odd as he forced himself to focus on the intel before him. He noticed that neither US spy satellites nor the NSA was picking up any evidence that the Israel Defense Forces were mobilizing for war. Why not? Hadn’t Prime Minister Naphtali nearly been assassinated just hours ago? Hadn’t the Iranians tested an atomic bomb just days before? Wasn’t Shia Islam’s so-called messiah heading for the northern border of Israel? Why weren’t the Israelis moving to a higher-alert status in anticipation of more attacks? Something didn’t add up.
His phone vibrated. A text message was coming in. He checked it immediately, hoping it was from Marseille or his father. Instead, it was from Eva Fischer, letting him know that she would be the one picking him up from Reagan National once he landed. She hoped he was doing well, she said, and she had news, though she left it unspecified.
David set the phone down and stared out the window. He was still struggling to clear his head of the cancer consuming his mother, his father’s crushing grief over her seemingly imminent death, and his own grief as well, not to mention thoughts of Marseille. He was a professional, he told himself. He could not let himself be encumbered or bogged down. He had to sharpen his focus for the mission ahead. It was for Marseille and his parents that he had joined the Central Intelligence Agency in the first place, was it not? To avenge them. To defend them. It was for them, not for himself, that he had left the comforts of home and been willing to go into the heart of darkness. He would never have chosen this life for himself. He wasn’t that brave. He wasn’t that adventurous.
Unchecked, David knew his love for his parents and for Marseille might threaten to divert him from his destiny, tempt him to renege on his duty, all out of a desire to remain with the ones he cared for so deeply. But now, in no small measure because of the talk with his father, he realized that it was precisely because he loved them that he had to leave them. Such love had to compel him to keep his word and return to the battle, to fight for those he loved, to protect them, to honor them, and to give them the freedom to live their lives without fear or regret — even to lay down his very life if necessary.
It was time. He was ready. Now there was just one piece of unfinished business — he had to decide whether to tell Marseille what he was doing and why.
10
Eva Fischer was waiting for him as promised.
As David stepped off the jet and into the chilly night air at Washington’s Reagan National Airport, Eva gave him a long hug and asked about his mother. David appreciated the gesture and filled her in as best he could as they got in her car and headed to Langley. He felt like he should reciprocate, but David realized he knew hardly anything about Eva’s personal life, and at that moment it somehow felt awkward to ask. He was certain she wasn’t married. She wasn’t wearing a ring, and in all the time they’d worked together, she’d never mentioned a boyfriend, much less a fiancé. He wondered why. Blonde, blue-eyed, in good shape, and attractive, she was certainly one of the most eligible single women in their division, maybe in the entire Agency. He’d been interested in her since the first day they’d met, and if Marseille weren’t suddenly back in the picture…
It was not a thought he wanted to finish. He realized that work typically dominated all of their conversations. Perhaps it should again, he decided.
“So what’s your news?” he asked, running his hands through his hair and shifting gears. “Is it about the president?”
It wasn’t. She had nothing new to report on Jackson’s condition beyond what the media was reporting. He was alive and was still in surgery. Beyond that, the doctors were keeping tight-lipped. Eva said the White House press secretary had announced she would do a briefing at the top of the hour. The National Security Council had just finished meeting with the vice president, but apparently the twenty-fifth amendment was not being invoked. Not yet, at least.
“Let’s hope that’s a good sign,” David said.
Eva agreed, then shared the news she’d hinted about in her text. “I just talked to one of my friends over at the Secret Service. They’re all under strict orders not to say anything. They don’t want it to leak to the media yet. But they killed one of the terrorists in Manhattan during the attack, they captured another, and a third escaped. There’s a massive manhunt under way for him at the moment.”
“You’re serious?”
“Jack wants me to head up to New York after our meeting tonight to be part of the interrogation team.”
“That’s phenomenal.”
“Thanks. I know. I’m excited. Whoever this guy is, we need to squeeze him hard. Are there other attacks coming? Who sent them? Where’d they get their weapons? How did they get into the country? Is there anyone else involved in the cell? All that.”
“What’s your sense of it?”
“There’ve got to be more people involved,” she said. “The Service and FBI guys think so too. They found a cell phone on the guy they captured. They’re running the LUDs now and seeing who he called and when.”
“Do you know their nationalities yet?”
“Nothing definitive. Just ‘Middle East origin.’ That’s it so far.”
“Excuse me, ma’am, do you have any updates on the Portland flight?”
Marseille Harper’s flight out of Syracuse had been repeatedly delayed and hadn’t landed at Washington Dulles until just after 6 p.m. She’d missed her 5:35 p.m. connection back to Oregon, though it had been canceled anyway. She had been standing in line at the United customer service desk ever since.
Massive late-season snow and ice storms in the Midwest and Northwest, some of them quite severe, had caused dozens of major airports to be shut down, and hundreds of flights were canceled. United wasn’t alone in routing flights to its Dulles operations hub, and now thousands of passengers found themselves stranded, frustrated, and trying to figure out another way to their homes, businesses, or other destinations.
“Portland?” the harried customer service rep asked above the din.
“Yes, I really need to get home tonight,” Marseille said, trying to imagine twenty-three little faces showing up in her classroom the next morning without her being there to greet them.
“Good luck, honey. Nothing’s moving to the Northwest today. Probably not even tomorrow. Haven’t you seen the news?”
About the storms in the Midwest and Northwest, the woman meant. But the truth was, Marseille hadn’t paid much attention to the storms. She’d been riveted to the coverage of the attack on the president, and it made her heartsick. Until now, it had been such an amazing weekend. Being in her best friend Lexi’s wedding. Hanging out with so many friends from college she hadn’t seen in so long. Seeing David Shirazi for the first time since she was fifteen. Now her country was under attack, and she felt disoriented and unsure where to turn.
“How close can you get me?”
“At this point?” the heavyset woman asked, typing furiously into her computer. “Phoenix.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Wish I was, darlin’, but believe me, I have neither the time nor the energy.”
“How about San Francisco?” Marseille asked, thinking maybe she could rent a car there and drive to Portland.
“Everything’s booked. Look, dear, I can give you vouchers to stay at a hotel tonight. I can give you a free flight anywhere in the country you want to go in the next twelve months. But I can’t book you on anything right now unless you want to go south.”