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“Yes, sir.”
“When does he want to come by?”
“He requested this afternoon.”
The president picks up his coffee cup. “He’ll get tomorrow afternoon, and he’ll like it. He’s in my country, not his. Screw him.”
CHAPTER 75
CIA DIRECTOR HANNAH Abrams walks into the furnished basement and says to her two security officers, “Bruce, Ralph, let them out, will you?”
Liam Grey and Noa Himel stay still as the two men remove the Velcro restraints. Hannah sees that Noa takes a moment to rub her wrists and stretch out her legs, while Liam defiantly sits still, like he doesn’t want to show any appreciation of being freed.
Despite all that’s going on, Hannah likes seeing the toughness of her officer.
She steps closer.
Noa and Liam both look at her, no fear or favor in their faces.
“Well?” she asks. “That wasn’t a rhetorical question, Liam. Or Noa.”
Noa says, “You shouldn’t send us to Gitmo because we need to tell you what we’ve been doing under the president’s orders.”
Liam says, “I’m with Noa.”
Hannah reaches over to a sheet, tugs it off, revealing a chair.
She drags it over, sits down.
Bruce and Ralph stand still behind her.
“Okay,” she says, reaching into her bag, taking out a white legal pad and pen. “Start talking.”
About thirty-five minutes later, Noa and Liam have visited a toilet in the basement, and the three of them have coffee that Bruce brought in from Starbucks, along with some pastries to take the edge off Noa’s hunger. A larger breakfast is promised.
Hannah looks down at her notes.
“Just to recap, Liam and Noa, operating without the proper authority from the Agency and—”
Liam interrupts her. “The president told us that he had buy-in from Acting Director Fenway. What, we should have gone to him up on the seventh floor and double-checked?”
Hannah stares at him. “That would have been fine, out-of-the-box thinking, wouldn’t it? But as the good former Army officer you once were, you thought you had the proper orders. You didn’t.”
Noa says, “But what about Fenway? Won’t he confirm what the president ordered?”
Hannah says, “Mr. Fenway has gone to ground at a point between the Florida Keys and the Aleutian Islands. He wasn’t around for a debriefing after I was sworn in, and his secretaries told me the day before I came on board, most of his paperwork and files were dumped into burn bags. If you’re hoping for him to bail you out, forget it.”
She lets that bit of news sink in and she tells the two officers more. “When the congressional investigations start up, you two will quickly find out that there was no Agency paperwork, no official presidential finding, and to put a cherry on top of this bloody mess that’s going to make Iran–Contra look like an overdue library book scandal, there was no notification to Congress.”
Liam still looks defiant, but it looks like Noa has aged about ten years since Hannah started speaking.
Hannah says, “In a normal world, and if I was in a good mood, I’d advise the two of you to lawyer up, and then I’d contact the attorney general and confess all, and then I’d next arrange an urgent meeting of the Gang of Eight in Congress to give them a full debriefing, andwait for the flamethrowers to kick in, and the leaks to the news media to start a few hours later.”
She pauses. “Even though I haven’t been on the job three days, you two and your rogue teams are still my responsibility.”
Hannah quiets for a moment, gauging what might happen next with Noa and Liam after this bracing blow of reality.
Liam looks to Noa, she looks right back at him, and Liam says, “I guess what you’re saying, ma’am, is that we’re not in a normal world.”