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India O’Donnell.
Names are meaningful, came Benson’s reminder.
Rhett rubbed his eyes and exhaled out loud. The nameIndiahad indeed drawn his attention when it had popped up on Rhett’s radar somewhat randomly. Rhett had been raised by a Southern grandmother for whomGone with the Windwas a sacred text. His earliest memories were of her sipping strawberry wine and reading those holy words out loud. She’d called him Rhett to her Scarlet, then assigned the side-character names to the pets and neighbors.
India Wilkes, of course, was one of those side-characters, and so when Rhett was forwarded a CIA position-paper with the nameIndia O’Donnelllisted as the author, he couldn’t resist scanning it even though he generally ignored those trite analyst reports.
The report was reasonably well-written, with some rather keen insights. There were even some edgy and borderline provocative opinions about the love-hate triangle between India, China, and Pakistan. It was only when Rhett got to the end that he realized the paper was an answer to a question he’d been asking more and more over the past few years, ever since Benson had left the CIA and Rhett had decided to make his move to Langley, start playing a different sort of game, experience a different sort of power than what he exercised over the men and women he spent thirty years working from the shadows.
Mostly women, of course.
After all, he hadn’t chosen the nameRhettfor nothing.
Yes, he was Rhett through and through.
Dark-hearted pirate.
Plunderer of pussies.
Pillager of panties.
Rhett grinned and rubbed his jaw, almost shivering as excitement raced up his spine. This whole thing had come together in a dazzling flash of insight as he’d read that position-paper penned by some analyst at the Mumbai Embassy.
He’d already been searching for a way to pound the last nail into the coffin of Martin Kaiser’s reputation. He’d spent months cozying up to Senator Robinson, making himself useful to the Senate Intelligence Committee, drawing the Senator into his corner with a masterful confidence game that Rhett had perfected over three decades of manipulating powerful men and women from the shadows.
And this simple paper with the nameIndiaon it had pulled together the final piece of the puzzle.
A way to hasten Martin Kaiser’s downfall.
And perhaps pull John Benson down with him.
Now the thrill of the game made Rhett’s jaw clench and almost seize up. He trembled with anticipation for the way this could play out.
Yes, having Benson in the game made things more complicated, sure as hell made it more dangerous.
But at the same time, Rhett understood that ithadto play out this way.
Their fates were intertwined, Benson's and his.
Still, Rhett had been somewhat blindsided when he heard the name John Benson while listening in via Edwin Moses’s phone. It worried him that Kaiser had handed the O’Donnell thing to Benson and Darkwater. Rhett had expected that Kaiser would keep this away from Benson, especially with Senator Robinson breathing down his neck to put some distance between the CIA and Darkwater.
It was only when Rhett dug deeper into India O’Donnell’s history that he saw the connection.
Benson had recruited O’Donnell himself.
That detail was buried in a footnote, and Rhett had missed it during his first review of O’Donnell’s file. He wondered now if he’d have gone ahead with the set-up if he’d known Benson had recruited O’Donnell himself.
Either way, there was no turning back now.
Not now that the game was in play.
Sure, he could have pulled the plug the moment he heard Benson’s name. Rhett had momentarily panicked that Kaiser wanted to keep this totally off the books, that he didn’t give a rat’s ass about O’Donnell’s innocence, that he just wanted her gone before word ever got out that there might be a traitor in Kaiser’s CIA.
Rhett could have backed off right then, just let the whole thing go, let O’Donnell get put down quietly if that was Kaiser and Benson’s play.
But instead he’d chosen to lean in to the twist in the game, take Benson’s involvement as a gift not a curse, an opportunity not a setback.
And so Rhett pivoted at the last minute, sent in that sloppy wet-team without warning them about Benson’s Darkwater man. It would create a mess, add some doubt to the mix, which might play out exactly how Rhett wanted.