“I couldn’t agree more,” Harper said, and realized that he meant it. As the elevator doors opened on the first floor, they stepped out onto the clean white marble, and he turned to give the younger man some last-minute advice. “Get back to Katie, Ryan. I’ll handle the fallout over your speedy departure. You did a hell of a thing today, so think about taking some of the credit for it, okay? And don’t worry about Vanderveen. He’ll turn up sooner or later.”
“I still want that bastard, John.” Ryan hated to break his promise to Katie, would dread trying to explain it to her, but the words had come out unexpectedly, and he knew that he meant them. “I want back in. Officially, I mean.”
Harper smiled. It was what he had wanted to hear. “We’ll talk about it in a few days. Until then, get some rest and go see your girl.”
“If I can even catch a flight,” Ryan said, with more than a little frustration. “That storm passed us, but I heard it’s headed north pretty fast. By the time I get to Dulles, they might have the airports-”
He stopped when he saw that the other man’s smile had turned into a big grin. Harper shook his head, handing Ryan a card with a number on the back. “Got your cell phone?” he asked. Ryan nodded. “Call that number when you’re ready to go. I’m the DDO, Ryan. Sometimes you forget that.”
Kealey was about to ask what he meant by that cryptic remark, but instead just reached out to shake the other man’s hand. “Thanks, John. I’ll see you Monday.”
“Have a safe trip. I’ll meet you at the main gate when you get back. Call it 9:00 AM.” Harper was looking over Ryan’s shoulder. “I think someone else wants to have a word with you.”
Ryan turned to see Naomi Kharmai standing a few feet away, wearing a nice smile and looking good in a white pantsuit that contrasted well with her caramel-colored skin. She tilted her head and said, “Where are you off to in such a hurry?”
They sat across from each other in the dismal cafeteria, which was mostly empty at this late hour. Awkward silence at first, as Ryan left his coffee untouched, and Kharmai rolled a mug of tea between her shapely hands.
“Just gonna run out on a girl, huh?”
He looked up. She was smiling, maybe a little bit sadly. “I’ll be back next week, Naomi. You’ll get tired of me in no time.”
“I thought you wanted out. I thought you were out.”
“I can’t leave. Not while he’s still out there.”
She thought about that, was about to say something, then decided against it. “Are you going into the CTC?”
“That’s where you work, right?” She nodded. “Then no.”
She scowled as the grin spread over his face. “Seriously.”
He shrugged. “Probably. That’s where I’ll have the most access to resources, so, yeah, I think so.”
She smiled, and they both fell silent. Finally, just to make conversation, Ryan said, “They’re giving us medals, you know. Pretty ones.”
She shrugged, and what followed kind of surprised him. “That’s not so important to me. I don’t know why… I always thought it would be.”
He read in her eyes that it wasn’t an act. She meant the words, and that surprised him even more. “Harper likes you, Naomi. You got noticed on this, so take what they give you and smile for the cameras, okay?” She looked up to see if he was making fun, but his face was completely sober. “I’m not trying to be arrogant, but I don’t need this job, and I don’t really want it all that much either. It’s more time away from Katie, because she’s back at school in the spring and won’t be able to come down here with me.”
He paused to take his first and only sip of coffee, then said, “You, on the other hand, have the goods, Naomi. You could go high here… You couldn’t be DCI, because of the nationality thing, but just about everything below that is open to you. I mean, you could definitely head up the CTC. To get there, though, you’re going to have to fake it once in a while. You don’t care about the medal… This is one of those times. It’s in your best interest to play it up a little bit, believe me.”
She took the advice for what it was worth, flattered by the compliment, wishing that he hadn’t brought up the other woman. I want you to come home with me! she wanted to scream, and it must have been all over her face, because his words were followed by a long, awkward silence.
Eventually, though, she decided to spare him. It was clear that he wanted to go, and making him suffer wouldn’t change his mind. “Well, I guess I’ll see you Monday,” she said.
They both stood up. “I guess so.” Then they were looking at each other for a long moment, Naomi waiting, hoping that maybe he’d lean in and…
It didn’t happen. Instead, he just reached out to lightly touch her arm. Then he turned and walked out of the cafeteria.
She looked after him for a long moment, a number of expressions mixing on her face. When he passed through the doors and disappeared from view, she sat down to finish her tea, and tried not to think about it.
When Ryan called the number that Harper had given him, he was reminded for the first time in a long time just how much sway the man really had. It was easy to forget, because there was nothing flashy about the deputy director’s personal lifestyle; although he lived in a nice house and dressed well, he took his wife to the same resort in Colorado every year, and drove a six-year-old Explorer with 100,000 miles on the odometer.
When it came to his position at Langley, though, Harper had the power to move mountains. Five minutes after placing the call, Ryan was met at the main gate by a dark-suited man who, after introducing himself as George, showed him to a glistening black Mercedes with tinted windows. Judging from the way it hunkered down over its wheels, the aggressive-looking sedan was also fitted with armor plating in the door panels and engine compartment.
George opened the rear door, but Ryan shook his head and climbed into the front. He didn’t want to get too used to this kind of treatment, and wondered for a moment if Harper had gone through the trouble as a favor, or to intentionally remind him of some of the perks to be found at Langley. Ryan smiled when he decided that the occasional chauffeured ride in an armored Mercedes didn’t really compensate for the government salary because, after all, it was the salary that determined your actual living conditions. Maybe not for him, but certainly for most government employees.
He was forced to reevaluate that assessment, however, when they squealed onto the runway at Dulles International. He couldn’t believe they had been cleared onto the tarmac, and was even more surprised when he realized that he would be returning to Maine on one of the Company’s Gulfstream executive jets.
He turned to his driver and said, with a hint of a smile, “You must get a kick out of driving this car, George. You have a hell of a job.”
The other man, burly and stoic throughout the whole trip, couldn’t help but crack a smile of his own. “That I do, sir,” he said. “That I do.”
It wasn’t long before the G-V had reached its cruising altitude of 41,000 feet, and they were streaking north at a little over 561 miles per hour. Ryan knew he should kick back and enjoy the ride, and he did, at first, but being all alone almost 8 miles up soon became a little unnerving.
When he noticed that the cockpit was shielded by only a privacy curtain, he drifted up there to reassure himself that someone was actually flying the aircraft. Both men seemed to welcome the company, and it turned out that Steve Kearns, the pilot, had been flying jets for the Agency for almost seventeen years.
“Where was the last place you flew to?” Ryan asked, knowing full well what the answer would be.
Kearns grinned imperceptibly. “Can’t tell you that.”
“Where are we going now?” He honestly didn’t know.
“Can’t tell you that either.”
The grin spread, but Reynolds, the navigator, laughed and said, “Portland International Jetport, sir.”
That was good news to Ryan. Portland was much closer to Cape Elizabeth than Bangor was, which was where he usually flew in and out of.
“I’m surprised they didn’t shut down the runway,” he observed. “That place isn’t really built to handle traffic in this kind of weather.”
Reynolds nodded in agreement. “That’s true. Of course, we’re more than 10,000 feet over the worst of it right now. Things are getting pretty messy on the ground, though. Half the state is out of power, and they had to kick in the generators at PWM. The storm is pushing out a little bit due to the Canadian jet stream, but it’s still
