Aim And Fire

sir.”

Other bosses she had worked for got redder as they got angrier, but the more furious Gilliam was, the paler he turned. Judging by the pallor of his chubby face, Tracy figured he must have been about to explode. But when he spoke, his voice was calm, with only a hint of underlying tremor. “Do you like working at the Department of Homeland Security, Ms. Wentworth?”

In for a pound, in for a ton, she thought. “Sometimes,” she said slowly.

“Explain your answer.”

“I do not appreciate being deceived, sir,” she said.

His brow furrowed. “What are you referring to?”

Tracy kept her voice level with an effort. “Yesterday you claimed that my analysis wasn’t at a threat level sufficient enough to move forward with, yet this morning’s Post splashed it all over the front page. In this line of work, there’s no such thing as coincidence, sir. ”

“What, that? I got a request from the Health Affairs Department yesterday afternoon requesting information, then the public-affairs office sent some follow-up questions from the reporter on an article they were already doing.

You know how fast things move around here sometimes.”

His words sounded plausible, and yet Tracy knew enough about the man to know that he wasn’t telling the whole truth. “Why didn’t you have them contact me directly? I could have provided more depth to the analysis.”

“After reading your summary, there was no need. Really, Tracy, I cannot believe that you would let that cloud your judgment so much that you would send this—” he tossed a sheaf of papers that she recognized as her analysis of al-Kharzi’s movements “—around me to the major departments.”

“It wasn’t that at all, sir.” Tracy prided herself on how rational she sounded. “After I got the hit, and realizing that this terrorist had already been in the United States for more than ninety-six hours—”

Gilliam’s hand slammed down on his desk, making her jump. In her two years there, he had never shown that much emotion. “Ms. Wentworth, no matter what you think may be the proper course of action, I remind you that the only channel you are to follow in your analysis and reports is directly to me. I will determine what is to be followed up on and what isn’t. There is much more going on here— much more at stake— than you could possibly know.”

What, like your next raise? Maybe even your job? she thought. “Regardless, sir, I thought it appropriate to warn the pertinent departments as soon as possible, before more time elapsed and the subject would be able to launch whatever operation he has planned.” Now just try to sit there and tell me it wasn’t justified.

“Ms. Wentworth, that would have been fine, except that Sepehr al-Kharzi has been dead for the past nine months.”

“With all due respect, sir, the biometrics scan on the suspect entering illegally from Canada—”

“Is notoriously unreliable, and only came up with a sixty-six percent chance of a match—hardly what I could call a definite hit. Also, your corroborating evidence is a simple e-mail message from three months ago, from one of this deceased terrorist’s aliases?” Gilliam said.

“Along with a list of materials for constructing a nuclear weapon or dirty bomb, including plutonium—”

Gilliam held up his finger and Tracy fell silent. “And on that basis, and your—what would I call it? intuition, I suppose—you felt justified to alert our other departments, diverting them from other, more critical operations? Ms.

Wentworth, I’ve just spent the past hour recalling your so-called report from those departments. I told them it was a preliminary study only, and not meant to be disseminated at this time. I also told the other departments that in your exuberance, you had mistakenly sent the report before it was in final form. This is not the competency level I have come to expect from you, which is why it led me to believe this had to do with a more personal disagreement. Now that you’ve made the reason for this insubordination plain, I have a hard time believing that we’re even having this conversation in the first place.”

“If I overstepped my bounds, then I apologize.” Tracy bit off each word, staring at the wall behind him, not wanting to give this detestable man the satisfaction of seeing her anger. “Will there be anything else, sir?”

“You’d better believe there is. I’ve shunted the kook file to your desktop alone. I want you to evaluate and forward every single threat that we’ve received before you go home tonight. Is that clear?”

“As crystal, sir.” Tracy turned on her heel and left the office, only exhaling once she was outside with the door closed behind her. She shook her head and trudged back to her desk where, as promised, her in-box was overflow- ing with what agents referred to internally as “the kook file.” Every immediately nonverifiable threat made against the U.S., the President, the government or any other landmark or public place was kept in the kook file until it could be assessed. Every threat was investigated, and either appended and filed or forwarded to the appropriate department for follow-up. Once the chuckles stopped from reading the fiftieth misspelled diatribe against the government, it turned into the monotonous, grueling work that it really was.

With a sigh, Tracy opened the first one and got to work, knowing she would have to call Paul and let him know she would be late—again.

Nate opened his eyes to the blaring alarm clock, its insistent buzz reverberating through his hungover brain. Reaching out a long arm, he smacked around the nightstand until he hit the snooze button, knocking over an empty Jack Daniel’s bottle in the process. The sudden silence, broken only by the rattle and hum of his window air conditioner, was almost as loud.

Raising himself up on his elbows, Nate rubbed the sleep out of his face, then looked twice as he noticed the sleeping woman lying next to him. He tried to remember where he had met her or, for that matter, what her name was, but came up blank on both accounts. His recollection of the previous night was a blur of whiskey and beer, beer and whiskey. And apparently he had brought home more than just a raging blackout yesterday evening. Holy shit, just how much did I have?

Slipping out of bed with an ease born of years of practice, Nate was unsurprised to find himself naked.

Besides his pounding head, his teeth felt furry. He padded to the bathroom, closed the door and leaned over the sink until the dizziness passed. Splashing cold water on his face, he squeezed the last of the toothpaste out of a rolled-up tube into his mouth, but couldn’t find his toothbrush, and settled for running a wet finger across his teeth.

Spitting, he rinsed with mouthwash next, the sting opening his eyes wide.

A knock at the front door made his tired eyes open even wider. Who the hell can that be? he wondered. He crept out of the bathroom, crossed the bedroom and walked through the living room into the kitchen. Snagging his jeans from the floor and his shirt from where it had ended up on the table, he cracked open the apartment door.

“Jesus, Nate, you look like warmed-up shit.”

“Good morning to you, too, Beth.”

“At least you know what time it is,” she said sarcastically.

His ex-wife stood with her arms crossed, her foot tapping and her black eyes flashing. Her dark Cherokee features glowered at him, but to Nate she looked just as beautiful as the day they had met. “I kept getting your voice mail, so I thought I’d stop by. Are you going to let me in?”

Nate glanced over his shoulder at the disheveled apartment. “You see how bad I look? Well, the apartment looks worse.”

“Why am I not surprised? You drink yourself out of a job yet? That’s supposed to come from my side of the family, you know.”

“They’re still keepin’ me on for now. Speaking of, I should be gettin’ on back there, so what can I do for you?”

She held up a printed form. “The alimony is screwed up again. I need another hundred.”

“Sure, sure, just a minute.” Closing the door, he rooted around on the table until he found his checkbook.

“Baby? Who’s there?”

His head snapped up, and the checkbook flew from his suddenly fumbling fingers. He trotted back to the bedroom, where the sleepy-eyed blonde’s head was poking out of the sheets. “Someone at the door?”

“Yeah, just a deliveryman. He’ll be gone in a moment.