The director ran her finger down a page. “You’ve had an unusual career for the Agency-retired from the army as a major after twenty years’ service. You should have made colonel. Why didn’t you?”
Surely she knew all about this, Holly thought, but she told her story anyway. “I was serving under a colonel as his exec. He blocked my promotion.”
“For what reason?”
“He made repeated sexual advances toward me which I rebuffed, so he gave me a less favorable fitness report than I had every reason to expect. After that, he tried to rape me, and I fought him off and turned him in.”
The director looked at the file. “It says here you struck him.”
“I broke his nose rather badly,” Holly said. “He was court-martialed for the attack on me. It turned out he had actually raped another female officer, a lieutenant.”
“And he was acquitted,” the director said.
“He was, ma’am. He had friends on the court, and two of them were in a position to see that I was never promoted again. I had put in my twenty, so I took retirement.”
The director consulted the file again. “And you became the chief of police in Orchid Beach, Florida?”
“The deputy chief, Director. The chief who hired me was murdered the day before my arrival, and the city council shortly voted for me to succeed him.”
“And you had quite a career there,” the director said.
Holly didn’t know how to respond to that.
“And then you impressed someone here and we recruited you.”
Holly just nodded.
The director closed the personnel file. “And you have done nothing less than splendid work for us since the day you arrived.”
Holly blinked. “Thank you, Director.”
“Holly, as you know, my husband is in the last year of his second term.”
“Yes, ma’am.” The entire planet knew that.
“And when he leaves the White House, I will leave the Agency and retire with him.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“As you might imagine, there has been a great deal of speculation within the Agency about who my successor will be. What you may not know is that there has been a cabal at work here which has been plotting to see that a particular someone from the Agency succeeds me, rather than someone from the outside. Or someone from elsewhere in the Agency.”
“Really, ma’am?” Holly knew about this, because Lance had told her.
“From what I can determine, the cabal wishes to see Frank Hellman, the deputy director for intelligence, have this job.”
Holly nodded.
“You probably saw his assistant, Stewart Graves, leave my office before you came in.”
“Yes, ma’am. He said he was being posted to the London station.”
“That is correct. I thought I would toss a little grenade into the hierarchy here as a way of expressing my displeasure about all this. As a result, Mr. Graves is going to London, and since you hold the same job in operations, you are being moved out of there, as well.”
“Out of Langley, ma’am?” Holly knew that she was held in some measure of disdain by those higher-ups in the Agency who knew she had never held a foreign station post.
“No, Holly,” the director said. She pointed at an open door across the room. “You are being moved into that office. I’ve posted my assistant, Greg Barton, to Rome. I’d like you to replace him here.”
Holly stared blankly at her. All sorts of things had run through her mind on the way up there, but this was the one thing she had not anticipated.
“Holly,” the director said, “are you still with me?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Holly replied, though she was not sure about that. Now she knew what was meant by the mind reeling.
“I chose you for two reasons,” the director said. “First, because of your outstanding record, and second, because you are the least political person I know at your level.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
“I also chose you because of my high personal regard for you.”
“Thank you, ma’am. I’m very grateful to you for the opportunity.”
“Then you accept?”
“Oh, yes, ma’am!” Holly said.
“Good,” the director said. “I wasn’t sure there for a minute.”
“I’m just a little bowled over.”
“All right, you go down to your office and spend the rest of the day getting ready to hand off to your successor, who will be appointed shortly. And you start here tomorrow morning.” She stood up and offered her hand.
Holly stood and took the hand.
“Grace will issue you new credentials before the day is out. Your new title will be-well, I’m a little torn about that. Greg was assistant to the director, but that might make you sound like a secretary, and that’s Grace’s job. I think assistant director is better. You’ll be the only person in the Agency with that title. Oh, and you’ll get a better parking space, too, right next to mine.” She made a shooing motion with her hand.
Holly went back to her office in a daze. She stopped at Lance’s open door and looked in.
“I heard everything,” Lance said. “This is the best possible thing that could have happened. We’re in a new ball game now.”
Holly took that to mean that Lance felt his chances of succeeding Kate Lee had improved. “In that case, congratulations, Lance,” she said.
“Yeah, yeah. Now get out of here. I’m reviewing candidates for your job.”
Holly turned to go.
Lance called after her, “And, Holly?”
She looked back. “Yes?”
“Congratulations to you, too.” Lance actually smiled.
14
Mike Freeman picked up his phone at the L.A. offices of Strategic Services. “Yes?”
“Mike, it’s Scott Hipp.”
“Hello, Scott, how’s life?”
“Interesting,” Hipp replied.
“Uh-oh.”
Hipp laughed. “You have a point: when it’s interesting here, it’s often hairy elsewhere.”
“That has been my experience,” Mike replied. “What is it this time? Any more mentions of The Arrington in your traffic?”
“No, but… You still have a scrambler on that phone?”
The scrambler was one manufactured by the electronics division of Strategic Services, and Hipp had been given one. Mike pressed a button. “Go,” he said.
“My people picked up an e-mail sent from a cell phone in California to a Middle Eastern website we keep a watch on. It read: ‘All is well. I am fine.’”
“Did you run it through decoding?”
“Yes, and it appears to have been sent in the clear.”
“Sounds like someone has completed a task,” Mike said.
