“I happen to agree,” Harper said quietly. “But you’re out of it, so I don’t suppose there’s much you can do, is there?”
It was a blunt, brutal thing to say, but she absorbed the words silently. “I suppose you’re right.”
“What will you do now?”
She tried to hide her sudden curiosity; it was almost as if he was measuring her up for something. “To be honest, I don’t really know. Maybe I’ll take some time off, see what turns up. It’s just not fair, though… We managed to track Ruhmann down, and the Agency isn’t going to do a damn thing about it.”
“What’s your point?”
She straightened and shot him a hard look. “My point is that I’m involved as well, sir. I was involved from the start. I want to finish this.”
“With Ryan.”
“Yes,” she confirmed. “If anyone has earned-” She stopped herself. “That’s not the right word. If anyone deserves the chance to go after Vanderveen, it’s him.”
“So if he wanted your help, you would be willing to offer it.”
“Yes, but I’d want to know what I’m dealing with.” She hesitated again; she knew the two men were good friends, and there was a limit to what she could ask. “I’d need to know if he’s…”
“Stable enough? Is that what you’re trying to say?”
“Sir, I don’t-”
“Relax, Naomi. It’s a reasonable question, considering what you’ve given up for him.”
Harper fell silent. She stayed quiet, letting him think it through. Finally, he got to his feet abruptly.
“Come on, let’s take a walk.”
They made their way up to the ground floor and passed through the turnstiles, stepping out into a small courtyard. The open area was positioned between the OHB and the New Headquarters Building, the cement littered with black plastic picnic tables. The sun was out, and the air was agreeably warm. A few people had taken advantage of the weather to eat lunch outside, but most of the tables were free. Harper picked one apart from the others, which gave them a little privacy. Once they were seated, he leaned back and stared morosely into his coffee. His brow was furrowed, as if he was deciding where to begin, or whether to talk at all. Naomi remained silent, trying not to appear too anxious. She desperately wanted to hear what he had to say, but she knew he would only talk if he wanted to.
Finally, he said, “How much do you know? About what happened in Maine, I mean?”
“Only what you told me over the phone, sir.”
Harper nodded. “Well, I’ll try to fill in the blanks, but don’t get the wrong idea. I know this is the first time you’ve seen him in nearly a year, and I’m guessing you’ve made the natural assumption: that it all comes down to what happened that night. But that’s not the case. Ryan was on the edge of things a long time before he lost Katie Donovan. You have to remember, he’s served in some of the worst places on earth, and he’s seen a lot of terrible things.”
Naomi nodded slowly, remembering a story she’d heard the previous year. There had been a Muslim girl in Bosnia who’d fallen hard for the young Special Forces lieutenant. Kealey had gone out of his way to be kind to her, talking to her every day on patrol, accepting her little tokens of chocolate and flowers, much to the amusement of his fellow soldiers. Then tragedy struck. The Serbian militia found out she was talking to the Americans. The girl disappeared, and two days later, her badly beaten body was discovered on the bank of the Miljacka River by a passing army patrol.
There had been little chance of justice; in a city where dozens of innocent people died each day, a thirteen- year-old girl did not count for much in the larger scheme of things. Kealey had taken matters into his own hands, and three days after her death, her killer — a militia leader by the name of Stojanovic — was found dead in a safe house in Sarajevo, his throat cut from ear to ear. Kealey had nearly been court-martialed, but while rumors abounded, no proof could be found linking him to Stojanovic’s death. Naomi, for one, didn’t need proof; she had seen him in action, and she knew what he was capable of.
“The point I’m trying to make,” Harper was saying, “is that after all of that, Katie meant everything to him, and I do mean everything. She was completely innocent, untouched by all the shit he’d seen in his life. She was a way to start over, a chance at, well, redemption, for lack of a better word, and when she died, all of that died as well.”
Harper looked away, slightly embarrassed. “At least, that’s the best way I can explain it.”
Naomi nodded again. The deputy director was clearly uneasy discussing this. Maybe he thought he’d revealed too much, or maybe he thought it wasn’t his place to tell her the truth. For a moment, she didn’t think he’d continue, but then he surprised her.
“Anyway, I flew down as soon as I got the news, but the doctors didn’t let me see him until the following morning. I wasn’t sure what I was going to find, but what struck me most was his demeanor. He was strangely unaffected. Dangerously calm, as if it hadn’t sunk in. But it did, and it’s been there the whole time.”
She felt for him, of course, but she was also interested, leaning forward in her seat. “What has?”
“The anger, the grief… all of it. Mostly it’s guilt. He put the hunt for Vanderveen ahead of her, and he thinks that’s what got her killed. He might even be right, but that’s not the point. He can’t let it go.”
Harper set down his coffee and stared absently over the courtyard, remembering. “He came to me a month later, once his wounds were healed and the doctors gave him a relatively clean bill of health. He wanted to come back inside, and I made it happen. Four months in Afghanistan hunting the Taliban with Delta, then a short break, and the next six months in Iraq. I thought it would help him, that staying busy might keep his mind straight.”
“And now?” she asked quietly. “Would you have done it the same way?”
She had definitely crossed the line, but he didn’t seem to notice. Instead, he shrugged and shook his head. “I’m not sure. It doesn’t matter now, but I’ll tell you what I do know. He’s been taking risks ever since that night, and it’s only getting worse. After Ryan came back from Afghanistan, Special Operations Command made it clear to me that they didn’t want him back on their turf. Strangely enough, his time over there was hugely productive. Delta nabbed a number of key figures, guys who’d bribed their way into what they thought was a safe haven in Pakistan, but it was the way Kealey carried it off that had them worried. They said he was too reckless, not taking the proper precautions. Coming from those guys, that’s saying a lot.”
Her next question came naturally, and while she was afraid of the answer, Naomi knew she would never find Harper this forthcoming again. She had to ask it.
“Sir, is he… trying to get himself killed?”
He seemed to take the question seriously. “Maybe. Maybe not… It’s difficult to tell. I think Vanderveen’s reappearance has given him something to latch on to, at least for the time being. The point is, if you follow him into this, you’ll be completely outside the Agency’s authority.”
“Are you saying I have a choice?”
He smiled but didn’t respond. Draining his cup, he stood and placed a hand on the table in front of her. “Whatever you decide, Naomi, I’ll do what I can for you. You’ve done some amazing work here, and for whatever it’s worth, I won’t forget that. I’ll be staying on for a while, so if you need a reference, be sure to come and see me. Don’t wait too long, though. I’ll be following you out the door soon enough.”
“Thanks for the offer, sir. It means a lot to me.”
He nodded and smiled again, then walked away. He was out of sight by the time Naomi saw what he had placed on the table: a business card of some kind.
She turned it over and read the hastily scrawled note on the back. She recognized Ryan’s handwriting immediately.
Runway at Upperville, 6:00 AM sharp. Bring your passport.
CHAPTER 35
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Night was descending over the city as Samantha Crane hurried along D Street, having just left her government car in a parking garage off Massachusetts Avenue. She checked her watch as she came up on 1st,
