now. Heading for jail, maybe.”
“I’m sorry, Jenny.”
“It’s not your fault. Where have you been since April?”
“Sitting on my ass, mainly.”
“Where?”
He didn’t want to tell her, but he knew he couldn’t lie. “Atlanta.”
“Not just sitting on your ass.”
He looked at her sidelong. “Tell your friend Duto I didn’t shoot West,” he said. “I tried to save him but I couldn’t. Khadri set it up. To test my loyalty.”
“And you passed,” she said. “Khadri trusts you. That’s why he sent you to pick up the case.”
“He doesn’t, though. Something’s wrong. He’s playing with me. I think maybe I’m some kind of a decoy.” Wells paused. “Any of this fit with what you’ve got?”
She shook her head. “But we arrested a sleeper last week. In Brooklyn. And we think they have a dirty bomb.” She told him about Farouk Khan, the explosion in Albany, Shafer’s suspicions that al Qaeda planned to move fast.
“So when are you raising the alert level?” Wells said.
“We don’t do that anymore. Not without specific intel. We’re winning this war, remember? No need to upset anyone.”
“A dirty bomb doesn’t count as specific?”
“Not if we don’t know where it is. We already embarrassed ourselves in Albany.”
“Maybe it’s in that briefcase in my truck.”
She shook her head. “The radiation detectors at the border would have picked it up. And if the case was lined with lead you’d know. It’d be heavy as hell.”
He was quiet. After a minute she looked at him. “What are you thinking, John?”
“I’m thinking it’s time to get on the road.” Back to New York. The day was still warm, but the trees on the opposite bank of the river were casting long shadows.
Her voice rose. “You’re coming in.”
“And cut the link to Khadri?”
“Give me the address. We’ll get him.”
“He won’t be there. You know that. It’ll be one of his guys, waiting for me. If I don’t show, he won’t either. And we’ll all be scratching our butts in Langley when the bomb goes off. I’ve seen that episode before. Didn’t like it much.” He stepped toward the trail that led to the parking lot.
“You can tell it to Vinny. We’ll get you up there tonight.”
BUT EXLEY KNEW she was lying. Duto would never use Wells on an operation this sensitive. For the same reason that Duto had insisted the JTTF arrest Alaa Assad right away instead of waiting. No one would fault Duto for putting Wells in a hole until the agency was sure he was loyal. The CIA director didn’t get blamed for failing to prevent terrorist attacks; George Tenet, who had been running the agency on September 11, had gotten the Presidential Medal of Freedom after his retirement. No, the director got blamed for embarrassing the agency — or the White House. And letting Wells loose after he’d already disappeared once could be very embarrassing. Duto would never risk it. With a few weeks they might be able to change Duto’s mind. But they didn’t have a few weeks.
Duto wasn’t evil, Exley thought. Just a bureaucrat, like too many of the folks at Langley, more concerned about his career and his reputation than anything else.
Wells seemed to read her mind.
“If you really think that, then call him,” he said, and turned to walk away.
Suddenly Exley knew what she had to do. Some part of her had known from the moment she’d seen his truck roll into the parking lot. “Then I’m coming with you.”
He looked at her, seemingly trying to gauge her seriousness. Then he shook his head. “Don’t be stupid.”
She was tired of men talking down to her. Even this one. “So fucking arrogant,” she said. “I’ll watch. If there’s trouble, I’ll call in the cavalry. If not, I’ll wait while you play soldier.”
“Don’t do this—”
“It’s not negotiable. Either I come or I’m calling Duto. Now.” She pulled out her phone.
A crow screeched in the woods behind them. Wells turned from her, tilted his head to the sky. “Are you holding?” he said.
“What?”
“A gun? Do you have a gun?”
“No.”
When he turned back to her he held a pistol, a thick gray.45. In his left hand a cylindrical tube. He slowly screwed the silencer onto the barrel. The river and the park were empty. No one around to see. No, she thought. This is impossible. He can’t do this. He won’t.
“John,” she said. She held her breath.
AND THEN HE held the pistol out for her to take.
She exhaled. Did he know what he had just done? Had she simply misread the situation? Or had he intended to terrify her, to remind her of the years he’d spent in the field while she’d been behind a desk? She’d never know, and she couldn’t ask. Either way, her fear, fading now, reminded her that they didn’t know each other nearly as well as she wanted to pretend.
She pushed her fear aside and focused on the pistol. It was heavier than she expected. She held it in both hands to keep it steady.
“When was the last time you shot one of these?” Wells said.
She couldn’t remember. She had learned to shoot at the Farm, of course, but that had been a long time ago. The agency didn’t make analysts practice. “A couple months ago,” she said evenly. “I go to the range every year.”
She looked at the pistol, remembering her training. She racked the slide to chamber a round, racked it again so the round popped out. Wells caught it in the air and slipped it into his pocket. She flicked the safety on and off. She slid the magazine from the grip, then pushed it back in.
Wells took the gun, racked the slide again, handed it back to her. “Shoot it,” he said. “Down the river. Hold on tight. It’ll pop on you.”
She hesitated.
“If you can’t do it now, you sure won’t do it with somebody in your face,” he said.
She raised the gun and pulled the trigger. As he promised, the gun kicked sharply. The recoil pushed her back a step, but she kept her arms steady. With the silencer the shot sounded hollow, like a hand slapping a wooden table. The noise faded fast, no echo. “What about you?” she said.
“What about me?”
“Where’s your gun?”
He pulled up his jeans to show her the knife strapped to his leg. “I’ll make do,” he said. “Listen. You need to know something about that forty-five.”
“I’m listening.”
“If you get to a place where you need it,
“How will I know if I get to that place?”
“You’ll know.”
She said nothing, only nodded. She wasn’t sure she could shoot someone with no warning. But Wells would never let her come if she admitted that.
“Good,” he said. He leaned in and tilted his head toward hers, opening his mouth to kiss her.
But she shook her head.
