Simple Genius

“I can see we have some more work to do with you.”

“I have friends who work at the CIA. There’s no way in hell the Agency has authorized what you’re doing. You’ll rot in jail for this.”

She stared at him coldly. “I’m doing my job. You’re the one trying to bring this country down. You’re the enemy. You broke in here. You are a spy. You are a traitor.”

“And you are full of shit.”

“We even have evidence of your participating in a drug smuggling scheme.”

“Oh, that’s a good one coming from you.”

“By the time we’re done with you, you’ll tell us everything we want to know.”

“You may torture me into saying what you want, but that won’t change the real truth.”

“And what’s that?”

“That you’re insane,” he snapped.

She turned to the guard. “Take him to the next level. And take him hard.”

Before the guard could react the cell door opened and another man wearing a suit came in followed by two other armed men.

“What are you doing here?” Valerie snapped.

The suit said, “Ian Whitfield sent me to deliver instructions to you.”

“Instructions from Whitfield? He has no authority over me.”

“Perhaps not, but this person does.” He handed a piece of paper to Valerie. As she scanned the contents Sean, who was watching her closely, knew exactly what had just happened: The woman had been left as the scapegoat in a classic Washington power move that would be instantly recognizable to everyone operating within the Beltway and totally foreign to the normal population.

Valerie folded the paper and put it in her pocket.

One of the guards stepped forward, spun Valerie around and handcuffed her. As she was being led away Valerie glanced at Sean. Their positions had just been neatly reversed and he didn’t intend to waste the opportunity. In a voice strained but clear, he said, “Better get yourself one fucking great lawyer, lady, because you’re gonna need it.”

CHAPTER 91

THE NEXT DAY SEAN AND MICHELLE were flown separately to a private hospital where it seemed they were the only patients. They had no idea where the facility was and no one there would answer any of their questions. However, they were given top-notch care. After several days of IVs, and long, uninterrupted periods of sleep, followed by two weeks of solid food and limited exercise, they both were nearly back to normal.

The doctors had kept Sean and Michelle segregated, refusing to tell them anything about the other. Finally Sean would have no more of it. Wielding a chair before a cowering nurse and attendant, he demanded to see Michelle. “Now!” he screamed.

When Sean walked into her room, she was sitting over by the window looking out at a depressing gray sky. As though sensing his presence, she turned around, cried out, “Sean,” and raced to him. They stood there in the middle of the room clinging to each other, trembling.

“They… they wouldn’t tell me anything about you,” she began as tears welled in her eyes.

“I didn’t even know if you were alive,” he stammered. “But it’s all over, Michelle,” he said. “We’re safe. And they arrested Valerie.”

“Did they put you in the coffin?” she asked.

“More than once. They said you never cried.”

“I cried, Sean. Trust me. I cried a lot.” She looked out the window. There was a bed of flowers below her window. Their blooms were done for the season; their stems drooping. “A lot,” she added.

“I’m sorry, Michelle.”

“For what? You got the same treatment in there that I did.”

“It was my idea to go over the fence.”

“I’m a big girl, Sean. I could have let you go it alone,” she added quietly.

“I know why you didn’t,” he said. “I know.” They sat in the window seat looking at the dead flowers.

After Sean and Michelle were sufficiently recovered they were flown by private jet to another location, driven by car with blacked-out windows to an underground parking garage and taken by secure elevator to an enormous office suite that had nothing in it except three chairs. While two muscular men with guns inside their suit coats waited outside they sat down across from a small, thin, impeccably dressed man with thick white hair and slender wire rim glasses. This gentleman put his fingertips together and gazed at them with a sympathetic expression.

“First, I want to extend to both of you the official apologies of your government for what happened.”

Sean spoke up angrily. “Funny, I thought it was our government that was trying to kill us.”

“Government can be an unwieldy thing, Mr. King, with certain parts of it overstepping boundaries of authority from time to time,” the man replied evenly. “That doesn’t make the rest of government evil. However, you did break into a CIA facility.”

Sean was not in a conciliatory mood. “Prove it!”

Before he could answer Michelle said, “Do you understand what was going on there? Do you blame us for trying to do what we did?”

The man shrugged. “My job is not to assign blame, Ms. Maxwell. My task is to move forward from this point in a way that benefits us all.”

“How exactly do we do that?” Sean demanded. “Our government kicked the shit out of us. A girl named Viggie Turing has been taken by our government. People have been murdered by our government. How do we move forward in a way that benefits us all from that!”

The man leaned forward. “Here’s how. We have viewed the video that was used to issue the search warrant for Camp Peary. As you know it shows certain… compromising activity. Our technical people tell us that the video has been copied.”

“You want the video that shows our government breaking about a hundred laws.”

“It wasn’t our government, Mr. King,” the man snapped. “As I said, sometimes people overstep their boundaries of authority.”

“In our case they didn’t step, they stomped.” Sean studied the man. “So that’s why they sent you with your nice manners and white hair and glasses looking like an old Cold War warrior right out of a damn John le Carre novel to give us the pitch.”

“I’m glad you understand the situation. And the fact that we need any and all copies of that video, Mr. King,” the man added quietly.

“I bet you do. But I’m a lawyer and I need to see the quid pro quo and let me tell you it better be ten times bigger than whatever you might be thinking of right now if you really want to do a deal.”

“I have authority to make certain concessions-”

“Screw that. Here’re our terms. First, we want Viggie back safe and sound and if you tell me that’s not possible the tape goes straight to a journalist friend of mine who’ll take it and win the Pulitzer he so desperately wants. Next, Valerie Messaline, or whatever the hell her name really is, gets everything she has coming to her and I’m not talking a promotion. Third, Alicia Chadwick with the one leg gets the same treatment. And the shit that they’re doing over at Camp Peary has to stop. I mean really stop. No more drugs. No torture. And consider yourself lucky.”

The man sat back and considered this. “The two women have already been taken care of. You have my word on that.”

“Your word means shit to me. I want real proof!”