Artemis Grange placed the phone back in his pocket and rubbed his prominent chin. He looked out his office window at the DC skyline, now consumed by darkness. Rush hour was long over, the self-important drones had all fled to their faraway homes, and the District had taken on the familiar deserted ambiance Grange preferred.
Hayward’s voice was still in his ears and Grange had a decision to make. The ChemEspaña situation had received significant attention, as had the Tariq Ezzat fiasco. Senator Oren Stanley had whipped up a well-designed and superbly executed furor over the negligent Homeland agent responsible for the little girl’s death, and the media was still gobbling it up by the shovelful. Director of National Intelligence Alexander Wells had expressed his “deep concern” to Grange that the ChemEspaña information was still not secured.
Grange didn’t work for Wells, but it was fair to say that if the director of national intelligence had a concern, it was also a concern for Grange. Consequently, the CIA’s operator-statesman emeritus hadn’t hesitated to step in when the ChemEspaña op went sideways. Grange was already plenty busy with Wells’s first request, to babysit the disgraced Homeland agent as she stumbled her way toward the ugly skeletons in Oren Stanley’s closet, but Grange had a hunch there would be synergy between the two efforts. They were different legs of the same beast, after all.
Grange smelled opportunity. He had watched powerful men grow compromised and ripe for meltdown many times before, and he had long thought Senator Oren Stanley was on borrowed time. Stanley had served his purpose, but his era had passed, and his growing unpredictability—maybe even insanity, Grange thought—had become a dangerous liability. Wells was right to want the senator burned.
Grange would, of course, be immediately available to fill the vacuum, but convincing Wells could be a challenge. Leverage was the best form of persuasion, and Grange considered how he might gain an advantage over the DNI. He made a note to himself to gather more information on Wells as soon as possible.
His thoughts turned to James Hayward and the ChemEspaña situation. The man was using a nom de guerre, standard operating procedure in the CIA, but Grange remembered Hayward more as the sloppy mess of a man he used to be and less as the sharp and competent man the Agency—Grange, mainly—had trained him to become. There were outward differences apparent in Hayward, but Grange discounted their importance. He didn’t believe in the plasticity of character. The older you got, Grange believed, the more you became what you always were. By any measure, Hayward was a screw-up.
For that reason, it would have been easy to underestimate Hayward, but Grange was a professional who left nothing to chance. For the moment, Grange decided, that meant the right move was to play Hayward’s game. He picked up his phone to make arrangements.