CIA HEADQUARTERS
LANGLEY, VIRGINIA
Calibrisi was loading up his briefcase for the night. It was nine-forty P.M. Lindsay, his assistant, and most everyone else, was gone for the evening. He heard a knock on his door.
“Come in,” said Calibrisi without looking up.
The door opened and Judith Brown stepped inside.
As governor of New York, she’d called for Calibrisi’s ouster and for a complete reorganization of both the FBI and CIA.
“May I come in?”
“Sure.”
The vice president walked to Calibrisi’s desk and placed a paper bag on it. She pushed it toward him.
“My husband saved this,” she said. “He wanted to open it the day Toby got married.”
Calibrisi reached into the bag and pulled out a bottle. It was bourbon, Pappy Van Winkle, twenty-three years old.
Calibrisi smiled. He gestured toward the seating area on the other side of his office, where two white leather Chesterfield sofas faced one another. He retrieved two glasses from a cabinet behind his desk, removed the casing and uncorked the bottle. He poured two small glasses of bourbon and sat down across from the vice president, handing her one of the glasses.
She lifted her glass and clinked it against Calibrisi’s.
“I called Senator Furr and withdrew my support for the reorganization of the CIA,” said Brown. “In addition, I called … your wife. I apologized. I like to think I did these things because I saw the CIA—because I saw you—in action. Your effectiveness in a time of crisis. But the real reason I did it is because I’m a mom.”
Tears were slowly falling down her cheeks.
“Thank you, Hector.”