The military flight to Washington started off with two dozen Army regulars more than ready to celebrate after their deployment to Kunar province. Two of the soldiers were women, their faces tanned, youthful, but matured with having witnessed what their sisters back home could only imagine. Someone broke out a guitar and sang “La Bamba” to the roaring of the engines as the plane reached altitude. Others joined in. Somehow a bottle of Jack Daniels appeared, floating up and down the lines of jump seats either side of the skeleton fuselage. The bottle was drained in minutes. Then one of the girls, a California blonde with a toothpaste ad smile, produced a fifth of Wild Turkey from her duffel bag.
“Who’s your buddy?” she yelled.
The music and laughter only got louder. The bottle came John Rae’s way. He took a healthy swig, passed the bottle to Maggie, not looking at her. Still pissed off.
She took the bottle, handed it on to the next man.
“Maybe you could cut me a little slack, JR,” she said to the back of John Rae’s head. “Dara gave her life for this op. I needed that laptop. And I still made the damn flight.”
John Rae turned to look at her. “Abraqa’s dead. Stop dreaming.”
Not one word about what she went through, or the death of her friend. She thought she and JR went a little deeper than that.
She extracted her own laptop from her carry-on and staggered up to the front of the plane, rolling with turbulence, where she showed one of the two blue-suited Air Force attendants her agency ID and requested secure satellite access. The woman had Maggie power up her machine, logged her in. The military transport had full MILSATCOM. Maggie locked herself in a toilet, put the seat lid down, sat on it, opened the laptop on her thighs. Plugging in her headphones, she fired up the Agency’s secure chat client and dialed Ed Linden.
A still photo of her boss appeared while she waited for a connection, showing him to be a heavyset but intelligent-looking man in his forties with dark hair combed to one side, dark-framed glasses and a trim beard. In the photo he wore a white shirt and a blue tie and had the confident look of a rested professional.
Ed answered, presenting the calamity of a man she was much more familiar with.
He was obviously sitting in some hotel room, hair disheveled, glasses askew on his round face. His beard was bordering on mountain man. He wore a white undershirt. Smoke curled up in front of the screen from an unseen cigarette. He blinked to focus.
“Did you order a pizza?” he said. Safe to talk?
“Bacon with extra bacon. Where the heck is it?”
“I ate it,” Ed said, smoking.
“I have no doubt.”
“We can’t all be beautiful, twenty-seven-year-old Ecuadorian models.”
“Half Ecuadorian,” she said. “And I never modeled. But you got the rest of it right.”
He tapped his cigarette somewhere off camera. Then he squinted. “Are you calling from the John in the plane?”
“Call it ambience.”
“About as much as the Holiday Inn, Langley, I bet. We’re waiting for you to show up so you can amuse us with your latest escapade.”
“Will Walder be there?”
“Of course.”
A full grilling. Ugh. “Anyone else?”
“I’m hoping for a special guest to drop by. I’m planning a little informal get-together beforehand in the hopes that the top brass won’t be too critical. That we can save what’s left of Abraqa.”
“And how is that looking?”
Ed took a puff. “You want an honest answer?”
“Ed—we need to do a keep-alive. On Dara.”
He tapped the hidden cigarette again. “Let’s talk about that when we see how your post mortem goes.”
“Don’t go limp on me, Ed. If Dara’s death gets out, Abraqa’s blown.”
Ed frowned, smoked. “Best bring me up to speed.”
She did.
“So you snagged Dara’s phone,” he said. “And spoke to Kafka.”
“Texted him but, yeah—got Dara’s laptop, too.”
“Nice.” Ed raised his eyebrows in appreciation. “Is Kafka tracking the phone?”
“He gave it to Dara so I’m assuming so. I’ll verify when I get a moment. But I’ve got that covered.”
“OK,” Ed said. “I’ll do forty-eight hours on the keep-alive. That should go in under the radar. It’ll bridge us until we get the official word, see if we’re going to continue.”
Dealing with bureaucrats could be trickier than suicide bombers. Politics. “I’m only going to bug you again to extend it.”
“Walder’s got Forensic Accounting under the microscope, Maggs. It’s all I can do to keep next year’s budget from getting axed.” The cigarette bounced in Ed’s mouth as he made entries on his keyboard. “How do you spell Dara’s last name again?”
“N-e-z-a-n,” Maggie said. “Dara Nezan.”
“She’ll be in a private room at the American Hospital of Paris later today. No visitors. There’ll be a guard on the door.”
“Make sure that guard isn’t some Marine who looks and sounds like the All-American boy.”
“You think I was born yesterday?”
“I think you’re the only guy in the Agency who knows what he’s doing. Everyone else is focused on damage control.”
“Just don’t go taking that $200,000 job at that Internet startup on me.”
She had gotten very close to quitting after the Quito op, but then relented. “They wouldn’t give me my own parking spot near the front of the building, Ed. Can you believe it?”
“Bastards.” Ed shook his head. “See you in the afternoon. Ciao.”
Ed hung up.
Abraqa was still limping along. She had Ed’s limited support.