Whit came out of the Director’s office holding his annual Christmas bottle of Pappy’s Bourbon. His assistant was waiting for him with a stack of messages.
‘I thought you wouldn’t be out of there for hours,’ she said, walking beside him as he sorted through the messages.
‘So did I,’ Whit said. ‘But even our peerless leader wants to be home for Christmas Eve. Anything urgent in here?’ he said of the messages.
‘Nope. A lot of Merry Christmas greetings, a few people who will call back. Go home.’
‘On my way,’ Whit said. ‘I plan to make a dent in this bourbon and watch A Christmas Carol. The original. Bah humbug.’
‘Humbug yourself,’ the assistant smiled as she watched the legendary spymaster head for the elevator and home.
‘Your Christmas gift is on my desk,’ he called back as he got into the elevator.
Jack checked his watch and made a quick calculation. He’d been in the house thirty minutes. Whit’s meeting with the Director had about an hour fifteen left to go. If the workaholic decided to come right home, it would take roughly twenty minutes to drive from Langley to Vienna. Whit was entitled to a car and driver but refused it. He valued his privacy.
To play it safe Jack decided to give himself just one hour more. If he hadn’t found anything by then, there was nothing to find. Jack was very good at what he did.
He was hoping against hope he would find nothing. Because if Whit had betrayed Marcus, there was no telling what else he could do. Or would do.
The study in Whit’s home looked exactly as it had when Jack walked in thirty minutes ago. No one would know he had been there, but the room had been searched methodically. Each book in the cases that lined one wall had been examined to make sure they hid no secrets. The walls and desk had been checked for secret panels. Ceiling and floor examined for potential hiding places.
He had hacked into Whit’s personal computer but there was nothing there to indicate he was anything but the upstanding friend he had always been to Jack and Marcus.
He sat down again at Whit’s desk, wishing Margo was here. She was like that guy who worked for her, Pete. He found people, she found things. She had an uncanny knack for it. Lose your car keys, she would produce them in a flash. Misplace your phone, she’d find it even if the ringer was turned off. It was maddening.
‘Things usually hide in plain sight,’ she would tell him with that little grin that made his heart melt. ‘Stop looking under the bed and look at what’s right in front of you.’
Okay, babe, he thought. I’m looking in front of me.
Slowly he swivelled Whit’s chair around, looking not for secret compartments, but for what seemed normal but wasn’t.
Chain Bridge Road which leads from CIA headquarters to Vienna, Virginia, was usually a tangle of traffic. Today, on the eve of Christmas, it seemed to Whit as if he were travelling on a speedway. The road was virtually empty and Whit took advantage of it. If he was pulled over for speeding, his CIA credentials would take care of it.
He had turned down all the invitations divorced men get to ‘join our family for Christmas’. He wanted to get home. He wanted to pour two fingers of this rare bourbon into a glass, shut himself up in his study, and think.
Something was off.
It was nothing Whit could put his finger on but he hadn’t survived in this dangerous business for over thirty years without relying on his instincts. He had not had a decent night’s sleep since Jack called him from O’Hare Airport weeks ago. What the hell was going on?
It wasn’t the first time this had happened. When you did work like he, Jack and Marcus did there was always blowback. And Whit had always helped. But this was different. He had assumed that when they met up at the agency Jack would brief him.
Not a word.
But there was no doubt which case Jack was looking into. Marcus had been dead for over two years. Why go back over it now? What was so important that he wanted his wife to think he’d run out on her? Why did he want to be erased from her life? And, if it was so important, why not tell him about it, as he always had?
Too many whys. That was not a good sign.
Whit checked the clock on the dashboard. He’d be home in ten minutes. He always thought better in his little study. He had no doubt he’d figure it out. Then he’d take whatever steps were necessary.
Jack was still seated at Whit’s desk, scanning the room, when he saw it. Sitting under the cable box was a slim black iPad, hiding, as Margo said things did, in plain sight.
Jack carefully slipped the device out from under the cable box and brought it back to the desk. In no time, he was in. The encryption was amateurish at best. Whit must have set this up himself rather than have someone from the agency do it. Given how meticulous Whit was about security, Jack knew immediately that what was in this computer was top secret, at least to Whit.
Whit parked the car on the street. Over the years the garage had become more of a storage space than a place for cars. He sat looking at the plain little house. It looked bleak at best. Why had he bought it in the first place? Why did he even need a home? He would have been just as happy sleeping on the couch in his office.
He hadn’t bought a tree this year; he had no desire to be reminded of the holiday. Christmas: the season of hope and new beginnings. The very idea of it made him feel old and tired. There would be no new beginnings for him.
Finally he found the energy to get out of the car and head up the pavement to his house.