Ken Follett - The Hammer of Eden

“That’s about it.”

Judy took a deep breath. She addressed Kincaid, not Peters, because she knew this was his doing. “This office has been trying to nail the Foong brothers for twenty years. Today I put them in jail.” She raised her voice. “And now you give me a bullshit case like this?”

Kincaid looked pleased with himself. “If you want to be in the Bureau, you’ll have to learn to take the rough with the smooth.”

“I learned, Brian!”

“Don’t yell.”

“I learned,” she repeated in a lower voice. “Ten years ago, when I was new and inexperienced and my supervisor didn’t know how far he could rely on me, I was given assignments like this — and I took them cheerfully, and did them conscientiously, and proved that I goddamn well deserve to be trusted with real work!”

“Ten years is nothing,” Kincaid said. “I’ve been here twenty-five.”

She tried reasoning with him. “Look, you’ve just been put in charge of this office. Your first act is to give one of your best agents a job that should have gone to a rookie. Everyone will know what you’ve done. People will think you’ve got some kind of grudge.”

“You’re right, I just got this job. And you’re already telling me how to do it. Get back to work, Maddox.”

She stared at him. Surely he would not just dismiss her.

He said: “This meeting is over.”

Judy could not take it. Her rage boiled over.

“It’s not just this meeting that’s over,” she said. She stood up. “Fuck you, Kincaid.”

A look of astonishment came over his face.

Judy said: “I quit.”

And then she walked out.

“You said that?” Judy’s father said.

“Yeah. I knew you’d disapprove.”

“You were right about that, anyway.”

They were sitting in the kitchen, drinking green tea. Judy’s father was a detective with the San Francisco police. He did a lot of undercover work. He was a powerfully built man, very fit for his age, with bright green eyes and gray hair in a ponytail.

He was close to retirement and dreading it. Law enforcement was his life. He wished he could remain a cop until he was seventy. He was horrified by the idea of his daughter quitting when she did not have to.

Judy’s parents had met in Saigon. Her father was with the army in the days when American troops there were still called “advisers.” Her mother came from a middle-class Vietnamese family: Judy’s grandfather had been an accountant with the Finance Ministry there. Judy’s father brought his bride home, and Judy was born in San Francisco. As a baby she called her parents Bo and Me, the Vietnamese equivalent of Daddy and Mommy. The cops caught on to this, and her father became known as Bo Maddox.

Judy adored him. When she was thirteen her mother died in a car wreck. Since then Judy had been close to Bo. After she had broken up with Don Riley a year ago, she had moved into her father’s house.

She sighed. “I don’t often lose it, you have to admit.”

“Only when it’s really important.”

“But now that I’ve told Kincaid I’m quitting, I guess I will.”

“Now that you’ve cursed him like that, I guess you’ll have to.”

Judy got up and poured more tea for both of them. She was still boiling with fury inside. “He’s such a damn fool.”

“He must be, because he just lost a good agent.” Bo sipped his tea. “But you’re dumber — you lost a great job.”

“I was offered a better one today.”

“Where?”

“Brooks Fielding, the law firm. I could earn three times my FBI salary.”

“Keeping mobsters out of jail!” Bo said indignantly.

“Everyone’s entitled to a vigorous defense.”

“Why don’t you marry Don Riley and have babies? Grandchildren would give me something to do in retirement.”

Judy winced. She had never told Bo the real story of her breakup with Don. The simple truth was that he had had an affair. Feeling guilty, he had confessed to Judy. It was only a brief fling with a colleague, and Judy had tried to forgive him, but her feelings for Don were not the same afterward. Never again did she feel the urge to make love to him. She had not felt drawn to anyone else, either. A switch had been thrown somewhere inside her, and her sex drive had closed down.

Bo did not know any of this. He saw Don Riley as the perfect husband: handsome, intelligent, successful, and working in law enforcement.

Judy said: “Don asked me to have a celebration dinner, but I think I’ll cancel.”

“I guess I ought to know better than to tell you who to marry,” Bo said with a rueful grin. He stood up. “I’ve got to go. We have a raid going down tonight.”

She did not like it when he worked at night. “Have you eaten?” she asked anxiously. “Shall I make you some eggs before you go?”

“No, thanks, honey. I’ll get a sandwich later.” He pulled on a leather jacket and kissed her cheek. “I love you.”

“Bye.”

As the door slammed, the phone rang. It was Don. “I got us a table at Masa’s,” he said.

Judy sighed. Masa’s was very swanky. “Don, I hate to let you down, but I’d rather not.”

“Are you serious? I practically had to offer my sister’s body to the maître d’ to get a table at this short notice.”

“I don’t feel like celebrating. Bad stuff happened at the office today.” She told him about Lestrange getting cancer and Kincaid giving her a dumb-ass assignment. “So I’m quitting the Bureau.”

Don was shocked. “I don’t believe it! You love the FBI.”

“I used to.”

“This is terrible!”

“Not so terrible. It’s time for me to make some money, anyway. I was a hotshot at law school, you know. I got better grades than a couple of people who are earning fortunes now.”

“Sure, help a murderer beat the rap, write a book about it, make a million dollars … Is this you? Am I speaking to Judy Maddox? Hello?”

“I don’t know, Don, but with all this on my mind, I’m not in the mood to go out on the town.”

There was a pause. Judy knew that Don was resigning himself to the inevitable. After a moment he said: “Okay, but you have to make it up to me. Tomorrow?”

Judy did not have the energy to fence with him anymore. “Sure,” she said.

“Thanks.”

She hung up.

She turned on the TV and looked in the fridge, thinking about dinner. But she did not feel hungry. She took out a can of beer and opened it. She watched TV for three or four minutes before realizing the show was in Spanish. She decided she did not want the beer. She turned off the TV and poured the beer down the sink.

She thought about going to Everton’s, the FBI agents’ favorite bar. She liked to hang out there, drinking beer and eating hamburgers and swapping war stories. But she was not sure she would be welcome now, especially if Kincaid was there. She was already beginning to feel like an outsider.

She decided to write her résumé. She would go into the office and do it on her computer. Better to be out doing something than sitting at home getting cabin fever.

She picked up her gun, then hesitated. Agents were on duty twenty-four hours a day and were obliged to be armed except in court, inside a jail, or at the office. But if I’m no longer an agent, I don’t have to go armed . Then she changed her mind. Hell, if I see a robbery in progress and I have to drive on by because I left my weapon at home, I’m going to feel pretty stupid .

It was a standard-issue FBI weapon, a SIG-Sauer P228 pistol. It normally held thirteen rounds of nine-millimeter ammunition, but Judy always racked back the slide and chambered the first bullet, then removed the clip and added an extra round, making fourteen. She also had a Remington model 870 five-chamber shotgun. Like all agents, she did firearms training once a month, usually at the sheriff’s range in Santa Rita. Her marksmanship was tested four times a year. The qualification course never gave her any trouble: she had a good eye and a steady hand, and her reflexes were quick.