Andrew Britton - The Operative

“You don’t need to climb them,” the voice told her.

“Oh?”

“You’re a princess, remember?”

“Yes…”

“In a fairy tale,” he coaxed. “A magical fairy tale.”

“Oh yes.”

“Just go there,” he told her. “Think of the top of the tower.”

The young woman was silent for several moments. “I see! It worked. I’m there now.”

“Very well done. Look around. What do you see?”

“A beautiful room with white furniture. A dresser. A bed with a gossamer canopy. A full-length mirror. I see pictures of my parents framed in gold.”

Dr. Gillani told him, “Take her to the marble first.”

“All right.” To Yasmin he said, “Go to the dresser.”

“Can I cross the rug? It seems so fragile.”

“What do you want to do?”

“I want to go around it,” she said. “It’s such a lovely design. I want to admire it.”

“Go ahead.”

The scientists watched as she smiled, as her eyes moved beneath her lids.

“Are you still looking at the rug?” Dr. Samson asked.

“Yes.”

“Look ahead of you now. What do you see?”

“I’m at the dresser. So many lovely things on top.”

“Tell me about them.”

“There is a brush with a silver handle. A hand mirror. A jewelry box-”

“Open it.” The voice waited a moment. “What do you see?”

“Necklaces. Rings. Jewels.”

“Do you see a bracelet?”

“No-”

“Are you certain?”

“I don’t see it.”

The voice hesitated. “Do you see a watch?”

“Let me look. Yes, there is a watch.”

“Very good. Take it out and put it on.”

“All right.”

The voice waited again. “Is it on?”

“Yes. It sparkles in the sunlight.”

“There is a marble in your hand,” the voice went on. “Do you feel it?”

“I do.”

“It will sparkle, too.”

“Let me see.” Her wrist moved up. She admired the object through closed eyes. “It’s so… mysterious.”

“Put it on the face of the watch.”

Yasmin frowned slightly. “I don’t understand.”

“Be careful,” Dr. Gillani warned. “You mustn’t confuse her.” That would take Yasmin to a problem-solving corner of the brain. We should have gone to the bed first, she thought. But connection to the marble was a bigger prize, would cut the need for a bookmark and an hour of sleep from the process.

“The marble is like a little sun, is it not?” Dr. Samson asked.

A smile played across Yasmin’s lips. “Yellow… gleaming.” The smile stayed. “Yes.”

Dr. Gillani exhaled. Her colleague had kept Yasmin in the illusion.

“If you take that little sun and place it on top of the crystal, it will stay there.”

“It will?”

“Yes. The light of both will merge into something beautiful, something worthy of a princess, something you will like very, very much. Don’t release it when you put it there. Continue to hold it so you can feel its warmth.”

“All right,” Yasmin said.

Dr. Gillani pressed a button on the console in front of her. The magnetic strap around Yasmin’s right hand was released. She watched as Yasmin moved her wrist to the marble, held it there.

“Oh, yes!” Yasmin said. “I am holding the sun!”

Until she relaxed, Dr. Gillani did not realize how tightly her shoulders had been tensed. The rest of the process should go relatively quickly now. Dr. Samson would suggest that Yasmin change into something regal and would lead her to the closet. There, as she went through the gowns, she would find a chest. In that chest would be the items she would need for the mission. They would be made an anachronistic part of her fantasy, one in which-with Dr. Samson’s guidance-she would come to believe the palace was under attack.

Yasmin would defend it.

To the death.

WASHINGTON, D.C.

The meeting had moved to the Oval Office. Kealey learned that after arriving at Lafayette Square, walking to the White House, and making his way to the West Wing, where he passed through a metal detector at the door and another at the far end of the lobby just before he made a left past the Roosevelt Room. A right at the Cabinet Room brought him to the last leg of his journey. He was escorted by a Secret Service officer and a self-important aide who couldn’t have been more than twenty-six. Kealey learned from Erin Enslin, personal secretary to the president, that he was, in fact, twenty-five and the son of the Speaker of the House. Ms. Enslin presented Kealey to Richard Meyers, special assistant to the president and personal aide. Meyers sat right outside the Oval Office. He phoned inside, and at last, like a pail of water in a bucket brigade, Kealey was tossed on the blaze.

Kealey knew all the people present and waved a general hello before the president directed him to an armchair. In addition to Brenneman and CIA director Andrews, the others in attendance were FBI director Charles Cluzot, Homeland Security director Max Carlson, and Press Secretary Andrea Stempel. They were arrayed on two mustard-colored sofas that faced each other just short of the presidential seal in the carpet. Kealey’s armchair was not quite between the sofas on the opposite side, just in front of the unlit fireplace.

The hot seat, he reflected.

There were no military brass, cabinet members, other than Carlson, or what Kealey called “the briefers,” people like the FBI’s Sandy Mathis. They didn’t need the multimedia extravaganza that was the Situation Room. That told Kealey they weren’t here to analyze findings or put pieces together. There was a plan to discuss, and it involved him.

Andrews’s slightly amused eyes confirmed that. He was seated nearest to Kealey, on the right.

“Mr. Kealey, we would like you to accept a temporary reactivation to service,” the president said.

The president did not ask him to consider a TRS. This was a fiat. It was too bad, Kealey thought-even though part of him resented being the recipient of this-that all presidents didn’t govern their entire term with the assertiveness of a lame duck.

“What’s the assignment, Mr. President?”

“Is that an acceptance, Ryan?” Andrews asked. “We need to be clear about that before we go on.”

Now Kealey was amused. Andrews knew him too well. It wasn’t an acceptance, not really. He had said it firmly, which gave that impression to the president and the others.

“I’m accepting,” Kealey replied.

Andrews smiled with satisfaction.

“Thank you for clarifying that,” the president said. “Charlie?”

The FBI director was on the end of the sofa on the left, nearer to the president. He leaned forward and angled himself toward Kealey. He was a distinguished-looking man, square-jawed and steel-eyed, with broad shoulders and an unfortunate comb-over.

“Two of our agents were shot and killed while attempting to enter what appears to have been the staging area at the Baltimore Hilton,” he said. “Before he died, one of them said that he was shot by one of our own agents.”

“FBI,” Andrews clarified.

“That’s correct,” Cluzot said. “Insiders at the Bureau, and perhaps elsewhere”-he said that with a glance at Andrews-“would help to explain how the terrorists were able to mount such a large-scale action without anyone catching a whiff of it.”

“And you want me because you don’t know who to trust,” Kealey said. “Problem is, I don’t know my way around-”

“We’ll be pairing you with an IA agent we know we can trust,” Cluzot went on. “Reed Bishop.”

“You know we can trust him how?” Kealey asked.

Cluzot’s smug half smile told Kealey that he’d been bushwhacked, that his renowned I’m-from-Missouri-ness had somehow backfired. It underscored what he had witnessed a moment earlier in the exchange between Cluzot and Andrews, that despite the mandated interdepartmental cooperation since 2001, there was still a sharp, enduring rivalry between the intelligence branches.