Andrew Britton - The Exile

“A large font, I’d guess.”

“Very large,” Brenneman said with a grim smile. “Joel Stralen is a hard-liner, and I wanted that perspective among my core advisors. We’ve all gotten so used to sticking our thumbs in the wind here in D.C., I felt it important.”

“You weren’t mistaken,” Fitzgerald said. “Our error was in letting ourselves be swayed too far by his point of view.” She hesitated. “May I speak personally of something? It’s a difficult subject.”

He nodded his head and sat there waiting.

“I’ve done a lot of soul-searching over the past several days,” Fitzgerald said. “In fact, I’ve turned my soul inside out and shaken it to see what falls loose. And I realized I wasn’t nearly as recovered from the trauma of my kidnapping as I’d believed. As a woman in the capital…in any position of authority, I suppose…you have to present a tough facade. I felt that if I didn’t appear to be over what happened to me in Pakistan, my effectiveness as an advisor and negotiator would be comprised. I won’t second-guess myself now, not in that regard. But where I erred, and erred terribly, was in buying my own act. I was swayed by Stralen because I identified too closely with your niece. I let emotions throw me off balance, overtake my capacity for making rational decisions-”

Brenneman raised a hand to interrupt. “Don’t beat yourself up,” he said. “You and I share the same essential regrets. Our emotions colored how we saw things. The timing was horrific, which does not mitigate our responsibility for what was done. We own the results of our decisions… We will always own them. But all we can do now is move on and deal with the consequences.” He expanded his chest with air, slowly breathed out, his sober, weary eyes holding on her face. “Brynn…when I say General Stralen views things in terms of absolutes, it is not to imply he’s simpleminded. He’s a shrewd, calculating military man. A chess player. And what I’ve wondered, God help us all-”

Brenneman’s intercom line flashed, and he pressed the speakerphone button to answer his personal secretary. “Yes?”

“Mr. President, General Stralen is here to see you.”

“Right on cue,” Brenneman observed.

“Excuse me?” asked the secretary.

“Nothing, Fran…sorry.” Brenneman saw his secretary of state look at him, her eyes silently asking whether he preferred she stay or excuse herself from the office. He motioned for her to stay put. “Tell the general to come right in,” he said over the intercom.

“Joel, please have a seat.” Brenneman motioned the DIA chief into a chair without rising from behind his desk. “Brynn and I were just wrapping up our conversation about Cullen White.”

In his air force dress blues, his jacket buttoned almost to the collar, Stralen looked surprised to see Fitzgerald in the office. Quick to recover, he took her hand decorously but remained on his feet. “Sir,” he said, facing the president, “White’s the reason I’m here as well, and I intend to be brief. If you don’t mind, though”-he glanced back at Fitzgerald-“and with no disrespect to Madam Secretary, I’d ask that we speak privately.”

“I think it’s best we all stay,” Brenneman said. “There’s nothing that needs hiding between the three of us.”

Stralen nodded. “I don’t wish to hide anything. But my issue is strictly of concern to the DIA-”

“No,” Brenneman said. “If it relates to Cullen White’s activities in Sudan, it’s all our concern…mine, yours, and Brynn’s. You can forget about trying to compartmentalize.”

“Fine, sir,” Stralen said. “That is fully understood. Indeed, I might agree with it. But then why isn’t the DIA a participant in White’s interrogation?”

Brenneman looked at him. “Are you serious?”

“Of course.” The skin tightened over the well-defined planes and angles of Stralen’s face. “Do I sound like I’m joking?”

“Joking, no,” Brenneman said. “But in frankness, I don’t see how you think the DIA can participate. Only the CIA has clean hands here. DOD, State, this very office-we’ve all compromised ourselves.”

“How so? What precisely have we done wrong? ”

“If you don’t already know, Joel, you are in pronounced denial,” replied Brenneman.

Stralen was shaking his head. “The worst we can be accused of is misappropriation of funds. And even so, the distribution of CINC discretionary resources has its gray areas. As far as seeming to run against our own embargo, we could argue-”

“My God, we shipped arms to the very people who killed my niece, ” Brenneman said sharply. He inhaled, struggling to control himself. “Enough, Joel. You can save your argument for other ears besides mine. But while you’re here, I do have a question for you. A blunt one. And I would appreciate a direct response.”

Stralen did not budge from the middle of the room but simply met the president’s gaze. “I’m listening, sir.”

Brenneman felt his whole body tense. Every muscle, every tendon. He had not wanted to ask this of the man standing there in front of him, someone he had called a friend for decades. Had not even wanted to consider it.

“When you funded Simon Nusairi…did you have any inkling he’d been involved in Lily’s death? I mean, any knowledge he may have been responsible for what happened to her?”

Silence fell over the office. Both Brenneman and Fitzgerald were looking at Stralen now, but he kept his own eyes on the president’s face.

“Sir, I am heading to my Virginia retreat for the weekend. It has been a long six months, and my objective is to gather stamina for the political battles to come,” Stralen said. “Should you still want to ask that question on my return, I will answer fully and completely.”

More silence, Brenneman felt its weight press down on his shoulders, felt his very heart sinking underneath it.

“Very well,” he said. “Do as you wish.”

And continued to feel his heart sink like a rock as Stralen abruptly turned and left the room.

WASHINGTON, D.C.,VIRGINIA BEACH

The CIA safe house on Twelfth Street NW off Massachusetts Avenue was a very intentionally nondescript three-story redbrick building opposite Our Lady of Divinity Catholic Church and book-ended by a pre-World War II apartment house on the corner of Massachusetts and another small walk-up heading toward the M Street intersection.

Stepping out into the fresh air after the preliminary debriefing that had taken just shy of four hours, Kealey looked down the short flight of stairs descending to the sidewalk and saw John Harper leaning against his double-parked black Suburban, hands in the pockets of the light raglan trench coat flapping around his knees.

“Ryan,” he said. “Seems I’m right in the nick of time.”

Kealey went downstairs, crossed the pavement, slid between the front and rear bumpers of two curbed vehicles. Harper took a hand out of his pocket and extended it as he approached.

“Same set of Agency wheels as ever,” Kealey said, eyeing the vehicle as they shook.

Harper shrugged. “You know what they say about old habits.”

“Yours or the Agency’s?”

“Some would say there isn’t a damn bit of difference.”

Kealey grunted. “Don’t you get a driver anymore?”

“My option. I’m on unofficial business today.”

Kealey looked at him in silence.

“This is a far cry from where we last met in Pretoria,” Harper said after a moment.

Kealey nodded. “No Springsteen music,” he said.

“No.” Harper smiled a little. “No jukebox either.”

They stood regarding one another in the shade of an elm tree as traffic and pedestrians moved quietly by on the street.