Andrew Britton - The American

He was beginning to realize how serious this actually was. “Katie, I’m sorry. God, I’m sorry. I didn’t know, I swear…”

She was still staring at him. The disappointment had given way to a gaze of distrust, which was somehow far worse. “I love you, Ryan,” she finally said. “I do. But I can’t be here while this is going on, I just can’t. Being here, so close but not knowing what’s happening, wondering if someone’s going to knock on the door in the middle of the night and tell me that you-” She broke off abruptly, unable or unwilling to verbalize the thought. “It’s just too much for me.”

A horn sounded outside. Katie swiped at her eyes with the sleeve of her sweater and picked up her bag. “That’s for me,” she whispered. “I called a taxi. My ticket is waiting at the airport.”

Ryan didn’t know what to do. For all the anguish he was feeling, the worst part was seeing her in pain. He thought about reaching out for her, trying to hold her back, but sensed that that would only make things worse. He was fighting for words. How often does everything come down to a few sentences? What could he offer that might limit the distance between them? Say something.

“Katie?” She turned at the door but refused to lift her gaze. “I hope you understand that what I said before, about needing you… I meant that, you know? I can’t think of anything else, or say anything else that would be more true.”

She let go of what might have been a choked sob, but she still wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Don’t call me, Ryan.”

“What?” The panic started to rise inside. He took a step toward her. “Katie, listen-”

“No!” She held up a wavering hand to stop him. “Just… don’t, okay? Not for a while. I need some time.”

“Katie!” She was gone, the door closing softly behind her.

He stared after her in disbelief, wanting to follow but unable to move, trying desperately to figure out what the hell had just happened. Looking around, he was vaguely aware of sterile prints and stock furniture. This would be life without her, he knew. Flat surroundings and still air.

He couldn’t go back to that, not after what she had given him. He needed time, time to think about it, time to figure out how to get her back, but something was piercing his thoughts. He looked around, dazed, still trying to get his mind around the disaster that had just transpired. His cell phone was sitting on the dresser where he had tossed it earlier. After staring at it for a good twenty seconds, he finally realized that it was ringing.

Ryan was running back out to the car less than thirty seconds later. The tires on his BMW left a 6-foot strip of rubber behind as he peeled out into the night, back toward the city lights, back toward Washington. He had taken his jacket and his phone. For the moment, decisions about Katie would just have to wait.

WASHINGTON, D.C.

When Naomi woke, her return to the world was a gradual process. First she had a sense of shadows spread across the ceiling, separated only by fine threads of yellow light. As she gained a sense of her surroundings — a hospital? — the light seemed to bleed into the dark patches, so that she soon became aware of the faces staring down at her. She read them carefully as her vision cleared. When she saw concern and not dread in their eyes, she felt relief wash through her body.

Ryan took her hand as Harper went to look for a nurse. “Naomi, can you hear me?”

She tried to speak, but her throat was dry and she wasn’t altogether there yet. “Mmmm.”

“You’re going to be fine,” he assured her. “You took two rounds, but the vest caught both of them. I wouldn’t move around for a little while, though. It’s going to hurt.”

Sure enough, she felt a crushing pain in her chest when she tried to sit up. Ryan eased her head back onto the pillow and smoothed her hair. “Jesus, I just told you not to move,” he said in quiet exasperation. “I don’t believe you sometimes. If I told you not to run into traffic, you’d probably do it just to spite me.”

She smiled weakly. “How long have I been out?”

“About three hours. How do you feel?”

She tested her limbs and winced. “Sore. Can I have some water?”

As Ryan went to fill a cup from the sink, she said, “When can I go home?”

“We’re waiting to see,” he replied gently. He handed her the cup. “Try to get some rest.” He squeezed her hand as she drank. Harper reentered the room, followed soon thereafter by a harried-looking nurse. The young woman proceeded to check Naomi’s vital signs as Ryan pulled the deputy director toward the door.

Once they were in the hall, he leveled Harper with angry eyes. “What the fuck was she doing on that raid, John?”

“She’s a grown woman,” Harper responded quietly. “She wanted the chance and I gave it to her. Besides, you’re in no position to question me, Ryan, not after the shit you pulled with Elgin.”

The younger man looked away and tried to calm himself. Anger wouldn’t help him here, and he knew it. “What was in the apartment?” he finally asked.

“Not much, but it’s early yet. We’re still trying to ID the occupants. The landlord had names, of course, but they were meaningless. It would have been nice to take one of them alive. The Bureau found a cell phone, still intact but cloned. We probably won’t get anything useful out of that. The outgoing calls were deleted. There was a laptop, too, but someone put a half dozen rounds into it when the shooting began.” Harper leaned back against the wall and rubbed his eyes. “It wasn’t a good trade, Ryan. HRT lost four operators with another one on the way out. The SAC got clipped as well. We didn’t get shit in return. The Bureau’s in an uproar; that’s two of their top guys on the East Coast dead inside of a month. The only positive thing is that we’ve been able to throw the press off track. They’re carrying it as a high-risk arrest warrant that went bad.”

“There was no kind of documentation anywhere in the apartment? I find that hard to believe.”

“Well, believe it,” Harper said. “They knew what they were doing.” A thoughtful expression came over his face. “I’m interested in the woman. You know how the Iranian hard-liners feel about women in general. They would only use one if it was absolutely necessary. Whatever she was doing for them must have been special. The landlord said these two landed on her doorstep about six months ago, so we’ll have people checking immigration records from early in the year. If they were meant to be long-term sleepers, they would have burrowed right in. It would have been Tehran to Western Europe, to break up the trail, then on to Washington. There’s a good chance we’ll pick them out sooner or later.”

Ryan looked up. “What makes you so sure they were Iranian?”

“Naomi said she heard them calling out to each other in Farsi when the shooting started.”

“That only narrows it down, John. Farsi is spoken in Afghanistan, Iraq, Bahrain… They could have been from just about anywhere in the Middle East.”

The DDO frowned impatiently. “Given recent developments, Ryan, I think it’s safe to say they weren’t Iraqis. This lead originated with Shakib, remember?”

“Yeah…” Kealey sighed heavily. “Yeah, you’re right.”

Harper was looking at him curiously. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing.” He realized he had snapped out the answer. “What now?”

Harper was still staring at him. “They’ll be discharging Naomi in an hour or two,” he finally said. “The Bureau’s supposed to be faxing the apartment inventory over to Langley, so I want to get back and take a look. Can you wait for her?”