Andrew Britton - The American

“You think he’s gone, Kealey?” asked the DCI.

“It would make sense, sir. If he stays here, he’s opening himself up to the biggest manhunt in the history of U.S. law enforcement. Besides, you know as well as I do that if he gets to Iran, we’re pretty much screwed. We have no assets there to speak of, unless something’s changed in the last twelve months.”

Harper sighed heavily. “Nothing’s changed.” He thought about it, then said, “He failed, though. If he’s on his way back to Tehran, he probably won’t be getting a very warm reception.”

“I hope you’re right,” Ryan said. “But I wouldn’t count on it.”

The meeting adjourned five minutes later. Kealey and Harper walked side by side down the hall, neither finding much to say, each lost in his own private thoughts.

Harper, just to break the silence, said, “You’ll be getting a medal, you know. Naomi, too. Probably something pretty.”

Ryan shrugged halfheartedly but didn’t smile. “I don’t really care about that.” He glanced over at the other man quickly. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate it. It’s just that I really don’t care. Besides, it’s not like I can show it to anyone anyway.”

Harper laughed a little at the way he had phrased it as they approached the elevators. “Not this time, Ryan. This is one of our few public accomplishments, our day in the sun. Might as well enjoy it while it lasts.”

Kealey didn’t respond right away, once again lost in his own little world. Finally, he said, “You can mail it to me, John. I’m going home. Tonight.”

Harper found himself nodding in agreement. “Landrieu won’t be happy,” he observed. “He’s already pissed that you came here instead of getting debriefed back at Tyson’s Corner.”

“Fuck him,” Ryan said. “ Fuck him. He fought you on that ID thing, and I really needed it. I was ten seconds behind Vanderveen when those guys from HRT drew down on me. I don’t have anything against them… They were just doing their job. If I could have shown them something, though, we might have been able to catch up to him. Hell, I know we would have been able to.”

“He’s probably done, anyway,” Harper observed, steering the conversation back to the TTIC director. “Brenneman threw a lot of the blame for the senator’s death and the Kennedy-Warren at Landrieu, and a lot of it’s sticking.” He hesitated, then said, “I really did fight him on that, you know. He was going to shut you down the whole way, Ryan. I had to compromise.”

“I’m not blaming you, John. I didn’t mean it like that. I’m just sick of people like Landrieu. There’s a thousand like him in Washington, and they all seem to hold the most dangerous jobs.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Harper said, and realized that he meant it. As the elevator doors opened on the first floor, they stepped out onto the clean white marble, and he turned to give the younger man some last-minute advice. “Get back to Katie, Ryan. I’ll handle the fallout over your speedy departure. You did a hell of a thing today, so think about taking some of the credit for it, okay? And don’t worry about Vanderveen. He’ll turn up sooner or later.”

“I still want that bastard, John.” Ryan hated to break his promise to Katie, would dread trying to explain it to her, but the words had come out unexpectedly, and he knew that he meant them. “I want back in. Officially, I mean.”

Harper smiled. It was what he had wanted to hear. “We’ll talk about it in a few days. Until then, get some rest and go see your girl.”

“If I can even catch a flight,” Ryan said, with more than a little frustration. “That storm passed us, but I heard it’s headed north pretty fast. By the time I get to Dulles, they might have the airports-”

He stopped when he saw that the other man’s smile had turned into a big grin. Harper shook his head, handing Ryan a card with a number on the back. “Got your cell phone?” he asked. Ryan nodded. “Call that number when you’re ready to go. I’m the DDO, Ryan. Sometimes you forget that.”

Kealey was about to ask what he meant by that cryptic remark, but instead just reached out to shake the other man’s hand. “Thanks, John. I’ll see you Monday.”

“Have a safe trip. I’ll meet you at the main gate when you get back. Call it 9:00 AM.” Harper was looking over Ryan’s shoulder. “I think someone else wants to have a word with you.”

Ryan turned to see Naomi Kharmai standing a few feet away, wearing a nice smile and looking good in a white pantsuit that contrasted well with her caramel-colored skin. She tilted her head and said, “Where are you off to in such a hurry?”

They sat across from each other in the dismal cafeteria, which was mostly empty at this late hour. Awkward silence at first, as Ryan left his coffee untouched, and Kharmai rolled a mug of tea between her shapely hands.

“Just gonna run out on a girl, huh?”

He looked up. She was smiling, maybe a little bit sadly. “I’ll be back next week, Naomi. You’ll get tired of me in no time.”

“I thought you wanted out. I thought you were out.”

“I can’t leave. Not while he’s still out there.”

She thought about that, was about to say something, then decided against it. “Are you going into the CTC?”

“That’s where you work, right?” She nodded. “Then no.”

She scowled as the grin spread over his face. “Seriously.”

He shrugged. “Probably. That’s where I’ll have the most access to resources, so, yeah, I think so.”

She smiled, and they both fell silent. Finally, just to make conversation, Ryan said, “They’re giving us medals, you know. Pretty ones.”

She shrugged, and what followed kind of surprised him. “That’s not so important to me. I don’t know why… I always thought it would be.”

He read in her eyes that it wasn’t an act. She meant the words, and that surprised him even more. “Harper likes you, Naomi. You got noticed on this, so take what they give you and smile for the cameras, okay?” She looked up to see if he was making fun, but his face was completely sober. “I’m not trying to be arrogant, but I don’t need this job, and I don’t really want it all that much either. It’s more time away from Katie, because she’s back at school in the spring and won’t be able to come down here with me.”

He paused to take his first and only sip of coffee, then said, “You, on the other hand, have the goods, Naomi. You could go high here… You couldn’t be DCI, because of the nationality thing, but just about everything below that is open to you. I mean, you could definitely head up the CTC. To get there, though, you’re going to have to fake it once in a while. You don’t care about the medal… This is one of those times. It’s in your best interest to play it up a little bit, believe me.”

She took the advice for what it was worth, flattered by the compliment, wishing that he hadn’t brought up the other woman. I want you to come home with me! she wanted to scream, and it must have been all over her face, because his words were followed by a long, awkward silence.

Eventually, though, she decided to spare him. It was clear that he wanted to go, and making him suffer wouldn’t change his mind. “Well, I guess I’ll see you Monday,” she said.

They both stood up. “I guess so.” Then they were looking at each other for a long moment, Naomi waiting, hoping that maybe he’d lean in and…

It didn’t happen. Instead, he just reached out to lightly touch her arm. Then he turned and walked out of the cafeteria.

She looked after him for a long moment, a number of expressions mixing on her face. When he passed through the doors and disappeared from view, she sat down to finish her tea, and tried not to think about it.