Brian Haig - Man in the middle

She offered me a faint smile and said, "Don't take this wrong, okay? I hope I never see you again."

I blew her a kiss and walked away.

Bian awaited me in the plane's lounge. She looked up when I entered and asked, "How did it go?"

"Don't ask. Why aren't you asleep?"

"Look who's asking. You look like hell." She studied my face and said, "Is something wrong?"

"No, I'm… Where's our prisoner?"

"In the guest suite, locked to the bed. I barely nicked his calf. A flesh wound. I soaked it with disinfectant and put on a fresh dressing." She noted, "He doesn't react well to pain."

"Did you interrogate him?"

"I promised, didn't I?" She added, "I'm being good."

"And did you call Phyllis with an update?"

"I did. She sounded pleased. Incidentally, she's flying here."

"On her broomstick?"

Bian smiled and replied, "I'm serious. She's in flight, and the Agency switch connected us." She checked her watch. "Took off five hours ago. She's scheduled to arrive in seven hours."

"Did she mention why?"

"Well… no. But I asked. She said something that sounded evasive. She's very cagey, isn't she?" She made a sour face and added, "That was the good news, if you're wondering."

I felt a headache coming on. "I don't want to hear it."

She said it anyway. "Waterbury is accompanying her."

I collapsed into a comfortable lounge chair and thought about this a moment. Among the more agreeable aspects of working for Phyllis Carney-possibly the only agreeable thing-is that she tends to be old school. This is to say, she gives you jobs, she generally does not interfere, and if you succeed she treats it as par for the course, no big deal; if not, she fires you, and then goes the extra mile of ruining your career.

She's not vindictive; that would require a level of emotion she does not possess. What she is, is a throwback to an older era, a living time capsule of habits, instincts, and methods that reside now only in history books. And for my generation-the boomers-bred as we were to be unconditionally nurtured and blithely agnostic about personal responsibility, we are a little disoriented by a lady boss with such Calvinist impulses. Also, it strikes me that Phyllis is aware she has become a generational misfit; I actually think she gets a sadistic pleasure from this. Her nickname around the office is Dragon Lady, which I personally find insulting, disgusting, sexist, and dead-on.

Her flying here, however, was a curious deviation from her normal modus operandi, and that Herr Waterbury was accompanying her suggested other problems, and other issues. But what? Well, for one thing, a higher authority, like the White House, finally got its act together and realized the kids at the Agency were playing with matches around political dynamite. Maybe they didn't know everything, yet here we had a case where knowing very little could change the nameplate in the Oval Office.

So Phyllis, or the Director, or both, had been dragged down Pennsylvania Avenue, put on the red carpet, and read the riot act.

Which might explain, as well, her traveling companion. Either Mark Waterbury ratted her out or he was the watchdog dispatched to monitor or control her every move and report back. Those aren't mutually exclusive suspicions.

Or I could have this all wrong. The capture of Ali bin Pacha was a big victory in a war that badly needed a few notches on the success pole. So maybe they were flying here to make sure their mugs were in the victory photo. I could actually see Waterbury doing this, and it wouldn't hurt Phyllis to score a few brownie points either.

So, was it that simple and innocuous? Maybe. But maybe not.

This case just kept getting deeper and more complicated, starting with a corpse in an apartment, and now we had a bomber in the bedroom, a terrorist paymaster in an operating room, and if one or both of them spilled the beans, who knows what else might land on our plate. You like to think of investigations as ordered, a sensible progression of steps guided by a start and headed toward a tangible finish, where the lodestar for the investigator is the illusion that things happen for a reason.

But in truth, sometimes it's day by day, a journey without a map or an exit ramp in sight. In a way, I thought, this case had become a microcosm of this war, having looked so simple at the start and now our troops were sinking deeper and deeper into the muck of every tribal and religious and political mess in the region.

I looked at Bian, who was thumbing through a TIME magazine. I asked her, "Did you mention anything to Waterbury?"

"Sean, please." She looked up. "I'm not stupid."

"I know that." I bent forward, untied my combat boots, and kicked them off my feet. "Maybe he just misses you."

She commented, "I'll bet he misses you more," and went back to reading. "He doesn't want you out of his sight." Bian looked up from her magazine again. "Whew… what's that poisonous smell?"

"You're no petunia yourself."

She laughed. "I do feel icky. Did you notice there are showers on this plane? Two of them." She stood and began unbuttoning her battle dress blouse.

"Is there anything this plane doesn't have?"

"Well… the bar's not stocked. Maybe you noticed that." She bent over and began untying her boots. "Speaking of which, why don't I get you a cold beer?"

She wasn't expecting a reply, nor did she get one, and she disappeared in the direction of the forward galley. She reappeared after a few moments, down now to a tiny sports bra and camouflage pants. Part of me admired what a good soldier she was for staying so trim and fit, and another part-the more dominant part-noted that I was in the presence of the ninth wonder of the world, a half-naked woman hauling a six-pack.

She tossed me a cold one, withdrew one for herself, and there was that inspiring symphony of two cans opening simultaneously.

I took a long sip and said, "Ah…"

She said, sort of out of the blue, "I hope I'm not being nosy. Why haven't you ever married?"

"Why buy the cow when you can buy milk?"

"Stop being obnoxious. That was a serious question." She leaned her back against the bulkhead and studied me with her curious black eyes. "You're a handsome man. Rough around the edges, maybe, but a lot of women would find you attractive."

I decided I owed her an answer that was honest and forthright, and I gave her one. "Mind your own business."

She laughed. She took a long sip from her beer. "Don't tell me you're one of those relationship-phobic types. The instant the M-word comes up, you put in a request for reassignment."

"Time for my shower."

I got up and walked back to the bedroom at the rear of the plane. Right beside it was another door, which I opened and peeked inside. It was a large stall, basically a green faux-marble cage with six or ten shower heads designed by a sadist and passed off as a yuppie must-have luxury item. There was nowhere to change, so I stripped down to my undies in the hallway and stepped inside.

I turned on the water, slipped off my undershorts, sipped from my beer, and leaned back against the wall. The water was as cold as the beer, and it didn't feel good, though after a moment of acclimation it was refreshing and awakening. The soap was French and smelled like a lady's boudoir-personally, I prefer the odor of stale sweat-and I scrubbed off the dirt, washed my scalp, and was rinsing my hair when I heard a hard knock on the door.

I heard Bian's voice, but it was muffled and I couldn't make out what she was saying. Two thick fluffy white towels hung from a hook and I wrapped one around my waist and opened the door.

Bian, also wrapped in a towel, her hair wet and bedraggled, said, "I turned on the water, and it's… it's frigid."