Джанет Моррис - The 40-Minute War

As for the rest of it: “Chris,” he said as they toweled off from the world’s fastest shower and he looked at his watch, “I’m going to propose a side trip: I have to know how my family is… if they’re safe.”

He saw her stiffen, one leg in her suit. Then she pulled it up around her thighs: “Of course.”

“Now don’t go all defensive and distant on me. What about you—parents, siblings?”

“No, thanks. I don’t want to know. My mom’s dead and my dad is—was—a practicing drunkard who remarried. It would be hypocritical of me to put people in danger to find someone I went out of my way to avoid….”

“I understand.”

“What about Morse’s—”

“We don’t owe him anything at this point. Not after what he tried to pull. Come on, we’re late.”

On the way out, she said, “Can I go with you, to find them? Good human interest story.” Her tone was pure investigative reporter, there in the hall with two soldiers who looked like snowmen with M16s ahead of them and two more behind.

“We’ll see.”

Inside a red door marked RESTRICTED: NO ACCESS WITHOUT PERMIT above a slot into which Beck slipped his laminated access card, Ashmead’s team was waiting, seated on one side of a table by two empty chairs.

On the other side sat President Beggs himself.

The President, the only one in the room not dressed in white, was shaggy-haired and harried-looking, polishing eyeglasses which had left angry red indentations on either side of his nose. On his left was Watkins from Tel Aviv, who had an analyst’s noncommittal smile on his face as he stood up in the presence of a lady; on his right, a thirtyish Navy commander Beck didn’t know and, on the commander’s right, Sam Nye from the Agency’s Directorate for Science and Technology, looking no older than he had when he and Beck had been running Task Force 159 out of Langley’s basement together.

Nye left the table to greet them, a wide grin cracking his Teutonic face, arms outstretched to hug Beck: “Man, you and your cloak-and-dagger cliffhangers. If you ever scare me like that again, I’m going to trash you worse than I used to at practice.”

Disentangling himself from Nye’s long-armed hug, Beck said, “Nye, here, was a tight end at—”

“He still is,” Beggs boomed in his best campaign-trail voice. “Ours. Will you introduce the lady so that we can sit down, Mister Beck?”

Beck couldn’t quite tell if Beggs was annoyed that he’d brought her—Ashmead should have filled them in on her status by then. But Beggs would naturally disapprove of women in meetings of this nature. He ignored it, introduced her as his “best and at this moment only asset,” and went around the table until he came to the Navy man.

“I’m sorry, Commander, but I don’t believe we’ve ever met.”

“My old boss,” Thoreau said easily before the clear-eyed man with the military haircut could speak for himself, “Richard McGrath.”

“Mac will do,” said the Navy SEAL commander with a slight inclination of his head; “this is pretty informal. Miss Patrick, are you sure you want to stay for this meeting?”

Beck put a hand to the small of her back and prodded her toward the two empty chairs; Nye, on her other side, whispered, “Don’t let them intimidate you, Madame,” so low that no one at the table could hear.

She took her cue from Nye: “Why wouldn’t I, Commander McGrath?”

Beggs was watching surreptitiously while he reamed his pipe.

Watkins said with a disarming smile, “I’ll handle this, Mac. What the commander is trying to say is that if you sit in on this meeting, Miss Patrick, you’ll be giving up your First Amendment rights: you’ll have to sign a short secrecy oath which we’ve prepared.” He tapped a file folder in front of him. “You’ll hardly be the impartial reporter.”

“She’s not that now,” Beck said, remembering Watkins and Dow in Tel Aviv and wondering what the hell was going on here. “And she’s already signed everything but exit papers.”

“You can speak for yourself, can’t you, Miss Patrick?” Beggs said suddenly.

“Ah… yes, Sir, Mister President. And I realize that nothing I learn here can become public knowledge.”

“Fine,” Beggs sighed. “Give her the paper then, Watkins, and we’ll get on with this.”

Beck wished fervently that Chris was a real operative, that she could spot a factional dispute when she saw one, realize that it was significant that no one from the State Department was present while CIA had two supergrades—three, if you counted Ashmead, which Beck was hesitant to do—at the table.

When Watkins slid the form across the table to Chris, Beck saw the Agency crest on its letterhead and took a deep breath. Hardball they wanted, hardball they’d get: “There’s no need for this; she’s on State’s role already.”

Ashmead, for the first time, looked Beck’s way with a cautionary glance. And Beck, reading the urgency there, began to worry about the Administration’s reaction to the shoot-down: after all, they’d lost a whole 727 full of multinational fact-finders. If there was to be an attempt to apportion blame or minimize damage, even a discussion of possible lateral escalation, then muzzling Chris or removing her before the fact made good sense.

Watkins said smoothly, “Yes, well, that was before the airborne… incidents. We need more stringent control of—”

“Watkins, unless you want to talk about Tel Aviv, back off. Excuse me, Mister President, but this is unnecessary and divisive.” He turned to Chris: “Miss Patrick, until now your contribution has been voluntary, with limits decided between us—flexible, if you like. Once you’ve signed that document, you’ll be subject to Agency pre-publication review for the rest of your life. That’s no way to win a Pulitzer Prize.”

Slick crossed his legs and took out a pocket fingernail file, head down, a smile flickering at the corners of his mouth.

Chris scanned the document, looked up blandly, and smiled: “In that case, gentlemen, I’m afraid I’ll have to leave.”

Ashmead said quickly: “Good idea. Slick, take your lady friend to her room and come right back.”

Everyone sat in silence until they’d gone, then Nye got up and ostentatiously took Chris’s vacant seat next to Beck.

Watkins said, “Beck, you traitorous bastard. Now she can go tell it on the mountain—all about Morse and the way an Agency Covert Action team killed an American citizen—a goddam hero, if that serum’s all it’s cracked up to be.”

“She’s my asset, Watkins. I trust her.”

“All right, gentlemen,” Beggs said. “Whatever your personal feelings, it’s done now. Is it acceptable to you, Ashmead, that she be allowed to continue in whatever capacity without signing that document?”

Ashmead grunted: “It was fine with me before; I haven’t changed my mind. Can we get through this debrief, please? All my people are tired and cranky, Beck included.”

It was a gentle way to find out he’d been demoted, but Beck stiffened. Then Nye’s hand touched his thigh under the table and tapped insistently until Beck reached down and took the pack of cigarettes Nye was using to prod him with.

“Fine with me,” Beggs was saying impatiently. “Let’s have the rundown on these dips you’ve brought, then we’ll open the table to comments.”

As Ashmead began reciting Yael Saadia’s dos siers from memory, Beck got out his lighter, put the cigarettes next to it on the table, and lit a cigarette, near the front of the pack, which had a crimped filter. His hands were shaking.

Casually, as Ashmead talked, Beck watched the coal burn up past the old Morse-code SOS scribed in brown fine-point marker near its tip.