“A man who knows his weaknesses can turn them into strengths.”
“We might want to see how this plays out, sir.”
Tucker nodded. “The mission they’re being vetted for is the most important in the last fifty years. Perhaps the most important of all time for us.”
Viola leaned back in his chair, his eyes widening slightly at this comment but his features also holding some skepticism.
Tucker must have noted this, because he said, “Not an exaggeration, Viola. Not at all.”
Viola said nothing.
“Do you think they’ll make it through?” asked Tucker.
“I wouldn’t bet against them. Like you said, they’re the best we have right now.”
“In ability, not loyalty. And I need both.”
Viola shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “I never knew what the bad blood was between you and Reel, sir.”
“There’s no need for you to know,” said Tucker. “Suffice it to say that Reel did something extraordinarily heinous.”
Viola looked thoughtful. “I guess it must be pretty bad if you want her dead.”
“I never said I wanted her dead,” snapped Tucker.
“Sorry, sir. I assumed something I guess I shouldn’t have.”
Tucker sat back and steepled his hands. “I just need to know, Viola, that I have their loyalty and they are up to snuff. Do you understand?”
“The up-to-snuff part, I can control easily enough. Loyalty is more part of the brain, sir. The psychs need to get there.”
“They are. They will.”
“So what exactly do you want me to do?”
“Your job. Nothing more, nothing less. Have you spoken to Marks?”
“Only enough to get filled in on certain things.”
“I want you to watch her as carefully as you’re watching Robie and Reel.”
“What exactly am I looking for?”
“Loyalty, Viola. I demand it from everyone at this agency.”
“So you want me to spy on the DD?” Viola said incredulously.
“Just keep in mind that while she’s the DD, I’m the DCI. The last time I looked at the organizational chart, I’m above her.”
Viola shifted again in his seat. “No doubt about that.”
“Then do what I say. Regular reports. That’ll be all.”
Viola rose and turned to the door. He turned back to look at Tucker.
“Yes?” said Tucker expectantly, though something in his tone seemed to be bracing for a fight.
“I joined CIA to serve my country, Director.”
“As did I. Your point?”
“No point, sir. I just wanted to make sure you understood that.”
After Viola left, Tucker continued to sit in his seat. He stared at his hands, which were dotted with sunspots, the result of too much time sailing the Chesapeake Bay on hot summer days. That was all before he became DCI. Now there was no time for sailing. There was only time for this. It was consuming his life. No, he had no more life. He was the DCI. That was his life. That was his identity now.
But his dilemma was fairly obvious. Who could he trust?
Marks? Viola? Any of his people?
He had the most important mission of his career coming up, perhaps the most important mission the agency had had in decades. And he had told the president of the United States that he had it covered. That his team was being vetted, and if they weren’t ready to go, he had another team ready to step in.
But did he?
He knew what he wanted. He wanted Reel to pay for what she had done. And if Robie stood with her, he would get the same treatment. But the fact was he needed them to perform this mission. He had to send the best. And they were the best. By a wide margin.
He put his face in his hands. His stomach was full of cold dread. His skin was wet with sweat. He felt nauseated. He felt…dead.
Am I suicidal? Has it come to this? Am I really losing it?
The DCI needed to be at the top of his game. Right this very minute.
He rocked back and forth with his head bracketed by his hands.
And then with a spark of clarity, his reason cleared. He lifted his face from his hands.
He had his answer. In fact, it had been staring him in the face the whole time.
Andrew Viola drove to a private airport to hop on agency wings on the way back to the Burner.
But he made one stop along the way. He had a phone call that he needed to make. And he didn’t trust his secure mobile phone to make it without someone listening in.
He stopped at a twenty-four-hour convenience store and stepped out of his car.
He didn’t go inside. He went to the single pay phone that was affixed to the exterior wall. He didn’t even know if it would work.
He dropped in his change and got a dial tone.
He punched in the number and the phone rang three times before it was answered.
Blue Man said, “Hello?”
Andrew Viola said in a low voice, “You need to hear something, but you didn’t hear it from me.”
“Is this about Robie and Reel?” asked Blue Man.
“Yes, it is,” replied Viola.
Viola said his piece and then took some questions from Blue Man, whose real name was Roger Walton. He was very high up at the agency, though not as high up as Amanda Marks and Evan Tucker.
He was also a friend and ally of Will Robie’s. And of Jessica Reel’s.
When Viola finished he hung up the pay phone and got back into his car.
Ironically, the old-fashioned pay phone might be the safest form of communication there was these days. NSA tended to focus more on mobile phone traffic and texts and emails. There were so few coin phones left that no one really bothered to monitor them anymore.
He started the engine and headed off. He would be back at the Burner in a few hours.
And maybe he had just realized that the world was not simply black and white, no matter how much he wanted it to be.
Chapter
19
SPITZER AND BITTERMAN WERE PLAYING tag team.
Seated across from them were Robie and Reel.
“Long time no see,” began Reel. “Lost the love?”
The two psychologists glanced at one another, looking a bit uneasy.
Spitzer said, “We don’t make our own appointments.”
Robie said, “I know, you follow orders like everybody else.”
“So why the double team today?” said Reel. She gave an anxious sideways glance at Robie. “I thought these sessions were supposed to be one-on-one.”
“They usually are,” replied Bitterman. “But not today. Does this make you uncomfortable?”
“No,” said Reel. “I love revealing my innermost thoughts on a public stage.”
Spitzer smiled. “It’s not the preferred way, Agent Reel, but it might actually be beneficial to you, and to Agent Robie.”
“I can’t possibly see how, but I’m not a shrink.” Reel sat back against the chair, her eyes half closed. “And at least while we’re in here no one is trying to kill us.”
Bitterman said, “You mean kill you when you’re in the field?”
Robie said, “No, she meant kill us as in while we’re here at the Burner.”
“It’s definitely not a walk in the park here,” noted Spitzer, as she doodled with her pen on the pad she held.
Reel said, “Oh, the training part we can handle. It’s the waterboarding in the middle of the night that gets me a little uptight. I like a full six hours of sleep uninterrupted by torture just like the next person.”
Spitzer and Bitterman both gazed at her openmouthed.
Bitterman said, “Are you saying that you were tortured? Here?”
“Don’t get your boxers in a wad, Doc,” said Reel. “It wasn’t the first time and I doubt it will be the last. It’s just usually not our own people that do it to us.”
Spitzer said, “But that’s illegal.”
“Yes, it is,”
replied Robie. “But please don’t think of filing any paperwork on it.”
“Why?” asked Bitterman.
Robie stared at him. “You’re a bright guy. I think you can see the endgame on that one.”
Bitterman paled and glanced nervously at Spitzer, who kept her gaze squarely on Reel. Bitterman said, “Well, perhaps we should go ahead with our session.”
“Perhaps we should,” said Reel. “So fire away.”
The two psychologists readied their notes and Spitzer spoke first.
“The last time we talked, we were discussing roles.”
“Judge, jury, executioner,” said Reel promptly while Robie looked on curiously.
“Yes. What role do you feel you’re playing right now?”
“Victim.”
“And how does that make you feel?” asked Bitterman.
“Shitty.”
He next looked at Robie. “And you?”
“Not a victim. A scapegoat. And pissed, in case you were going to ask how I felt about it.”
“So you consider all of this unfair?” asked Bitterman.
“I’ve served my country, risked my life for many years. I’ve certainly earned more respect than I’m getting now. So has Reel.”
“But you understand why the circumstances have changed?” asked Spitzer.
“Because two traitors are dead?” said Robie. “No, I really don’t.”
“She wasn’t ordered to kill them,” pointed out Bitterman.
“So she took a shortcut. The orders would have been coming. Believe me.”
“No, they would have been tried and perhaps convicted,” said Bitterman. “Just as spies and traitors have been before.”
Robie shook his head. “Do you know what those two were involved in? What they were planning?”
“It wasn’t selling secrets,” Reel added as the two psychologists shook their heads.
“It was something that the world could never know about,” said Robie. “There would never have been a trial. Never. And they would never have gone to prison.”
“They would have been executed and gone into a grave,” said Reel. “And that’s where I sent them.”
“Be that as it may,” said Bitterman. “There is the issue of following orders and not acting unilaterally.”
“Otherwise, there is chaos,” added Spitzer.
“The slippery slope,” said Bitterman. “I know you can see the implications.”
“This was a special case,” retorted Reel.
“Exceptions not only disprove the rule, they destroy it,” replied Spitzer. “Our job is to psychologically vet both of you. While I know that you have been physically challenged while here and will continue to be, we are focused not on your bodies but on your minds. Do you still have the mental discipline and brain wiring to do your job in the field?”
“Or will you create a new mission on your own instead of following orders?” added Bitterman.
“We improvise all the time in the field,” protested Robie.
“I’m not talking about improvisation,” said Bitterman. “All good field agents do that. I’m talking about going off grid, going rogue and creating entirely new missions to counter perceived wrongs. Do you still have the wherewithal to follow only the orders given to you?”
Reel was about to say something and then stopped. Robie, for the first time, looked unsure.
Neither of the psychologists said anything. They just stared at the other two, awaiting an answer from one of them.
“I don’t know,” said Reel at last.
Robie said nothing.
Both Bitterman and Spitzer wrote down some notes.
Robie said, “So if we can’t say that unequivocally, then what? Unfit for deployment?”
Spitzer looked up. “That’s not for us to decide. We simply make recommendations.”
“And what would your recommendation be right now?” asked Reel.
Spitzer glanced at Bitterman, who said, “An answer now would be meaningless.”
“Why?” said Reel. “We’ve been here awhile. It’s not like they’re going to give us a year to figure this out, not if we’re being vetted for a mission.”
“My answer is still the same,” replied Bitterman, and Spitzer nodded.
Spitzer said, “Do you even want to be redeployed?” She looked from Reel to Robie for an answer.
Reel said, “This job has been my whole life.”
“That’s not an answer,” pointed out Bitterman.
“It’s the only one I’ve got right now,” replied Reel firmly.
Robie said, “How long do we have?”
Spitzer said, “We’re not the ones to take that up with. Try DD Marks.”
“Do you report to her or Evan Tucker?” asked Reel.
“The chain of command is clearly defined,” said Spitzer. “But eventually all things make their way to the DCI. Particularly something like this.”
Robie nodded. “Are we done here?”
“Do you want to be done?” asked Spitzer with a knowing look. She was clearly not simply referring to this meeting.
Neither Robie nor Reel answered.
Chapter
20
IT WAS AN OBSTACLE COURSE laden with things that could actually kill you. The Burner Box didn’t do things halfway.
The only difference now was Amanda Marks was right there with them as they hung from a metal line a hundred feet up and made their way slowly over a swamp that had the reputation of being infested with water moccasins, because it was.
None of them looked down, because what would have been the point?
They reached the other side, found their cache of weapons, and kept moving.
Marks pointed ahead and motioned Reel to her right and Robie to her left.
The incoming fire started thirty seconds later.
It was live ammo. In Reel’s and Robie’s world there always came a time when there was no other kind.
As the rounds whizzed over their heads Robie and Reel moved forward as a team. They had a mission and a goal, and the sooner they got to it, the better, because the bullets would stop.