Me: who’s the guy?
Doug: what?
Me: 4 cars down, gray chevy tahoe?
(pause)
Doug: what guy? What’re you talkin’ about?
Me: you see that raggedy dude come through…2 minutes ago?
Doug: yeah, smelled him too
Me: i paid the dude 20 bucks to roll through the fifth floor…said tahoe guy looked shady
Doug: i don’t see no guy. homeless guy lying
Me: maybe you’re lying
Doug: i came alone…fuck frank…we doin’ this or not?
(pause)
Me: leave now. meet me outside lot exit.
For two hours I’d been hiding behind a giant concrete pillar in the parking garage where we’d agreed to meet. I was relieved that my old supervisor had shown up, but still not convinced that Doug Mitchell could be trusted. In my world no one could really be trusted.
People were rushing to their cars now and peeling out of the garage, the five o’clock working drones reanimated at the end of another long workday. Most of the fifth floor had emptied out by six, and by seven o’clock only a few vehicles remained, including Tahoe man, just a few spaces beyond where Doug had parked.
I had to be sure Tahoe man was not with Mitchell, and the best way to do this was a quick change of location. Turn this thing from static to mobile and watch for the chaos.
I saw Mitchell’s black Audi sedan pull out and leave without hesitation. A good sign. No one followed him. Another good omen. I dashed out from behind the pillar and darted over to the stairway entrance close to my right. I whipped open the door with a bang and ran down the concrete stairs, hand sliding along the railing for support. I almost sideswiped a woman as I flung myself to the second-floor landing, shouting my apology to her over my shoulder without slowing down. I was well past her when she screamed her profanity-laden response.
I reached ground level and pushed through the heavy door to the outside. It was plenty bright out and the garage security lights were not yet on. I spun my head around and found the vehicle exit to my left. The metal arm rose, and Mitchell’s Audi appeared. He pulled through to let the arm drop, and stopped as he saw me sprinting towards him. I tried the door handle, flipped it up hard. Nothing. I banged my fist on the window. I heard the lock pop and jumped in.
“Jesus, Frank,” Mitchell yelled. “Easy on the window.”
“Drive! Drive!”
I flipped around to give the back seat a good look. It was empty. The Audi started to ping, telling me to fasten my seat belt. I did. I gave Mitchell turn-by-turn instructions, all the while checking my side-view mirror for any suspicious cars that might be following. Mitchell could easily have had someone following at a distance with GPS. I hoped not.
I instructed Mitchell to continue north on Rockville Pike. We went through a mile of city blocks and a few traffic signals. Mitchell bitched the whole way. I remained silent for the most part. We reached Walter Reed Medical Center in five minutes. I directed Mitchell to park in the center of a huge, mostly empty outdoor parking lot. He did.
“Turn off the engine and give me the keys,” I said.
Mitchell rolled his eyes. “C’mon, Frank. I—”
That’s when I slid that little 9mm out of my pocket and put it in my lap. Muzzle facing Mitchell, trigger finger on the frame. I’d purchased the gun on the streets from a guy I had heard conducted such transactions. I’d used the money Sarah gave me but didn’t mention it to her.
Mitchell lurched away from me and the gun. His shoulder slammed against the side window. I motioned to him and he threw me the car keys. I caught them with my free hand and pocketed them.
“Fuck, Frank! What’s the gun for?” Mitchell stared down at my lap. “Put that thing away. I didn’t betray you.” He exhaled with enough force to flap his lower lip. He ran a hand over his face. “Jesus, Frank. We’re friends. I didn’t betray you. You know that.”
“So we’re still friends, Doug?”
Mitchell nodded. But he still leaned as far away from me as he could. And he was breathing real heavy. I hoped it was just the gun.
“I’m glad we’re still friends, Doug,” I said, fingering the gun in my lap. “Because if you were the one to set me up, old friend, I’m going to kill you tonight. Right here in your new car.”
Mitchell’s eyes grew wider as he watched the gun rise from my lap and point at his chest.
“Do you understand me, Doug?”
Again he nodded.
“Good. Because I have nothing. Which means that I, unlike you, have nothing to lose. And at this moment, that’s liberating. My nothing means everything right now. I really don’t care if I live or die tonight. Imagine how little I care about you.”
“I’m your friend, Frank.” The pleading had begun. “I always tried to help you when I could. You know that.” He shook his head. “But you were a hard man to help, Frank.”
“Well, I’m glad to hear that, Doug. Because you’re gonna help me now. And I’m going to make it easy for you.” I placed the gun back down in my lap. “Who set me up, and why?”
Mitchell’s shoulders slumped. He stammered.
“Who, Doug?”
Mitchell held his silence. He turned from me and looked out the front windshield. I repeated my question. The Audi went silent. I checked the mirrors for trouble, saw nothing troubling, and held our silence. It lingered. I could see Mitchell was weighing his options.
“It’s not that easy,” he finally said. “This thing—these people. It’s big. Please, Frank. As a friend, I’m begging you to leave this alone.” Mitchell looked at me now, on the edge of emotion. “What is it, Frank? Money? I can put together a little bit for you… if I—”
“So it was you?”
“No! It wasn’t me! I just did what I was told to do.”
“Told by who?” I raised the gun again.
“You don’t know shit, Frank,” Mitchell said, a trace of defiance in his voice. “Did you even know that you and I… our whole unit… was working on secret project? That all our intel work went directly to people you don’t want to know, who were doing things you don’t want to know about?”
“I worked on overseas stuff,” I reminded him. “War on Terrorism shit. Analytical papers. Emerging technologies.”
Mitchell snorted.
“Tell me.”
“I protected you all, don’t you see?” Mitchell flailed his arms. “And I barely knew shit. Didn’t want to know. I was so close to retirement. Just wanted to get the hell out of there in one piece.”
“Tell me what you know.”
A car passed by. The driver turned his head and looked right past us. He kept going.
Mitchell sighed deeply. His hands milked the steering wheel.
“ODYSSEUS,” Mitchell said into the front windshield. “The project was called ODYSSEUS. It was very close hold. Very dark. I never knew what they were doing with it. I swear.”
“What is it?”
“I don’t know. But I’d been a CIA case officer for too many years not to know when to look the other way. I never asked questions. Just did as I was told.”
“You were a part of it, then?”
“No!” Mitchell shouted, turning to face me. He lowered his voice again. “But our work got funneled to ODYSSEUS. Half the Agency worked for the project in one way or another, I suspect. No one really knew.”
“What does ODYSSEUS have to do with me getting fired?”
“I told you, Frank, I don’t know anything.” Mitchell shifted in his seat, broke eye contact with me. He was lying about not knowing anything. He knew something, all right.
I slipped my finger from the frame to the trigger of the gun. A subtle gesture that Mitchell understood. He sighed and continued speaking.
“All’s I know is that some dumpy broad came to my office one day, shut the door, and ordered me to fire you by close of business. I of course protested, asked why. Said I would have to speak to my supervisor. The dumpy broad just
laughed. Said this came straight from the deputy director. That it was a matter of national security, and that anything I did on your behalf from there on out would be considered direct insubordination, and that I would be following you right out the door. I was one year out, Frank. I had a family, a fucking mortgage, two daughters to put through college. I’d been with the Agency over thirty years. They threatened to take it all away, Frank. All of it! So I fired you. I don’t know why you were fired, and I swear I didn’t know they were going to fuck you over like that, strip your benefits and security clearance. I didn’t learn that until after you were already gone.”
I studied my old friend. He was shaking now. Adrenaline. He held my eyes. He was telling the truth about this part.
“Tell me more about this dumpy broad.”
“I don’t know her name. She worked for the deputy director. Prisha Baari.”
Oh, shit.
Chapter Twenty
September 17, 2016
Broadway, NYC
The woman sat in one of the best seats in the house—sixth row, center stage. It was Saturday night at the Brooks Atkinson Theater, and the place was packed. Waitress was one of the hottest Broadway musicals of 2016, with music and lyrics by Sara Bareilles. It tells the story of Jenna Hunterson, a waitress in an abusive relationship with her husband. When Jenna unexpectedly becomes pregnant, she begins an affair with her doctor and, looking for a way out, latches onto a local pie contest and its grand prize as her last chance. The musical was nominated for four Tony Awards that year, including Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical.
The lead actress was now belting out the show’s signature song, “She Used to Be Mine,” about a woman who ended up different than she thought she would be, and her struggle to reconcile that difference. The lead actress, a strawberry blonde from the Midwest with big blue eyes and full lips, held the audience in her sway. Even the woman seated sixth row center was mesmerized; she, too, had at one time wanted to be a Broadway star, having fallen in love with musical theater in college. But dedicating one’s life to such frivolity was strictly forbidden by her parents and her religion. And besides, her parents already had their plan for her.
As the lead reached her apogee, the woman saw herself as a little girl, then flashed to her own lead performances in her college musicals, singing in jubilation to the cheers of the crowd. The woman at sixth row center sighed. As with Jenna Hunterson, things had ended up different from how she’d thought they would.
The woman stood with the others who applauded wildly during the curtain call. The crowd erupted as the lead actress was called back to the stage. The woman studied this All-American girl—her easy smile, the grace with which she accepted and returned the love of the audience. This actress had never had to fight for acceptance, as she had. Never been the different one, the outsider. Membership had been her birthright. The crowd knew it and loved her all the more for it. The woman now standing sixth row center did not.
The woman shifted her weight and looked around her. The audience was still roaring its approval, lost in rapturous applause. The woman grimaced and turned her attention back to the stage. She stiffened and slowed to a polite clap, wondered when this exhibition would end. This actress wasn’t that good, after all. And not all that pretty either. Vanilla beauty. The woman knew that if she, too, had dedicated her life to the stage, it would be her up there now, basking in the love and acceptance of this audience. But a life of such folly was a waste, singing and dancing while the world burned. The woman grinned, remembering. She was the one who had the courage to do something that would really matter, and soon enough the entire country would be clapping for her, chanting her name.
Prisha Baari wiped her eyes dry and held her applause while the others continued to cheer.
“Wasn’t the lead just wonderful tonight,” gushed Tilly, wineglass raised. “To Broadway—and girls’ night out!”
Prisha joined the toast with her big, open smile. The other two women—Patricia, “Poppy” to all, and Leighton, who insisted upon being addressed as such—clinked glasses as well. All consummated their toast with a healthy sip from their glasses of hundred-dollar French Bordeaux.
They sat at a back table at a popular after-show spot a mere five-minute walk from the theater. It was a cozy place, one flight down from street level under a big awning. It had low ceilings, no windows, and aged wood plank floors that creaked underfoot. Their four-top round table was tucked up against an exposed red brick wall, opposite a long mahogany bar. The lights were dim and the place was humming with activity. The waitress came by, and they ordered their appetizer plates in place of dinner.
Prisha and the three women were college friends; Barnard College, Class of ’97. Barnard College was a private women’s liberal arts college located in the Upper Manhattan neighborhood of Morningside Heights, along Broadway between 116th and 120th Streets, directly across from the main campus of Columbia University. Indeed, Barnard was founded in 1889 in response to Columbia’s refusal to admit women into their institution, just as with Radcliffe and Harvard. Unlike Radcliffe, which merged with Harvard in 1977, Barnard retained its all-female undergrad autonomy when Columbia went co-ed in 1983.
Prisha’s parents sought pedigree and had thus enrolled her at Barnard, one of the Seven Sisters, that is, the seven blue-blooded liberal arts women’s colleges in the Northeastern United States. But Prisha discovered that pedigree was not transferable, at least not among the seven sisters. She’d arrived at Barnard a gawky freshman, thin and long faced, with an oversized mouth and big teeth that made her reluctant to smile. Her English was good but tinged with the British accent she had acquired during her years at boarding school in London. All this, combined with the fact that she was a Saudi Arab in a time of escalating terrorism, was more than enough for the other pedigreed girls to cull her from the herd. Three such girls sat across the table from Prisha tonight, still clinging to the pack order that had been established in Brooks Hall dormitory freshman year.
All three girls had light complexions. Tilly, the most outgoing, was a ginger, petite and loud. Poppy, her opposite, had dark hair and eyes, and was the most thoughtful of the three. Leighton was the alpha female in the threesome. Her family went back generations in New York, her mother an active member in the local DAR chapter—Daughters of the American Revolution. They were very well off, her father having made his fortune with the rise of Big Pharma. Leighton had arrived at Barnard a vested trust fund girl. She smelled of that which the other girls coveted. As if by magnetism, a clique of girls were drawn to her. Prisha’s dorm room had been down the hall from Leighton’s, and she had watched with envy the swirl of activity that gravitated around that room. The peals of laughter, the pranks, the cute boys that were snuck in and out and sometimes spent the night.
It took Prisha almost a year to crack into Leighton’s group—and she knew perfectly well why they had allowed her in. She was their token minority member. The brown-skinned girl. The exotic Arab from across the globe that the others magnanimously tolerated because she wasn’t like “those other Arabs.” Prisha had thought that this would change over time, once the girls got to know her, but it never did. The condescension was subtle, the ostracism complete. The other girls never let her in on the joke, refused her the punchline. Prisha resolved to get the last laugh.
“Oh my God, Leighton,” Tilly said, bringing her hand to her mouth. “The lead tonight looked a lot like you.”
Tilly and Poppy gazed at Leighton, both smiling.
“Don’t you think?” Tilly asked. Poppy nodded.
Leighton waved it off but was clearly pleased at the comparison. The actress was beautiful and easily fifteen years younger. Prisha was pleased to note that privilege and age were beginning to catch up to Leighton. The cigarettes had robbed the shine from her complexion, and time had creased her forehead and the corners of her eyes and mouth. She’d kept her weight under control, but her face now looked angular, her features sharpened. Prisha h
ad worked relentlessly on her appearance since college, and it showed. Prisha had played to win, while Leighton had simply played not to lose.
Prisha rewarded herself with another glass of wine, and then poured Leighton another glass as well. It was Leighton’s third glass; she was already well ahead of the rest of the table. Prisha gave her a heavy pour, which she readily accepted. It appeared Leighton liked her wine a little too much. I can work with this. Prisha ordered another two bottles of Bordeaux for the table.
The wine flowed freely as the four Barnard alums settled in and caught up. This had become their annual outing, dinner and a show, and had been started by Prisha in 2009 when she was appointed Deputy Director of the CIA. To the other three, this event was simply one of many “girls’ night out” they enjoyed, but in truth, Prisha had initiated the outings to rub her friends’ faces in her success. The three women, however, had proven remarkably intransigent. Prisha knew she would not get her satisfaction until she broke Leighton.
Tilly and Poppy gave their updates, which were essentially the same story: rich, unavailable husbands ten years their senior; high-performing children; Central American nannies and European vacations; some perfunctory charity work on the side. Poppy offered that she had caught her husband in an affair with his twenty-something assistant. All the women nodded knowingly.
Prisha then spoke of her own accomplishments. Briefing the president in the White House, testifying on Capitol Hill, public terrorism victories she had had a hand in at the CIA. All heady stuff compared to the lives of these three kept women. But the three stubbornly held rank. It was still freshman year at Brooks Hall.
“I give you credit, Prisha,” Leighton said, draining her glass. “I don’t know how you work for the CIA. They’re so… immoral.” She paused long enough for this to land. “I mean, not you, of course. I meant, you know, the Agency and all.”
Prisha poured Leighton another glass. Thought she had heard her slur a bit.
Talion Justice Page 12
