The Exile

by Andrew Britton

  There was silence on the other end of the line, and Holland knew he had gotten it right. “Well, I’m telling you right now, that is not the reality. I do not work for that organization.”

  There was a brief, speculative pause. “So who do you work for, Mr. Holland?”

  “I heard you were a smart man, Sergeant. I’ll let you figure it out for yourself.”

  Another long silence ensued. Holland, listening to the sound of the other man breathing over the line, could almost sense the moment that Sadowski caught on. By his rough count, it took less than thirty seconds.

  “I’m going to need some proof of what you’re saying, sir, before I tell you anything. And that’s assuming I even can.”

  “Look…” Holland didn’t want to get into it over the phone. “Do you know where I’m located?”

  “Yes,” Sadowski replied. “Fourth floor, room four-oh-two.”

  Holland wasn’t surprised to hear that the man already knew where his office was. At least once a month, the Marine Security Guards conducted a series of drills known as “Reacts”—which was short for Reaction. Each React started with a simulated emergency, such as a fire, a bomb threat, or a riot outside the embassy. From there, the MSG gathered in the designated React Room, a storage area for weapons, communications equipment, and other essential gear, where they received their orders directly from the detachment commander. As the man in charge of those drills, it was only natural that Sadowski would know the embassy’s layout like the back of his hand.

  “I’m up here now,” Holland continued. “I wonder if you wouldn’t mind stopping by for a few minutes. I promise you, it won’t be a waste of your time.”

  There was a brief pause as the other man considered, and the station chief found himself holding his breath. Finally, Sadowski said, “I’ll see you in five minutes.”

  Holland exhaled slowly in relief. “Thank you, Sergeant.”

  The line went dead, and Holland hung up the phone. As he stood there in the dark, he couldn’t help but wonder if he had just made a serious error in judgment. Essentially, he had told the marine sergeant the truth: that he was the ranking CIA officer at the embassy. Not in so many words, of course, but the implication was clear, and a man with Sadowski’s experience wasn’t likely to miss the underlying message. Now he knew what only five other men at the embassy knew, including the four case officers who reported directly to Holland. It was the kind of information that hundreds, if not thousands, of Arab fundamentalists across the country would gladly kill for.

  Holland shook off the lingering doubt. He had just committed an unforgivable sin in the eyes of his employers, but somehow, he knew that he’d done the right thing. He couldn’t explain how he knew, but the identity of the man on the steps was worth the professional sacrifice. He was sure of it. And if it turned out that he was wrong, so be it. He’d made a calculated wager. Staff Sergeant Daniel Sadowski was a U.S. Marine who had served his country with distinction for years on end, not a gossiping secretary or some shifty, back-alley merchant in the city bazaar. Holland’s true position at the embassy was as safe with him as it was with anyone else, including Holland’s own subordinates.

  Turning on his desktop lamp, he crossed to a large Gardall safe in the corner of the room. Crouching before it, he punched in a ten-digit code. The LED light to the right of the keypad turned green. He turned the handle and pulled open the heavy steel door. Inside there were two shelves. The bottom shelf held nothing but files, each of which was labeled with the appropriate security classification. The two objects he needed were on the top shelf. He had not touched either since he had arrived in Sudan eight months earlier. Grabbing them both, Holland closed the safe and locked it once more.

  Just as he finished doing so, there was a knock on the door behind him. Getting back to his feet, he crossed the room, placing both objects on the edge of his desk along the way. He opened the door and recognized Sadowski on sight. The twenty-seven-year-old marine was a shade over six feet tall, with a wrestler’s physique, flat green eyes, and hair clipped so short it was impossible to tell what color it was. He was wearing civilian clothes—khakis, a checked flannel shirt, and steel-toed boots—but it was what he held in his right hand that caught Holland’s attention. It was a plastic shopping bag, weighed down in the middle. From the way he was holding it, it was impossible for Holland to determine the contents.

  He extended a hand, and Sadowski switched the shopping bag to his left before they shook. Holland pretended not to notice. “Thank you for coming, Sergeant. Come on in.”

  Holland stepped back to give him room, and Sadowski crossed the threshold, looking around as he entered the room. For the most part, there wasn’t much to see, which was exactly how Holland wanted it. The office was larger than most, but as spare as a janitor’s. It contained nothing but a desk, a file cabinet, the safe, a few chairs, a couch, and a bookshelf lined with the standard foreign policy textbooks. There were a few motivational posters on the wall to round out the bland décor. It was everything one would expect from a mid-level public servant. The only things that didn’t seem to fit were the items Holland had retrieved from his safe. Sadowski, a trained soldier, spotted them instantly. The first item elicited no reaction, but when he saw the gun, a Heckler & Koch USP Expert, a slight frown spread over his face.

  After closing and locking his door, Holland crossed to his desk and picked up the gun. Sadowski tensed, but Holland merely held it out for him to take, butt first. The marine sergeant, after a second’s hesitation, accepted the weapon, dropped the magazine, and checked the chamber reflexively.

  “It’s clear,” Holland assured him.

  As Sadowski reinserted the empty magazine, Holland picked up the second item on his desk, the credentials that marked him as an active field officer—GS-13, step 6—in the Central Intelligence Agency. He held out the plastic ID card. Sadowski stared at him for a moment, then set down the gun and accepted the proffered identification. His eyes flicked over it for a minute, as though he knew what to look for. Then he handed it back. Following Holland’s lead, he took a seat in front of the desk and placed the plastic bag by his right foot.

  “Well, I’m convinced,” the detachment commander began. “You are who you say you are, Mr. Holland. I guess you can probably figure out what I’m wondering now.”

  The CIA officer nodded. “If I were you, I’d be wondering why I’m showing you this.” He gestured toward the ID and the gun. “Why I’m bringing you into the loop.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Well, it’s not for my health or yours, Sergeant. I’m telling you the truth because I need your help.” He leaned forward and placed his forearms on his desk, fixing the young marine with a steady, serious gaze. “This afternoon I saw a man walk out the front door of this building with an olive green military rucksack. The way I see it, he must have gotten it from you or one of your men. I want to know what was inside that pack. And if you have a name, I want that, too.”

  Sadowski nodded slowly. “You don’t want much,” he said at length.

  “I realize it’s a lot to ask for. I also realize you are under no obligation to share this information with me. I’m requesting that you do so as a professional courtesy.”

  Holland let his eyes drift down to his Agency ID, which was sitting on the desk between them. His meaning was clear, but Sadowski didn’t flinch.

  “I’m not sure that’s a good enough reason, Mr. Holland.”

  “Maybe not,” Holland said. He smiled disarmingly. “But it’s all I’ve got. Tell me, what time did you speak to Reynolds? Was it before or after this visitor showed up?”

  It was a shot in the dark, but from the fractional movement that followed, the way Sadowski’s eyes darted up to the left, Holland saw that he’d gotten it right. He felt a brief flash of satisfaction, but it couldn’t last. What he had just learned—what Sadowski’s body language had given away—was not what he wanted to hear, in a manner of speaking.

  After striking
out with the consular office and the PAO earlier in the day, Holland had started to suspect the worst, that the man with the green rucksack had met with just one person at the embassy—Walter Reynolds, the chargé d’affaires himself. Holland had been hesitant to fully consider that possibility, because if he was right, there was basically no chance he would ever get the answers he was looking for. He did not have a lot of respect for the chief of mission, whom he regarded as lazy and incompetent. But he was still the man in charge, and if he didn’t want anyone to know who had stopped by his office, there would be no prying it out of him.

  In other words, Sadowski was his last chance for answers, and he was starting to look uncomfortable. If he walked out, Holland would be left with nothing. With few options left, he decided to play his trump card. It was the one thing he knew would elicit a strong reaction from the man sitting across from him, if only because it seemed to elicit that kind of reaction from everyone.

  “Sergeant, did you ever meet Lily Durant?”

  Sadowski looked up, his face pinching into a frown of confusion. Clearly, he was trying to figure out where this was going. “No. I saw her once, when she first arrived, but I never spoke to her. At the time, I didn’t even know who she was. I don’t think anyone did. Why do you ask?”

  “You know what happened to her, though.”

  “Of course.” The staff sergeant’s confusion was rapidly turning to anger. “What kind of question is that? Everyone knows what happened to her. Those fuckers raped and killed her in cold blood. Not only that, they had the nerve to record the whole damned thing, and we—”

  He caught himself in time, but Holland knew exactly what he’d been about to say. “And we did nothing,” he said quietly. “Right?”

  Sadowski didn’t respond, but the truth was written right there in his eyes. Holland genuinely sympathized with him. He had been trained to fight America’s enemies the world over, but Lily Durant had been killed less than 1,000 miles from where he was standing, probably by the same government that was hosting them, and he had no choice but to stand there and take it. It would be hard for any man to endure such bitter circumstances, let alone a man with Daniel Sadowski’s training and temperament. If the marine had left the building at that moment, weapon in his grip, and taken matters into his own hands, beginning with the presidential palace located a few miles to the north, Holland would not have been surprised.

  “I understand how you feel, Sergeant. There are a lot of unhappy people out there. People who are less than pleased with how the president responded to this situation. Believe me, you’re not the only one. Not by a mile.”

  Sadowski shook his head angrily. He seemed to have forgotten their earlier verbal sparring; his mind was now fixed on what had happened two months earlier, as well as everything that had occurred in the interim.

  “It doesn’t make sense,” he said in a low voice. His face seemed to mirror the frustration everyone in the building was feeling. “Why didn’t he authorize some kind of direct action? Hell, why are we still here? It was his niece, for Christ’s sake. You think he would have…”

  “Would have what?” Holland asked. He was genuinely interested. Everyone seemed to agree that David Brenneman should have acted in the wake of Durant’s death, but few could agree on what should have been done. The ideas seemed to range from a strongly worded letter of protest to the complete destruction of the Sudanese capital. Holland had listened to these theories, and everything in between, but had heard few sensible suggestions. “In your opinion, what should he have done, Sergeant?”

  Sadowski stared at him for a moment, eyes narrowed, as if trying to decide whether or not Holland was mocking him. Satisfied that he wasn’t, the marine shrugged and grimaced, then ran a hand over his short, bristly hair.

  “I don’t know,” he finally said. “I don’t pretend to have all the answers, Mr. Holland. But you want me to be honest?”

  Holland nodded. “Bluntly,” he said.

  “Putting it bluntly, sir, my guys think that we should have evacuated our people, then launched a few cruise missiles up the man’s ass. It’s kind of hard to disagree with that plan of action, especially after what happened.”

  Holland nodded. He didn’t have to ask for an explanation. The “guys,” he knew, were the marines under Sadowski’s command; the “man” was none other than Omar al-Bashir, the president of Sudan.

  “So you agree with them,” he said. It was not a question.

  Sadowski held his gaze for a minute. When he spoke, his voice was low and tight, but completely controlled. “Everyone knows that Bashir was behind what happened in West Darfur. He knew what he was starting when he sent in the Janjaweed to destroy that camp, and if he didn’t know, too fucking bad.” Sadowski nodded slowly. “We should have bombed him to hell and back. Yeah, I do agree with that. Absolutely.”

  “But instead, we did nothing.”

  “That’s right,” Sadowski said. The scowl on his face said more than he could have ever put into words. “Nothing at all. It’s complete bullshit.”

  Holland leaned back in his chair and studied the other man plaintively. Having firmly established the young marine’s mind-set, he wasn’t quite sure how to approach the next topic. It was something he’d been considering for the past couple of weeks, and while it had started as nothing more than a stubborn idea, a glimmer of insight inspired by events unfolding across the country, he had not been able to shake it. Now, for the first time, he was about to share his suspicions with somebody else, and he had no idea how they might be received.

  “What if I were to tell you,” he began slowly, “that I think we are doing something? Something no one knows about. Something no one is meant to know about.”

  A hint of curiosity broke through the young man’s angry façade, and he looked at Holland with renewed interest. “Such as?”

  Holland shook his head. “I can’t give you any specifics, Sergeant, for the simple truth that I don’t know. This is just an idea, and I can’t prove a thing. But take a look around.” He lifted his arms out to his sides, as though the answer could be found right there in the room. “Look at what’s happened since April. Better yet, look at what hasn’t happened. We’ve had…what? Four demonstrations outside the building over the past month?”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “Is that the normal state of things?”

  “No,” Sadowski conceded. He was starting to look interested. “The numbers are way down, as a matter of fact. Before the attack on Camp Hadith, we were getting an average of three a week, ranging from a few students with signs to a few hundred hard-liners with rocks, sticks, and plenty of American flags to burn. Lately, there’s been almost nothing.”

  “Nothing for us,” Holland corrected. “But last week there were three demonstrations in protest of Bashir’s regime in Khartoum alone. Did you know that? Demonstrations in protest of his regime. Rallies were staged in Juba and Nyala as well. Of those that took place here in the city, two were staged at Nillien University, and one took place outside the al-Safa mosque in the Jarif district. They were put down by the local police, of course, and put down quickly, but each was attended by more people than the last, and another is scheduled for Tuesday, two days from now. Based on the evidence, I’d say the tide has turned in our favor, and the momentum is only building.”

  Sadowski looked intrigued, but also confused. “So what are you saying?” he asked. “Are you suggesting that we had something to do with those demonstrations? That we arranged for them somehow?”

  “That depends on who you mean by ‘we.’ I can tell you unequivocally that the Agency is not involved with whatever is happening.” Holland was breaking a number of serious rules by being so candid with the young marine, but he needed Sadowski’s help, and he had already realized that he wouldn’t get it for free. “At the very least, I would have been told up front if we had a part in it. Even if it was on the periphery.”

  The sergeant thought that through for a minute. �
�So you’re wrong,” he said. “If the kind of operation you’re talking about did exist, the CIA would be the natural choice to run it. And since you claim to have no idea what’s going on, these demonstrations must have happened of their own accord. Right?”

  “That’s possible,” Holland conceded. “But when was the last time anyone in this city—let alone hundreds of people at a time—said anything negative about Omar al-Bashir in public? I don’t see that happening without some kind of serious provocation.”

  “And you think we’re responsible for that provocation.”

  “I think it’s possible.”

  “But how could that happen without you knowing about it?” Sadowski demanded. He gestured toward Holland’s credentials, which were still sitting on the desk between them. “You’re the CIA station chief. Wouldn’t you be the first person to be tipped off if something like that was going on?”

  “Normally, yes,” Holland said, barely managing not to wince at the younger man’s statement of fact. It was strange and more than a little disconcerting to hear his title spoken aloud, and it served to remind him how big a risk he had taken by telling Sadowski the whole truth. “But I don’t think we’re in anything close to normal territory.” He paused. No, not remotely close. In his view, they had entered a zone where everything became murky and ambiguous. “If Brenneman decided to go with an outside source for some reason, it might explain why we’ve been cut out of the loop.”

  Sadowski frowned and shook his head. “I don’t see how that makes sense. Why would the president do that? Why put you in that position?”

  “I don’t know,” Holland admitted. “But if it happened the way I think it did, it’s the only possible explanation.”

  It took a few seconds, but then it clicked for the marine sergeant. “You think that the man who came to the embassy today is somehow tied up in this…” He stumbled for a second, searching for the right word to describe it. “…this theory of yours, don’t you?”

  Holland met the younger man’s eyes. “I think it’s a possibility, Sergeant, but again, I can’t prove it. So in that regard, yes, it’s nothing more than conjecture. That’s why I need your help. That’s why I need to see the disks you have in that bag at your feet. The security footage for the building from this afternoon.”