CHAPTER 40

ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA

NASH’S Tuesday morning started out pretty much the same way his Monday morning did. He woke up with a screaming headache, grabbed Charlie from his crib, and went downstairs. Fortunately, there was no front-page story in the Post about his illegal activities, but there was another problem looming. Once again, his wife had decided to ignore him and had turned off his work phones. Nash’s sleep patterns were predictable only in the sense that he slept like shit most nights, but every three weeks or so the exhaustion would catch up and he would sleep for nine or ten hours straight. Last night had been one of those nights.

Nash had put his ten-year-old son Jack to bed shortly after nine and had fallen asleep with him while they were reading a story. Sometime around midnight he made it into his own bed and went right back to sleep facedown. A few minutes before seven he’d awoken to Charlie’s morning wrestling match and it wasn’t until he had him settled in his high chair that he discovered his phones were off, as well as the ringer on the home phone. She came floating into the kitchen a few minutes later and when asked about it her response was that he was no good to his family or his country if he was run-down.

Nash turned on both phones and watched the message indicators begin to climb. There were sixteen voice mails and forty-seven texts and e-mails. The first two messages were nothing too important, but the third kicked his headache into overdrive. The subsequent messages only made it worse. Half of them were from Ridley, asking for help. Nash felt like a fool. While all of this was going down he was sleeping peacefully in his bed.

He raced to get ready and cut himself shaving, bad enough that he had to stick a wad of toilet paper on his Adam’s apple to stem the bleeding. By 8:00 he was backing out of the driveway in the minivan. At the end of his street he stopped to make a right turn and stopped cold. His foot stayed on the brake and his eyes stayed fixed on a sign. There, stapled to a tree, was a piece of bright yellow paper with the words Lost Dog printed in big block letters. Nash stared at the paper for a good five seconds. Why this morning? Why at all? The whole damn thing was supposed to be shut down.

Nash racked his brain for the procedures they’d set up. He knew yellow was urgent, but it was a Tuesday and he couldn’t remember at first how that affected the schedule. After a moment it came to him, the Java Shack on Franklin. He slapped the turn signal down and gunned the gas. It would take about five minutes to get there. He considered calling Ridley or O’Brien to see what was going on with Rapp, but decided he didn’t want to talk to them until he tied up this loose end.

He drove past the place once to scope things out and then found a meter around the corner. Nash stepped out of the car and plugged four quarters into the meter. He adjusted the.45-caliber Glock on his right hip and took note of the people and cars across the street at the tire store. Casually, he buttoned his suit and started down the sidewalk. It was a slightly overcast morning, but the temperature was already in the mid-sixties. When he reached the coffee shop he scanned the outdoor tables but didn’t see whom he was looking for.

Inside, he stepped up to the counter and ordered a cup of black coffee from the woman behind the counter. He counted three patrons. Two of them weren’t his guy, so he focused on the third, who was hiding behind the Metro section of the Post. Nash walked over to the guy’s table and said, “You mind if I take a look at the sports section?”

The man lowered one corner of the paper and looked back at Nash with angry eyes, but in a polite voice said, “Help yourself.”

Nash grabbed the section and sat down facing the door, just like the other guy. He took a sip of coffee and picked up the paper.

The man next to him whispered out of the side of his mouth, “Who the fuck ratted us out?”

Nash held up the paper and pretended to read. “I’m working on it.”

The man drummed his long black fingers on the table. “Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve had a beer?”

This was a subject he had no desire to revisit, but knew that his operative had been under a great deal of stress. Nash had found Chris Johnson near the end of his second tour in Iraq while serving with the 101st Airborne Division. Letting him vent for a minute was probably not the worst thing.

“One hundred and eighty-four fucking days,” the man said, answering his own question.

“Trust me,” Nash said, “I’m not happy about it either.”

“I haven’t watched a football game or a basketball game in almost a fucking year. I haven’t been with a women in seven months… hell… I haven’t even looked at porn.”

“Calm down,” Nash said in a slow, steady voice.

“You want me to fucking calm down,” the other man hissed. “I’ve lived in that fucking stinky mosque every day. On a good week they might take one shower.”

“No one is saying you didn’t do a good job,” Nash said in an easy voice.

“That’s not the point. The point is, I’ve put in a shitload of time. I’ve spent the better part of a year of my life that I ain’t gettin’ back, by the way.”

“I know.”

“I’ve eaten their shitty food, I’ve had to put up with their anti-Semitic remarks, their bigotry, the way they treat their wives and daughters… and now when I’ve finally earned their trust… you pull the plug.”

“It wasn’t me. It came down from the top.”

“Well, fuck that.”

Nash turned and looked his man in the eye. “Lower your voice, and that’s an order.”

The man sat back and took a frustrated breath. After a moment he said, “I’m going to kill someone.”

Everybody is losing their mind, Nash thought. “No you’re not,” he said to the man. “You’re going to casually tell one of them that your mom is sick and you have to go back to Atlanta. Then you are going to pack up and lie low until I say different.”

“I can’t believe this is happening.”

“Believe it. Shut it down, and I mean yesterday.”

“I can’t.”

Nash looked at the young former Army Ranger and said, “You can and you will.”

“I’m too close,” the man said, shaking his head.

Nash was getting mad. There wasn’t a single one of them in the Clandestine Service who didn’t have a healthy streak of insubordination in them, but this was pushing it.

Lowering his newspaper, Nash gave up the pretense of a clandestine meeting and in a very clear voice said, “I am giving you a direct order to shut it down. Do you understand me?”

The man thought about it for a second. Someone entered the coffee shop and his eyes darted to the motion at the front door. He flipped his newspaper back up and said, “Something started happening a few days ago.”

“Don’t do this.”

“Do what?”

“Start making shit up.”

“I’m not. Some boxes arrived.”

“Big deal,” Nash said, suddenly bored. He needed to end this thing and get his ass into the office. “The place must get three or four deliveries a day.”

“True, but this delivery didn’t come during normal hours.”

“Come on,” Nash said in a tired voice. “You’re clutching at straws.”

“Just hear me out for a second. The boxes arrived during evening prayer two days ago. They never do shit during evening prayer except pray. Six of the younger more radical guys weren’t around, so I snuck out to see what they were up to.”

“And?”

“I saw them carrying these boxes down to the basement.”

“What’s in the boxes?”

“I don’t know. They put them in a storage room and put a couple new padlocks on the door.”

“That’s awfully thin.”

“Just give me forty-eight hours. I’ve given you a year of my life. You can give me forty-eight hours.”