“Mr. President, I understand if you want me gone,” said Calibrisi.
Dellenbaugh was silent for nearly a minute, sipping his coffee, then stood. He walked to the French doors that looked out on the Rose Garden.
“Do you want out of Langley?” asked Dellenbaugh.
“No, I don’t,” said Calibrisi.
Dellenbaugh stared out at the leaves on one of the trees along the edge of the garden.
“I don’t want your resignation,” Dellenbaugh said. “Your actions, and Andreas’s, saved a lot of lives. I need you. I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“Then learn,” said Calibrisi. “And don’t be shocked or angry when your advisors talk straight to you. How do you think Rob Allaire got so good at this? He listened and wasn’t afraid to have people disagree with him.”
Dellenbaugh turned from the window. He looked at Calibrisi.
“I want you to honor everyone who risked their lives saving Meir and taking that nuke.”
“A thank-you from you will mean a lot. I’ll make sure to let Dewey know how grateful you are.”
Dellenbaugh stepped back to the sofa and sat down.
“Let’s talk about Buenos Aires,” said Dellenbaugh. “I want to know if you two are serious.”
“Serious about what?” asked Jessica.
“That I should go. That the United States should continue this thing. I mean, what’s the fucking point?”
“Absolutely, you should go,” said Jessica. “Iran knows we know about the bomb. They assume we were involved in stealing it. Nava and Suleiman have two choices. They can either back out of the agreement, in which case they will lose the significant economic package associated with signing the agreement, hundreds of billions of dollars, and incur the wrath of every civilized country in the world, and more important, their own people. Alternatively, Iran can proceed, sign the agreement, then attempt to subvert it. That’s what we want. Because even if they’re trying to build another nuclear device, the country will be crawling with inspectors. They won’t be able to do it. We’ve boxed them in, sir.”
Dellenbaugh nodded.
“Okay,” he said. “Let’s go to Buenos Aires.”
55
GEORGETOWN
It was a crisp, perfect spring day, a Saturday; a late April afternoon in Washington. The sky was deep blue, not a cloud anywhere. The temperature was in the midfifties. There was a faint aroma of smoke, coming from a few chimneys in Georgetown. The smell of burning firewood reminded Dewey of Maine.
He climbed out of the taxi on Wisconsin Avenue. To say he looked slightly out of place was an understatement. He still had on Turkish clothing, a pair of baggy pants and a tan shirt bought in Istanbul. He had, however, managed to sleep for a time on the CIA Gulfstream back from Baku.
As he walked down Twenty-fourth Street, Dewey suddenly realized that he had absolutely no idea what he was going to do next or where he was going to live. He knew, in a way, what he had was total freedom. He didn’t owe anyone a thing. He had no obligations. He could live where he wanted, go where he wanted, and do what he wanted. His year on a ranch in Australia had made Dewey realize he could be happy in almost any job, in any environment, as long as certain conditions existed. He needed the feeling of physical labor. He liked being away from it all. On some level, being alone was what made Dewey happiest.
Yet Dewey knew that he couldn’t be alone forever. Seeing Kohl Meir and the sacrifices the Israeli was willing to make in order to protect his own country had, on some level, revitalized him. He had once lived the same way. Those were the hardest days of his life, but also the most fulfilling, Dewey knew there was no greater feeling than fighting for something that mattered, for your country, for an idea, for America. There were few people in the world who could understand what it meant to use all of your skills, your physical abilities, your mind, your experience, and your training, to fight for the country you loved.
Still fewer could understand what Dewey was experiencing, having at one time felt the intense patriotism only to then lose it all. Perhaps it was the way Abu Paria had stared at Dewey, with pure hatred. There was a war going on, and Dewey was missing it. He wanted back in.
He walked past Standard Bakery, did a double take, then turned and went inside. He bought two raspberry muffins and two cups of coffee.
He walked along a thin, brick sidewalk, past the old, impeccably maintained brick, wood, and limestone town houses. He came to one particularly nice town house, a wide unit of red bricks, with a beautiful brass light fixture next to the door. Dewey paused for a moment. He knew Jessica was angry at him, for a number of reasons, but primarily for not telling her about the Iranian bomb. He bit his lower lip, then rang the doorbell. He waited nearly a minute, then the door swung open.
Standing in the doorway was Jessica. In her hand, she held a paintbrush with pink paint on the bristles. Her nose and right cheek each had paint on them, as did her yellow T-shirt. She had on a pair of cut-off denim shorts, also decorated in pink paint, and flip-flops. She stood inside the doorway, staring at Dewey for several moments. She didn’t smile or show so much as a flicker of recognition whatsoever.
“Muffin?” he asked, holding the bag out toward her.
She stared at Dewey, then reached out and put her hand in the paper bag, pulled out a muffin, then transferred it to the same hand that held her paintbrush. She reached for one of the cups of coffee, pulled it from Dewey’s hand, then softly kicked the door shut without saying anything.
Dewey stared at the door, then sat down on the front stoop. Eventually, he pulled the other muffin out of the bag and ate it, then drank the coffee. After finishing the coffee, he sat on the stoop for what seemed like an eternity but was in fact about an hour. On the stoop across from Jessica’s was a stack of
Washington Post
s in plastic bags, the owners obviously away. Dewey crossed the street and took a newspaper, went back to Jessica’s, and read. As he was finishing an article about innovative methods for baking outmeal cookies, the door again opened. Jessica had slightly more paint on her, including some in her hair. She stared at him without saying anything, standing in the doorway. Then she took a few steps back, so that only Dewey, sitting on the stoop, could see her. She reached down and pulled up her paint-splattered T-shirt over her head, then dropped it on the ground. She didn’t have a bra on. She reached down and unbuttoned her cut-offs, then let them drop to the ground. She was wearing a pair of black lace panties.
Dewey folded the newspaper as his eyes moved up Jessica’s legs, staring at her muscular, tan calves, then her knees and thighs. He looked at her panties, with their thin lace edges, then her stomach, toned but not muscular, with just the tiniest hint of voluptuous curve, above it her big breasts, the nape of her neck, and finally her eyes, which still held the same contemptuous stare.
Dewey stood up, walked inside, and kicked the door gently shut behind him, while gripping the two sides of the shirt, which after three days was very comfortable if quite rank in its aroma, and ripped it at the seams, sending buttons tumbling to the hardwood floor.
A small grin was on Dewey’s lips, which he attempted to hide. He stepped closer to Jessica, and as he came within arm’s length she reached her hands out and grabbed the buckle of his belt, yanking it harshly to unbuckle it, then grabbed and unbuttoned his pants, stepped closer, and then pushed her hands inside the back of his pants, making them fall to his ankles. He kicked off his shoes and then stepped out of his pants, naked.
She stared down at his body. He pushed against her. Behind her was the dining-room table. He pushed her back onto the table, and she sat on the edge of the table, wrapping her legs around Dewey’s back. He reached down and pulled her panties gently aside, then watched as Jessica closed her eyes and leaned back on her elbows. They made love on the table then moved to the floor, where Jessica climbed on top of Dewey, saying nothing, her anger eventually dissipating as she moved slowly up and down on top of him, pacing herself, until finally she could feel Dewey begin to lose himself, and she allowed herself to lose control, letting the warmth come, and she closed her eyes, her breathing growing louder as he reached up and grabbed her tightly as she collapsed on top of him, into his arms.
“My God,” she whispered afterward. “You really smell.”
“I know,” said Dewey. “It’s even starting to bother me a little.”
“When did you land?”
“I don’t know. A couple hours ago maybe.”
“Have they debriefed you?”
“No. I wanted to debrief you first.”
“That was bad,” she said, laughing. She leaned on her elbow. Dewey was on his back. She stared into his eyes. “What else are you hiding from me?”
Dewey grinned. She shook her head.
“Aren’t you even going to apologize?” she asked.
“For what?”
“For deceiving me.”
“Deceiving you? What are you talking about?”
“Your shit-eating grin doesn’t work on me, Andreas,” she said.
“Yes, it does,” he said. “At least it’s supposed to. Don’t fight it.”
“Asshole,” she said. “I spent a week with you in Castine, fucking your brains out, and then you find out Iran has a nuclear bomb and you don’t tell me.”
“Oh, that,” he said innocently.
“Yes, that. You owe me an apology.”
“For stealing the bomb and preventing Iran from dropping it on Tel Aviv, or for rescuing Kohl Meir?”
She stood, leaving Dewey on the ground. “If you’re not going to apologize, then get out.”
“Do you have anything you haven’t told me?” asked Dewey from the ground.
“Like what?”
“I don’t know, some sort of secret thing with the president or some foreign country.”
“Maybe,” she said. “I mean, yes, of course, obviously. I’m the national security advisor.”
“Okay, so you have stuff you haven’t told me,” he concluded. “Yet I should have told you? It seems kind of asymmetrical.”
“You just should have told me, that’s all.”
Dewey stood up. He moved in front of Jessica.
“Let me ask you something,” he said. “What if I promised you something then turned around and broke my promise? Would you like that?”
“No.”
“I gave my word to someone,” said Dewey.
Dewey reached out with his right arm and cupped Jessica’s cheek.
“Do you want someone who’d break his word?” asked Dewey.
She stared at him, then shook her head.
“I don’t know what I want, Dewey. I still feel like you deceived me.”
“I did deceive you,” he said.
“You didn’t deceive Hector.”
“I knew Hector would break the rules. If I’d told you about the bomb, would you have let the operation go the way it did? Or would you have gone to the president?”
She stared at him.
“I would’ve told him.”
“And would he have allowed that sort of operation to move forward? Or would the Pentagon have been brought in?”
Jessica nodded.
“Probably.”
“There’s a war going on out there, Jess,” Dewey continued. “Our enemies don’t have rules. Had I told you about the bomb, it would’ve gotten back to Tehran. They would’ve moved it, hidden it, and then where would we be? Kohl would be dead. They might’ve leveled Tel Aviv by now. You want to stop these maniacs, you have to break the rules.”
Jessica stepped forward and wrapped her arms around Dewey’s back, then pulled him in close.
“Tough guy,” she whispered, looking up at him and smiling.
He stared down, a slight scowl on his face.
“Of course you could make it up to me,” she whispered, kissing his chest and then his shoulder.
“How?” he asked, kissing her back.
“Really?” she whispered in between kisses, their eyes closed.
“Yes,” he mumbled. “Yes, anything.”
Jessica kissed his lips for several more moments. Then, abruptly, she pushed back and stepped away from him. She looked at his waist, smiled mischievously, then moved her eyes up at his surprised face.
“Paint,” she said. “I’ll get you a brush. We only have two more rooms to go.”
Turning, Jessica ran upstairs as Dewey followed.
“That was mean,” he said, chasing after her. “You’re worse than Mahmoud Nava.”
56
MIDDLEBURG, VIRGINIA
A long, somewhat dilapidated pine harvest table sat in the middle of the manicured lawn behind the rambling farmhouse. The moon looked like a tennis ball overhead, bright yellow, and the sky was so clear and filled with stars that the Milky Way appeared as if someone had thrown a splash of confectionary sugar across it in a long, beautiful wisp.
Surrounding the eight-and-a-half-foot table, at each corner, on long sticks, stood lanterns burning a citrusy concoction that kept bugs away and provided soft, peachy light to the table.
The table itself was covered in empty wine bottles and several more that were half full, bottles that were still being passed around. A line of empty beer bottles looked like an assembly line at a brewery. The plates that had, at one point, held big grilled steaks, corn on the cob, and potato salad, sat largely empty, as did the bowls that had been filled with homemade strawberry ice cream.
It was past midnight, and were it not for the more than five hundred acres surrounding the big farm, the raucous laughter from the five people at the table would have guaranteed a visit from the Middleburg police department.
At this particular moment, all eyes were on Dewey, who stood next to the table, a grin on his face, leaning forward, a quarter in his right hand, staring down at a large mug full of beer. Suddenly, Dewey listed to his side. He began to fall over, but Jessica righted him.
“Jesus, you’re in bad shape,” she said. “You need to hit this.”
“I’m fine,” said Dewey, holding the table. “Rob tried to trip me, that’s all.”
“I’m on the other side of the table,” said Tacoma, laughing. “How could I trip you?”
“Don’t ask me,” said Dewey, moving his hand up and down as he prepared to bounce the quarter on the table and try to land it in the beer. “You CIA guys are the tricky ones.”