Girl of Rage (28 page)

“I know. I won’t screw it up anymore.”

“Maybe you should consider AA like your mom?”

He sighed. “I—I can’t do all that God stuff. You know that.”

“Will you just think about it? You’ve been trying to do everything on your own, Dylan.”

He didn’t answer right away, but after a few seconds of silence, he said, “Yeah. Yeah, I’ll think about it.”

She sighed, then said, “Thank you for telling me, Dylan. You know I love you.”

“And I love you,” he responded. “Listen—keep watching your Facebook. I’ll call or message when I can. And I want you to keep your status updated and message me so I know where you are. Okay?”

“I will. And Dylan?”

“Yeah,” he said.

“I love you. No matter what. Just come home.”

“I will,” he said. And then he hung up the phone.

George-Phillip. May 2. Midnight.

“Really, sir, I don’t see how I’m going to be able to continue in this work if you cannot keep regular hours. It’s past midnight. Poor Jane nearly cried herself to sleep when you didn’t come home. I should tender my resignation right now.”

George-Phillip sighed. Jane’s nanny, Adriana Poole, stood erect in the doorway of his office, color on her cheeks, as he sagged into his chair. She was right, of course, and normally George-Phillip fought to ensure that he was home at a reasonable hour, even if it meant working late into the night after Jane was in bed.

“Miss Poole, I’m going to ask you to bear with me for a little while on this. Unfortunately we have a crisis developing.”

“What crisis?” Her voice was high pitched and loud enough to be heard at Whitehall.

“Please, Miss Poole, lower your voice.” His tone was urgent as he spoke. Jane’s room was right down the hall, and she’d already been disturbed enough.

“The only crisis I see is a daughter missing her father.”

“It seems likely I’ll have a great deal more time soon enough,” he said. The words escaped from his mouth before he could do anything about them.

“Whatever are you talking about, sir?”

“I just told you we have a crisis brewing. There’s a possibility I’ll be forced to resign. In the meantime, I’ve just found out I must travel to Washington in the morning, and I need you to look after Jane. You simply cannot quit now.”

“You’re leaving! Now? After some lunatic shot at the house just last night? I think you’ve lost your senses, sir.”

George-Phillip groaned. He might be a Prince and a Duke and a member of the Prime Minister’s Cabinet, but this twenty-four-year-old girl routinely dressed him down, and he couldn’t do anything about it
because she was right.
He couldn’t leave his daughter now, when she was terrified after the attack on the house.

He thought it through for five seconds, then said, “Well, you’ll both have to come with me, then.”

“To America?” Adriana screeched.

“Yes, to Washington, DC. I don’t know how long we’ll be gone—perhaps a week.”

“I couldn’t. I don’t have anything to wear.”

George-Phillip closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Then he counted slowly to ten. And then ten more, just for good measure.

When he opened his eyes, she still stood there. “Miss Poole, I’m asking you to please accompany my daughter to Washington, DC. It’s urgent, and at least for the next few days, I will not be able to spare the time to find someone else. I’m begging you. It’s a matter of national security. I must go.”

She was silent for just a moment. Then said, “All right, then, sir. If it’s a matter of national security, you should just say so. I’ll get my things packed.”

“We’ll leave for the airport at six in the morning.”

“Yes, sir.”

Adriana bustled away, thank God. George-Phillip turned to his desk and sighed. He was exhausted. Not long after he had returned to his office after the meeting with the Prime Minister, the call had come in. Richard Thompson was facing indictment in the United States. The political wheels in Washington were spinning, and no one knew where they were going to end up.

George-Phillip’s eyes fell to his desk. Inside, the file. He knew that if the contents of that file were to be made public, Richard Thompson’s career would be over, and his wouldn’t be the only one. Over the years, he’d often revisited the decision to bury what had happened, to bury it right alongside the bodies of the civilians who had died there. A generation had passed, governments had risen and fallen, the Cold War had come to an end and yet the secrets of three decades ago still lingered, poisoning the well of the present.

George-Phillip reached in his desk and took the file out. The original report of his own investigation. Interviews and documents. Records meticulously kept for three decades. He carefully slipped the file into his steel walled briefcase and secured the briefcase itself to his desk. He checked the time, then dialed O’Leary.

The phone rang only once before a curt voice said, “O’Leary, sir.”

“It’s C,” George-Phillip said. The nickname, just the letter C, had been the traditional name for the Chief since Sir Mansfield Cumming, the first Chief of MI6, had signed his papers that way. “Any updates?”

“None, sir, but our investigators seem to think she went south. We’re watching the border crossings in San Diego, among others. But if she’s using cash, we might not be able to track her.”

“All right, then. And Andrea Thompson?”

“Last known location was a motel in suburban Maryland, sir, just outside Washington, DC. Seems she heard something suspicious in the room next door and called the police. They found her fingerprints all over the place. Sir—the hotel was a nasty one. Prostitutes and drug dealers.”

George-Phillip winced. “Keep looking,” he said.

“We will, sir. I’ve got my best people on it.”

“Good, good. I know I can trust you with this. Any leads on who attacked the Thompsons?”

“None, sir. They were professionals. I’m guessing Middle East.”

“All right. I’ll be on a seven am flight. Just keep me informed.”

He disconnected the phone. Four more hours and he’d have to be back up and getting ready for the flight. Time to get some sleep. He stood and let his eyes fall on the window, now covered with a steel plate until the window was replaced with bullet-resistant glass. The shots had narrowly missed him last night—it was pure dumb luck he hadn’t been killed. But he still didn’t understand
why.
Was it the Wakhan file? Or something else entirely?

Leslie Collins. May 2.

Leslie Collins tried to remind himself to pause every day when he entered the lobby of the original headquarters building at Langley. There, against the north wall of the lobby, was the Memorial Wall. 102 stars carved in the wall, each of them representing an agent who had died in the line of duty. More than a third of those agents were unnamed—represented
only
by a star. Their names, their operations and their deaths were still a matter of national security.

Collins reminded himself once again, as he exited the building, that he had a responsibility to those 102 men and women. A responsibility to protect the integrity of the agency, to protect its secrets, to protect the nation the agency protected. Sometimes, however, meeting that responsibility required sacrifices—sacrifices that he found personally distasteful, and in some cases immoral. But one didn’t just decide to do what one wanted, after all. The purpose of having government agencies, the purpose of having checks and balances, all of it was built to ensure safety and security. As a part of that system, Collins felt that sometimes you had to set aside your personal desires and beliefs.

His feet echoed off the floors of the lobby as he walked toward the front door. Even in an agency that ran 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, it was quiet in the late evening. Watch officers and other essential personnel worked late into the night, but the bulk of the agency’s personnel commuted to the office just like any other government employee in Washington. He stopped at the door, looking out across the vast parking lot. He could hear crickets and frogs and God only knew what else from the woods around the two hundred fifty acres of land occupied by the agency.

He jumped a little, startled, when his cell phone rang. Only a dozen or so people had his personal phone number. The dozen included his wife, his pastor, and the President, among others.

He sighed when he saw the name on the phone.

Richard Thompson.

His car let out two loud beeps as he pressed the unlock button on his keyfob and disarmed the alarm. He answered the phone.

“This is Leslie Collins.”

“Leslie.
What the hell?”

“Richard, this is not a secure line, as I’m sure you’re aware.”

“I don’t really care, Leslie. Can I make that more clear? I do not care.”

Leslie sighed and opened the door of his 2014 Volvo S60. Initially Leslie had objected on political grounds to buying a European vehicle. But Meredith had driven one owned by one of her silly friends, and had convinced him to take a test drive. The handling and leather seats convinced him. He passed his old 2010 Cadillac to her and took the new car.

He always felt calm when he sat in the leather seat.

“Richard, you may not care, but I do.”

“What do you know about this investigation?”

The voice automatically spilled over to the car speakers as he cranked the car. Hearing Richard Thompson’s disembodied voice surrounding him was more than a little bit disturbing.

“I don’t know anything about it, Richard. But I would take it seriously, if I were you.”

“Bullshit you don’t know anything, Leslie. You went to school with that son of a bitch, Armitage.”

Rory Armitage was the special counsel investigating Thompson. He had also been Collins’ college roommate. Not that it mattered.

“Armitage is just doing his job. I can’t imagine where he came up with such a wild theory.
Drug money laundering?
Really? I can’t imagine there’s any truth to it, Richard. Unless…” Leslie’s voice trailed off with a suggestive silence.

“You son of a bitch. You planted this, didn’t you?”

Collins sighed. “Richard, I’m finding your wild accusations a little disconcerting. I know you are under some stress right now. Maybe you should consider taking a step back—or even seeing a therapist. I’m concerned about you.”

Thompson didn’t respond. The silence at the other end of the line troubled Collins. Thompson, when calm and organized, was a formidable enemy.

After a moment, Collins said, “Richard, are you there?”

“I’m here,” Thompson replied. “Leslie, I want you to be careful. You don’t want to mess with my life.”

Collins raised an eyebrow. He put the car in reverse and backed out of his reserved parking space, then turned, heading into the darkness toward the checkpoint at the entrance to the headquarters. For just a second, his headlights illuminated three pairs of glowing eyes—deer on the edge of the parking lot, just on the other side of the fence. Sometimes they played hell with the motion sensors on the edge of the property.

He thought it was curious Thompson didn’t talk about his wife or daughters. Or was he so self-absorbed and narcissistic that he didn’t worry about them at all when his own position was at risk? That was kind of sad, wasn’t it?

“Richard, listen, I’m driving now, I’ve really got to go. Let’s talk next week, all right? We’ll do lunch.”

“I’m not
doing lunch
with someone who screwed—”

The words cut off when Leslie’s hand brushed the disconnect button on his steering wheel. He waved to the guards at the gate, then pulled out onto Colonial Farm Road, headed south toward Georgetown Pike. This late, traffic should be finished and he could be home in ten minutes.

Unfortunately, the phone rang almost immediately.
Unknown number?

There were only a few people it could be. He answered.

“Collins here.”

“Leslie. How pleasant to hear your voice.”

Collins involuntarily stepped on the brakes, causing the car behind him to swerve dangerously. He got himself under control and driving again almost instantly. The cultured voice on the other end was familiar. Roshan al Saud—a member of the royal house of Saudi Arabia, and director general of
al Mukhabarat Al A’amah—
the Saudi Arabian Intelligence Agency. Educated at the best British boarding schools, Roshan gave off a polished, highly educated air which fooled everyone except those, like Collins, who had seen him torture captured Russian prisoners with a refined and frightening cruelty.

“Roshan! It is very good to hear your voice. You are well? I understand you’re in the United States.”

“I am, briefly. And I’d very much like to speak with you privately.”

Leslie checked the time. “You’re at your home?” he asked.

Roshan owned an exclusive thirty-room house less than a mile away from Leslie’s.

“I am.”

“I’m on my way. You caught me at the perfect time.”

Collins disconnected the phone and drove. Traffic on Georgetown Pike wasn’t heavy, but it wasn’t especially light either. Sometimes, especially if there was rain or snow, you could get tied up here for hours. But it was warm now, a little humid, and after a long nasty winter, most Washingtonians were out relaxing instead of working.