The Exile (37 page)

WASHINGTON, D.C.
•
VIRGINIA BEACH

T
he CIA safe house on Twelfth Street NW off Massachusetts Avenue was a very intentionally nondescript three-story redbrick building opposite Our Lady of Divinity Catholic Church and book-ended by a pre–World War II apartment house on the corner of Massachusetts and another small walk-up heading toward the M Street intersection.

Stepping out into the fresh air after the preliminary debriefing that had taken just shy of four hours, Kealey looked down the short flight of stairs descending to the sidewalk and saw John Harper leaning against his double-parked black Suburban, hands in the pockets of the light raglan trench coat flapping around his knees.

“Ryan,” he said. “Seems I'm right in the nick of time.”

Kealey went downstairs, crossed the pavement, slid between the front and rear bumpers of two curbed vehicles. Harper took a hand out of his pocket and extended it as he approached.

“Same set of Agency wheels as ever,” Kealey said, eyeing the vehicle as they shook.

Harper shrugged. “You know what they say about old habits.”

“Yours or the Agency's?”

“Some would say there isn't a damn bit of difference.”

Kealey grunted. “Don't you get a driver anymore?”

“My option. I'm on unofficial business today.”

Kealey looked at him in silence.

“This is a far cry from where we last met in Pretoria,” Harper said after a moment.

Kealey nodded. “No Springsteen music,” he said.

“No.” Harper smiled a little. “No jukebox either.”

They stood regarding one another in the shade of an elm tree as traffic and pedestrians moved quietly by on the street.

Harper checked his watch. “Almost five o'clock,” he said. “I'm wondering if you'd like to come over for dinner. Stay the night if you want.”

“That's okay,” Kealey said. “Your people booked me at Best Western. It has room service, a decent view.”

“All the amenities one would desire for a visit to the capital.”

“Just about,” Kealey said. “I'm set there, anyway.”

Harper looked at him. “Julie knows you're in D.C. and is hoping to see you,” he said. “It's been a long time.”

“I don't think so.”

“Why not?”

“Things have happened,” Kealey said. “A lot's changed….”

“Nature of life,” Harper said with a mild shrug. “That and getting older.”

Kealey hesitated. “Listen, thanks for the offer. And regards to Julie. But there's no point in her going to the trouble.”

“No trouble,” Harper said. “She invited a few friends over, anyway. Some staffers from back when she worked at Mayo. One of them's a woman named Allison Dearborn. She hooked up with Julie through me…long story there…and they organized a little reunion.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I'm going to be bored stiff listening to their hospital war stories and complaints, Ryan. It would be a real favor.”

Kealey looked at him. “That's another habit you can't seem to shake.”

“Asking favors of you?”

Kealey nodded, prompting a chuckle from Harper.

“This isn't quite as big or demanding as the last,” Harper said, “and it comes with Julie's great cooking. Chicken Marsala tonight.”

Kealey turned his head, gazed up the street awhile at nothing in particular, then finally looked back at Harper and shrugged. “What the hell, John. But just so you know, it's Julie, not you, that I've missed.”

Harper grinned, reached for the handle of his passenger door. “I'll take that as a positive once removed,” he said, opening it for Kealey.

 

General Joel Stralen stood on the balcony of his Hampton Roads condominium, looking out over the white sands of Virginia Beach from ten stories up, watching the blue Atlantic waves lap at the shoreline. He had always loved this place, with its contemplative silences and placid vistas…always felt his most whole here.

Holding the balcony's rail, he turned his face up at the cloudless sky, closing his eyes to let the warm sunshine beat against them. He had been something of a sun worshipper his entire life, not the smartest of habits, soaking up all those UVs. On the other hand, it took a while before they got to you, and they hadn't gotten to him yet.

He sighed into the breeze. Cullen White was on his way to the United States with John Harper's man Ryan Kealey, someone who was not even Agency anymore. On his way across the land and sea to testify that the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, and a friend of President Brenneman, had not only engineered an illegal arms trade with Sudanese militiamen but also…

His hands tightened on the rail. It had been done in the nation's best interests. The
world's
best interests. What else might it have been considered when you weighed one sacrifice against all the thousands that had stood to benefit from the removal of a dictator like Omar al-Bashir and the seizure of the oil refineries that were giving the Russians and Chinese economic dominance over the United States?

If the plan had been successful, all that would have been taken care of at once. Lily Durant would not have died in vain, but would have given her life for a greater purpose.

That said, he had told Simon Nusairi where she was, and had arranged for her death in order to jolt David Brenneman and Brynn Fitzgerald from their passivity. He had not counted on the brutality of the act….

The rape.

The torture.

No, Stralen had not counted on that. But would he have changed what he'd done if he had?

He took a slow, deep breath, moving closer to the rail. Would he have changed what he'd done if he had known not only that Lily would die but also the manner of her death?

He opened his eyes now, staring up into the dazzling brightness of the sky, gradually turning them toward the full glare of the sun. It was alone up there above him, not a plane or bird in sight.

Just him and the sun, the sun and him. And, of course, the sand and water below.

Stralen looked up into the glaring orb as long as he could, his eyes at once burning and filling with moisture.

He jumped without ever looking down.