Authors: Andrew Britton

The Operative (42 page)

BOOK: The Operative

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CHAPTER 35

SILVER SPRING, MARYLAND

T
he funeral for Laura Bishop was held at the Holy Sepulchre Cemetery. It was where her mother was buried. She would be laid to rest in a plot Bishop had bought for himself.

Bishop’s brother, his brother’s wife, and their children were there to support him. So was his mother. Harper, Andrews, Cluzot, and Carlson were in attendance, as were select members of both houses. Along with the funeral of FBI agent Jessica Muloni, this was one of the few services President Brenneman attended as a result of the so-called “16 Hour” attacks. That was the name the media had given the time span covered by the two days of terror. Even in the administration there had been some debate about how to refer to the two bloody days. No one wanted to refer to it by the dates; not even the most lurid elements of the media wanted to create the impression that attacks against the nation were an ongoing series.

The media were not invited to the service or the interment. The burial was beneath spotless blue skies, where the priest remembered Laura as a young girl who cared not only for her father’s health but also for the health of others, just like her mother had.

“Young Laura was always making healthy-eating posters for the church and for her school,” the clergyman recalled. “She once asked me about the fat content of the Communion wafers and whether the holy water was spring or tap. Her interest in people, in caregiving, was one of the reasons she was with her father among the nurses and doctors who held such a high place in her heart. We know she was happy then, and that is how we must remember her. For we also know that, reunited with her mother, they are both happy now.”

Kealey didn’t know if he embraced that idea, and he took no solace from it. He had seen enough evil and suffering to doubt the existence of God Himself. Yet it never failed that these reminiscences spoken to celebrate a life were invariably the most painful part of saying good-bye. Or maybe they were intended to do just the opposite—to prevent us from leaving everything behind, to help us to hold on to the soul of a loved one.

After paying their respects to Laura’s mother, the Bishop family went back to their limousines alone, the officials leaving in their cars. Harper lingered long enough to tell Kealey, Allison, and Andrews that Julie was conscious, though still in a fog.

“It’ll be a while before she’s anything close to being herself again,” he said. “But she’ll get there. Hell, she’ll probably turn it into a platform to talk about courage.”

“Healing isn’t just about the body,” Allison said. “What she’s been through
will
help many others.”

Harper excused himself, leaving the others under an old oak tree. Standing there, seeing the play of light, feeling the nearly imperceptible dampness, caused Kealey to flash to the runabout under its limb.

Healing the mind?
he thought. They had been one second away from a nuclear holocaust. Kealey didn’t know if his brain would ever process how many lives, how many faces on the news, would have been scratched in his soul had they failed. He had been thinking about that since they left Trask’s mansion, about the words that Jefferson had chosen to conclude the Declaration: “... with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence ...”

Maybe. Or maybe it was luck. Whatever it was, Kealey would be thinking about it for the rest of his life.

“I figured you were sleeping late this morning,” Andrews said, “so I didn’t bother to call you. But we got a lot of data off those two phones. It’s going to help us round up the mercs and close the book on Hunt and Trask.”

“What about the drivers?” Kealey asked.

“Bell and Scroggins? Free. They were dupes in this whole thing. So were all the poor students who had volunteered to be subjects and interns with the Xana project. They were selected to foster Islamophobia, like the Muslim terrorist nations were piling on.”

“What’s going to happen to Dr. Gillani?” Allison asked.

Andrews smirked. “Do you really want to know?”

“I don’t know. Do I?”

“I can answer that,” Kealey said. “She’ll end up working for us, just like the Nazi rocket scientists did after World War II.”

“From the first debrief I saw this morning, she’s got a helluva technique, with marbles as controls. Once they were hypnotized, the victims were told to associate the marble with that world. Touching them, looking at them, was good for about an hour. They would act normally, not arousing suspicion until it was time for them to act. A phone call and Dr. Samson’s voice sent them to the marble and then back into a trance. With Yasmin, wearing it kept her under constantly when the demands of the timetable kicked in.”

“That’s pretty incredible,” Allison agreed.

“If we had a snowball’s chance of getting the White House onboard, we could get a lot of intel by setting loose our Guantánamo guests with that kind of cooperation.”

Kealey didn’t disagree, but he also wasn’t in the mood for this. He was done—again. He would go back to the university and pick up where he left off.

Either that or find an atoll somewhere and live off fish and crustaceans for the rest of my life.

“By the way,” Andrews said, “when you’re ready, Ryan, the president wants to see you and Reed. He was real proud of you both.”

“Thanks,” Kealey said. “He made some tough calls there. Backed us.”

“You know you can come back if you want.”

“Thanks, but I’m too old for the field and too restless for a desk,” Kealey said.

“Too old?” Allison said.

“There isn’t a part of me that doesn’t hurt,” he said. “Just the hit I took opening the door of the helicopter. Those shoulder harnesses are unforgiving.”

Andrews laughed. “The offer will always be on the table.”

“I appreciate it, but I’ve been thinking a lot about how close we came to
not
pulling this out. I’m not a big believer in karma, but I think I’ll quit while the scales are still in my favor.”

The conversation ranged after that from Colin to changes in Company and Bureau policy to watch out for rogues. They returned to their cars, which were alone along the tree-lined street in the cemetery, and headed out—Andrews and Allison to Langley, Kealey to I-95. He did not go south to Washington, but south to parts unknown. He knew he would not find an atoll in that direction, but it was okay. He just wanted a long coastline of open road, away from government, out among the people he had always served.

Just him and ordinary citizens, not the Trasks and Hunts or even the well-meaning bureaucrats, but those whom the rest of Jefferson’s phrase so aptly described: the men and women who “mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

EPILOGUE

SUKKUR, PAKISTAN

I
t figured.

Of course.

Sukkur, the Pakistani city in which Reed Bishop found himself, was one of the region’s largest centers for the production of tobacco. He had smiled as the “big green cow with wheels for feet”—as the nickname for the bus was loosely translated—entered the town and he saw the proud billboard of a farmer harvesting plants.

You’re testing me, aren’t you, honey?
He laughed.
That’s all right
. He had stopped smoking, at first, when he was around her. He was around her now, always. He would never smoke again.

Bishop emerged from the rusting, lopsided conveyance that had brought him from Islamabad. He had a bet with another American that the circa 1950 vehicle—with a hole in the floor that allowed them to watch the dirt roads crunch by—the bus would never finish the journey.

Bishop was wrong. They didn’t even get a flat. And they arrived on time.

“There’s a point at which components become so mutually dependent, they become a sort of closed system,” the other American passenger said, collecting Bishop’s five dollars.

The man was a mid-level diplomat. Bishop guessed that if anyone knew how tough it was to stop any force that had been in motion for so long, it was him.

The provincial attaché had also given him a tip on how to get what he wanted here.

“Dollars or technology,” he’d said. “Those are your best currency.”

What he wanted was to take the information Cluzot had obtained for him and put a face on it. The driver gave Bishop his two bags off the top of the bus—he was surprised to find them there—after which the American stopped in a local teahouse to clear the dust of travel from his throat, get directions, and steel his resolve. There was danger in what he was planning: personal, psychological, and even political. But it needed to be done.

Happy that the Gold Flake tobacco everyone seemed to be smoking here had an aroma and smoothness that were foreign to him—downright foul if you were too close to it—Bishop walked down the paved main street, past open stalls selling foods and fabrics, to a two-story brick structure adjoining a hospital. He did not read or speak more than phrase-book Urdu, but he recognized the writing on the sign. SUKKUR SENIOR SCHOOLHOUSE.

He had an appointment with the headmaster—a pleasant fellow in his sixties, who appreciated very much the iPod Bishop had brought him as a gift, loaded with the Sami Yusuf tunes he said he enjoyed. Bishop wondered if he would have to listen to that music.

Of course you will,
he thought. Just as he had to listen to Miley Cyrus and Shane Harper for a year or so.

Together, he and the headmaster went to get Kamilah Fazari from her biology class. They stood outside the building, in the shade, waiting for the class to end. The teacher—a woman in a head scarf—brought the thin, tall girl over.

The twelve-year-old was well dressed, well mannered, and looked like her mother. Her expression wasn’t neutral, as it was the first day Bishop had seen her, but she had the same poise, the same strong mouth, the same intense eyes, which were studying Bishop with a blend of interest and suspicion.

She had been crying fairly recently. Bishop recognized the look from his own reflection in the mirror. He knew that she had been informed by Akila Fazari that Yasmin Rassin was killed in an accident, but that was all she knew.

The headmaster explained—pausing to translate for Bishop—that this man was an acquaintance of her mother and wanted to take her to America to live and to study.

“Why would he do this?” she asked through the headmaster.

“Because your mother wanted you to have opportunities she never did,” Bishop explained. When that had been translated, he added, “And because you might fulfill the promise and potential of one who was taken from me, just as your mother was taken from you,” he said.

“A daughter?” she asked through the headmaster.

Bishop nodded.

“That is a big responsibility for a young girl,” the headmaster told him, a trace of concern in his eyes.

Bishop nodded again. “Please tell her that I have no expectations and make no demands. All I have is the hope and a belief that we can set some kind of example for people who want to tear nations apart. But I want
you
to know—as a surrogate father to so many—that while I am prepared to give a great deal, I will never ask anything she is not prepared to give.”

The headmaster smiled approvingly and explained to Kamilah. It was the first time that Bishop saw her smile. It was a radiant smile, untainted by the world outside. He imagined that once, long ago, her mother had smiled like that. He hoped so. He knew now that he was doing the right thing.

“As you can understand, Mr. Bishop, she is scared but appreciative. She would like to talk to her godmother about it,” the headmaster said.

“I’ll find lodgings in town and await her answer,” Bishop said. “Please tell her that I would be honored if she and her godmother would join me for dinner.” The headmaster hesitated. Bishop grinned. “And you, too, of course.”

The headmaster translated.

Kamilah thanked him and told the headmaster to give him Akila’s address. She asked him to come by at five. Bishop said he would be there.

When she left, the headmaster studied the American. “I think she will go with you,” he said. “That girl has a very adventurous spirit.”

“I’m not surprised,” Bishop said.

“I know Akila wants the best for her, as well. You say you knew her mother?”

“I did, briefly.”

“I only saw her once, for less time than I’ve seen you. I have often wondered, what was she like?”

“Complicated,” Bishop said.

“She was successful in her work, I am told.”

“She was,” Bishop agreed, “but she kept all that to herself.”

“Why?”

Bishop looked out at the sunbaked street, at the old cars and the occasional cow and sheep. “She had her reasons,” he said. “But I can tell you she loved her daughter more than anything. And I think, in the end, that’s a fitting epitaph for anyone.”

The headmaster considered that as Bishop thanked him, shook his hand, and went off to find a place to spend the night.

And to buy two bus tickets to Islamabad.

BOOK: The Operative

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