Parker was about to respond but knew there was no point. Sheridan loved conflict, and a retort would play right into his hands. He looked at Jellicoe. “Your mind’s made up?”
Jellicoe nodded, his grin still fixed on his flabby face. “Back channel, the deal’s already been done with the Norwegians, so we might as well make it public.”
“Why?”
Jellicoe didn’t answer, and that confused Parker even more. The senator had told the Norwegian government the truth about what had happened in Norway and had given them Will Cochrane’s name as the rogue officer behind the fiasco, though he’d naturally omitted any mention of Antaeus and Project Ferryman. In doing so, he’d completely defused political tensions between the States and Norway to the extent that the Norwegians were fully cooperating with Marsha Gage to hunt down the MI6 officer. But Jellicoe couldn’t be so candid in a televised hearing. Instead, he’d have to say that a classified Agency operation in Norway went wrong, that the Norwegians were on our side, and that an investigation was under way into why the operation nearly caused a diplomatic furor. Some of the senators facing Jellicoe would naturally ask him for further specific details, but at that stage Jellicoe would have to keep his mouth shut on the basis of national security.
So, what was the point of airing a drastically sanitized version of events at a public hearing? Perhaps, Parker speculated, this was about nothing more than Jellicoe getting his ambitious face back in front of the cameras. Yes, that was it. For a long time, Jellicoe had ridden the crest of a wave because of Ferryman. Parker could tell that Jellicoe was ready to take another step up the career ladder, perhaps to chairman of the SSCI. Or maybe — Parker shuddered at the thought — to head of the CIA.
That evening, Ed Parker entered his home in Arlington and poured himself a large Scotch. He didn’t always drink whiskey after work, but he’d had a bad taste in his mouth all day and needed something fiery and toxic to burn it out.
Catherine was in the garden greenhouse, tending begonias, achimenes, and cyclamens while singing to the plants. Gardening was a relatively new hobby for her and made her smile and relax, and anything that made Catherine happy and contented was a damn fine thing as far as Ed was concerned. She was wearing a gray woolen cardigan with leather elbow patches and her favorite “hippie chic” skirt, which reached her ankles; her raggedy gray hair was kept in a bun by two knitting needles. She described it as her pottering look, though in recent years it was rather more the predominant Catherine look. Ed didn’t mind. She looked gorgeous, the way that many middle-aged women do when they relax into life after surviving all the crap. Moreover, Catherine was not only Ed’s loving wife; she was also his perfect antidote to the pissing contests he had to put up with in the Agency.
He knocked a few times on the kitchen window until she heard him, looked up, and smiled. He raised the full glass of liquor to the window, pointed at it, mimicked gulping it down in one, then crossed his eyes, stuck out his tongue, and wobbled his head as if he were blind drunk. Catherine laughed, knowing that it was her husband’s call to arms to share an aperitif with him after a bad day at work.
His cell phone beeped, and to his amazement he saw he had an SMS from Sheridan. He’d never received a message from him before, and didn’t even think the man knew how to send them from his phone. Probably Sheridan’s long-suffering wife had finally succeeded in getting the grumpy bastard to learn how to use the cell, even though she barely spoke to him after their marriage had nearly fallen apart during their last overseas Agency posting. Given that they had no children, there was no one else in the Sheridan household who could have taken on the unenviable task. The image made Ed smile, and he imagined Sheridan huffing and puffing about civilian technology being just for kids. Of course, Catherine had rightly pointed out several times that Ed was equally useless with technology, and recently she too had needed to explain to him the basics about texts, contact lists, and how to press Send. He took a sip of his whiskey, read the message, and frowned.
Did you see him in action? Jellicoe nailed it. Screwed the bastard to the wall.
Catherine entered the kitchen, pulled out the knitting needles, bent over, and swished her long hair to release raindrops gathered during the short walk between the greenhouse and their home. “Cocks In Agency day?”
That put the smile back on Ed’s face. “Yeah, one of them.”
Catherine walked to the refrigerator. “Well, there’s only one thing to do.” She grabbed a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc and a chilled glass and poured herself a drink. “Pizza delivery, followed by me taking a soak with a bit of 50 Shades, and”—she blew him a kiss—“see where it goes from there?”
Ed loosened the knot of his tie. “What about Crystal?”
Their nine-year-old daughter.
“Last-minute sleepover at Debbie’s place.”
Ed shrugged. “We’d better make the most of it then.” He walked into the living room, flicked on the TV, and started trying to find the right channel while muttering, “Fucking… fricking… shit… why, why, why do they make this playback thing so damn complicated?”
Catherine took the controller from him, pretended to be exasperated, and asked, “What program?”
“Senate hearing. Four o’clock this afternoon.”
It only took her a few seconds to find. “I’ll call for the pizza. Usual?”
“Yeah, but extra jalapeños.”
“Not concerned about heartburn?”
“Least of my worries.”
Catherine laughed as she walked out of the room. “On your head be it, but don’t let it spoil our fun later tonight.”
Ed slumped into the sofa and pressed play. God, there was Jellicoe, sitting behind a desk and microphone while facing seven senators, his ridiculously expensive suit only serving to make the plump man look like a 1920s mafioso with a heap of cash but no taste.
Ed turned up the volume.
Fifteen minutes later, he turned off the TV and briefly considered resigning from the Agency. Because Jellicoe had told everyone watching the hearing that the Agency was hunting a British intelligence officer named Will Cochrane, had pulled out a photo of Cochrane and held it up so that the room’s cameras could zoom in on it, and had concluded that it would be better for anyone who saw Cochrane to kill him on sight rather than risk attempting to capture him alive.
Though Ed had as much vested interest in Ferryman as Jellicoe and Sheridan, and had agreed that Cochrane needed to be captured, he’d wanted the manhunt to be done under the radar and Cochrane to be punished by due legal process. Plus, he’d learned that Cochrane had an incredible history of serving Western intelligence. Whatever reason Cochrane had disobeyed orders in Norway, he still deserved to be treated with respect. Now, his name and face were blown and Jellicoe had encouraged everyone who owned a gun to shoot to kill if they spotted him in their backyard.
Catherine sat next to him. “Everything okay?”
Ed shook his head in disbelief. “Our best… best operative. We …” He gestured his glass toward the television, spilling whiskey on the carpet. “We… It’s not right. We shouldn’t be doing this to him.”
Lindsay Sheridan looked at the silver-framed photo of Charles and her standing together in their college graduation gowns and couldn’t decide if the image was making her feel sad or regretful. They looked so young then, happy, her with the nice engagement ring Charles had given her a week before the photo had been taken, Charles with his arm around her and an expression of pride and contentment. What a nice man he’d been then, before he’d joined the Agency, before they’d gotten married, and before they’d been posted overseas several times, culminating in her indiscretion with a fellow diplomat. She couldn’t blame him for being angry about that — not at all — but she could blame him for what led to her being unfaithful. Over the course of years, he’d become a changed man, distant from her and sharp-tongued. She’d lost count of the number of times she’d wanted just to run away from him. All right, they had joint ownership of their home in Montgomery County, but that was the only complication they’d face in a divorce settlement, given that they had no kids. That, and the fact that he had an almighty psychological hold over her.