Seven minutes later, these three men were at the facility’s main doors, Doug going through first, Brian posting drag, and Condor—
Flash!
From a cell phone held by a curly-haired woman on the other side of a glass door from Condor: blurry picture at best, and sure, she appeared innocently overwhelmed by carrying her purse and a takeout tray with two coffees, probably just clumsy fingers on her device, plus she didn’t seem to notice that Brian followed her to her car, cell phoned photos of her and her license plate and her driver who stereotyped husband as they drove to the Southbound exit just ahead of a rusty black hearse, while hundreds of miles away near Washington, D.C., their metrics became an I&M (Investigate & Monitor) upload.
Doug and Condor posted near the parked van.
Forty feet away, an easy (for him) pistol shot, Brian drifted amidst parked cars.
Zen. They were here. They were now. Not waiting: being, doing. Ready for.
The red car drove around the dragon facility from the Northbound entrance. A Japanese brand built in Tennessee that glided ever closer to two men standing by a gray van near the white gazebo.
Where the red car parked.
She opened the driver’s door. Let them see no one rode with her (unless they were laying on the back seat floor or huddled in the trunk). Kept her hands in sight as she walked toward them and yes, it was only a cell phone in her left hand.
Statistically, most people shoot right handed.
“Hey,” she said: “Aren’t you friends of Gary Pettigrew?”
“Don’t know the guy,” answered Doug. Said guy and not him or man.
“So where you from?”
“Where we’re going,” answered Doug, sounding ordinary enough for any eavesdropper (none around) but not a likely response from a random stranger.
“Then I’m in the right place.” She grinned. “Sorry I’m late. Traffic.”
Her left hand showed them the package’s picture in her cell phone.
“You must be Condor,” she said, extending her right hand to shake his.
“Vin,” corrected Doug. “But yeah.”
She was young. Short black hair. Clean caramel complexion and bright ebony eyes. Dark slacks and a white blouse under an unbuttoned navy blue jacket.
Said: “Want to see my credentials?”
“If you’re bogus and got the recognition code, you’ll pack fake flash,” said Doug.
“Damn it! I’ve been dying for a chance to whip out my I.D.: Homeland Security, up against the wall!”
“Rookie,” said Doug.
“Who else would get stuck with a one day road trip up to here and back to D.C.?”
Her voice stayed easy. “I’m Malati Chavali, and is that guy walking this way one of us?”
Doug smiled: “Yeah, Rook’, he’s with us.”
Brian drifted to her red car, glanced in the back seat, turned and said like that was the reason for his detour: “Where do you want his two bags?”
“What do you think?” she said to Doug — looked at Condor. “I’m sorry! I should ask you, it’s not like you’re…”
“Just a package?” said the man who could technically maybe be her grandfather.
“And you want me to call you Vin, right?”
He shrugged. “Mission requirements.”
“Speaking of,” said Brian. “We gotta hit the road.”
“Brooklyn calls,” joked his partner.
Condor’s suitcases went in the red car’s trunk.
He and its driver Malati watched the gray van pull out of its parking space and drive onto the Northbound ramp…gone.
“Can I ask you a favor?” she said to the sliver haired man as they stood in the cool morning air. “I know you’re probably anxious to get to your new apartment — row house, actually, on Capital Hill — your Settlement Specialist will meet us there, we’ll call her when we hit the Beltway and…The thing is, I’m dying for coffee.”
“Wouldn’t want you to die,” said Condor. “How would I get where I’m going?”
“There is that,” she said.
They walked toward the rest stop’s facility.
“Before we get where there are ears,” he said as they moved between parked cars lined in rows of shiny steel, “you’re Home Sec’, not CIA?”
“Actually, detailed to the National Resources Operations Division of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence — there’s CIA on staff there, too, but me…Yeah, I’m in Home Sec’. For now. Grad school at Georgetown—”
“Don’t vomit your whole cover story first chance you get,” said the silver-haired man as they neared the main doors. “Even if it’s true. Maybe especially if it’s true.”
Laughing coworkers in Groucho Marx glasses strode past them.
Malati whispered: “Sorry.”
He held the building door for gave her. “Shit happens. So far, ours works.”
She smiled thank you as she stepped past that older gentleman.
Heard him say: “Should you have let me behind you?”
A chill claimed her amidst the thick air inside the rest stop facility.
She answered: “I don’t know.”
Condor shrugged. “Too late to think about it now.
“I’m going in there,” he said, pointing to the MENS room. “Get your coffee and we’ll meet at a table.”
“I thought I was in charge.”
“Good,” he said. Walked into the bathroom, left her standing there. Alone.
Five minutes later, he spotted her sitting at a table in the food court facing the restrooms, the gift shop and the main doors. Tactically acceptable. The wall of eateries waited to her right, the windows to the parking lot on her heartside. Her eyes locked on him as he walked toward where she sat with two cups from ‘bucks on the table.
“Please,” she said, “sit. We’ve got time.”
“You sure?”
“No. But we can make it work.”
He settled on the black steel chair facing her.
“Look around,” she said. “Most people are tuned out. Plugged into their cells or tablets. Not really here. Plus there’s nobody behind me, right? Nobody behind you. Nobody close enough to hear even if we’re not careful what we say.”
He gave her a nod and the smile that wanted to come.
“I’d like to start over,” she said. “The coffee’s a peace offering.”
“OK. We’re probably going to have to stop at least once before D.C. anyway.”
“When you want, when we can.” She took a sip from her cup, left no lip stain.
Don’t think about red lipstick. Gone. That’s the forever. This is now.
Malati said: “Somehow now I don’t think you’re just, say, a former asset or KGB defector who’s been in a retirement program and needs routine relocation.”
“What do you know?”
“The codename I’m now not supposed to use.” Malati shrugged. “Vin. Weird first name, but whatever, Vin: I volunteered for this nobody wanted it gig. Extra duty. Trying to prove I’m competent, trustable, a team player with initiative.”
“What do you want?” he said.
“To do more than earn a paycheck. Serve my country. Do some good.”
“And under that essay answer?”
“I don’t want to be somebody who doesn’t know what’s really going on.”
“Reality,” he said: “I’ve heard of that.”