“What about Chen? Think she’s wishing she could be glad she wasn’t there?”
“I don’t think Chen does glad, Fergie. I’m not even sure how she’ll know when she’s dead.”
Weaver walked up the aisle, grabbing a seatback when the Gulfstream hit a little bump. He plopped down in his seat and poured a couple more fingers of Macallan’s into his glass. Fergie was a good man, and Weaver had to admit he’d hung him out today, hung him out trying to keep InterGov’s ass out of the fire, nothing more. Fergie was right, no hiding behind the flag on this one. Weaver tried to picture the scene that afternoon — having to drop the station owner, watching Chen pop the soccer mom, frying the cop. He wanted to feel worse about it, but he couldn’t get it in his head.
“Hey, Chen.”
“Yes, sir.”
“What kind of minivan the soccer mom driving?”
“Dodge Grand Caravan, sir. Purple. A 2003.”
Now Weaver had a picture in his head, the mom sprawled outside the driver’s door, the police cruiser burning in the foreground. He imagined seeing the kid in the car seat, the figure distorted through the heat and smoke from the burning cruiser but clear enough for you to know it was screaming.
CHAPTER 31 — RESTON, VIRGINIA
Weaver’s driver pulled the green Jaguar sedan into the brick circle drive in front of Ferguson’s nondescript four-bedroom in a development of nondescript four-bedrooms at a quarter to eight the next morning. Ferguson was sitting on a bench in his front yard, reading the paper. He was dressed preppie — khaki slacks, light green polo, blue blazer. Weaver thought Ferguson looked OK walking to the car. Still stiff, probably half a dozen bandages on under the preppie getup, but OK. Weaver wasn’t surprised that Fergie was out in the yard. He didn’t like Weaver coming into his house, never had.
Ferguson got in back with Weaver, and the driver quickly moved through the side streets onto the Interstate and west. They cleared the suburban sprawl. Trees pushed down near the shoulder, some budding, some with those tiny first leaves, their green still vibrant, electric, alive, not yet diffused through a range of experience. Pretty in a generic way, but life knew how to knock the pretty off.
“Nature’s first green is gold,” Weaver said. “You ready any poetry, Fergie?”
“When it comes to slaughter, well you’ll do your work on water and you’ll lick the bloomin’ boots of him that’s got it,” Ferguson said.
“Kipling? Not much in vogue these days. White man’s burden and all.”
“Some other one I remember, guy trying to get into this girl’s pants, telling her worms will have at her if she waits too long. Something about time’s winged chariot drawing near.”
“Marvell,” said Weaver. “To His Coy Mistress.”
“Thing is, I’ve been hearing that chariot myself. Fisher’s driving it. I take it the Judge called you.”
H Dickens Reynolds had been a Brigadier General, a Federal Appeals court judge, and then, for seven years, the Deputy Director of Operations at the CIA. Now, at eighty-one, he was a country gentleman, graciously ensconced on one hundred and fifty well-coiffed acres of horse land in the Virginia countryside. He was also as close to an official liaison as InterGov had with the sanctioned intelligence community.
“Little pissed about you calling the Judge, Fergie, gotta tell you,” said Weaver. “End running me like that. You know we gotta keep our shit in house.”
“Had my say last night. I have to hear from the umpire on this one if I’m gonna keep playing ball. I understand this is the big leagues, and I understand we play hardball, and I understand every so often somebody pulls one into the stands. Just feel like we’re playing the whole game in the bleachers all of a sudden.”
“OK, Fergie. We go back. Anybody’s earned a free shot at me, it’s you. Judge’ll sort this out. Fair enough?”
“Leave it with him,” said Ferguson.
An hour later, Weaver’s driver guided the Jag down a long drive flanked by freshly painted three-rail fences beyond which chestnut horses gamboled on a flawless pasture in the slanting morning light. He parked in front of a portico big enough to hold Bill Clinton’s libido.
Weaver followed protocol with the butler who answered the door. The butler was six-two, weighed about two-twenty, wore a 9mm Beretta in a shoulder holster under his suit coat, and knew a half dozen ways to kill a man without taking it out. And he had friends in the house. Weaver and Ferguson followed him into the study off the entry hall.
Reynolds looked good for eighty-one. He looked about average for sixty-five. He was still wearing a plaid Pendleton robe over black pajamas.
Weaver pulled up when he saw Chen sitting in a chair flanking the desk where Reynolds sat. “What is this, an intervention?”
“Perhaps the best possible characterization of this, Colonel,” said the Judge. “After I talked with Ferguson last night, I became increasingly concerned about the direction of this operation. About the entire unit, actually. I called Chen and asked that she come out early this morning to debrief me, which corroborated and even exacerbated my concerns. Let’s review, shall we?
“Fisher’s family was killed in January. Your PsyOps people saw no cause for concern. Then he disappeared. There was the Wisconsin shooting. Three days ago, your research team captured data regarding a shooting in Chicago. Your systems guy put together a profile on likely credit purchases, and you tracked Fisher to downstate Illinois. Clearly, this was an ambush. It was not subtle. Reports I’ve gotten have six dead. Police recovered two scoped 16s with extended mags and a Barrett, none of which had been fired, all from your guys. Got a cop car that looks like it got hit with an antitank weapon. What’s wrong? You guys didn’t have time to call in air support? Maybe some armor? Christ sake, Weaver, it looks like the Israelis were chasing Arafat through the place.”
“I was the guy on the ground, sir,” said Ferguson. “It’s my bad.”
“Not your choice, Fergie. Bad rolls up hill. Weaver made the call. That’s his bad. And Weaver’s my boy, so we’ve got some guys at Langley who figure it’s my bad. OK, the good news. Chen did some prophylactics, just in case things went south, set up your team to look like druggies. Locals are buying it for now because there’s nothing else on the shelf, but they are asking themselves why somebody was killing druggies on a hill behind a gas station, and why the druggies were going up there armed to the gills. I trust you’ve got somebody making sure this doesn’t track back?”
“I’m on that, sir,” said Chen.
“OK. The locals have already called the Feds in and we can get some rhythm with the Feds, so we can probably pull enough strings to keep this from biting us on the ass. But changes need to be made. Weaver, I’ll be very direct. You’re out. This in no way diminishes your previous service and is not meant to be a reflection on your character. It’s just become apparent that you’ve become too inured to the ramifications of your unit’s actions. I blame myself to a large degree. We’ve been too free with the extra-legal latitude. Difficult to ask anyone to work in that kind of gray area that long without losing their bearings.”
“I understand,” said Weaver, his voice level, his face a mask.
“I know this is difficult, and I assure you’ll be taken care of. Your service record has been adjusted so that you qualify for the maximum possible pension, military and also foreign service. Full access to health care, all of that. Anything else you need, please do call.”
Weaver nodded. “Am I dismissed?”
“Yes, Colonel. Please do not challenge this. You have had your time. Just fade away.”
Weaver turned and left the room. After a moment, Ferguson saw the Jaguar winding down the drive.
Reynolds got up and walked over to a sideboard on the right wall, poured a cup of coffee from a silver pot there. “You two want anything, coffee?” Chen and Ferguson declined. Reynolds settled back behind the desk. Then, “Ferguson, I want you to take over InterGov.”