Some people were never satisfied that you’d saved their lives.
The woman was now at the forefront, waving her arms and shouting at the interpreter.
“Enough!” Neeley finally yelled.
“You speak Pashto?” the wife asked, stunned. Neeley ranked the question up there with asking whether she was breathing oxygen, since she’d just done it.
“It’s been over a decade we’ve been at war there,” Neeley said. “I could’ve learned Latin and Greek in that time.”
“Why did you not speak to us?” the wife asked.
“All you do is argue. I didn’t have time for it on the ground and I don’t want to listen to it now.”
The words were like water breaking on rock. Ignored. “Where are you taking us?” the wife demanded. “What will happen to us?”
Neeley sighed. She hated dealing with amateurs. “What exactly did you think would happen when you gave up bin Laden’s location?”
The man finally spoke up. “They said we were safe. That they had a, how do you call it, a cover story.”
“Yeah,” Neeley agreed. “They even made movies about it. Better than admitting a pissed-off garbageman gave up the world’s most wanted terrorist simply because the asshole was using proper tradecraft technique and burning all his trash and not paying the local to haul it off. He didn’t think that one through. Should have paid you off not to get his trash.”
“I have a noble profession—” the man began, but Neeley didn’t have the patience for it.
“What did you think you were going to do with twenty-five million in Abbottabad?”
“We have received only a very small portion of it,” the wife argued. “We have been waiting—”
“You bought the nice fridge,” Neeley said. “You didn’t think people would notice? Didn’t you ever see Goodfellas?”
The little girl spoke for the first time. “What is Goodfellas?”
Neeley didn’t have the time or inclination to fill the girl in on the Lufthansa heist and what happened after. She’d have a chance to see the movie in the States.
“But we had no refrigerator,” the wife argued. “It was just a small one. We have been waiting very, very patiently.”
“Your new place will have one, I’m sure,” Neeley said. They didn’t understand the fundamental truth that the only thing that had kept this family alive so far was the cover story and the dribbled-out payment. And the only thing that kept the CIA looking good was projecting that its hard work had located bin Laden’s compound, not this wreck of a man. The combination had forced the case officer handling the informant and his family to keep them in place, trying to gain as much time as possible.
Neeley, having spent many years in Black Ops, also suspected, deep down, that the CIA was hoping the bad guys would find out about the informant and wipe him and his family out. Save money on the reward, and they could still maintain the cover story: Yeah right. A garbageman gave up bin Laden? She could hear the laughter now if the bad guys tried to publicize it. And they’d get laughed at too. All in all, these three were a loose end and an embarrassment to everyone involved. Which also might explain why the mission had obviously been compromised. It would not be the first time the CIA had given up an asset they considered expendable after the fact. If that were the case, and Hannah found out the identity of the person who did it, they would not be long for this earth.
And this family still didn’t get it.
“And the rest of our money?” the man asked.
Neeley glanced at her watch. “The money is gone.”
The man stood, swaying with the plane. “What do you mean it is gone? We did our part! I was the one! It was me!”
“And I’m sure the United States will forever be grateful, even though no one will ever know.” Neeley shook her head. “I wouldn’t be telling anyone else what you did, even in the States.”
“You are cheating me!”
“Not me. I saved you.” Neeley spread her hands, indicating the plane. “You think this was free? I’m sure the balance of the twenty-five million is being sucked out of an offshore account right now by Mrs. Sanchez. It might just pay for the cost of running this op, which means the books will be balanced and by golly, she’s going to balance those damn books. The government might run on a deficit but not Black Ops.”
“That is not fair!” the wife screeched.
Neeley reached in her pocket and pulled out some gum and handed it to the girl, tuning the parents out as they turned on each other, screaming, as if the one who went louder would be righter.
Neeley knelt and looked the girl in the eyes. “They’re learning the only fair in life has a Ferris wheel and cotton candy.”
The girl was confused. “What does that mean? How is cotton candy? Whose wheel?”
Neeley pressed a hand against the side of her head, sensing a headache coming on from the parents arguing. She wondered how people could stand to raise children. She’d never gotten that memo and it hadn’t been in Gant’s set of rules. She’d rather run an op.
“Don’t worry,” Neeley told the girl. “You’ll be fine. Just not rich and not so close to getting your heads chopped off every day. Things are actually turning out as well as they possibly could for you and your parents.”
“I told you this would happen!” The wife was shaking her husband’s shoulders. “Did I not tell you this would happen? That CIA man you trusted kept telling us wait, wait. And we waited. You said trust him. Trust the CIA. Trust the Americans. And now? See? See? Why do you never listen to me? Why do you swallow your mother’s words as if they were gold, but you throw mine out like they are the garbage you collect? You should have said nothing! Nothing!”
The husband sat down, head in hands, as his wife continued to berate him.
“I’m afraid you’re going to have to listen to this for a long time,” Neeley told the frightened girl. “I can just save your life. I can’t save you from your family.” Neeley put a hand on the girl’s shoulder, trying to conjure up something she’d never experienced on the other end as a child. “It will all be fine.”
She looked past the girl as the crew chief came down the cargo bay. He held out a headset as he plugged it in an outlet. “Priority message for you, ma’am.”
Neeley turned away from the girl and her distraught family. She put on the headset. “Neeley.”
She recognized Hannah’s voice. “I’m diverting your 130 to the closest airbase where there will be a chopper waiting to get you back here ASAP. You’ve got a new mission. There seems to be a window of opportunity. Are you aware of Deep Six?”