“Looks that way.”
“Gonna do some super-secret stuff? ”
“Only kind of stuff I do,” Wells said, trying to roll with her.
“All right, then.”
“All right.” Wells tucked the paper into his pocket. “Look, Anne, you probably won’t believe it, but I don’t do this kind of thing very often. This was my first time in a while—”
“No, I believe it. You were a little rusty last night.”
He flushed. She laughed. “Don’t worry. Much better this morning, especially for a man your age—”
“Ouch,” Wells said.
“What I’m trying to say is, I had fun. Give me your number, maybe I’ll take a trip to D.C. See the monuments. Isn’t that what tourists do down there? ”
He found a pen, scribbled his cell number. “There’s no name on it.”
“Of course there isn’t.”
She kissed him on the lips, ran a hand through his hair, walked away in her battered hiking boots, her blue jeans cupping her ass. Wells didn’t expect to see her again, but he found himself waving as she got into her Silverado and rolled off. She had style.
TONKA DIDN’ T LIKE WATCHING him pack. She tugged at his jeans as he filled his duffel bag. He would have to bring her to Langley, he realized. He didn’t know how long he’d be gone, and he could hardly take her back to the pound. He grabbed her bowls, her treats and toys, and threw them in the Subaru beside his bag.
He took one final look around the cabin. He didn’t feel overly sentimental. It had served its purpose, given him a place to hide and to heal. From the bedside table, he grabbed the book he’d just started, a biography of Elvis. It had been Elvis or Gandhi, and Wells hadn’t felt like Gandhi. And thinking of Gandhi reminded Wells of what he had almost left behind. He reached under the bed for the lockbox with his pistols.
HE STOPPED ONLY ONCE on the drive down, for a tankard of 7-Eleven coffee and a jug of water. Somewhere outside Philadelphia, the hangover lost its grip on him and he settled in his seat.
He spent the night in a no-tell motel outside Washington. He assumed Exley was in the house they’d once shared. The motel room stank of smoke, and the bed was bowed like a hammock. Wells brought Tonka in with him, and they slept on the floor back-to-back.
When he reached Langley in the morning, the gate guards didn’t want to let him in. Aside from the agency’s own bomb sniffers, dogs were not allowed on the campus. Wells told them it was just for a few hours, they’d be doing him a favor. He didn’t have to tell them that after the last couple years, he had a few favors coming. They hemmed and hawed and made a couple of calls and finally waved him through.
“JOHN—” SHAFER BARELY STOOD before the dog jumped on him. On her hind legs, she was nearly as tall as he was. He ineffectually tried to push her away. She licked his face, eager to play. “I was gonna say I missed you. But this is a new low. I cannot believe you brought a dog in here.”
“Her name’s Tonka. And she likes you.”
Shafer pushed the dog aside and hugged Wells. Wells always felt awkward at these moments. Male affection baffled him. His dad had been distant, taciturn, not exactly cold but unemotional. Unflappable. A surgeon, in the best and worst ways. Wells had followed his example, packed away his emotions. Even as a teenager, playing football, a sport where passion was not just tolerated but encouraged, he had resisted showing off. When he scored, he handed the ball to the referee without a word. As his high-school coach liked to say, quoting Bear Bryant: “When you get to the end zone, act like you’ve been there before.”
Now Wells reached down, patted Shafer’s shoulders before disengaging himself. He tapped Tonka’s flank. “Come on, now. Over there.” He pointed to Shafer’s couch. The dog reluctantly complied.
“It’s good to see you,” Shafer said. “Even if you look like a survivalist. With the beard and the flannel. And this ridiculous dog.”
I am a survivalist, Wells didn’t say. Survival’s my specialty. Though the people around me aren’t always so lucky. Shafer’s desk was covered with army interrogation manuals, some classified, some not, as well as what looked like a report from the CIA inspector general. Wells decided not to ask. He’d find out soon enough.
“Actually, you look about ready to head back to Afghanistan,” Shafer said.
“That what this is about? ”
“Closer to home. I got the outlines this morning, but I don’t have details. Duto wants to fill us in himself.” Duto, the CIA director, Wells’s ultimate boss.
“Vincent Duto? What a pleasant surprise.”
Wells and Duto didn’t get along. To Wells, Duto was a martinet who saw agents as interchangeable parts, pawns in a game that was being played for his glory. And Wells knew that Duto saw him as valuable but uncontrollable, a Thoroughbred with Derby-winning speed and an ego to match. Duto had said as much, leaving out the second half of the analogy: We’ll ride you until you break a leg, John.
“Then off to the glue factory,” Wells said aloud.
“What?”
“Wondering why Duto wants to brief me, instead of letting you do it.”
“He misses you.”
“Do you trust him, Ellis? ”
Shafer’s only response was a grunt. The question didn’t merit an answer.
“Really,” Wells said, not sure why he was pressing the issue. “Do you? ”
Shafer sat on his desk — and knocked over a bottle of Diet Coke. He hopped up like he’d been scalded. Wells grabbed the bottle while it was still mostly full and set it on the coffee table.
“Still have your reflexes,” Shafer said.
“I try.” Wells didn’t mention the endless games of Halo he’d played in New Hampshire, trying to stem the inevitable decline in hand speed that came with age. He didn’t know if the games would do him any good in a gunfight, but he was an impressive killing machine on planet Reach.
“You can’t say you trust Duto or don’t,” Shafer said. “His value system doesn’t include trust. Your interests overlap, he’s your friend. He may even tell you the truth. Once he stops needing you, that’s that. It’s like, I read about this Hollywood producer, he wrote two memos every time he made a movie. One about how great the movie was, the other about how bad. When the movie came out and he saw how it did, he decided which memo to keep. It wasn’t that one was right and the other was wrong. They were both true, until they weren’t. Get it? ”
“I get it was a stupid question.”
Shafer’s phone rang. He listened, grunted, hung up. “Let’s go,” he said.
They walked out of Shafer’s office, Tonka trotting after them. “Can I make one request? Can we leave the dog here? ”
“Not a chance.”
DUTO MET THEM in the executive quarters on the seventh floor of the New Headquarters Building, a conference room down the hallway from his suite. Wells guessed Duto had been warned about Tonka and didn’t want the dog in his office.
Duto had upgraded his wardrobe in the year Wells had been gone. He wore a blue suit that fit like it was hand-tailored, a white shirt, and a crisp red tie.
“Running for something? ” Wells said.
“You’re going to want to shave that beard now that you’re back in civilization, John.”
Despite his distrust of Duto, Wells found himself strangely relieved that the man was still in charge. At least they didn’t have to pretend to be friendly. “And this is Tonka,” Wells said.