“I work for Denny Carmichael. He asked my colleague and me to come and collect you. He’d appreciate a brief moment of your time. For an interview, that is.”
Catherine King took a half step back towards the sidewalk. “As happy as I am to hear that, I’d rather not just jump in a car and go. I could use a little time to prepare myself. If his schedule has an opening in the morning I can—”
“I’m afraid Director Carmichael will be very disappointed in me if I don’t bring you right to his office.”
She couldn’t tell if the man was really as earnest as he appeared, or if this was all a ruse and she was about to be shoved into the car if she didn’t comply.
“Well . . . can I at least change clothes and drop off my mat first?”
“You look fine, but if you insist, I can take you by your apartment to throw something on. You’re up at Thirty-sixth and O, is that correct?”
Catherine swallowed. Of course the CIA knew where she lived. But having a CIA officer looming over her in the dark actually admitting he knew where she lived was more than disconcerting.
“I tell you what,” she said. “I have a suit at the office. It’s not far. Why don’t you take me there?”
The bald-headed man blinked once, but his smiling face did not change. He just said, “I’m afraid not. The director wants to speak with you confidentially on deep background, and he’d rather you did not communicate with anyone before the meeting. Just a security measure.”
“I see. Are you going to take my phone from me, too?”
“That won’t be necessary.”
Catherine King sat down in the back of the Mercedes. After the bald-headed officer closed her door for her, she had a thought. Quickly, she pulled her phone out of her purse. Holding it between her knees so the driver did not see her, she glanced down, then looked more carefully.
She was right in the middle of the nation’s capital, one of the largest and most technologically advanced metro areas on planet Earth, but for some reason her phone’s reception meter read No Service.
She dropped her phone back in her purse and bit her lower lip. As they drove in silence to her Georgetown townhouse, she tried to control her thoughts, so she could retain some control over the interaction that was soon to come, because she suspected the meeting between herself and Denny Carmichael would be less of an interview and more of a chess match.
—
Catherine had visited the seventh floor of the CIA’s Old Headquarters Building a few times in her career, but certainly never after normal business hours, and certainly never to meet with the director of the National Clandestine Service. Denny Carmichael had held the top operations job for several years now, and rumors that he would soon take over the directorship of the Agency itself as the first nonpolitical hire in decades looked plausible, as he clearly had the juice with the current administration, and the sitting CIA director had hinted in a recent interview that he wasn’t exactly in love with his work.
She was taken into a conference room and was offered water and juice, but nothing to write on or with. She’d done background interviews with CIA personnel before, of course, and it was standard that she took no notes. Still . . . tonight’s surprise pickup, the drive in the Mercedes, the sterile conference room on the legendary seventh floor . . . To Catherine this all had an air of stagecraft about it, and she wondered if the information she was soon to be given would be similarly manipulated.
Carmichael entered wearing a light gray suit and a burgundy tie. His tight face and his closely cropped salt-and-pepper hairstyle made him look to Catherine like a cross between Abe Lincoln and an emu. He offered a handshake but no smile, and she immediately detected a somber air about him. She wondered if he was going to speak about his close personal friendship with Max Ohlhauser. Catherine doubted the two men had been close; the rumors were that Denny didn’t even really like his kids, so she didn’t imagine he’d think much of some ex–chief legal council for his Agency, but from his solemn greeting she supposed he was here to talk about today’s events with an eye for carrying the right tone of grief throughout the meeting.
Carmichael was not a charmer. He didn’t ask about her at all, other than to open the conversation with, “You and I met once.”
The two sat down at the conference table, with Carmichael at the head and King on his immediate left.
Catherine said, “That’s right. In Baghdad. One of Saddam’s palaces. You were having coffee with Jordan Mayes. I forced my way to your table and introduced myself. You were pleasant, but you couldn’t wait to get away from me.”
A nod from Carmichael, though she half expected him to deny the charge. Instead he said, “And here I am, summoning you to me tonight. Times change.”
“I was told by the man you sent to collect me that you have agreed to my interview request. On deep background, of course.”
“Yes. I don’t usually do this, but events of the past few days warrant it.”