chapter 27
BETHESDA NAVAL HOSPITAL
NASH caught the tail end of rush hour as he crossed the Chain Bridge. The Little Falls to the north wasn't so little. Heavy spring rains had the Potomac as swollen as he'd seen it in years. For all of the things that were wrong with Washington the vistas were not one of them. Nash rolled down his window and listened to the roar of the rapids. His headache eased a bit. When he reached the far bank his thoughts turned to Stan Hurley. The man was everything that epitomized the old CIA. An outsider might think it odd that Hurley, at seventy-eight, and officially retired from Langley for nearly thirty years, was on the mind of the CIA's director on this media-crazed morning.
For those who knew Hurley, however, it was far less a surprise that Kennedy had ordered Nash to go see the old man. In the business world, there is a top cadre of lawyers that high-powered people turn to when they get in trouble. These lawyers are experts at manipulating the system, and working behind the scenes to make their clients' problems simply go away. In the insular world of espionage, Stan Hurley was such a man. Brave, brash, and although one would never know by his appearance, fabulously wealthy. Unlike those high-powered lawyers, though, Hurley was as rough as a street fighter from the South Side of Philly.
He was a man who could, with a simple expression, send a chill down your spine, or bring a tear to your eye. There was no one else quite like him. Nash supposed Rapp was the closest thing he'd ever encountered, but Rapp was more of a single-minded force of talent and sheer determination. Hurley was whatever the situation dictated. He was a magician, an entertainer, a philosopher, an assassin, and a man with passions that at times could seem insatiable. He was without question the most colorful person Nash had ever met. He somehow always found a way to bring out in you the things you least wanted to discuss. This was both his gift and his curse. He forced you to confront your problems.
As Nash worked his way through the District toward Maryland, he asked himself what it was that Kennedy felt Hurley could do to solve his crisis. He either knew something that could help him out, or he had an idea that would more than likely keep him awake at night. That was another thing about Hurley. He was old-school and was not above using the most unsavory tactics to win his battles.
Hurley made him nervous and Nash wasn't afraid to admit it. It wasn't that he didn't like the man. He absolutely did. His wife adored him, his kids got a kick out him, and Nash himself couldn't help revering some of the man's accomplishments in the world of espionage. But the two men had chosen significantly different paths in life. Nash didn't like the fact that, with everything that was going on this morning, Kennedy wanted him to see Hurley. Hurley was the emergency brake. The ejection handle. The guy they went to when the options were slim and the problem was big.
It could be that Kennedy was losing her nerve, or, more accurately, her calm. There was no denying the fact that she had changed since the attack on her motorcade in Iraq the previous fall. She had been an extremely intelligent and capable boss who under the right circumstances might crack a smile, but would never under any circumstances show anger. Her patience, more than anything else, had amazed him. She was surrounded by passionate field operatives like himself, O'Brien, Ridley, and Rapp. Cowboys who were not afraid to speak their minds in a very forceful and sometimes uncouth manner. Even with all the big egos and big dicks speaking their minds, she'd keep her cool.
Things had changed since the abduction, though. She was far more prone to letting her displeasure be known, and her hallmark patience was all but gone. The thing that worried Nash the most was her new aggressive behavior. For years Nash and Rapp had been pushing for bolder operations. It was Kennedy who challenged their every idea and dissected their every move. She would patiently listen to their often harebrained schemes and then methodically shred their plans and expose the myriad of pitfalls. Her constant pushback made them sharper and their plans better. The ones that truly sucked never got off the ground, thanks to Kennedy's ability to extrapolate - to look at things from every conceivable angle and project them to the end.
Those days seemed to be gone. She was no longer challenging them. Nash feared that the war had gotten personal for her, and in her zeal to take the fight to the enemy, she was making careless decisions. Things were out of balance, and Nash couldn't shake the feeling that some eight-hundred-pound gorilla was about to jump all over him. He'd seen far too many good men and women get caught in Washington's incessant political cross fire. Real lives and national security were trashed for political and personal gain, and it was never pretty.
Nash pulled up to the main gate at the National Naval Medical Center and flashed his government badge. The guard signed him in and waved him through. After parking in the visitors' lot, Nash began what ended up being a twenty-minute search for a seventy-eight-year-old man who was supposedly laid up after his surgery. Nash eventually found him sitting in a wheelchair under a shady tree with a well-fed nurse fawning over him.
Nash's first observation was that the two looked a little too cozy. As he approached, he saw Hurley reach out and place his hand on the nurse's ample upper thigh. The nurse playfully slapped his hand away and started giggling.
Anyone else, Nash might have been surprised, or thought he was reading more into it than was wise, but not with Hurley. The man was a legendary p-ssy hound. He loved women and he loved to chase them. Eight feet away Nash stopped and cleared his throat. "I hope I'm not interrupting something."
D.C. had thousands of federal law enforcement officers who worked for everyone from the FBI to the U.S. Postal Service. Many of them fit a pretty basic description. Short hair, athletic build, dark, boxy suit, and bulges on each hip - one from mobile phones and the other from a government-issue sidearm. Mike Nash fit the bill perfectly.
Nash watched the nurse blush and said, "Miss, do you know you are associating with a known felon?"
Hurley roared with laughter. "Beatrice, darlin', don't listen to a word this moron has to say. Based on what I read in the paper today, I'm not the one who has to worry about going to jail. Now, honey, why don't you run along and give me a few minutes alone with my friend here. But don't go far, I want to be able to keep an eye on you. I don't want you flirtin' with any other patients."
"Oh..." She slapped him on his good leg. "You are just horrible." The nurse stood and retreated up the path.
"Wait till you get me in bed," Hurley said under his breath. "Then you'll see that I'm downright nasty."
The nurse looked back over her shoulder and asked, "Did you say something?"
"No, darlin'. I was just admiring that gorgeous figure of yours."
Nash unbuttoned his jacket and looked at the nurse's pear-shaped butt. She had to weigh as much as Hurley, if not more. "You are unbelievable."
"Use it or lose it, buddy."
"Yeah, right." Nash sat down on the bench. His shoulders slouched.
Hurley looked at him with the eyes of someone who'd spend a life studying people. "Everything all right with Maggie and the kids?"
Oh f*ck, Nash thought to himself. Here we go. He was afraid to look the old spook in the eyes. There were times like now when he'd swear the man was a mind reader. "Sure... everything's great. They love the fact that they've seen me for a total of about eight hours in the last two weeks."
Hurley grabbed a mobile phone out of his robe pocket and pressed a few buttons. The device was equipped with anti-eavesdropping measures to frustrate anyone who might try to listen in on their conversation. "What's going on?"
"You know how it is. I'm flying all over the place, and when I'm not flying and I'm supposed to be with them the damn phone is ringing."
"It's not easy. I f*cked up three marriages. Two kids talk to me... three don't."
"And then there's all the ones you don't know about."
Hurley nodded. "And then there's those. Shit, I bet I got another half dozen running around."
"At least."
"Who knows?" Hurley got a faraway look in his clear hazel eyes. "God, I had a lot of fun. That's one thing I can never complain about. I bet I bagged more ass than any spy in the history of the country."
"I bet any country. I'm amazed your pecker hasn't fallen off."
"Speaking of peckers... is everything okay between the sheets?"
The question caught Nash so off guard he was unable to play it off as nothing. His brain raced off in multiple directions wondering in quick succession; how Hurley could know, was it a lucky guess, did Maggie talk, or was his house bugged? His job was more conducive to fits of paranoia than perhaps any other occupation in the world, and now it had caused his brain to freeze half a second too long. Just long enough for Hurley to notice.
"Kid," the old spook said in a sad voice, "once you stop sleeping with each other, you're screwed."
"Okay, Yogi."
Hurley scooted forward, ignoring the reference to the great Yankees catcher and all of his upside-down sayings. "Kid," he said, "take those glasses off."
"Why?"
"Because I want to look you in the eyes."
Nash reluctantly took off his glasses.
"You've got the weight of this damn ungrateful country on your shoulders. I know because I've been there."
"You're still there."
"Not anymore. Shit, I was never in as deep as you are. Back in the day I could count on any one of a couple dozen senators and a good fifty congressmen to support what I was doing. And by support I mean a lot more than money. They understood that we had to operate in the shadows. That we were going to get our hands dirty and occasionally shit was going to blow up in our face. This new generation..." Hurley shook his head. "They're worthless."
"You're not going to get an argument from me."
"This shit festers. It all gets thrown into the pot whether you want it there or not. It's your own little personal goulash. You might not think one thing is going to affect another, but listen to me when I tell you it does."
"Yeah... I know."
"So tell me," Hurley said with genuine concern, "what's wrong with you and Maggie?"
"I didn't come out here to talk about my marriage."
"I know you didn't, but right now you're one of my starting pitchers and I need you to get your head screwed on."
"My arm feels great."
"Bullshit. I spoke with Irene before you got here."
"So?"
"She told me you lost your cool in front of Glen Adams."
"Big deal."
"She said Adams already filed an official complaint claiming that you physically assaulted him."
"All I did was grab him by the arm."
"You need to act like a professional. Especially around clowns like Adams."
Nash looked across the lawn and nodded. "Message received. What else?"
"I called Maggie."
"You called my wife?" Nash said in shocked voice.
"Yes. I've been hearing rumblings that you haven't been yourself lately, so I called her up. She's worried about you."
"She's always worried about me. Who wouldn't be?"
"Listen to me," Hurley said with a biting intensity. "We've got a lot in the offing right now, and you've got a ton of crap you need to attend to, so I'm going to cut through all the bullshit and put my cards on the table. I know you've had some difficulty raising the old flagpole lately..."
Nash didn't hear another word. He felt as if he'd just been tossed into a deep, dark pit. His own personal hell here on earth. This conversation was out of bounds in so many ways, all he could manage to say was "We're not going to talk about my personal life." Nash started to stand, but before he got far, Hurley reached out and with surprising strength yanked him back down.
"Yes, we are, and so help me God, if you so much as raise your voice at Maggie, I'll kick the piss out of you. You need to get your head screwed on and that means you need to make love to your wife and you need to do it quickly, boy. You're a goddamn ace. You know what an ace gets paid in the majors? The good ones are pulling in twenty million a year. How do you think those guys would perform if they got up on that mound and knew they couldn't get a hard-on? They'd get shelled. Their confidence would be shot."
"Stan, I hardly see what..."
"Just keep your piehole shut for a minute, junior. This job f*cks with your head bad enough, you throw something like this on top of everything else and you can become a liability real quick."
"I'm fine. It was a onetime thing."
"Then explain to me how you let some worthless suit like Glen Adams get under your skin this morning, because that's not the Mike Nash I know. The Mike Nash I know would never lose control like that."
As much as Nash hated to hear it, he knew Hurley was a little too close to the truth. With more attitude than was wise he asked, "So your point is?"
"My point is, numbnuts, that while you are diddling around with your dick, Rome is burning. That's the problem with this whole country. F*cking vast prosperity. No one has any real problems anymore. Ninety percent of the damn politicians in this town either think there's no war on terror, or if we'd just be nice to these zealots they'll leave us alone. Well, that ain't going to f*cking happen. The Huns are circling, and we're sitting around arguing about gay rights and prayer and guns and global warming and all kinds of bullshit. These idiots will eventually wake up to the threat, but by then it might be too late." Hurley looked over both shoulders to make sure no one was nearby and then said, "You need to get laid, boy, and then you need to find out who in the hell is leaking your operations to this f*cking reporter at the Post, and you need to put a bullet in his head."
"Come on, Stan. You can't be serious."
"About which part?"
"I'll take care of my love life, all right? Let's just take that one off the table."
Hurley ran a hand over his wrinkled face and said, "Kid, if someone at Langley is leaking shit to reporters, they're a traitor, and traitors in our business get taken out back and shot. At least they used to until all these PC pussies got involved and everyone lost their nerve."
"You want me to kill a fellow employee of the CIA?" Nash asked in near disbelief.
"You've killed plenty of men before. Don't tell me you're losing your nerve."
"I've never killed a fellow American."
"Well don't think of them as an American. Think of them as a traitor who is exposing an intelligence operation that has done more to protect this country than anything else we've done around here in a good twenty years. And now we've got confirmation that a third cell is out there. What the f*ck do you want to wait around for? You want a grade school full of kids to be taken hostage and slaughtered? You want to see a damn mushroom cloud over the Capitol?"
"No." Nash shook his head. These were the nightmares he'd lived with since 9/11.
"Then get your head screwed on, and get out there and get these f*ckers before they get us."