chapter 35
ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA
NASH parked his minivan next to a beat-up Ford Taurus and walked into the Safeway Food and Drug. He grabbed a cart and began to amble through the produce section. The only thing he really needed was milk for Charlie, but he had other reasons to be at the store. He grabbed a half dozen bananas, two large grapefruits, and a cantaloupe. A few aisles down he grabbed some peanut butter because he'd learned in the past that they could never have enough peanut butter. In the next aisle he saw the guy he was looking for waiting for him in front of the taco shells. His blond hair was poking out from under his Washington Nationals baseball hat.
Nash pulled up beside him and looked back down the aisle to make sure the other shoppers were out of earshot. Keeping his eyes on the taco shells, Nash said, "How are you, buddy?"
"Better than you." The man was about the same size as Nash, although maybe a little thinner and a decade older.
"No doubt," Nash said as he remembered Monday night was taco night. He took a box just in case.
"How are the kids?"
"Good."
"Charlie?" he asked as he read the back of a box.
"He uttered his godfather's favorite word this morning."
The man turned his head and looked at Nash. "You f*cking kidding me?"
"I wish I was."
"That's great."
"No, it isn't," Nash said seriously bothered. "He's only a year old."
Scott Coleman began laughing silently to himself. He'd known Nash for a little more than seven years and they'd grown very close. Coleman had been the one who brought Nash to the attention of Rapp. That was back when they were running around the mountains of Afghanistan having the time of their lives hunting Taliban and al-Qaeda. Now the pussies were hiding on the other side of the border and the Pakistanis wouldn't let them come over and finish the job.
Smiling and talking out of the side of his mouth, Coleman said, "You need to lighten up, buddy. I've told you before, the key to this shit is to never take it too seriously. The moment you do that, you lose your edge, you lose your nerve, and then you're going to f*ck up."
Nash had heard the lecture many times before. Coleman, almost ten years his senior, was a former SEAL, and had been running his own security and consulting firm in D.C. since just before the attacks. The deluge of money that had been pumped into security firms had made him a wealthy man, but not as wealthy as he could have been. Coleman made the conscious decision to stay small. He had no interest in running a big company and managing hundreds of people.
Nash asked him, "You read the paper this morning?"
"Yeah." Coleman grabbed a box of shells, set them in his cart, and started moving. "You'd better hope those pricks on the Hill don't dig too deep, or you're f*cked."
"I just left a hearing with the Intel folks. It was a real joy."
"Any idea how this Commie reporter got his info?"
Nash turned the corner and grabbed a bag of Doritos. "I have a short list."
"Let's hear it."
"In a moment. This reporter... Joe Barreiro... you have any problem setting up passive surveillance on him?"
Coleman scanned the next aisle and said, "Nope."
"Good. Check the nearby pay phones first and then the e-mails. You still have your back door into the Post's server?"
Coleman laughed.
"What?" Nash asked wondering what he'd done wrong now.
"Look at you. All grown up and telling me how to do my job."
Nash looked embarrassed. Maybe even a little beaten. "Sorry, I know you know what you're doing. This is more for me, so I can just cross it off my list."
"Fair enough. I don't want you to burn out."
"Scour his hard drive as well as his editor's, and check the people who sit by him just to make sure. And his kids... don't forget to look at their phones."
"If you give me the list of suspects it'll be quicker," Coleman offered.
"Let me think about it," Nash said, his eyes narrowing.
"If they've met face-to-face, I can look at the cell tower records and find out if they overlapped at all in the last month."
Nash thought about it for a moment, weighed the pros and cons, and decided he really didn't give a shit. He needed to unload some of this stuff, and who better to trust than Coleman. In a voice barely above a whisper he said, "Glen Adams."
Coleman nodded slowly at first and then more enthusiastically. "It figures. The f*cking narcissist. He'd hate anyone who was good at your job. He wasn't worth shit back when he was operations."
Nash agreed and said, "I need you to move quickly. I need to know how much they know and how they know it."
"I'll get on it tonight. You going to be around for Rory's game on Saturday?"
Coleman was referring to Nash's fourteen-year-old son. "If I'm not in jail."
"Come on... don't be so morose. Your one-year-old son is well on his way to mastering the greatest word in the English language."
Nash smiled. Thought of Charlie dropping the F-bomb at the breakfast table. The look of absolute horror on his wife's face. "I'll tell you the story about it some time over a beer. It's pretty funny. If you're in the neighborhood this week, stop by for a drink."
"I don't know, things are pretty crazy and now you want me to get on this..."
"Maggie and the kids would love to see you."
Without missing a beat, Coleman said, "I know Maggie would."
"Why are all you SEALs such pigs?"
"Oh, and you Marines are such a dignified lot."
Nash grinned. "We are charming bastards, aren't we?"
"You look good in your dress blues, but that's about it." Coleman turned down the next aisle and over his shoulder said, "Keep your dobber up."
Great, Nash thought as he stared at Coleman wheeling his cart down the aisle. Just what I need, another reminder about last night.