“I’m done fucking around, here, Angus. Here is what you’re going to do. You’re going to get the people who have her to release her. I don’t give a fuck which agency has her. You are going to get them to let her go. At the same time, you are going to bless her so that she is never touched again. Do you hear me?”
“You expect her to be blessed? I don’t know that I can—”
“You can and you will. You’re also going to have the feds issue her a license to carry any goddamn weapon she wants to. Got that? She uses those weapons to fight for us.”
“All I can do, Jack, is see if—”
“I don’t think you understand, Angus. I’m not asking, I’m telling. Your ass, and the asses of a lot of people above your pay grade, are on the line right here, right now, and my finger is on the trigger.
“There are a lot of brave, unsung heroes working in those agencies. You used to be one of them. But there are also a lot of fucking assholes shifting the priorities of those intel agencies to their political schemes. Those rotten apples don’t give a goddamn about the country, they only care about political ends. If I pull the trigger a lot of those agencies are going to come crashing down. Including yours. Maybe it’s time that happens—”
“All right, Jack, calm down, calm down. There is no reason to get crazy. I’ll see what I can do.”
“You’re not going to ‘see what you can do,’ Angus, you’re going to fucking do it, period. I’m not playing games here.
“I want Angela Constantine released. I want her name cleared. I want her blessed. I want her licensed to carry anything, including a goddamn rocket launcher if she wants one so that no one can pull this crap again. And I want everyone—everyone—to leave her the hell alone from now on. Make one misstep here, Angus, and it’s all over for you and a lot of other people. Is that clear?”
“Yes, all right, that’s clear. Let me go and get to work on this. But Jack, my people aren’t the ones who have her. I’m not running this show. I’ll need to drill down and find out exactly who is involved, what their game is, and then pull rank where I can and where I can’t, I’ll have to make some serious threats to get everyone marching to the same drum.”
Jack switched to a calm, quiet tone. “All right, Angus. You do that. I’m going to sit right here with eyes on that building. If one of those snipers pulls a trigger on me, or if anyone lays a finger on my asset, or they try to run to ground with her, or you don’t get her out of this exactly as I say—and right bloody now—you are going down, your agency is going down, and a whole lot of other people and agencies are going to find themselves in the middle of a wildfire they can’t control.
“I came back from the dead to save Angela Constantine. That should tell you how serious I am. I’ve never threatened you before, Angus—you know that—but I’m threatening you now. I think you know I’m not bluffing.”
“No, Jack, if there’s the one thing I know about you it’s that you don’t bluff. But please, this is going to take me some time to unwind.”
“Do you have the number of this phone?”
“Yes.”
“You go unwind it and then call me. I’m not going anywhere until this is resolved. And Angus, the longer I sit here, the itchier my trigger finger is going to get.”
He hung up without waiting for a response.
As Jack sat in his car, watching the federal building, he fumed as he thought about what they were putting Angela through. It was Saturday, so no one went into the federal building, but there were other businesses open. All day long people came and went. The snipers on top of the federal building had vanished shortly after Jack’s call with Angus ended.
But still, Angela didn’t come out. He knew how terrifying those people could be in an interrogation. He had to smile to himself. He guessed they couldn’t hold a candle to how terrifying Angela was at running an interrogation.
Angus called every few hours to assure Jack that he was working on it. Gradually, over the course of those calls, the man warmed up to Jack and little by little came to realize he wanted to be working on the same side as Jack—the right side. Jack thought it sounded like Angus gradually came to remember the kind of man he used to be, and why he had wanted his job.
Politics were a plague to dedicated agents like Angus, but he had to play the game. Over time it was corrosive. What was going on with Angela Constantine for political reasons was more than wrong and had nothing to do with legitimate national security. Throughout the day, Angus became ever more intolerant of it. Jack assumed that part of the reason was that Angus was encountering resistance, and Angus didn’t appreciate resistance. He expected his calls to be taken and his orders to be followed.
In early evening, Angus called again.
“I’m still working on it, Jack. Sit tight. I’m going to get this straightened out, I swear. I’m on your side, here.”
“Right now, I’m on Angela’s side. I want this ended.”
“I know, I know. Please understand, it’s more complicated than you realize. I’m dealing with a lot of hotheads who think that executing her as a traitor will make their careers. They’re still interrogating her. They want a quick conviction and execution.”
“She’s innocent. What could they possibly get out of her?”
“Honestly? They are pushing her to sign a confession. So far, they haven’t let her rest or have any water. So far, though, they’ve only gotten three words out of her.”
“What three words?”
“The only thing she’s said to them—the only thing—is ‘Go fuck yourself.’ That is one tough girl.”
Jack had to smile. “I know. Get her out of there, Angus.”
“I’ll call back as soon as I’ve cracked this nut and gotten everyone down on the carpet at my feet.”
After he hung up, Jack rubbed his eyes as he slid down in his seat a little and then folded his arms. He was tired, worried, angry, and frustrated. He knew that he had to rely on Angus’s sense of self-preservation.
Sometime in the late evening, Dvora called. She told him that they were picking up a lot of internal friction between agencies. She said that whatever was going on behind the scenes, it was big.
“They want a scapegoat,” he told her. “Now that they have a rope around her neck they don’t want to let go.”
“Let me know as soon as you get her out.”
Jack promised he would, and then went back to waiting.
A little after midnight, his phone rang again.
He answered it immediately.
FIFTY-SEVEN
Agent Lumley placed the knuckles of his fists on the far side of the table and leaned in, his face hovering in close to hers. Angela was handcuffed to the chair she was in, so there wasn’t much she could do about it.
“I’ve about had it with you, Constantine.”
Angela didn’t say anything.
He slapped her hard enough that she thought it might have loosened some teeth. “You’re a worthless human being.”
She wiped the blood running from the corner of her mouth on her shoulder.
He straightened and took a long swig of water from a half-full bottle. He slammed the bottle down on the table in front of her.
“Thirsty?”
Angela stared off at nothing. She didn’t answer. With her wrists handcuffed behind her back she wouldn’t have been able to take the water bottle even if he had allowed it.
She was so thirsty that that was about all she could think about. Her tongue felt like it was turning to paste. She tried not to think about it. When she’d been in the hospital they hadn’t let her drink anything for a time. They had given her ice chips. She would love to have some ice chips.
She was dead tired, but her anger, at a continual slow simmer, kept her awake. That, and the way they yelled at her nonstop, asking, demanding that she admit her part in the terror group. The agents had waved a confession in front of her face countless times, promising her that if she would sign it, then she could have all the water she wanted and they would let her lie down on a bed and get some sleep.