Robie sat across from the man in an office lined with bookcases. The light was low. There were no windows. Soft music played in the background.
The man across from him had a beard, was bald on top, and fiddled with a pipe. He had black glasses that he let slide down near the tip of his nose. He pushed them back into place and held up his pipe.
“No-smoking policy extends even here,” he said by way of explanation. “I’m addicted to it, I confess. Sorry state of affairs for a psychologist. I help others with their issues and I find I can’t solve my own.”
He held out a hand across the desk. “Alfred Bitterman. Psychologist. I’m like a psychiatrist, only without a medical license. I can’t prescribe the big-gun drugs.”
Robie shook his hand and then sat back. “I take it you know who I am.” He eyed the thick file in front of Bitterman.
“I know what the file says. That is not the same as knowing the man himself.”
“Enlightened statement,” said Robie.
“You are a veteran of this agency. You have accomplished many things. Some would say impossible things. You have received the highest official commendations the agency can bestow on one of its own.” Bitterman leaned across the desk and tapped his pipe against the wood. “Which raises the question of why you’re even here.”
Robie instantly started to glance around the room. Bitterman shook his head. “No surveillance,” he said. “It’s not allowed.”
“Who says?” asked Robie.
“The highest authorities at the agency.”
“And you trust that to be the case?”
“I’ve been here a long time. And in my work I have been privy to a lot of secrets, many from people high up in the agency.”
Robie looked interested in this. “And this gives you protection how? Something happens to you those secrets get sent to the media?”
“Oh, it’s not really that melodramatic. And it’s far more self-serving. You see, none of these ‘higher-ups’ would ever want these secrets to be recorded and later come out. Thus great pains were taken and multiple eyes ensured that the psychologists’ offices here are free from surveillance of any kind. You can speak freely.”
“Why do you think I’m here, then?”
“You have undoubtedly pissed off upper management. Unless you have another explanation.”
“No, I think that one covers it.”
“Jessica Reel is here as well.”
“She was an instructor at the Burner.”
“I know she was. A damn good one too. But she’s a complicated person. Far more complicated than most who come through here, and that’s saying something, for they’re all complicated, in a way.”
“I know something of her history.”
Bitterman nodded. “Did you know that I did her entry psych evaluation when she first came to us as a recruit?”
“No, I didn’t know that.”
“After reading her background file, but before meeting her, I was convinced that she could not pass the psych eval. There was no way. She was too screwed up by life’s events.”
“But she did pass, obviously.”
“Of course she did. She literally amazed me in our first meeting. And she couldn’t have been much more than nineteen. An unheard-of thing. I don’t believe the agency bothers recruiting field agents that have not graduated college. And near the top of their classes. If ‘the best and the brightest’ sounds archaic, it’s anything but. You can’t be stupid and unmotivated and succeed at the CIA. The work is too demanding.”
“You must have seen something special in her.”
“Perhaps, perhaps not.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Despite all my experience with reading people I’m not convinced that I was ever able to see the real person inside her, Agent Robie. I don’t think anyone ever has. Including probably you.”
“Janet DiCarlo told me roughly the same thing.”
Bitterman sat back, a frown creasing his features. “A tragedy. I understand that you are the only reason she’s not dead.”
“No, there was another reason. Jessica Reel. She’s also the reason I’m not dead.”
Bitterman tapped Robie’s bulky file. “I take it you two make a good team.”
“We have.”
“You respect her?”
“I do.”
“She has done questionable things in the past. Some have classified them as treasonous.”
“And now we jump to management’s side of things?” said Robie.
“I have to earn my paycheck, Agent Robie. I make no judgments. I don’t take sides. I just try to…understand.”
“But you’re here to evaluate whether I’m still psychologically fit for field duty. Not to figure out Reel.”
“I think those fields of inquiry may be interconnected. You made the decision to help her. Against orders. That is a serious breach of agency protocols. Even you must admit that. So the question becomes why a highly professional agent like yourself would have done that. Now that, Agent Robie, that does speak directly to the question of fitness to perform.”
“Well, if you’re judging that on the basis of my ability to follow orders, then I guess I’ve already failed the test.”
“Not at all. It goes deeper than that. Agents have not followed orders before. Some for reasons that later turned out to be indefensible. Others did so for reasons that later turned out to be justified. But even that is not definitive. Justified or not, not following orders is a very serious breach of duty. An army controlled by the whim of the lowest soldier is not an army at all. It is anarchy.”
Robie shifted in his seat. “I wouldn’t disagree with that.”
“And this was not the first time you so acted,” said Bitterman.
Now he opened the file and perused some pages. In fact, he took so long that Robie thought he had forgotten he was even there.
Finally, he looked up. “You didn’t pull the trigger.”
“The woman died anyway. And her very young son.”
“But not by your hand.”
“She was innocent. She was set up. The order for her death was not given by the agency. It was given for personal reasons by those who had infiltrated the agency. I did the right thing in not shooting her.”
“Based on what?”
“My gut. Conditions on the ground. Things I saw in her apartment that did not add up. All those things told me that something was off. I had never not pulled the trigger before. It was justified that time.”
“And then we come to Jessica Reel. You did not pull the trigger on her either. Based on what? Your instinct once more? Conditions on the ground?”
“A little of both. And I was proved right again.”
“Some at the agency don’t believe that.”
“And I know who they are, trust me.”
Bitterman pointed a stubby finger at him. “That’s the gist of it, Agent Robie, isn’t it? Can you be trusted? That’s what they all want to know.”
“I think I’ve proven that I can be. But if the agency wants me to be a robot and not exercise my judgment, then maybe we should part company.”
Bitterman sat back and seemed to be considering this.
Robie looked over his shoulder. “Do you regret not having windows?”
Bitterman looked behind him. “Sometimes, yes.”
“It’s hard to see what’s around you without windows. You tend to get cloistered, detached, and your judgment can be impaired.”
Bitterman smiled. “Now who is testing whom?”
“I’m just being transparent, Doc.”
“And I know better than that, don’t I?”
“How well do you know Amanda Marks?”
“Not all that well. She’s the new number two, of course. You don’t get there without being an overachiever. Her record is a brilliant one. Excelled at every level.”
“And she can be trusted to follow orders under any circumstance?” asked Robie.
Bitterman didn’t say anything for several long moments as a clock on a shelf ticked the seconds away.
“I have not performed a psych evaluation on her.”
“Best guess based on your observations thus far.”
“I would say that she is a good soldier,” said Bitterman slowly.
“Then you’ve answered my question.”
“But you haven’t answered mine, Agent Robie. Far from it.”
“So I failed the eval?”
“This is just the preliminary. We’ll meet again.”
“And how long am I being kept here?”
“That’s way above my pay grade.”
“And if it’s determined that I don’t measure up?”
Bitterman clamped down on his unlit pipe’s stem. “Same answer.”