It was late, well after eight P.M. As she worked on the file, Estes, the big African-American who was the director of the Counterterrorism Center, came out of his office and headed toward the elevator, spotted her light still on and came over to her cubicle.
“What are you working on?” he said.
“Syrian GSD. After the nineties, we don’t seem to have a lot.”
“I thought you were working on AQAP.” Estes frowned. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which mostly meant Yemen, was supposed to be her official assignment for CTC since coming back to Langley. “Is there a link?”
“Not sure,” she said, heart beating. She wasn’t supposed to be doing this. “Just vague stuff.”
“Not likely. Syrian Alawites and AQAP? They’re on opposite sides of the Sunni-Shiite divide. You’re not still on Beirut, are you, Carrie?” he said.
Christ, he’s quick, she thought. There was a split that divided the Muslim world between Sunnis and Shiites that went back centuries over who was supposed to be the Prophet Muhammad’s successor. Shiites believed that only Ali, the fourth caliph, and his heirs were legitimate successors to the Prophet. Syrian Alawites were a branch of Shiites, hardly likely to ally themselves with al-Qaeda, extremist Salafist Sunni Muslims. Estes, a Stanford undergrad and Harvard MBA, had picked up on it instantly. She had to keep that in mind. She was slipping, she thought. Running out of meds since coming back from Beirut. It had been a day since she’d taken a clozapine pill and she could feel herself getting ragged around the edges. Keep it together, Carrie, she told herself.
“Sometimes the lines cross. When it’s in their interest,” she said.
He thought for a moment. “That’s true.”
“What about the possible attack on the U.S.? Hear anything?”
“We’ve found nothing to corroborate what your bird said, Carrie. You’ve got to give us more.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him, Send me back to Beirut, but she didn’t say it.
“I’m still looking.”
“I know. Let me know if you find something,” he said, continuing on toward the elevator.
She watched him walk away. She liked the bigness of him, the color of his skin, the grace in his movement despite his size. For a second she fantasized about what sex with him would be like. Slow, strong, intense; she squeezed her thighs together. Her reaction caught her by surprise. This was getting crazy. Masturbation wasn’t going to do it. Maybe it was time she had a man. Real sex. But simple. No complications.
Forget Pineapple, she told herself. Forget Nightingale and Dima for a second. Get away and let the subconscious brain work on the problem. There was a connection she was missing. Nightingale and Ahmed Haidar and the Hezbollah Central Council and suddenly, Nightingale wants to kill or capture a CIA girl?
Why? Who for? GSD? Hezbollah? Somebody else? And after the Achilles break-in, why didn’t Beirut Station go into fire-drill mode? And key files from Damascus Station were redacted? And what did this have to do with an attack? There were too many pieces missing, she thought, turning off her computer and her desk light.
She went back to her apartment in Reston and changed clothes. What am I going to do about my meds? she wondered. Walla, she missed the pharmacy in Beirut, the one on Rue Nakhle in Zarif across from the Doctors Hospital. She could go in there, wave a prescription at them that she’d gotten from an old Lebanese doctor who’d write one for anything so long as you paid him cash in dollars or euros. She could get any drug in the universe there, no questions asked. In the Middle East, her Joe, Julia, had told her, “There are rules and then there are necessities. Allah understands everything. There’s always a way.”
She’d have to go see her sister. Not looking forward to that little conversation, she thought. Maggie was a physician, with a practice in West End, and a house in Seminary Hill in Alexandria, Virginia. The problem was, she couldn’t see a psychiatrist who could write her a prescription. The minute it was on the record, if anyone checked, she, Carrie, could lose her security clearance. Her career at the CIA would be over. It had to be done without a prescription. Off the record. She could call Maggie and go over tomorrow, she decided. Tonight, she needed to get out.
She picked out a silky red top revealing a bit of cleavage and a short black skirt and matching jacket that always made her feel sexy. It was while she was changing clothes and putting on her makeup, Coltrane and Miles Davis on the CD doing “Round Midnight,” the greatest track ever, the one that spoke of night and New York and sex and loneliness and longing and everything there was, that she started to fly.
It began with her looking in the mirror and thinking she looked good, with the makeup and eyelashes, and realizing that she was at her peak. Nature was working to make her as attractive as she would ever be in her life, because nature wanted procreation, and studying herself, she realized she was beautiful, that if she wanted, she could have any man, a hundred men, a thousand. The thought of it, of getting any man anytime, that they were powerless, that she could decide, was like an aphrodisiac. All she had to do was let them get close to her and they would follow like sheep. Nature.
Oh God, the music. Davis and Coltrane. It couldn’t get any better. She felt warm and happy and invincible. She would solve what had happened in Beirut. She would find out about Dima and get Nightingale. She would stop the terror attack and Fielding would have to eat it. Saul would be proud. She was sure of it, her body tingling.
The music went inside you right down your spine. Running out of the house, getting into the car, she drove Reston Parkway to VA 267, then into town across the Key Bridge and into Georgetown; Lester Young’s “She’s Funny That Way” on the CD player, and she felt better, sexier, more irresistible than she’d ever felt in her life.
Now, sitting next to Lawyer Dave at the bar, she leaned forward so he could get a peek at her boobs. Tiny, but the perfect size for a man’s hand to cup, and God knew the guys didn’t seem to care. They would paw at you, the idiots not knowing that if they just touched them the right way, squeezing gently but firmly with just the right amount of pressure, taking their time, they could have any woman they wanted.
“So what do you do?” he was asking.
“Why do you give a shit about what I do?” she said. “Let’s be honest. All you really want to do is have sex with me, right? I mean, stop me if I’m wrong here, because ten-to-one you’re married. Taking the ring off doesn’t fool that many girls except the stupid ones—and even they figure it out eventually, right, Lawyer Dave? So let’s cut to the chase, shall we? Do you want to take me out of here and screw my brains out or don’t you?”
He stared at her, stunned, cautious.
“You’re wearing a ring too,” he said.
“Damn right, I’m taken. Don’t fall in love with me. Don’t even fall in like with me. Don’t get obsessed with me. There’s no future, no romance, no bullshit. There’s just tonight. Take it or leave it. You don’t want to, you want to think about your sweet little wife and kiddies back at the other end of your commute, get off that bar stool and free it up for someone a little more honest about what he really wants in this screwed-up world,” she said.
“You’re really something,” he said.
“You have no idea.”
He put down his beer and stood up.
“Let’s go,” he said.
“Where?”
“Your place.”
“Uh-uh. You don’t get to find out where I live.” She shook her head and downed the rest of her margarita. “Besides, hotshot. You trying to tell me you can afford a Rolex and you can’t afford condoms and a hotel room?”