“Any more questions?” he asks.
Quiet.
The president stands up, and so do they.
“Good,” he says. “Now get the hell back to work.”
CHAPTER 32
ABOUT TEN MINUTES after their meeting, Liam is sitting on a park bench in Farragut Square, one block away from the Hay-Adams Hotel. Next to him, Noa says sharply, “Did you hear him back there? Did you?”
“I was in the room, right? Of course I heard him.”
“Help him and the empire? Empire? Do you remember taking an oath to defend an empire, Liam? I sure as hell don’t. And then he said something about the ‘ones fighting against me and our nation.’ You don’t think that’s odd, him identifying himself as being the nation? Like Louis XIV from France who said,L’état, c’est moi. Is that what we’re putting our asses on the line for?”
Around them pedestrians, tourists, and district government workers are strolling along, enjoying the sunny day and relatively dry air, and Liam feels the unseemliness of it all, that just a few minutes ago, they were in a nearby hotel suite, talking about destroying the nation’s enemies.
Liam says, “The boss was just exaggerating, that’s all. Lots of pundits and scholars say we’re an empire. Most are too polite to say it out loud.”
“The president of the United States shouldn’t be saying that, inprivate or out loud. And shouldn’t personally link external enemies to his own safety.”
Liam says, “At least he’s not using Twitter. Come on, you expect the president to be a constitutional scholar?”
“I expect him to do right, that’s what I expect. And not sound like he’s losing his grip on things.”
“And you’re the judge of that?” Liam asks.
“Somebody has to be,” she says. “You’ll keep on saluting and saying ‘yes, sir’ all the way to the congressional hearings, with your ass on the line, and me right next to you.”
Liam shifts so he gets a better look at her angry face. “All right, Noa, what’s your deal? What’s driving you? If you’re so straight, why in hell did you join the Agency?”
Noa says, “You’re ex-military. You wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me,” Liam says.
Noa says, “In this fight … I’ve always felt like we were the civilized ones, fighting against the ones enjoying blowing up kindergartens, taking down civilian airliners, shooting up shopping malls.”
“The CIA psychologists would probably think that’s a simple and crude assumption,” Liam says. “Even though I tend to agree with you.”
“Do you think those psychologists know what ZAKA is?”
Liam thinks he’s familiar with the term but plays along for Noa’s sake. “Probably not. Tell me about ZAKA.”
Noa stares out over at the calm and peaceful park, and in a voice that’s now slight, tentative, she says, “I’ve gone back to Israel a few times to visit family. Twice I’ve seen ZAKA in action. They’re a volunteer group that responds with emergency personnel if there’s a terrorist bombing somewhere. But they don’t work to help the survivors or work on the injured. No, they volunteer to recover the smallest piece of flesh, bone, or brain, so that in the traditional Jewish way, it can be properly buried.”
Liam keeps his mouth shut. “So you have our enemies usingour technology, from cell phones to bomb-making, and we—the civilized ones—respond by forming squads of volunteers to fulfill a burial obligation. More than two decades ago, the barbarians used the latest in aviation technology to attack this very city. But people forget. They’re still out there, waiting to strike again. They’ve killed your brother, and they killed my cousin Becky in Beirut, years back. And if, by joining the Agency, if I can help knock back the barbarians, I’ll work night and day to do so.”
“Nice point of view,” he says. “I grew up here in DC, long ways away from embassy row and fancy parties, with equally lousy schools. But my parents did the best they could, my dad working as a sergeant in the Capitol Police and my mom as an editor at the Government Printing Office. I saw from them what it was like to work with higher-ups who think they know it all, and I didn’t like it. Still don’t like it. Especially those bureaucrats who’ve never been in the field, have never seen what the bad guys can do.”
“Glad to hear that,” Noa says. “But what was that bit back there, about the vice president and the Russians and you?”
Liam says, “Need to know.”
Noa swears and says, “In case you haven’t figured it, chief, I’m handcuffed to you on this op. You and I are either going to get promoted, go to prison, or have a memorial star carved in a marble wall at Langley when this is over. I think I have a goddamn right to know.”
Liam looks around the crowded Farragut Square, wondering just how many of the people out there knew of Civil War Admiral David Farragut, who led an attacking Union force through Mobile Bay—the Confederacy’s last open port—and when he learned that the harbor was mined with objects called torpedoes at the time, issued that famous order.
“Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!”