Hothouse Orchid

4

Holly dressed for dinner in starched designer jeans, a blue chambray work shirt and skinny lizard cowgirl boots. Ham had always liked it when she dressed like a boy. She checked herself in the mirror. Since she had lost the weight and colored her hair a lovely auburn she had liked her looks a lot better. She was a good five-ten in the boots, and Ham liked that, too. She wanted him happy tonight.

Holly and Daisy arrived at Ham and Ginny’s only ten minutes late, and she could smell the meat roasting on the back-porch grill. Ginny greeted her with a hug at the front door and let Daisy put her paws on her shoulders and give her a big kiss. Ginny poured them both a Knob Creek on the rocks and another for Ham, then they went out on the back porch to watch his beef-burning skills on display, searing the biggest, thickest porterhouse steak Holly had ever seen.

“Did you shoot that yourself?” Holly asked.

“I roped it down at the prime butcher’s shop,” Ham replied. “You wouldn’t believe what it cost.”

“Yes, I would.”

“I charged it to your credit card,” Ham said. Holly had given him a very special kind of credit card, one that tapped into a secret bank account she kept in the Cayman Islands.

“Figures.”

“So, what’s happening in your life, baby girl?” he asked.

“Well, I’ve got some good news and some bad news,” she said, sighing.

“I always like the bad news first.”

Holly took a deep breath. “Hurd Wallace is retiring as chief, and the new chief is Colonel James Bruno.”

Ham dropped the tongs he had been holding and bumped his head on the hot grill when he picked them up. “How the fuck did that pig happen here?” he demanded.

“Try and relax, Ham; it’s not a conspiracy.” She told him what Hurd had told her at lunch. “Promise me you’re not going to go down there and shoot him.”

“Don’t you think I have any self-control?” he asked.

“Yeah, sure.”

“I’ll wait until after dinner to go down there and shoot him.”

“That’s what I thought. I hope I didn’t ruin your supper, but you wanted the bad news first.”

“Tell me the good news; maybe it’ll help me get over it.”

“I got promoted.”

“To what?”

“Assistant Deputy Director of Operations-ADDO.”

“What was it you were before?”

“Assistant to the deputy director of operations.”

“There’s a difference?”

“Of course there is. Assistant to made me sound like a glorified secretary, though, of course, I was a lot more than that. Assistant deputy director means, I think, that I’ll have some authority of my own.”

“Authority to what? Assassinate people? Because if that’s the case, James Bruno ought to be your first hit.”

“No, no, Ham. It just means that when I give an order I don’t have to preface it with, ‘Lance Cabot asked me to tell you to…’ ”

“Does it mean that if Lance dies you get his job? Because if it does, I’ll shoot him for you.”

“No, it doesn’t, Ham, and I want you to get your mind off shooting people. You’ll screw up your digestion, and that chunk of cow you’re flaming is going to take a lot of digestion.”

“I guess Lance’s job is a lot of politics,” Ham said.

“You’re right, and Lance says I’m shitty at the politics. Not as shitty as he thinks I am, but I could do better, and I’m going to surprise him by doing it.”

“Pretty soon you’re going to have Kate Lee’s job,” Ham said.

“Not while Will Lee is president,” Holly said. An act of Congress had allowed the president to appoint his wife, who was a career CIA officer, as director. Holly looked at Ham closely. “How’s your blood pressure?”

“Returning to normal,” Ham said, taking a swig of the Knob Creek. “Well, almost normal. I hope Bruno likes to fish, because if he does, I’ll catch him on the water and drown him.”

“Careful, the BP is going up again. Drink more bourbon.”

Ham did.

“You doing any flying?” Ginny asked, by way of changing the subject. Ginny ran her own flying school at the Vero Beach airport.

“No time,” Holly said. “I miss it, too.”

“Why don’t you come out to the airport tomorrow, and I’ll give you a biennial flight review and an instrument competency check.”

“Good idea,” Holly said. “Let me call you in the morning and set it up.”

“You want your steak rare?” Ham asked.

“No, I want it medium rare, and that means when I stick it with a fork, I don’t want it to moo.”

They dined on the huge steak, which Ham had sawed into human-sized chunks, baked potatoes and a Caesar salad along with a big, fat California cabernet. Daisy dealt with the bone.

Ham, who had been quiet, finally said something. “Tell me, what was the most fun you’ve ever had at your job?”

“You just want me to tell you some secret stuff, don’t you?”

“If you really want to. I just want to know if you’re having any fun.”

“Well, a few months ago I got to pose as an assistant director of the FBI and serve a phony court order on the editor of the National Inquisitor.”

“You’re shittin’ me!”

“I shit you not.”

“God, I hate that rag,” he said. “I hope you gave the guy a really hard time.”

“Oh, I did, and I savored every moment of it.”

“I thought the Agency wasn’t supposed to mess around in domestic stuff,” Ham said with false naïveté.

“Oh, I was never there,” Holly said. “The minute I left his office I ceased to exist, and so did what I did there. Or rather, what I didn’t do.”

“Just don’t get caught not doing it,” Ham said.

“I’ll do my best.”

“How was the Farm?” The Farm was Fort Peary, the Agency’s training facility for new officers.

“Hard but fun. You’d have been proud of my shooting.”

“I heard,” Ham said. “The best ever scores by a trainee.”

“You heard? You’re not supposed to hear; we’re talking about the CIA.”

“I heard. I got a call from your instructor. He was properly awed, and, of course, he gave me all the credit.”

“He said he knew you, but…”

“I kicked his ass in the national championships one year.”

They ate and drank on, enjoying each other. Holly hadn’t had such a good time since she had joined the Agency.