Mistress

Chapter 55

“Oh, please do tell me, Ben.” The CIA deputy director seems amused. “I’m waiting with bated breath as to why and how I’ll help you-a reporter for some rag that nobody reads, pushing a story that nobody will believe.”

I’d really like to smack this douche bag. I’ll have to settle for scaring him.

“Mr. Carney,” I say. “You remember Gary Condit?”

Typical of his manner, he doesn’t move an inch, but the giveaway is a slight twitch of his eye.

“Congressman Condit didn’t kill Chandra Levy,” I go on. “All he did was sleep with her. Affairs happen all the time, and they sting you politically, but you almost always recover from them. You hold a nice press conference with your stoic wife at your side, humbly concede your imperfection with vague statements like ‘I’ve made mistakes’ or ‘I haven’t been perfect,’ throw in a reference to God and, if necessary, some rehabilitation or therapy-and voilà, you win reelection.

“But Gary Condit, he had the bad luck of having an affair with a woman who wound up dead. So even though he had nothing to do with her death, he was tainted by asso-”

“Do you have a point here, Mr. Casper?”

So now it’s Mr. Casper. “Oh, I just wonder how it’s going to affect your political career when it comes out that you had an affair with a woman who killed herself.”

Carney wets his lips. His face reddens, but he’s doing his best impression of a mannequin. It’s not hard for him. He’s had a lot of practice.

“Kind of a catch-22, isn’t it, Mr. Carney? I mean, if we’re supposed to believe she’s dead, then you have to stick with that story, right? So now it’s former congressman and current deputy CIA director Craig Carney having an affair with a woman who jumped off a balcony. How do you think you come off in that story? Good? Bad? Ugly?”

(Possible Clint Eastwood mind-scroll here. But I’m a little busy right now.)

Carney’s jaw clenches. I know what he’s itching to say: That affair with Diana ended years ago. Which, according to Diana, is true. But we both know that’s just a detail. He’ll have to admit to the affair to make that distinction.

“You look like the cat who ate the canary, Mr. Deputy Director.”

He blinks his eyes rapidly, digesting that comment. Damn. I think I was right the first time, and Ashley Brook was wrong. I should have gone with the hand-in-the-cookie-jar line. Another lesson to all of you-go with your first instinct.

After a long pause, which I have to put down as some of the best thirty seconds of my entire week, Carney clears his throat and comes forward in his chair.

“Young man,” he says evenly, but I detect a tremble in his voice. “Do you have any idea how much trouble you can get in by blackmailing the deputy director of the CIA?”

I shrug my shoulders. “Is it worse than a needle in my arm for murder? Remember, Mr. Carney, you all have done such a good job of fucking with my world that I don’t have much to lose.”

I get out of my chair and button my sport coat. It’s a new one I bought yesterday at J.Crew on M Street, as I continue my nomadic existence. It’s a denim job, a more casual look for Benjamin Casper, reporter turned fugitive.

“I have proof of your affair and I’ll publish it,” I say, framing my hands for the headline. “A conservative, law-and-order, family-values politician, now guarding our central intelligence, caught in steamy affair with top aide who killed herself in despair. Ah, but the police are also looking into the possibility that she didn’t jump, that maybe she was pushed off that balcony. She was murdered. Gee, who might be a suspect? It could take as long as, oh, ten or twelve seconds before every mainstream news outlet in the country is running the story. Are you ready for that kind of publicity? Is your wife?”

I lean over the desk, so we can have a nice eye-to-eye parting. “The words Operation Delano might find their way into the story, too. It’s already been written, by the way. Killing me won’t stop the story.”

I straighten up, nod to a visibly shaken Craig Carney, and head for the door.

“You have twenty-four hours, Mr. Deputy Director,” I say. “Give me some answers, or you’ll be back in Des Moines selling tractors to farmers. And the president will be thinking of someone else as his next CIA director.”