Blowback

FIFTY

Brian Turner had spent enough time with the CIA to know that continuing to meet Senator Carmichael at his apartment was probably not a very good idea. The smart thing to do was to no longer hold any of their meetings in the same place twice. He also had to make sure he picked a hotel where the senator could come up to his room straight from the parking garage and not be seen in the lobby. The chic yet affordable Washington Plaza was the perfect choice. If Carmichael decided she felt amorous after their meeting, they could spend the evening together and order room service, and she could still sneak out via the garage later on with no one the wiser. If she didn’t feel like staying, Turner could still take advantage of the magnificent room he had overlooking one of the best outdoor hotel pools in DC and troll the Plaza’s very funky bar, known as one of the hottest young pickup spots in town.

Having arrived well in advance of the senator, Turner decided to kill a little time downstairs in that selfsame bar. Ordering his favorite drink, a double-dirty Absolut martini with extra olives, he settled back and listened as one of his all-time favorite albums, Mothership Connection by Parliament, played overhead. God, he hated DC, but moments like this, when he found a slice of culture in the vapid city, almost made it worth living there.

Halfway through his third martini, Turner looked at his watch and realized he’d lost track of time. Throwing a fifty-dollar bill down on the table, he zipped out of the bar and hopped an elevator up to his room.

As the doors opened, he prayed to God he wouldn’t see Carmichael in the hallway waiting for him, and thankfully, he didn’t. Opening the door to his room, Turner had just enough time to take a leak and rinse his mouth out with one of the complimentary bottles of Listerine before he heard the senator’s familiar rap on the door.

“Good evening, Helen,” he said with a smile as he showed Carmichael into the room.

“What the fuck’s going on, Brian?” she replied as he closed the door. “I thought we were only going to communicate via e-mail from now on.”

Feeling no pain, Turner’s smile never wavered as he replied, “For normal communications, that would make sense, but tonight I have something special to show you.”

Carmichael ignored the seat her young lover offered her and instead chose to remain standing in the center of the room. “So what is it?”

“I don’t even get a kiss?” asked Turner as he held out his arms, the liquor getting the better of him. “I’m going to start thinking that you don’t care about me anymore.”

“Are you drunk?” demanded the senator. “I can’t fucking believe this. I came all the way down here and you’re shit-faced.”

“Helen, please,” said Turner, bobbing his head a little too much as he accentuated his words.

“Please what?” she asked. “Why am I here, Brian?”

Turner smiled again and did a little dance. “Because I have discovered something that will be the final nail in Scot Harvath’s coffin. The coup de grace, if you will.”

Close to heading for the door, Carmichael decided to slow down and hear the young CIA man out. Sitting on the edge of the room’s king-size bed and crossing her legs, she replied, “So what do you have for me?”

Turner held up his finger, as if to say, I’ll be right back, and disappeared into the suite’s dressing area, where the closet and room safe were. A moment later he reappeared waving a thin folder in the air. “I told you the proof was out there somewhere.”

“Proof of what?”

“That the president really has been using elements of the intelligence community for his own personal hit squad.”

Carmichael couldn’t believe her ears. “What did you find?”

“After-action reports,” he said proudly as he handed her the dossier. “After-action reports for off-the-books, black ops assignments that supposedly never existed.”

“How’d you get your hands on these?” asked the senator as she flipped through the pages. “Nobody just leaves intelligence like this lying around.”

“It was hardly lying around,” said Turner, feeling cocky. He was doing exactly what he needed to do to seal a position in her cabinet. He was proving himself indispensable. “Basically, it all comes down to having the right access and the correct knowledge. I’ve been at the agency long enough to develop both.”

The senator tried to mask how excited she was to get her hands on such valuable information. As she continued reading, she asked, “And Scot Harvath played a role in these off-the-books assignments?”

“They allude to someone who I definitely believe is Harvath,” replied Turner.

“How about the president? Can we tie him to any of these operations?”

“Not yet,” said the CIA man, “but once I can put Harvath in the picture, I think we’ll have the president as well.”

“How much longer?”

“If things continue to pan out, I think we’re only talking a matter of days. Possibly by the end of the week.”

The senator thought about the press cycle, her hearings, and the announcement she was going to make that both the president and his chief of staff had been served. This additional information was exactly what she had been counting on. “Whatever it takes,” she said, “do it. And do it fast.”