The Faithful Spy

at the doraville Public Library, Wells logged on to his gmail account. The orders were simple enough. Drive — Khadri specified that Wells had to drive — to Montreal. Pick up a package at a hotel. Drive back. Khadri had included a phone number for the contact he would meet in Montreal. The meeting was barely twenty-four hours away. He would need to move fast.

Back home Wells packed an overnight bag with the essentials: His field medicine kit. His flashlight. His black leather gloves. His knife, strapped to his leg. The.45 he had taken from Sami. He wrapped the pistol and silencer in plastic and packed them in a separate bag. He would have to hide them before he reached the border, but for this trip he wanted a gun. He left his other weapons in the apartment. He had gotten rid of his Glock the week before, tossing it into a deserted stretch of the Chattahoochee River fifty miles north of Atlanta. The gun had splashed into the black water and disappeared without a trace. Wells wished he could forget Qais and Sami as easily. Wells slipped his Koran into the bag as well. After everything that had happened, everything he had done, he wasn’t sure what he believed. Still, the book was like an old friend he hadn’t seen in a while. Maybe they didn’t have much to talk about anymore. But they had understood each other once, and that counted for something. He looked around the apartment one last time as he headed out. Lucy had died, but Ricky was still alive, swimming listlessly. Wells decided to give the fish a last meal. Somehow he didn’t expect to see the place again. No great loss. It had served its purpose. On his way out, Wells knocked on the door of his next-door neighbor, Wendell Hury, the old man whose television blared game shows through the walls of Wells’s apartment every day. They weren’t exactly friends, but Wendell was the only person in all of Atlanta who might notice that he’d gone. Wells felt oddly compelled to say good-bye. But though Wells could hear Wendell’s television through the door, the old man didn’t answer his knock. Wells waited a few seconds, then turned away.

w e l l s ro l l e d d ow n his windows as he passed through the suburbs and into the lush green woods of northeast Georgia. The September air was warm and humid, with thick clouds in the air promising a late-afternoon shower. Wells could feel sweat running down the small of his back. He flicked on the radio and skimmed between stations, not really sure what he was hoping to hear. Then he caught the fiddles of “The Devil Went Down to Georgia,” a great hokey country song from the Charlie Daniels Band that Wells hadn’t heard at least since high school.

The devil went down to Georgia

He was looking for a soul to steal

The song brought a grin to Wells’s face, his first real smile in weeks. He stomped on the gas for a moment, feeling the Ranger’s little engine rev and the pickup jump forward, then pulled his foot away and reminded himself not to speed. Even after the highway narrowed to two lanes outside the Atlanta suburbs, traffic was heavy and state troopers a constant presence. But the oversized signs and the road’s smooth macadam soothed him. Through South Carolina he hummed “The Devil Went Down to Georgia,” wondering what his comrades in the North-West Frontier would think of the song. Not much, probably. For the first time since he had come back to the United States he felt truly American. in north carolina the skies darkened. Rain broke against the windshield in sheets, and the traffic crawled forward through footdeep puddles. Outside Durham Wells stopped at a giant Mobil station. As the Ranger’s tank filled he punched Exley’s number into his cellphone. He should tell her about the message from Khadri. He could hear the purr of her voice as he dialed. But before the call went through he canceled it. Khadri’s message was too vague to be useful. The hotel could be a dead drop. As he had for their Atlanta meeting, Khadri would surely take precautions to make sure Wells wasn’t being trailed.

Wells didn’t want to involve the agency until he had something concrete, like the package — or, even better, Khadri. In any case no one at Langley would believe him. Even Exley would just tell him to come in, give himself up. No. To redeem himself he needed the package, whatever it was. He slipped the phone back into his pocket.

The rest of the drive went quietly. South of Washington, Wells turned east on 495, the route that would give him the widest possible berth around Langley. Again he fought down the urge to call Exley. He would have time later to tell her everything he wanted. if he lived.