The Faithful Spy

Exley stifled a sigh. Shafer’s oldest son had been studying Spanish all summer. Now Shafer had gotten into the act, dropping Spanish phrases at random into his conversations. Every mangled word grated on Exley, reminding her of her distance from her own kids. Plus, as someone who had worked hard to learn three languages, she found Taco Bell — style linguistic ineptitude deeply annoying. She held up the report. “Wondering if I should sell my apartment. Whether a dirty bomb will hurt property values.”

“Probably not,” Shafer said. “September eleventh was the best thing that ever happened to Washington real estate.”

“You’re not supposed to say things like that.”

“True though.”

And it was. The agency and the Defense Department had added tens of thousands of jobs after the attacks, propelling house prices in the D.C. area into the stratosphere. Another unintended consequence of September 11. Bin Laden surely hadn’t expected that he would make government bureaucrats rich when he hit the Pentagon. “Catch anything on the hundredth reading you didn’t see on the first ninety-nine?” Shafer asked. “Anything brilliant?”

“I leave the brilliance to you, Ellis. However. ” She fell silent, unsure if she wanted to talk about Wells right now. Patience was not one of Shafer’s virtues. “What? What?”

“Tell me something. We fix up customs and immigration. We’ve got gamma-ray detectors at the ports. We spent, what, ten billion dollars on this stuff last year? So why can you still walk in from Mexico?”

“Is this a rhetorical question? Because you know the answer as well as I do,” he said. “We want an open border so Mexicans can come in and do the jobs we’re too lazy to do ourselves.” He cocked his head. “Now, what were you really going to say? That wasn’t it.”

“You never let me get away with anything, do you?” Shafer knew her well. She had to give him that.

“Out with it.”

“You’ll think I’m obsessed.”

“You are obsessed. That’s why I like you.”

“I think this stuff from Farouk proves that Wells told us the truth.”

At the mention of Wells’s name Shafer wrinkled his nose like he’d stepped in a broken sewer. “John Wells?” Shafer said. “Mr. Invisible? The biggest mistake of my career?”

“He’s the first one who told us about Khadri. Farouk confimed it. And Farouk confirmed meeting Wells in Peshawar last spring.”

Shafer shook his head. “Great. So where’s he been since he ran away five months ago?”

“He didn’t run away. He escaped.” Because you let him, she didn’t say.

“Escaped, ran away, whatever. He’s gone. I fear the great Vincent Duto may be right about Mr. Invisible. I don’t think al Qaeda trusts John Wells any more than we do.”

“Do you ever think about him?” She couldn’t help herself now.

“What it must be like for him. They don’t trust him. We sure don’t trust him.”

“He knew what he was getting into when he signed up.”

“He couldn’t have expected to be undercover this long. Nobody could. I mean, he’s got to be the loneliest guy in the world.” She remembered what Wells had said when he’d called that night: “I don’t know how much longer I can do this.” The disgusted expression on Shafer’s face brought her back to reality. “I couldn’t care less how lonely John Wells is, Jennifer. I want some actionable intelligence from him. As in, intelligence upon which we can act.”

“What if he’s just waiting? Biding his time?”

Shafer sucked in his lip. He leaned into her desk and lowered his voice. “Jennifer, are you trying to tell me something?”

She shook her head. He looked around the office. “Do you want to have this conversation somewhere else?”

“No.” She was sorry she had brought Wells up.

“Then let’s move on to a happier topic,” Shafer said. “Why did Khadri tell Farouk where the bomb was hidden?”

“Why wouldn’t he? Farouk knows more about nukes than the rest of al Qaeda put together. He’ll probably get brought over to put it together.”

“But it’s already together, right?” Shafer said. “It’s sitting in that locker waiting to get picked up.”

Exley felt very dumb. “So al Qaeda—”

“Has at least one other person who knows how to play with plutonium.”

“Then why’d Khadri tell Farouk where it is? That’s a terrible operational breach.”

“Maybe Farouk isn’t the only one who knows,” he said, thinking out loud. “Maybe Khadri wants to be sure the bomb won’t rot in the locker if we catch him.”

“He can encrypt that info a hundred ways. Telling other people is the least secure system of all. It’s not logical.”

“Whoever built that bomb is logical as hell.”

“Interesting choice of words.”

“You want to joke around, fine. I have things to do.” Shafer began to walk out.

“Ellis, relax. I’m sorry.”

He stopped. “I just hate things that don’t make sense,” he said.

“And this doesn’t. This guy Khadri is playing with us.”

“There’s something else,” Exley said. “The bomb’s too small.”

“It’s all they have.”

“All the plutonium, maybe. C-4’s easy to find. Why not build something bigger? This thing will kill fewer people than a truck bomb.”