as big an asshole as Brodie had made him out to be. Hard to know from the slim testimony of Maggie Taylor. But in his experience, all ex-boyfriends of women he was interested in were monumental assholes. More importantly, Trent was involved in something murderous. Maggie Taylor understood that, but… something kept her from telling her ex to stop communicating with her. This was not the first time he’d seen this in his personal and professional life. He called it the Bonnie and Clyde Syndrome. “Please continue.”
She looked at him. “Why do I think you’re being judgmental?”
“Comes with the job.”
“You’re not supposed to show it during an interview.”
“Right. But… well, I’m concerned.”
“It almost sounds like you care about me.”
“I almost do. Please continue.”
“All right… So, when I got back to Bragg, he came to my apartment to welcome me home… He had a bottle of champagne.”
Brodie wished he had a CIA expense account, but he kept that to himself.
“We talked about what I was going to do next, and I said I was thinking about applying to the CID.”
“Did he take that as a veiled threat?”
“He didn’t seem happy with my new career choice.” She thought a moment and continued, “He seemed to be trying to decide if he needed to be charming or not so charming. I mean, I could see right through him. Then he wanted to… be intimate. I said no, I was still recovering—I wore shorts so I could show him my scars, which were still purple and gross… I wanted him to see this, and I wanted him to understand that I was not the impressionable girl he’d known.” She looked at Brodie.
“I understand. What I don’t understand is the purpose of you inviting him to your apartment.”
“He invited himself.”
“All right, but a public place might have been better.”
“I wanted to show him I wasn’t afraid to be alone with him.”
Brodie nodded.
“After Afghanistan, there’s nothing I can’t handle.”
“Right. But I hope you had a gun handy.”
“I did.”
“Good. So… who broached the subject of Mirabad?”
“I did. I told him I thought he’d used me, and that the information I’d given him about Mirabad led to what happened. I thought he was going to tell me I was crazy, or that he found out that it was the Taliban that did it, but he dropped the charm and told me if I ever said anything about this to anyone, I would be jeopardizing an important wartime strategy, and that if there was an investigation, the Agency would prove from my written reports that I knew exactly what I was doing, and that if people were indicted, I would be one of them. And not only would he not protect me, he would testify that I was an active participant in Operation Flagstaff, and that I was not the dumb, clueless girlfriend I was claiming to be.” She seemed to be getting angry at this recollection and continued, “He said if he was going down, then I was going down with him. And that I was looking at five to ten years in a federal prison.”
Brodie nodded. The old CIA would have just thrown her out a high window. They’d really gone soft. He asked, “How did you respond?”
“I told him to leave.”
He was happy to hear that Trent didn’t get laid. “And did he?”
“When I say leave, I mean leave.”
“I’ll remember that.” Her mommy should have given her daddy the same choice instead of blowing him away. Maggie Taylor, however, was an officer and a lady, though she was also probably only one hillbilly gene away from pulling a gun on her cheatin’, lyin’ skunk of an ex-lover.
“What are you smiling at?”
“Was I? Must be the rum. So he left. Did you hear from him again?”
“No.”
He wanted to re-ask the question, to get the right answer, but his cell phone rang and he saw it was the Apex number, so he took it. “Bowman.”
Ms. Muller said, “I can confirm your flight, Mr. Bowman.”
“Wonderful. I was afraid my wife’s credit card was maxed out again.”
“Please be at Francisco de Miranda Airport no later than two forty-five A.M. for a three-fifteen departure. Captain Collins will meet you and your wife at Hangar One. He has both your cell phone numbers if there is a problem.” She gave Brodie Captain Collins’ cell phone number and also advised him that he could call the Apex eight hundred number if he couldn’t reach Captain Collins on his cell.