me in the eye-- "if you hurt her, I'll find you, and I'll hurt you."
We stared at each other a long moment. I put out my hand and said, "It's not my intention to harm her, Kemp. That's a promise."
He stared at my hand, but never shook it. "Leave her alone. She's been through enough."
I did not say, "More than you'll ever know," though, in truth, I now knew more about Bian's problems than I wanted to. I felt a deep, deep sadness for her. At the same time, an alarm bell was making loud dings in the back of my head.
I left Kemp Chester standing in a courtyard, fuming. I walked back to the office of the G1, where I ordered the same clerk to find me a private office with a phone, which he did.
I called Phyllis's cell phone and didn't get an answer, so I chose the message option.
I left a brief and unexplained message to immediately place bodyguards around Hirschfield and Tigerman, or better yet, get them both out of town, or barring that, make arrangements for two funerals. I hung up and thought about my next move.
It was time to go home.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Jim Tirey kindly gave me a lift to the airport.
As I mentioned earlier, the route from the Green Zone to the airport includes Iraq's deadliest roadway--known with grim unaffection as Suicide Alley--so Jim's favor wasn't in the true spirit of generosity. He wanted to see me climb on the plane, and be 100 percent sure I ended up seven thousand miles out of his hair. Really, who could blame him?
We pulled up before the terminal, and Jim pulled up to the curb and slammed the SUV into park. I went around to the rear, withdrew my duffel, and looked around for a moment. The hour was late, yet the terminal was crowded and bustling with soldiers; from their gleeful expressions, they all were outgoing, not incoming. This was the first place I'd been inside this troubled land where people looked happy, and maybe the only place where they were sure tomorrow would be a rosier day. Tirey came around and we ended up, face-to-face, on the road.
He said, "Enjoy the flight."
I said, "Enjoy Iraq."
"Hey, my bags are already packed. Any day now, the long arm of OPR--that's the Office of Professional Responsibility, our Gestapo-- will have me on a plane back to D.C. for a long discussion about how this shit went down."
"D.C. is filled with idiots," I told him. He gave me a blank stare and I explained, "They think it's a punishment to boot you out of here."
He laughed.
During the drive, we had stuck to the kind of aimless chatter that did not distract us from identifying vehicular bombers who wanted to send us home in a box. There are no leisurely drives in Iraq, incidentally. If I haven't mentioned it, the place sucks. But we both knew there was a big piece of unfinished business, and I asked, "What have you heard from the Bureau?"
"Not a word . . . officially. I've got a pal in the Director's office, though."
"And?"
"He says I'll love Omaha, and Omaha will love me. Lots of free time, very quiet, very law-abiding citizens. It's impossible to screw up there."
"Hey, maybe there's a CIA station in Omaha. We'll get together. You know, prove them wrong." This prospect for some reason did not seem to excite him, so I offered him a synopsis of Drummond's Law. "Somebody else will screw up soon, and you'll be forgotten."
"Hey, I'm a big boy. I don't need--"
"Seriously. They'll send you someplace else that really sucks before you know it."
"I don't think so." He added, miserably, "That video of me with the reporter . . . they've sent it to the FBI Academy as a training aid for new agents. I'm famous."
I smiled at him, and he smiled back. A few seconds late.
Then came an awkward moment, and we stared into each other's eyes. He finally asked, "Did you do it?"
"Did you?"
He stared at me. "I saw that look the reporter gave you. I told Phyllis about it, too."
"No, I did not leak," I told him. He looked skeptical, however, and I told him, "I have an appointment with the inquisitor the moment I land--thumbscrews, rack, lie detector, the works. I'll be sure they send you the results."
"Do that." He smiled and said, "Tell them to ask what you really think of me."
"You . . . you don't really want them to