BooksBarbecue
Back 3 a.m.
Chapters (67)
  1. :01
  2. :02
  3. :03
  4. :04
  5. :05
  6. :06
  7. :07
  8. :08
  9. :09
  10. :10
  11. :11
  12. :12
  13. :13
  14. :14
  15. :15
  16. :16
  17. :17
  18. :01
  19. :02
  20. :03
  21. :04
  22. :05
  23. :06
  24. :07
  25. :08
  26. :09
  27. :10
  28. :11
  29. :12
  30. :13
  31. :01
  32. :02
  33. :03
  34. :04
  35. :05
  36. :06
  37. :07
  38. :08
  39. :09
  40. :10
  41. :11
  42. :12
  43. :13
  44. :14
  45. :15
  46. :16
  47. :00
  48. :01
  49. :02
  50. :03
  51. :04
  52. :05
  53. :06
  54. :07
  55. :08
  56. :09
  57. :10
  58. :11
  59. :12
  60. :13
  61. :14
  62. :15
  63. :16
  64. :17
  65. :18
  66. :19
  67. 3:46 a.m.

I nod. “I didn’t know her very well. She left when I was six.”

“Still.”

I know. She was my mother.

I stare at the Director. I wonder if he is always so tight-lipped. Is this a trait he was born with or one cultivated over three decades of espionage?

“I’m sorry to hear about your mother,” he says. “But I’m confused where I come in.”

“The Department of Homeland Security flagged her as a Red Four.”

This doesn’t mean anything to the President, but with everything on his plate, he can’t be expected to know every code from every agency that reported to him. But LeHigh had been Homeland Security Advisor to President Obama and he knew damn well what it meant.

“What’s a Red Four?” asks Sullivan.

We both watch LeHigh. After a moment, he replies, “A Red Four is a high priority terrorist.”

“Wait, I thought you said your mom worked for the CIA.”

“She did.”

“Then why was she flagged as a Red Four?”

He stares at me and then it dawns on him. “Right. That’s what you want to know. That’s why you asked to meet with the Director.”

We both turn and stare at the Director.

“I’m not sure how you stumbled on all of this information, and whoever leaked it will probably not have a job come tomorrow,” says LeHigh, “but it still means nothing to me. I don’t know, nor have I ever known any Elena Janev.”

These might be the words he says, but his eyes say something different. His eyes are telling me that I am sticking my nose where it doesn’t belong. That I am barking up a tree that I shouldn’t be. There isn’t a squirrel in this tree. There’s a Bengal tiger.

“Why didn’t you go to the police?” asks Sullivan.

“The police got shoulder-tapped by DHS.”

“How did you kno—” He pauses. “Ingrid.”

I nod.

The text the President sent Ingrid flashes across my mind.

I shake it off.

“I have some contacts at Homeland,” chimes the Director. “I can look into it for you if you like.”

He smiles smugly.

He knows my mother and he knows why she was killed.

I ask, “Do the words “black site” mean anything to either of you?”

LeHigh can’t hold his eyebrows down.

“What does that have to do with anything?” asks Sullivan.

“You know all those black sites Obama shut down?”

The President nods.

“What if I told you that they weren’t all shut down?”

“That’s absurd,” barks LeHigh.

I pull a folded piece of paper out of my sweatshirt pocket and hand it to the President. It is the Huffington Post article from February detailing the more than twenty detainees still missing.