“We can take my car. We’ll have you right back here in no time.”

Another hand squeezed his right shoulder now. Babbitt turned to look, and a third man had materialized from thin air. They were all under thirty, all wearing suits, and they looked at him with pleasant smiles that, Babbitt knew, would disappear quickly if he did not do exactly what Carmichael wanted him to do.

“Fine,” he said, shaking the hands off his shoulders. “Let’s go talk to Denny.”

21

Leland Babbitt knew relations between Townsend and the CIA had never been worse, but the fact that he was here, walking down the corridor on the seventh floor at Langley, meant he still had the juice, and this pleased him greatly.

The drive to McLean had passed in silence. For much of it complete silence, because the moment Babbitt pulled out his phone to call his office and inform them he would be running late, one of the young men sitting next to him in the back of the Yukon took Babbitt’s phone out of his hand and said, “Sorry, sir. Operational security. No calls until we leave headquarters.” The phone disappeared into the jacket of the helpful yet ominous CIA officer.

At Langley Babbitt was processed quickly and placed in an elevator that took him directly up to the top floor. As the elevator door opened he was met by Jordan Mayes, who shook Babbitt’s hand as if today were just any other garden-variety day, and the impending meeting was nothing more than another discussion about contracts, fiscal year budgeting, or logistical allocations.

Babbitt waited in a conference room for several minutes; he and Mayes made a little small talk but there wasn’t much to it, and then Denny Carmichael entered, wrinkled and rail thin, as always. Carmichael always looked to Babbitt like a combat-hardened Abe Lincoln, as if the sixteenth president had spent his twenties through his forties fighting in the Third World, as Carmichael had.

Regal yet menacing.

Patriarchal yet savage.

Denny sat down at the table, folded his hands in front of him. Babbitt knew he’d get right to it, because that was Carmichael’s way.

The head of the Clandestine Service said, “Very well, Lee. You win this round.”

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t want you talking to Congress. Our temporary discord is not as important as the long-term headache that would create.”

“So?”

“So, we’ll fold you back into the hunt for Courtland Gentry.”

Babbitt had wanted to hear just this out of Carmichael’s mouth, but when he did hear it, he instantly became suspicious. “That quick? You went from ‘fuck you’ to ‘all’s well’ just like that?”