Part 5 (1/2)
”I've got to appear before White's committee tomorrow morning,” Michaels said. ”Bad as that?”
”I'm serious here, Alex. Somebody just posted to the net a list of all our sub-rosa ops in the Euro-Asian theaters.”
”Jesus!”
”Yeah. Every American spy in Europe, Russia. China, j.a.pan, Korea-all of them have just been outed. State is c.r.a.pping big octagonal bricks. A lot of the ops are in supposedly friendly countries, our allies. That's going to cost us some favors and a lot of mea culpas, but we've also got agents in places where they'll get shot first and questioned later. We've put out a total recall, but some of them aren't going to get out before they get picked up.” of them have just been outed. State is c.r.a.pping big octagonal bricks. A lot of the ops are in supposedly friendly countries, our allies. That's going to cost us some favors and a lot of mea culpas, but we've also got agents in places where they'll get shot first and questioned later. We've put out a total recall, but some of them aren't going to get out before they get picked up.”
”d.a.m.n,” Michaels said.
”Yeah. d.a.m.n. And think about it-if he got Europe and Asia, who's to say he didn't get the Middle East, Africa, or South America?”
Michaels couldn't even speak. ”d.a.m.n” wouldn't begin to cover it.
”We got to find this guy, Alex.”
”Yeah.”
Chapter Seven.
Monday, December 20th, 10:25 a.m. Quantico, Virginia Joanna Winthrop washed her hands, reached for the paper-towel dispenser, and looked at her reflection in the large mirror over the sink in the women's restroom.
She shook her head at her doppelganger. All of her life people had told her how beautiful she was, men-both young and old-and more than a few women, but she still didn't see it. She had learned how to pretend to ignore the stares, but people still stopped her on the street, strangers, to tell her how attractive she was. It was flattering. It was interesting.
It got in her way.
And it was a mystery to Winthrop. She had a sister, Diane, who truly was was beautiful, and next to whom she had always felt dowdy. Her mother at fifty was a knockout, and her smile wrinkles and gray hair only served to accent her perfect bone structure and muscle tone. True, Joanna wasn't beautiful, and next to whom she had always felt dowdy. Her mother at fifty was a knockout, and her smile wrinkles and gray hair only served to accent her perfect bone structure and muscle tone. True, Joanna wasn't ugly ugly, but of the Winthrop women, she was a distant third insofar as looks were concerned. In her opinion.
Of course, that wasn't what most other people seemed to think. It had been a mixed blessing all of her life. Sure, it had been fun to be invited to all the parties when she'd been a kid, to always be at the top of everybody's lists, to be popular and sought-after. She had accepted it as the norm, never questioned it-until she looked up one day and realized that most people considered her nothing more than a... decoration decoration. All she had to do was stand there, smile, and be pretty, be an ornament, and that was enough for them. It wasn't enough for her, it wasn't anything she had done-nothing she had earned, she'd been born that way. Who could take credit for that?
Boys were tongue-tied in her presence, but they lined up for the chance to be rumble-mouthed, and eventually she realized that to most of them, she wasn't a real person, but a trophy-to be pursued, captured, then displayed. Looky here, guys, look what's hanging onto my my arm. Don't you wish she was arm. Don't you wish she was yours yours?
She was smart, she did well in school, stacked up well against objective academic standards, but n.o.body seemed to care about that. Being pretty was more important than being smart to everybody. Everybody except Joanna Winthrop.
Being pretty got old. Too many people couldn't see past it-or didn't want want to see past it. to see past it.
She tossed the damp paper towel into the trash can and glanced back at the mirror again. The first boy she'd slept with, at seventeen, had been the president of the science club, not any of the dozens of jocks who had chased her. He was intelligent, soft-spoken, and handsome, in a consumptive dying-poet kind of way. A sensitive, caring, bright young man who respected her for her mind. That was what she had thought.
He'd bragged about sleeping with her to his friends the next day. So much for his sensitivity, his caring, his respect for her mind. It had broken her heart.
Most of the girls she knew were jealous of her looks, especially the pretty ones, and they were resentful and catty. Her only real friend in school had been Maudie Van Buren, who had been plain, fifty pounds overweight, and addicted to black sweatsuits and running shoes. Maudie didn't care about looks-hers, Joanna's, anybody's-and she didn't understand why Joanna was so upset about being popular. She'd love to be on anybody's list for anything, she always said.
They'd gone off to different universities, Winthrop to MIT, Van Buren to UCLA. But they kept in touch. And each year, they got together for a week at Maudie's uncle's mountain cabin outside Boulder, Colorado. During the break between their junior and senior terms, they had managed one of their best ever conversations. Maudie had gone on a diet, started working out, and in six months had dropped her excess weight, tightened up, and emerged from her sweatsuit-fat-chrysalis stage as a slender-and beautiful-b.u.t.terfly.
Over bottles of silty, home-brewed beer that Maudie's uncle had stocked the fridge with before he left, the two young women had talked.
”I think I finally get it,” Maudie said. ”About the pretty thing.”
Winthrop sipped at the cloudy brew. ”Uh-huh.”
”I mean, when I was a big tub, anybody who bothered to spend time with me did it because of my personality, such that it was, and it wasn't as if I had to carry a stick to clear myself a path through my admirers when I went out. Now, I get calls from guys who thought I was invisible when I was a whole h.e.l.luva lot bigger than I am now. It's like I suddenly got rich and everybody wants to be my friend.” She took a big slug of the beer. ”I mean, the depth of a guy who is only interested in you because of your looks is about that of a postage stamp, isn't it? Kind of hard to feel a lot of trust for somebody like that. 'Oh, baby, I love you for your mind!' sounds a little hollow when he's fumbling to unsnap your bra strap.”
Joanna grinned around another swig of beer. ”Tell me about it, sister.”
Maudie looked at her, as if seeing her for the first time.
”You've had to deal with this your whole life. How did you finally get past it?”
”Who got past it? I b.u.mp into every day I go out. You learn to live with it.”
”I may start eating again,” Maudie said. ”Who needs the stress? Maybe it's better to be fat and sure of my friends than skinny and suspicious.”
”No, I think the best thing is to find somebody who can get past your face and b.o.o.bs, who doesn't care too much about either. It's okay if they think you look good, that's fine, as long as they realize that isn't all there is to you.”
”You got somebody like that?”
”I got you, babe.”
”I mean somebody male.”
”Well, no. Not yet. But I'm ever hopeful. He must be out there somewhere.”
”Better be careful. I might find him first.”
Both women laughed, and drank more of the malty home brew- Winthrop's virgil cheeped, and she pulled it from where it was clipped onto her belt. Incoming call. The caller ID showed it was Commander Michaels. It must be important if he was calling her from just down the hall.
”Yes, sir?”
”We have a situation here, Joanna. If you could come to my office, I'd appreciate it.”
”Be right there,” she said.
She discommed, stuck the virgil back on her belt, gave herself a final glance in the mirror, and started for the door.
Monday, December 20th, 10:45 a.m.
Michaels looked at the three leaders of his computer team, as good a group of people as he'd ever worked with. They all looked back at him with antic.i.p.ation as he finished laying out the scenario.
”All right, folks, there it is. CIA is justifiably upset and they'd like us to do something about it. Forty years of work is going down the tubes, and more might follow that any second. Let's have some risk a.s.sessment and scenario building here. Jay, what do we have so far?”
”I wish I could say it was good news, Boss, but so far, zip city. I don't think we're dealing with some kid hacker. What little I've found is a little rougher than the Russian we just dealt with. The guy snuck in and out, but he didn't track a lot of mud-I haven't found his footprints yet.”