Sleeper's Run

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

When Special Agent Hastings leaves the room, I'm so stunned, I can't even think. When the door opens again, Trishna walks in wearing a long dark coat and a scarf wrapped around her neck. There's something different about her eyes; they're cold and piercing, which mars the sassy and loving ones for which I've yearned. She tells the guards to leave us alone.

I don't know what to say; it's hard enough to deal with what I feel. She sits down without saying a word as she opens a thick folder and extracts some papers. I'm certain that the next sound I hear will destroy my life forever.

"Why?" I pull the trigger.

"I'm a CIA officer with the counterintelligence staff," she says, as if we are meeting for the first time.

"You work for them..."

"For the CIA, not the Special Activities Division. But my department is very interested in Damocles' Sword and the team chasing you."

"So this was all a lie? You, me..."

"I was assigned to monitor local intelligence incursions in Corso."

"Your name isn't even Trishna, is it?"

"You know how this works. When you arrived in Caracas, all kinds of red flags went up and I was tasked to find out why you were there."

"So the phone taps, the NSA hacker; that was all because of you."

"No, that wasn't us. It was DISIP and your handlers, I guess."

"What do you mean? I was sent to Caracas by Corso's headquarters."

"It's over, Eric. There's no need to pretend anymore," she says.

"Pretend? What the fuck are you talking about?"

"A highly decorated counter-terrorist operator with a brilliant military career ahead of him suddenly quits the Air Force to become a paramedic in Florida?" Trishna crosses her arms. "You were up for a master sergeant promotion and your commanding officer had been practically begging you to go to Officer Training School."

"What? So that makes me guilty?"

"That makes you a liar. You want to talk about betrayal? You used me as part of your cover."

"My cover? I loved my job, until I found out I was just doing the dirty work of fucking politicians and so-called captains of industry, who were making things worse rather than fixing them. I wasn't about to keep risking my life for senseless operations in a concocted Washington war. That's why I left the Air Force."

"Sure you did. Let's go further back. Did you ever leave the NSA?"

"For fuck's sake, the NSA has no field agents, you know that. I was about to leave them that same year to go into the private sector."

"But you didn't. You're a NOC, aren't you?" A non-official cover is an intelligence officer operating in deep cover for, but without connection to, his or her government and typically disavowed if discovered.

"Are you out of your damn mind? You listened to all the evidence I've unearthed about the Damocles' Sword program. You knew I was planning to turn myself into the FBI. Why the fuck would I do that if I was a NOC? Why would SOG try to kill me if I was one of them?"

"Are you a NOC or not?"

I stare at the floor. "It doesn't matter what I say, does it? You've already made up your mind."

"You want to hear my theory? I believe you were brain washed, but not to kill the Venezuelan president. They did it so you would forget about your mission and avoid compromising the operation if you were captured."