So Give Her Information
It had been four months since Myra had discovered that her father was alive, only to have him vanish once again. Four months of waiting up for a knock at her door or a phone call, and being met with nothing but silence. The first weekend she went on her run, passing through Arlington National Cemetery as usual. She had paused in front of her father's headstone, staring at it as she wondered if it had all been a dream. After all, it had only been a few fleeting minutes, in a dark forgotten corridor. Who's to say she hadn't just imagined it all?
As she walked past the wall of stars on her way into HQ, she stared for a long moment at the two she'd come to know so well. One for her father, one for her mother. Both unnamed in the book, only designated as a blank line under the years of their death, but representative nonetheless. Or so she had believed. But today, she stared at the sole blank line under 1994, the one where Peter Allen Hughes should have been listed in practiced calligraphy, and wondered if it should ever have been there. Finally she forced herself to continue on to the security checkpoint, shaking her head to clear it.
She presented her badge at the gate, giving a nod to the guard as he waved her through. The clack-clack-clack of her heels on the marble floor echoed as she walked the now familiar route to the collection of offices and conference rooms that had been overtaken by Near East taskforce. With the succession of political uprisings in the region, activity was busier than usual. Instead of the semi-annual visits that Myra was supposed to be afforded in her post at the Pentagon, she now found herself back at Langley nearly every other day. She had been grateful for the increase in work, since it drew her attention away from obsessing about her father. But as the possibility of military force grew stronger, she found her days growing longer and longer, wearing her down.
This particular day had started nearly twelve hours earlier, when she arrived at her desk at 7:30, to the news that Syria was once again on the move against its own population. She had monitored the situation from the Pentagon until she was summoned for yet another briefing out at Langley. At 6:00, she left, swinging by her apartment just long enough to pack a change of clothes and hop into Chester. The way things were going, she knew she'd be lucky if she was back before the next night.
She arrived in the designated conference room just as things were getting started, taking a seat towards the back. An aide came by, passing out packets of information for everyone to peruse. Myra scanned it over as an assistant deputy director with an inflated sense of self importance began to talk. There were photos and paragraphs of testimony from a source identified only as "al-Alfi", collected from witnesses around the country. Someone questioned the credibility of the source, especially given the rise in fictitious reporting from the area.
"I have it on the highest authority that al-Alfi is a trustworthy and reliable source," the ADD said, with the typical bureaucratic flair. "He has a history with the Agency that goes back more than a decade."
That seemed to settle the question, and the briefing continued. Myra followed along, scribbling notes here and there in the margins. After forty-five minutes, things started to wrap up, but as she turned to the last page of her packet, she froze. There at the bottom of the page was scribbled in unmistakable handwriting:
Meet me, if you can remember how to get here.
[ TBC, and all that jazz. ]
As she walked past the wall of stars on her way into HQ, she stared for a long moment at the two she'd come to know so well. One for her father, one for her mother. Both unnamed in the book, only designated as a blank line under the years of their death, but representative nonetheless. Or so she had believed. But today, she stared at the sole blank line under 1994, the one where Peter Allen Hughes should have been listed in practiced calligraphy, and wondered if it should ever have been there. Finally she forced herself to continue on to the security checkpoint, shaking her head to clear it.
She presented her badge at the gate, giving a nod to the guard as he waved her through. The clack-clack-clack of her heels on the marble floor echoed as she walked the now familiar route to the collection of offices and conference rooms that had been overtaken by Near East taskforce. With the succession of political uprisings in the region, activity was busier than usual. Instead of the semi-annual visits that Myra was supposed to be afforded in her post at the Pentagon, she now found herself back at Langley nearly every other day. She had been grateful for the increase in work, since it drew her attention away from obsessing about her father. But as the possibility of military force grew stronger, she found her days growing longer and longer, wearing her down.
This particular day had started nearly twelve hours earlier, when she arrived at her desk at 7:30, to the news that Syria was once again on the move against its own population. She had monitored the situation from the Pentagon until she was summoned for yet another briefing out at Langley. At 6:00, she left, swinging by her apartment just long enough to pack a change of clothes and hop into Chester. The way things were going, she knew she'd be lucky if she was back before the next night.
She arrived in the designated conference room just as things were getting started, taking a seat towards the back. An aide came by, passing out packets of information for everyone to peruse. Myra scanned it over as an assistant deputy director with an inflated sense of self importance began to talk. There were photos and paragraphs of testimony from a source identified only as "al-Alfi", collected from witnesses around the country. Someone questioned the credibility of the source, especially given the rise in fictitious reporting from the area.
"I have it on the highest authority that al-Alfi is a trustworthy and reliable source," the ADD said, with the typical bureaucratic flair. "He has a history with the Agency that goes back more than a decade."
That seemed to settle the question, and the briefing continued. Myra followed along, scribbling notes here and there in the margins. After forty-five minutes, things started to wrap up, but as she turned to the last page of her packet, she froze. There at the bottom of the page was scribbled in unmistakable handwriting:
Meet me, if you can remember how to get here.
[ TBC, and all that jazz. ]