Page 34 of Troubled Water
“As ready as I’ll ever be,” I reply, my tone icy.
He starts with the baseline questions, the ones meant to set the tone, to establish my physical responses. “Is your name Parker Thornton?”
“Yes.”
“Are you the director of the Agency?”
Geez, didn’t I teach these people anything? Lead into the fun questions. Still, I answer, “Yes.”
“Are you currently under duress?”
How do you want me to answer this? I’m raging mad over some kind of bullshit happening in my house, but duress? “No.”
His voice remains steady as he advances through polygraphy 101 routine questions. It isn’t until he attempts to shift toward more sensitive inquiries that the tension in the room starts to shift. “Did you inform the president of a classified data breach involving any US federal government contractors in the past twelve months?”
I pause before answering because the truth is, “No.”
He persists, “Are you certain?”
“Yes.”
“We’ve heard you’ve been taking meetings in the Oval.”
I counter, “Who’s we?”
I get a snooty counter, “We’re the ones asking the questions.”
Oh, I’m going to enjoy eating you for lunch when this is done.Trying to divert me, he asks, “Have you been approached by a foreign intelligence service in the past year?”
“No.”
“Have you intentionally withheld information from your superiors?”
I pause, just for a fraction of a second, before answering. “No, since I have no superior other than the president.”
His eyes flick up, narrowing, but he doesn’t comment. We continue like that for what feels like an eternity. Question after question, each one probing deeper into my life, my decisions, myloyalties. I answer them all honestly—of course I do. But still, the process feels like it is circling me around a single-issue drain—the secret investigation the president ordered me to conduct with the head of the Department of Justice about our overseas contractors.
What I want to know is how Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb know about it.
Precious minutes tick away as I endure their fumbling attempt at getting me to trip up. Would it be too obvious if I yawn in their face to get them to speed up? I’m the head of the agency, for fuck’s sake. I want to shout at them to come at me and ask me if you have the fucking balls to. Instead, to play the part and not tip my hand, I am strapped to a machine, answering questions about my integrity like the agency head is some kind of cash-for-hire political appointee.
Amid all of this is my worry about Bethany. All my senses are screaming at me at the wrongness of this happening today.
Just when I’m about to leap out of my skin, the door is kicked open. In a split second, I recognize two members of the Presidential Protective Detail, who have guns drawn. Fortunately for my trussed-up ass, they’re after Dumb and Dumber fuck. I’m quickly unstrapped as the room is swarmed. “What is the situation?” I demand.
“Sir, the president wants you to contact him on a secure line. Stat.”
I bolt from the room. Slapping my palm against a wall, a hidden elevator opens that will take me out of the basement and to the main Agency floor. From there, I don’t wait. I sprint past the meandering employees waiting for the lifts to carry them to their floors for the night shift.
I race up the stairs.
Hitting my level, I burst through the doors and race down the corridor to my office. Within moments, I’ve turned my officeinto a secured space—I offer up a thanks to my wife for that brilliant feature—and I’m on a video conference with the White House Situation Room. “Sir? What the hell is going on?”
“Thorn, those contractors you were tracking overseas?—”
“Yes, sir.”
“The DOJ uncovered the link between them this morning.”
