39. Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter thirty-nine
Samantha Gunn had her desk phone pressed to her ear and one shoe off, while she massaged the ball of her foot with her thumbs.
She hadn’t eaten in… well, she didn’t remember, and sleeping on a sofa hadn’t done her back any good.
She didn’t dare sniff under her own arms. She probably had what Jake referred to as swamp pits.
An apt expression because right now all of her parts felt sweaty and damp.
She wrinkled her nose. There was a small gymnasium with a locker room on floor two.
She’d have to get a shower when she had a moment.
But things were moving fast now. Sam had bought herself a certain amount of room to maneuver.
After their meeting with DDI Nguy?n, Kearns had gone straight to her office and slammed the door. She hadn’t emerged since. Kearns had found out the hard way that she wasn’t quite as untouchable as she thought. It was a hard lesson to learn, and one Sam herself would do well to remember.
While Kearns was in her office licking her wounds, Sam intended to take full advantage. She started with a call to Oscar Jankowitz. He picked up after six rings. “Heya Oscar. Remember me?”
Sam could tell by the long pause on the other end, that Jankowitz had no clue who he was on the other end of the line. She said, “Samantha Gunn, back at Langley.”
“Ms. Gunn,” Jankowitz said. “I didn’t expect to be hearing from you again.”
I’ll bet, Sam thought. In fact, she had a sneaking suspicion that Jankowitz was a big part of the reason why she’d found herself in front of Deputy Director Nguy?n.
Station Chiefs, even if they are halfway across the globe, carry a lot of weight in CIA.
They are the proverbial boots on the ground.
Closest to the action. You don’t become a chief of station by mistake.
It takes dedication and a history of successful field ops.
That meant Jankowitz had earned his stripes.
Don’t get a big head, Sam told herself.
She said, “New intel is developing rapidly here, Mr. Jankowitz. We need—”
“I thought I’d made it clear I don’t take orders from you Ms. Gunn. You need to learn to go through the proper channels.”
Sam let go of her foot, took hold of the phone and sat up a little straighter. “Before you hang up on me, Jankowitz, you should know the situation here has changed. DDI Nguy?n says the village is priority-one, critical. He wants all hands on deck.”
“Why am I not hearing this from Kearns?”
“She’s busy sulking in her conservatory,” Sam answered. “I’ve got a report here on my computer from the CDC. The virus that killed that village is a man-made biotoxin.”
“I don’t have that—”
“I’ll forward you a copy,” Sam told him. “But for right now, we need to start compiling intel. I specifically want to know who lived in that village. Maybe someone there was a target. Maybe it was just a testing ground. How many field officers have you got working under you?”
“I’ve got seven field officers,” Jankowitz said. “Along with several more local assets I can put into action.”
“Seven?” Sam questioned.
It was an excessive number for such a small country.
“This country had over a dozen back in the Cold War, then there were the wars in the nineties. CIA has been slow to reduce the number of boots on the ground.”
Sam could see why Jankowitz liked the Belgrade station. Plenty of worker bees. “Find out everything you can about that village. I’d specifically like to know anybody who came or went over the last few weeks.”
“Weeks? This outbreak only started a couple days ago,” Jankowitz pointed out. “You thinking whoever released the virus might have scoped out the village first?”
“It’s worth looking into.”
“Okay, we’ll get it done,” Jankowitz assured her. “Any other shake-ups I should know about over there on your side?”
He was really asking, in a not so subtle way, if Kearns had been sacked. He wanted to know if his own bacon was in the proverbial fryer. Sam told him, “The situation here is… fluid. I’ll keep you up to date if you promise to do the same.”
“Deal.”
“Call me as soon as you have anything,” Sam urged.
“Will do, Ms. Gunn.”
She hung up and a slow grin spread across her face.
Jankowitz had said Ms. Gunn with considerably more deference than last time.
He had no way of knowing who would still be working for the Company over the next few days, and he wanted to keep everyone happy.
That was just fine by Sam. It meant he’d do top notch work and she’d get actionable intel.
Time for some breakfast. She stuffed her foot back inside her shoe and stood up, when the phone rang. It was Trevor’s field phone.
He should still be in the air.
Sam frowned as she picked up the line. “Hey, Trev. You land already?”
“No,” Trevor said. It sounded like he had been crying, or like his nose was full of snot. His consonants were all soft and his vowels blended together.
“I’m in the plane bathroom,” he told her in that mushy voice. “I’m not feeling so hot.”
Sam’s stomach clenched. She reached for her office chair with her free hand, found it, and slowly lowered herself down. The sea of cubicles seemed to shift and sway. She said, “It… It must have been something you ate. Probably just the local cuisine—”
“I just got done throwing up,” Trevor told her. “Sam, I’m sick. Bad sick.”