“Good,” Faye said, ignoring the affirmative action swipe. “As I was saying, the CIA would like you to apply because you are exceptionally smart.” She went on to explain that the application process for a CIA security clearance was extremely rigorous. There would be “deep-dive” psychological evaluations, polygraphs, and a thorough background check where people she knew all the way back to junior high would be contacted about her loyalty and suitability. “It takes a good while to complete,” Faye said. “You’ll have time to finish grad school… It’s better for us if you do finish.”
Monica had just sat there, stunned, with the look on her face her daddy called poleaxed.
“The CIA?” she whispered, suddenly hyperaware of everyone else in the open food court. “You’re interested in me? No kidding?”
Faye leaned forward, whispering across the table now, getting down to business. “No kidding.”
Everything Monica knew about the CIA — which wasn’t much — she’d gotten from spy books and James Bond movies. She had already come to grips with being a teacher, maybe a college professor, helping to shape young minds about the realities of the world. The notion of working for the government, much less working in intelligence, had never been so much as a tiny blip on her personal radar. She’d taken loads of placement tests over the years, and no guidance counselor had ever said, “Hey, Monica, have you ever thought about being a spy?”
Now, with Faye sitting there talking about how hard it would be, she found herself aching to get the job. No matter how rigorous the process, how deep the background, she
“I speak fluent Spanish,” she’d all but blurted. “And can get by in Mandarin pretty well, too.”
Faye, who still leaned over the table, ate another french fry and said, “We know.”
And now it was over. Monica Hendricks was on her way out the door she’d come in, picking up where she’d left off, to become a teacher — as soon as she hid all the evidence from hanging her photos and plaques.
“Reduced to eating nails?” Mary Pat Foley said, smiling as she poked her head in the door to Hendricks’s office. The DNI wore a snazzy gray pantsuit in light wool, warm enough for the crisp spring weather and light enough to spend hours in the stuffy, artificial environment of her office at Liberty Crossing.
Hendricks dropped the nails into her hand and placed them on the corner of her desk. She knew Foley well. They’d worked together early in Monica’s career, each earning the other’s trust from living through dangerous times — dodging thugs, losing surveillance, and generally risking their lives in hostile environments. Poor Steve would never sleep again if he knew the half of what she’d done over the course of her career.
“Madam Director,” Hendricks said. “This is a nice surprise. I’d shake your hand, but I just spit out those frame hangers…”
“Knock it off with the ‘Madam Director’ stuff, Mony,” Foley said. “You and I have drunk too many grappas over the years for you to call me anything but Mary Pat. Anyway, I hear you’re popping smoke, as they say, to what, teach high school?”
Hendricks moved a stack of frames off the chair so the DNI would have a place to sit. “That’s correct. I know it’s a necessary part of the job, but I’m just too tired of… well, the lying. You know?”
Foley chuckled. “Yeah, and high school kids don’t lie.”
“At least I won’t have to. Seriously, ma’am… Mary Pat, it is nice of you to drop in and say good-bye.”
Foley toyed with the frayed corner of the leather desk blotter with the tip of her manicured thumbnail. It was a marvel how far this woman had come from the days she’d broken her fingernails to the quick digging under rocks to retrieve an asset’s message from some iced-over dead drop.
Foley glanced up, her hand lingering on the desk. “I didn’t, actually,” she said. “Come to say good-bye, that is. I came to ask you to stay.”
Hendricks scoffed, thinking it was surely a joke. “Due respect, Mad… Mary Pat, but the director of national intelligence doesn’t come down to Langley and ask a lowly CIA minion to hang around. My daddy told me the story of pulling the hand out of the bucket of water when I was a little girl. I’m self-aware enough to know my worth.”
Foley smiled and shook her head. “I’m not sure you do, Monica. And I’m here to tell you, that’s exactly what this DNI is doing. I need you to hang around.”
Hendricks gave a little nothing-she-could-do-about-it shrug. “Sorry, ma’am. No can do. I have a teaching job lined up for the fall and I promised Steve we could do some traveling this summer.”
Foley nodded, mulling this over, but obviously not taking
