Pandora's grave

Lay could see the reluctance in Richards’ eyes. These men were like a brotherhood, and though a rookie, Davood Sarami was already far more accepted than a man like himself could ever be.

Finally the Texan’s eyes lifted to face the webcam, all emotion gone from their black depths.

“Agent Sarami’s.”

“Thank you, Agent Richards. Please continue, Rebecca.”

Rebecca Petras glanced from the clock on the wall back to the CIA officer in front of her. The debriefing had been going on for five and a half hours.

Davood Sarami was the only member of the NCS team that she had never met before, and she had studied his dossier during the helicopter flight up from Baghdad.

Overall, if she were going to find out anything irregular that had happened on the mission, the rookie would likely be her source. She had worked with Nichols in Basra back in ‘05, when she had first arrived on station and he was running spec-ops liaison with the military.

Technically, that put her in charge of his operation, but the two of them had never quite seen eye to eye on where the division in command fell.

They had hardly hit it off well back then and the hour-and-a-half long debrief of him she had just conducted had done nothing but convince her that the years had not changed him.

He was still as aloof and impenetrable as he had ever been, and Rebecca had little doubt but that he had told her exactly what he wanted her to know. Nothing more. Not that he would deliberately jeopardize national security, she believed, but his loyalty to his fellow team members might cause him to neglect certain facts. Perhaps.

Loyalty. The other thing she remembered about Nichols was his ability to command intense personal loyalty from those who followed him into battle. A useful asset, to be sure, but as she had noted in a fitness report back during the Basra days, it had its dangerous points.

She had known from the start of the debrief that nothing would be said by his fellow team members to reflect negatively on Nichols. She had hoped the new man would be another story, but so far it wasn’t working.

Her eyes flickered to the computer monitor at her side. A speech-to-text program was running on-screen, transcribing every word spoken during the debriefing for later review.

“Agent Sarami, you said earlier that you had lost your team radio. Could you elaborate more for us on the manner in which you lost it?”

She saw a look of surprise flicker across the young man’s face. It was an old interrogation trick. Move past a topic as though it was unimportant, and then return to it unexpectedly. And despite what everyone might wish, debriefing was very much like an interrogation.

“I don’t really know. I remember having it as I descended into the canyon toward the helicopter to rescue Colonel Tancretti, but that’s all I remember. Both of us were knocked to the ground by the explosion of the helo’s fuel tanks and the headset was gone when I regained consciousness.”

“So you believe that you lost it sometime either during your rescue of Colonel Tancretti or the subsequent explosion?”

“That is correct.”

The snare was set. Now to coax the quarry within. Rebecca lifted her gaze to look coolly into the young agent’s eyes. “According to Agent Nichols, he attempted to contact you while you were in transit to the crash site, prior to the explosion, and you did not answer. Is that an accurate statement?”

Once again the look of surprise, this time not unmingled with hurt. “I don’t understand how I could have missed a transmission-although I suppose it is possible-perhaps I had already lost the radio by that time.”

At that moment, the rabbit was well within the snare. “Perhaps,” Petras began hesitantly, springing her trap, “you would give us your assessment of Agent Nichols’ performance on this mission?”

Director Kranemeyer sighed wearily as Petras escorted the Iranian-American agent from the room in which the debriefing had taken place and turned to face the camera once again. He reached for the cup of coffee on his desk and made a face. It was cold.

“I could have told you it was pointless to try that tack,” he spoke into the mike, addressing Petras.

Her head came up from her monitor. “I would beg to differ, Director. Someone betrayed this mission, either deliberately or through an inadvertent breach of protocol-either way, it is imperative that we find the person responsible.”

“It is also imperative that we don’t waste time attempting to crucify the man responsible for salvaging the mission from disaster,” Kranemeyer replied heatedly. “I’ve read your dossier, Petras. I know you and Nichols have a history back to Basra, but now is neither the time or place to be satisfying personal grudges.”

There was not a flicker of reaction in her eyes as she stared back into the camera. “My report will be filed with the DD(I) in the morning.”

“When will the hostages be debriefed?” This time it was Director Lay asking the question.