Blow the House Down by Robert Baer

Gare du Nord when I was in transit from Marseilles to Amsterdam. I seemed to have fallen into the role of a slightly screw-loose uncle—happily, I should add. My mother considered me mistake enough for one womb: I would never have a blood niece of my own. Nor did India have any family other than her father now that her mother had disappeared from the picture.
    â€œGoing to relive the glory days with Dad? The time you two camped on the Beirut-Damascus highway?”
    It was anything but glory. Frank and I had lived in his car for a solid week on the Syrian border, waiting for the Iranians to deliver David Dodge, the first hostage taken in Lebanon. Instead, they dumped him in Damascus. That was 1983, most of India’s lifetime ago. We must have told the story so often that it became embedded in her brain.
    â€œOr are you just stopping by on your way home from a wet T-shirt contest?” India’s tone had a definite edge, but her smile was as friendly as ever.
    â€œYou think I’m too old to compete?”
    â€œOh, Max, no. Never.”
    I took her hands and gave her a quick peck on the cheek.
    â€œI thought you were still in Paris.”
    She looked at me, held my hands a beat longer, then pulled me in for a hug. India’s through with being a girl, I thought. Maybe she never really was one. Some people never get the luxury of a youth. I knew something about that.
    â€œVacation’s over,” she finally said. “Time to make a living. Just like the old man.”
    â€œLooks like he’s struggling.”
    The frieze was just over her shoulder.
    Before she could say anything else, Frank was back, wearing corduroys and a cashmere sweater. The air-conditioning was set at Arctic levels. Simon was two steps behind with a pair of straight-up Scotches, no ice. I could see India wondering where her glass was, but her father gave her his own peck on the check and gently pushed her out the door.
    â€œGood night, dear. I’m sure Max is just stopping by for a minute. You’ve got work tomorrow.”
    The library was set off from the rest of the house by a set of paneled pocket doors. I waited until Frank had pulled them shut before I spoke.
    â€œWork?”
    â€œShe started last week at the Agency. Can you believe it? Doing traces on the Saudi desk, a whole lifetime ahead of her to ascend to the seventh floor. It wasn’t my idea, I assure you. I tried to dissuade her.”
    He shrugged his shoulders and smiled. It seemed a million years since he had unwrapped the Beretta on his Home Depot deck.
    â€œYou might have told me. I could have—”
    Frank raised his hand to stop me.
    â€œThe stink was on you, Max my boy, the royal whiff. Everyone knew it. My daughter didn’t need that.”
    â€œYou might have told me that, too.”
    Frank laughed. “You need to hang around the water cooler more. That’s where everything happens in an inert bureaucracy.”
    I was sitting back on my towel; Frank, in a matching end chair beside me. He reached in a drawer of the low table in front of us, pulled out a remote, and punched a button. A sheet of the chestnut paneling slid noiselessly back to reveal a huge flat-screen TV.
    â€œThere’s supposed to be a program on Al Jazeera tonight about Yemen. The place is circling the drain again, or so thinks Hunt Oil.”
    Frank surfed up and down the channels looking for it; gave up and flipped through Fox, MSNBC, CNN; then turned the TV off. He sipped his Scotch, frowned, and pushed a button on a side table. Simon must have been waiting on the other side of the library doors.
    â€œIt’s too late for this. Bring us two Armagnacs.”
    â€œI thought you might show up here sooner rather than later,” he said when Simon was gone. “Just not so soon.”
    Actually, I wasn’t surprised Frank had heard about the investigation. Washington is a company town; news of government scandals travels fast. It