Of The Truth

Sean threw her pen down on the desk in frustration. Exhausted, she leaned back in her seat. She was definitely stuck in a bind. Sean found herself inexplicably caught between what she believed and what she was being told to believe.

Sean leaned forward in her chair and began to muddle through the pile of papers and photographs on her desk. She stopped herself before she got far. What she needed was not going to magically appear on her desk. She had been through the data a thousand times and had not found the answers she was looking for yet.

Sean looked at the others gathered around her desk and the adjacent one. Everyone was tired and everyone was annoyed at her.

"It's all here," another woman said. "All of the information fits, just like the FBI said. Why are you the only one who doesn’t see it?"

"Because I just don’t," Sean said. She picked up one of the pictures absent-mindedly and tossed it back down. "I just don't see what you see, Gina."

"Stubborn to the end," a bearded man remarked.

"And if I am?" Sean said, turning on him. "I didn't get to this position by being wrong. I've made some great analyses and I've earned the right to disagree. And I didn't get here by doing what I was told."

Gina, an older woman with grey hair, raised her eyebrows and nodded. Teddy, the bearded man, and another younger man exchanged knowing looks.

"I'm not that bad," Sean said defensively.

"Not at all," Gina said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Okay," Tim said. "As a team, we're supposed to come to a consensus. Why don't we set a time limit and if we can't agree by then, everyone will agree to go with the majority opinion."

"But—"

"If you're so right Sean, you should be able to prove it to the rest of us."

"I know I can, but what if I can't do it in the set time limit?"

Tim shrugged.

"Bob," she called out to a man walking through the cubicles.

The man only shook his head and kept walking, "I can't help you, Weiland."

"Come on, Bob," she pleaded.

"No way," he said, walking past her. "You know the Feds want to hear that they're right."

"But they're not!" Sean said.

"Hey," Bob said, stopping past her and turning to face her. "I don't know who's right. I really don't. All I know is that the DDI wants us to corroborate what the Feds got. If you can't do it, he'll find someone who can."

“What are you saying?” Sean asked.

“You’re a smart girl,” Bob said. “You figure it out.”

"He'd shut us down even if we're right?"

"If it's important that you're wrong."

"That's bullshit!" Sean said.

"Yeah, well. That's politics." With that, Bob turned and left.

Damn, Sean thought. It was becoming more and more apparent that if she went against the bosses on this one, she'd have to be one-hundred percent sure that she was right—and be able to prove it. As it was, she was only eighty-percent of the way to proving them wrong and forty-percent to proving her point.

Sean needed a break, some time to get her mind away from the problem. Usually, if she did that, something in the subconscious of her mind worked on the problem for her. When she came back to the problem at hand, some new thought would enter her conscious thought patterns. It was that thought that would usually be the key to the problem. She hoped that would happen in this case. She needed it to happen. Badly.

"Excuse me for a minute," Sean told her teammates. "I need to go to the bathroom."

"No problem," Gina said, "just global stability on the line. Go right ahead."

Sean flashed Gina a lopsided grin. "Ha, ha."

As Sean got up to go to the bathroom, she saw the Deputy Director coming her way. Oh shit, she thought gloomily. Was he coming to talk to them? If so, what were they going to tell him? The truth, she supposed.

"Sean," he said as he approached, stopping near her desk. "How are things going? You guys finish your work yet?"

Sean nervously stopped her walk and looked back at her team. "Well, sir, we've gone through the material several times."

"Really?" he said, a modicum of suspicion in his voice.

"Yes," she said, nodding slowly. "We haven't been able to reach a consensus as to what happened. Three of the team concur with the FBI's assessment. However, as of right now, I cannot yet concur with the FBI's opinion."

The DDI paused, licking his lips. He looked away for a moment before returning his gaze to Sean. "Why not?"

"I've yet to see conclusive evidence."

"Weiland," the CIA's Deputy Director of Intelligence said slowly. "You have everything. There's motive: the Iranian fundamentalists would love to see Turkey follow their own backwards path. So, if three of Turkey's most liberal politicians are in Washington—meeting with U.S. officials about aiding the current, liberal Turkish government—they knock them out. That clears the way for Turkey to fall to Muslim Fundamentalism. This takes away a crucial NATO ally and further isolates the strategically important Middle East from the West—and America in particular."

"I agree," Sean asserted bravely, "but motive doesn't prove anything in itself. The assassins found at the murder site were American, not Iranian."

"Right, it was obviously a contract deal. Also, we know that there was a third assassin who escaped. He was reportedly of Middle Eastern descent." Impatiently, the DDI sifted through the photos on Sean's desk until he found the right one. "Look, Ibn Sadat was seen coming into Washington at the same time of the murders. He's known to be somewhere in the upper echelon of Iran's foreign service. That can't be a coincidence."

"Sir, with all due respect, I cannot come to that conclusion. I think it’s a coincidence."

The DDI leaned close to her and talked softly. "Don't make me want to forget you. You've done good work for us." Inches away, his eyes caught hers and bored into them. "I want you to look over everything again and tell me the FBI's right, because they are. And don't make me ask your supervisor how poor of an analyst you are. Is that understood?"

"Yes, sir", Sean said. In silence, she watched the DDI walk away. It wasn't every day that the he poked his head into the office of Near Eastern and South Asian Analysis. This, apparently, was a very important case. He had just made it clear, that the three men were to become martyrs. But if they weren't, was it fair to use them like that? Moreover, if Iran was not responsible, Sean felt a responsibility to find whomever was.

Sean hadn't joined the CIA to become just another cog in the governmental machine. She wanted to be someone special; she wanted to make a difference. Sean wanted to become someone on whom the country depended to make smart decisions. In general, she felt good about her job, but this assignment had woken her up to a new kind of ethics. Never before had this kind of pressure been put on her. She definitely did not like it. Assignments like this made her wonder exactly who she was working for and why.

Sean would be lying if she said working her way into the upper echelons of the CIA wasn't somewhere in the back of her mind. She really did want to serve some part of a greater purpose. She felt that the higher up in the Agency she was, the greater the probability of her doing just that. Finding out what happened here could help her achieve that goal. Either way it might go.

Sean had too much integrity and self-respect to just roll over and do what she was told if she did not believe in what she was being told to swallow. Sean was there to do a job, and she intended to do it. The problem was that she did not really have any proof as to who did it, Iranians or not. While the FBI's theory was convenient politically, it was a far-fetched one, which depended on too many twists and turns. It was not unlike the "Magic Bullet Theory" supplied to explain the single assassin theory in the JFK murder. While it could be proved if one tried hard enough, it was easier to disprove that actually prove true.

As she entered the ladies' room, Sean wondered also how people could stoop so low. How could some political gain be so important that murder was a viable means to the end? It was such an extreme thing. Given, the Muslim Fundamentalists were extreme people, and were not shy about their willingness to kill for their cause, but would they care so strongly as to do what the FBI thought they did? Would they enter a foreign country, one far from their own home, and commit murder on three high ranking diplomats from another country? It was so risky. This wasn't the Middle East, either. They had come to the United States. Hardly a friendly place to commit such acts.

Sean exited the stall and walked to the sink to wash her hands. In some ways she wished she could wash her hands of the whole case. From the start she hadn't liked it. It was too big, too hot, and too fast. The FBI wanted an immediate reply. That wasn't the way things worked. Time was needed to run the analysis. She couldn't believe that they didn't realize that.

Sean left the bathroom and walked through the cubicles to get back to her desk. In her short years of experience, she was already regarded as one of the foremost experts on interpretation of Iranian affairs. She had double-majored in history and political science at Harvard, with a minor in Arabic, and had later gotten her doctorate in Middle Eastern relations from NYU. What she needed was someone who knew specific information about Turkey. She knew plenty, but she needed current info, real hot stuff. As it happened, one of the men on her team was a specialist on Turkish government affairs.

"Teddy," she called out as she rounded the corner. Teddy was a big man with a thick brown beard and thick, but short, brown hair. He looked up from the computer screen that he had been staring at. His hands dropped into his lap and he smiled a warm smile that was part of what earned him his nickname.

"Yeah, Sean?"

"Okay," she said, getting his attention. Gina and Tim were discussing something else. "We need to look at Turkey specifically."

"Right."

She crouched down next to his chair and balanced on the balls of her feet. She pushed her dark, long, wavy hair behind her ear so he could see her face. "How stable is Turkey? I mean how close are they to going to the same kind of Fundamentalism as Iran?"

"A lot closer than everyone thinks. Latest reports don't give much good news. The bad guys got a lot of good propagandists that make it seem as if the West doesn't care about Turkey at all. And they do have quite a few good points."

"How stable is the government?" Sean asked.

"There's not going to be a revolution or anything that drastic," Teddy said with a frown, "but I'd be real watchful next election."

"What about the diplomats that got killed?"

"We've been over this."

"Bear with me," Sean asked.

"They're upper echelon liberals,” Teddy said. “Pro-West. They’re a big loss in terms of our interests."

"Any chance of martyrdom?"

"Martyrdom? For the hundredth time, it depends who iced them."

"Again, I'd say political opponents," Sean said.

"Then it's a good possibility," Teddy admitted.

Sean nodded slightly and paused for a moment. "Would the benefit of martyrdom outweigh the loss in political influence?"

Teddy bobbed his head back and forth unconsciously as he thought about it. "If Turkey—well, if Turkey and their Western allies jumped on it. They'd have to make a big production out of it and milk those corpses for all they're worth."

"Cute," Sean said.

"Politics," Teddy said, raising his eyebrows.

"But it could be done?" she asked.

"Definitely."

Sean got up and sat in her desk again. To her surprise, she saw Bob talking to Tim and Gina. Bob was the Middle East analysis coordinator. She couldn't believe that she hadn't noticed him. He was sitting in a chair, his index finger tapping his chin. His other hand was sifting through the materials on her desk.

"Hi, Bob. Decided to help out after all?"

"Yeah. The DDI asked me to look it over again. I know they want you to tell them they're right, and you don't believe they are, but I do. Both from what I've seen and from what the rest of the team has told me. The info on Sadat, who we assume is the third assassin, clinches it. Shit," Bob said. "This guy isn't our everyday murderer. And this wasn't a D.C. robbery. The third man killed two cops outside of the building in question with an extremely deadly toxin and then killed two more by shooting them at close range. He did all of this without drawing anyone's attention. He then went on to move inside the building and killed several cops in an effort to help the other two assassins."

"I know, I know," Sean replied. "See that's what doesn't make sense. If this was a contract hit like we think, there are several weak links. First, if they went to the trouble to hire Americans to do the job—presumably so they aren't recognized—why send in an easily identifiable man of their own as back-up?"

"To make sure the job gets done."

"I don't buy that. It defeats the purpose of sending in Americans in the first place. Second: qhy would he come in so long after the other two? The autopsy reports state that the three diplomats and one of the assassins died almost an hour before the diplomats' bodyguard and the second assassin."

"The first two botched the job, so they called in back-up," Bob said.

"Exactly! But if the diplomats were dead, why bother?"

"Maybe the assassins didn't know who they were working for, or what they were trying to accomplish."

"That doesn't hold up either. Look," Sean said, showing him a piece of paper. "Forensics show that the second assassin was shot by the third assassin. We would then assume he wanted to make sure he was kept quiet. If he didn't know anything, why silence him?"

"To make sure?"

"Again, it's more of a stretch to prove the theory than to disprove it."

Bob looked at her confusedly. "What exactly are you trying to say?"

"First of all, it's been my experience that the Iranians don't work with hired guns. They serve their cause themselves. Look at the World Trade Center bombing, Bob! That was way bigger than this and they did it all by themselves. Second, the third assassin was obviously a cleaner, called in to 'clean' up the mess the original assassins made—not simply a third assassin. That is, decidedly, an American technique."

"I don't know about that."

"The Iranians would have been willing to die for their cause. If it was them, they would have done it themselves and there would have been no back up. They would have gone down in the proverbial blaze of glory; willing to give their lives to the cause. Their only back-up would have been a belt of C-4."

Bob raised his eyebrows and let out a gust of breath. "You're startin' to convince me, Weiland. But I need more."

"I'm trying my best," Sean said with a weak smile.

"You still got one big problem,” Bob said. “I can't give this to the DDI without a new suspect. It's obvious that whoever ordered this hit had it done by pros. So who did it? Or maybe more importantly, who ordered it?"

Sean looked right into Bob's eyes, and as he looked back, he got the answer he had expected.

"Keep working on it, kid. And if I were you—I'd make it quick. You only have so much time before we need an answer. At that point, I will go with the rest of the team's estimate."

"Nice try," Gina shot.

"Gotta admit, it sounds good," Tim added, shaking his head.

"But it doesn't stand alone," Teddy finished, scratching his beard.

"Dammit," Sean cursed lightly, gently rapping the desk with her fist, making a small thud.

Sean stood up and left the group again. To herself, she shook her head solemnly. There was only so much she could do. How could she figure out who had done it if it wasn't the Iranians? She headed towards the water fountain. Her throat was getting dry.

It seemed as if something didn't add up right, she thought as she walked away. For all her thoughts and ideas, nothing seemed to push away the shadows in her mind that still obscured the true culprit. Who would want these men dead bad enough to have them killed? Who and why? Who besides the strict Arab Fundamentalists would want them dead? Maybe the Turks themselves? Maybe they had other enemies. She didn't know. There were too many options, each of which could be equally right.

The problem was Sean could hardly order an investigation. Normally—maybe normally—she could have, but not in this case. The State Department wanted this case as ammo, and the FBI wanted the credit for the bust. What a joke. They didn't care who did it. They just wanted whatever served their own purposes. Politics. The impossible thing about it was that there was not an absolute right and wrong. Lines of good and bad were not as clear cut in real life as they seemed to be on television. To her, it seemed as if State was trying to achieve a worthy goal, saving the modern democratic society of Turkey. Yet, she still believed that the ends did not justify the means.

All of this had been thrown upon her without any real warning. There was a tremendous amount of pressure on her to come up with an answer—either way. And if she wanted to say no to the FBI and the DDI, she needed a new suspect. Usually the CIA did not touch cases like this. Domestic affairs were supposed to be handled by the FBI. She figured the internationality of the case, both the killers and the killed, made it the CIA's business. As if they was actually supposed to work on the case. Their corroboration seemed to be a formality, nothing more.

Or so the bosses thought.

Sean bent over and drank from the water fountain. She had never expected this kind of pressure when she had gotten this job three years ago. Her personal life had been in shambles by the time she had gotten her doctorate and all she had wanted was a steady job to take her mind off of it all. Her parents had gotten divorced five years ago, after thirty-one years of marriage. She had had a bitter break-up with a long time boyfriend the same year and had not been able to be with anyone seriously else after that. In addition, one of her close friends had committed suicide her last year of grad school. There was more, but those were the worst. In so many ways, she had thought that she had been ready to move on, but now she doubted everything. Yet maybe that is what she had needed to move past: doubting herself.

Suddenly Sean was under pressure again, and for some reason, she was thinking of her past. Again she found herself in doubt. She didn't know why. She was normally stronger than that. As she turned from the water fountain, she chided herself for letting the pressure get to her. She just had to get back to work and forget the past. All she had to do was solve this mystery before her—nothing more, nothing less. If she could just apply a strict determination to the case, she felt as if she could flush away all such doubt and dilute her bitter memories.

How did she approach the case, though? What piece didn't match the rest? What was she missing?

As Sean walked away from the water fountain, she vaguely said hello to another co-worker, "Hi, Goldman."

Suddenly she stopped. She snapped her head around, muttering to herself, "Goldman." Her hazel eyes focused on the man whom had just walked past her and she called out the name again, "Goldman."

Goldman turned around and Sean had a good look at his face again. Goldman's parents were immigrants from Israel. Goldman himself was the first member of his family to be born in America. His skin was fairly dark. Dark enough to be described as "Middle Eastern." That's what the report said. The third assassin was Middle Eastern. That didn't mean Arab. Israelis were Middle Eastern in both location and appearance.

"What?" he asked idly.

She ignored him and went straight to Bob's office.

"Bob!" she exclaimed excitedly, throwing the door shut behind her. "I got it!"

"Another suspect?"

"Yes!" Sean said.

"Who?" Bob asked, curious.

"The Israelis."

"The Israelis?”

"Didn't we catch a bunch of odd chatter from them the other day that we couldn't decipher?" Sean asked.

"Fuck, Sean," Bob dropped the papers in his hand on the desk loudly. “Yes, we did. But why the Hell would they want to kill liberal Turkish diplomats?"

"For the same reason that the FBI wants it to be the Iranians. The Israelis don't want to see Turkey fall to the enemy. We both know that Arab Fundamentalism is not friendly to the Jews. If Turkey falls, another piece of the Middle East falls. Instead of a potential friend, or at least a neutral party, Israel is faced with another major enemy."

"But what proof do you have?"

"As much or more than we have that the Iranians did it," Sean said. "First of all, they'd have more reason than the Iranians to use American assassins. They would never survive the political fallout if they were caught, while the Iranians could. Second, it makes more sense for the Israelis to use a cleaner, their style is more like ours, and again, they really needed to make sure things went right and were kept quiet."

"Sadat?"

"Coincidence."

"I don't think the Israelis would stoop so low."

"Call in Goldman."

"I don't know if he'd agree with you."

"You know how they developed their nuclear armament."

"One occasion," Bob said.

"A big one in a bag of dirty tricks."

"This is bad. Is this just a hunch or are you serious about this?" Bob asked.

"Bob, it's the only thing that makes sense," Sean said.

"Have you told the team yet?"

"No I thought of it while I was getting a drink of water."

"I'll call them and tell them to break for the day." Bob stared at Sean. "What are we supposed to do with this info?"

"Give it to someone who can use it."

A few hours later, Senator Phelps looked skeptically at the two people in front of him. Phelps was the chairman on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Before him was Tennessee Adams, the Associate Deputy Director of Intelligence and Sean Weiland, analyst for the Intelligence Directorate's Office of Near Eastern and South Asian Analysis. Sean had just explained to him her theory that it was the Israelis, not the Iranians, who had killed the Turkish diplomats.

It appeared as if he was having trouble believing them—which from his position was understandable. He had sat in front of them, appearing calm. He had listened to Sean's ideas and had heard the ADDI back her up. This was not what the FBI had told him, and politically, was much less valuable.

"Why is it that you and the FBI have come to such different conclusions?" Phelps asked.

Adams fielded the question. "Most likely because they don't have the overseas resources that we do, sir. That, of course, is the reason that they wanted us to look at this situation."

"And so with your—resources—you do not agree with the FBI, then?"

"Correct, sir."

"Adams," Phelps asked, "why wouldn't the Israelis do it in their own backyard, rather than wait for them to come here?"

Adams had been briefed extensively by Bob and Sean since he was expected to answer most of the Senator's questions in this informal session. "Because they knew that if it happened here, we'd investigate it and jump on it."

"So you're saying that the Israelis are trying to manipulate us into doing what they want, so as to enhance their own security?"

"Yes, sir," Adams replied.

"You think they would do this without regard to Turkish lives, or the lives that might be lost in Turkey as a result of these murders?"

"Yes, sir."

"I find that hard to believe."

"Senator," the ADDI said, "I don't think I have to remind you about the fact that they, years ago, stole classified materials and information from us to start their own nuclear program?"

"Hunh." Adams had stumped Phelps on that one. Phelps wasn't being disbelieving out of distrust. As a politician that represented, in effect, his whole country on this matter, he had to be sure that he was right before he went charging off. He had to believe he was making the right choice. "Thank you for informing me," Phelps said. "I'll be sure that this information gets to the rest of the committee. We will probably confer with the president, as well."

Adams stood and Sean followed suit. "Thank you for your time, Senator," he said, shaking Phelps' hand. "We'll pass word to the DCI, who will no doubt, also discuss this with the president. My recommendation to him will to begin an extensive investigation into this matter."

"No doubt," Phelps said with a fake smile, while shaking Sean's hand.

On their way out, Sean had an ear-to-ear grin on her face. Adams looked at her, and smiled as well. "You did good," he said.

"Thank you," she replied, still smiling.

"You seem proud of yourself."

"Shouldn't I be?" Sean asked.

"Of course, it's your finest work to date."

"Thank you, sir."

As they walked out to the company car, the driver opened the door for them. Sean and her superior got in. Neither really said much to each other on the ride back. It wasn't a far ride, but city traffic made it take longer than it should have. Their job was done, but it felt somehow unfulfilling. There was still a lot of work to be done on the case, but they would not be the ones doing it.

Somewhere on the freeway, the car stopped. The safety glass separating the driver and the passengers in the back seat lowered and the driver turned around.

"Reports on the radio say that there's a big accident up ahead. Might take awhile to get through."

"No problem," Adams answered.

"Any idea how long we'll be delayed?" Sean asked curiously.

"No ma'am," the driver replied.

A sound startled all three of them. Someone was knocking on the driver's window—a policeman by the looks of things.

The driver rolled down his window. As he did, Sean wondered what the policeman could possibly want. Certainly there was no trouble this far back. Certainly not from their car in particular.

"Can I help you?" the driver asked politely.

Just then, Sean noticed that there was no gun in the policeman's holster. That was odd. Why wouldn't he have a gun?

Something was not right.

Sean's heart started to beat faster.

"Yes you can," she heard the policeman reply on the edge of her consciousness. Her head snapped up and she looked for his hands. She couldn't see his left arm. His right hand was restin gon the car windowsill.

Where was that other hand?

Slowly, with the littlest motion possible, Sean began to reach for the button that would put up the safety glass between the driver and them. She prayed that if the policeman was about to do what she thought, that she could move fast enough—and without him noticing.

Unfortunately, the cop moved just as fast as she.

As the officer pulled his left arm up, Sean shoved Adams onto the floor of the car. "Get down!" she cried, praying he wouldn't resist.

As Sean fell on top of Adams and depressed the button her finger had been searching for, the muffled sounds of shots rang out. He was using a silencer.

He was a pro.

She could hear and feel shots rip into the backseat of the car where their bodies had been seconds ago. Just as she feared the next shots would tear through her body, she heard shots ricochet off of the plastiglass shield. Luckily, the rising window did what it was designed to do.

She dared a look, only to see the cop moving toward the back door.

The door.

Saen bolted upright and reached the door lock just as the man reached to open the door. To his chagrin it didn't open. Frustrated, he reared back and unloaded three more rounds into the window. For Sean, t iwas a terrible thing to experience. She watched rapt as it all happened: as he took aim, as his finger depressed the trigger, as the bullets exploded out of the barrel, and as the bullets bounced off the bulletproof windows. Her heart jumped into her throat and unconsciously she held her breath . Although she knew she was safe, fear paralyzed her for quite a while. Uncalled upon, adrenaline surged through her veins, leaving her shaking.

She wasn't even able to move as the assassin jumped on a motorcycle, moved through traffic and sped away. Sean was not able to do anything but pull herself back into her seat and drop her head into her hands.

Adams got up as well, quite obviously ruffled, and very confused. "What," he began, "what just happened?"

"Somebody tried to kill us," Sean said without looking up.

Adams looked, horrified, at the dead driver. He placed his fingers against the safety window that had saved their lives, running his fingers over the small marks made by the impact of the bullets. He quickly turned away as the mess left from the exit wound in the chauffeur's head sickened him. Adams turned the opposite direction and looked at the holes in the seat behind them, which would have been through their heads, were it not for Sean's heroics.

"You saved us," he whispered.

Sean didn't reply, her head still in her hands.

"Sean," Adams said softly, "it's okay now."

Sean finally reacted as Adams touched her shoulder. She looked at him, her whole body still shaking, more adrenaline than fear. "What's okay?" she asked. "What the fuck did this mean?"

"I don't know," Adams said.

"Don't you?" Sean asked, her eyes wide. "Why would anyone want us dead? I'm a nobody analyst, and you're just the ADDI, you're not all that important."

Adams raised his eyebrows.

"What I mean is, if you get knocked off, the CIA won't crumble."

"No," he admitted, scared with where she was going.

"But together, we've just presented an idea that somebody doesn't like. I told Bob my idea, he told you. It was your idea to have an advance meeting with the Senator. It went as well as could be expected. Now you report to the DDI, who goes to the DCI, who goes to the president."

"Sean," Adams began.

"However, if you eliminate us, you eliminate the theory. The only person that could want us dead is me, you, Bob, or Phelps. I know I didn't do it. I trust Bob and you. Besides, neither Bob or you would have let me get close to the Senator. That means it's Phelps."

"Who happens to be strongly against the advance of Arab Fundamentalism."

Sean nodded slightly to Adams, shaking her head. "Right. That means someone, or someones in our own government orchestrated this whole thing."

"My God," Adams breathed, finally accepting all that was being said.

Another knock on the window made both Sean and Adams jump. It was a police officer, holding his hand on his still holstered pistol.

Adams softly laid his hand on Sean's shoulder. Behind them was a real policecar, with real police lights flashing. Or so they hoped.

Adams pushed the button to roll down the window.

"Are you okay?" the officer asked.

Adams nodded.

The officer leaned in the car, checking out both Adams and Sean. A lone tear escaped down Sean's cheek. She wiped it away fast. Then the officer saw Adams' passcard hanging from his jacket breast pocket. It cleared him to be in the Capitol. He knew then that these were important people. As if the fact that they had a driver hadn't already told him that.

The officer grabbed his radio and called for back-up.

Adams held up his finger and rolled the window back up. The officer nodded, still talking in his radio.

"We're gonna get him," Sean muttered.

"No we're not," Adams answered softly.

Sean looked up at him, her eyes blazing. "What do you mean?"

"Did you forget that we're CIA? We have no jurisdiction over domestic cases."

"And what? We're just supposed to be targets while the Feds arrest this guy?"

"No, we'll assign members of the security team to you." Adams rubbed his chin. "And to Bob. "

"How long will I be in danger?"

"I don't know. It depends on how long the FBI takes to investigate."

Sean smacked the glass shield in front of her. "What's to investigate? He's the only one that knows besides us! It's him!"

"There's nothing more we can do, Sean! It's over."

"Fuck! I feel so helpless!"

"We both are."

"I just don't like it. I'm not that kind of person."

"I know. You're a very strong person."

Sean brushed her long hair out of her face and looked at Adams. For the first time in what seemed like an eternity, she smiled, even if it was only a little bit. And even if she wasn't really happy.

It was her job to know why. Only now she didn't know why. She knew why as in who had done it, but why had Phelps or whoever else was involved gone so far? Why did they have to take the lives of people who had never done anything wrong?

On a more personal note, Sean wondered how they could reduce such a strong woman into a whimpering, quivering mess? Why could they turn her entire world upside down? Nothing made any sense. She thought she had had everything figured out. She thought that she had erased all the doubts in her mind. But this had only brought it all back. She doubted her place in the world, and she doubted the people in her world. Who could she trust and who could she rely on?

Later that night, Sean collapsed on her couch in her Georgetown apartment. She fumbled for the remote control and found it in between the couch cushions. She turned on the television. CNN snapped to life. On the news was a breaking news report.

"Tonight," the newsperson said, "we have recieved news that three Turkish diplomats were assasinated. FBI sources have confirmed that Iranian terrorists are the prime suspects."

Sean's jaw dropped in disbelief. So this was the truth, she thought. This was their truth.