On Carrie's orders, 9:30 staff meeting had been reconvened in the intel room at Islamabad station. The group of operatives sat open mouthed, as John Redmond condescended to the new station chief, "Young lady, let's have a chat," he'd said. Like he was inviting a new kindergarten teacher to a dressing down in the teacher's lounge.
With a voice as cold as the Iron Curtain, Carrie ordered: "Sit down, John."
Carrie had walked into an unstable situation in Islamabad station, but it didn't become clear to her how unstable it was, until John Redmond attempted to snap her garters in her very first staff meeting. Trying to undermine her new authority was something she might have expected from anyone who thought that they'd been tapped for the job, but flagrantly treating her like an errant schoolgirl in front of her entire staff was unexpected.
Fortunately for Carrie, and unfortunately for Redmond, his mildly intoxicated bloviating was met with Carrie's iron-hard command. She hadn't gotten where she was by pandering to male authority. A guy named Hensley complained that the station had been on lockdown, and Carrie was able to tell him, "Yeah, I'm working on that, Alan."
"Expect the lockdown to be lifted by tomorrow," she continued, "and get me the transport log for the last 5 days, and a pouch, please," she finished. Then she eyeballed Redmond and said, "Okay, John. You and I are gonna have that chat now."
He looked around at the other case officers like he just realized the woodshed roles had been reversed, and followed Carrie into her – formerly his – office.
She dressed him down, and quick, and when he had the nerve to ask how she got the position, she stonewalled him so politely that he felt like he'd just been decapitated with a feather-duster, "I asked nicely," she said. Then she shooed him out of the room, with an admonition to sober up – damn. And he'd thought he had been so subtle. He and Dennis only drank vodka during the day, but evidently Carrie was perceptive on a number of levels. He was tempted to think of her as a ball-busting bitch, but then reminded himself they were on the same side.
When Redmond had taken himself off, Carrie opened her computer and began to consider the situation. Why had Sandy's intel always been so good? And how had it gone so horribly wrong at the Dande Darpa Khel? And as always, when she was seeking ways forward, thinking through strategies, and wishing for another sane, logical mind to bounce thoughts of, her thoughts went to Peter.
Quinn. Where was he? Last she'd heard, he was on his way out. She couldn't believe he meant it. Partly, because she didn't want to believe it. If Quinn was out of the CIA, then she'd lost one of her most reliable operatives. Thoughtful, perceptive, and showing something like wisdom in a business where almost nobody lasted long enough to gain any. He was also noticeably loyal to her, in a business where there was hardly ever any such thing as interpersonal loyalty. Someone she considered to be almost her right hand, he was. There was more to it than that, though. It pulled at her guts.
Carrie thought of the number of times she'd turned around after a difficult Op and found him standing there, watching over her. Like after the time she'd pretended to be in a yoga class, only to have been made by Javadi's goons anyway. Quinn had been outside, watching, waiting. He had cocked his head at her, exasperated. Obviously he had been worried about her. And later that night, there had been the… what else was there to call it? The Night Watch.
Carrie smiled, because she knew that there was a Rembrandt by the same name, which was one of the most famous paintings in the world. For Carrie, her Night Watch would be the night Peter sat 100 yards away in his car, observing her residence, not knowing that she would soon be stripped, searched, and kidnapped to negotiate with Javadi – all part of the play, but something that terrorized her, and no doubt, Quinn as well.
That night, he had sat in his vehicle, called. He had asked if she was ok. She had answered, honestly, 'No, not really." She had asked where he was, and he had said, about a hundred yards away. "At a safe distance," he'd said. His voice had been loaded with meaning, as if the slightest word or request from her and he'd be closer – in her yard, on her couch, in her bed – and ready to protect and serve. But she hadn't known then that Javadi's goons had made her and that the whole operation was really blown. She asked Quinn if she'd gotten made, and he said, honestly, "I don't know." She had said it was always a fucking long shot – how heartbreaking too, when she considered what she'd gone through for the op, and then told him goodnight.
Next thing she knew, she had been cornered in her room by two of Javadi's armed men, her phone crushed under their feet, Peter too far away to observe or hear – no doubt if he had known, he'd have shot them both. But instead, they had violently stripped her naked. Cut her clothing off, until she was intimidated enough to remove it herself. Pressed her belly against the wall, supposedly checking for weapons, wires, or what have you, but in reality, enjoying the opportunity to frighten her, feel her body, observe her nakedness and vulnerability, her terror. It was part of the op, and after they dressed her, they put a pillowcase over her head and hustled her out of the condo. Then hauled her off to Javadi's crib, where he thought he'd have the upper hand.
The whole thing had been by design, but she had felt so violated. She and Saul had calculated the whole move to bring Javadi in, turn him, one of the most delicate acts of cross-counter-intel that could possibly be executed. But sitting alone in her office, what Carrie thought back to was what would have happened if Quinn hadn't been at a safe distance.
Her essential loneliness, her deep want for companionship, his companionship, her desire for satisfaction, sexual and otherwise, reared up in her mind. She drank her shitty Embassy coffee and imagined what it would have been like to have Peter protecting her. The whole Javadi op, out the window, and only Carrie's feelings and desires in the front. She'd have said something different. Instead of "I'm not sure I like being watched over by you, Quinn," she'd have said what she was really feeling.
Carrie slept her computer, closed her eyes. In her mind, she replayed the night. "Quinn, I don't feel safe. Come closer," she'd have said. She'd have listened for his voice, gravelly, hoarse, sensual.
"How close?" he might have asked.
If she had been losing her mind with isolation and fear, she might have said, "Just knock on the door." And she knew he would have come. He was like that, dedicated, relentless.
He would have parked the car, approached alone in the dark, checking for tails, observers. If there had been anything to be concerned about, he'd have called in more agents. If it had been all-quiet, he'd have knocked on the door. Or come over the back garden wall and appeared at the French doors, as he sometimes did. Sometimes, considering the fear, humiliation, pain and grief she'd suffered as a result of trying to turn Javadi and find out who move the bomb and clear Brody – from this perspective, all such a waste, all such a world of warped horror and trepidation, and for what? She wishes she had let Peter blow the op. Thoughts of him had become her only pleasure, and she mentally went on with the fantasy, there in her new Islamabad office, feeling the sting of his absence even as she mentally reviewed the way that night should have gone.
Quinn. Darkly handsome, strong, reliable, and as her eyes had finally come to see him, beautiful. Imagine if he'd come to her door. The Javadi op would have been off, as they would have seen Carrie wasn't alone. And instead of these nameless Middle Eastern thugs with their hands on her, it would have been Quinn on her couch. She replayed the fantasy again, where she asked him to stay. Instead of at a safe distance, as he'd called it. He'd have been able to keep her much safer. Her feelings for him were disturbingly more than collegial. And she missed him a great deal more than she'd admitted to herself.
"I'm glad you came in," she would have said, "Because I'm not ok."
Quinn would have come in, sat his Walther on the coffee table and said, "Do you want me to stay?"
From there, the fantasy diverged. Sometimes she got him a drink and they sat and talked in the living room until they both fell asleep there, her head on his lap, one of his hands on her shoulder, the other, on his weapon.
Sometimes, in the fantasy, she gave him permission to do what the Javadi goons had done, carry her upstairs over his shoulder, abruptly remove her clothing, explore her body with his hands, eyes crawling over every newly exposed inch of flesh. Then, he would put a huge hand on the flat of her sternum and push her backwards toward her bed, naked, watching her eyes, watching for her to object and say no, and when she did not, stripping himself similarly, and entering her, combining animal need, hurt and tenderness so swiftly in turn that she could not distinguish one from the other, both of their pleasure and frustration so great, that they'd give themselves over to any sensation, as long as the other caused it. Her mental image of Quinn entering her from behind, hands on her hips, finally losing control of himself enough to make a sound, an anguished bark of possession, a spasm of decadence, his long wait for her touch almost beyond bearing. She hoped it was true, she wanted it to be true.
In her mind it was true. He was, after all, her happy place. She knew nothing for sure, though, and the last time they spoke, he swore he was leaving the agency and would not be joining her in Pakistan. Her chest ached at the thought, that they were done.
These thoughts, these were thoughts of the past. In fact, none of it had gone the way she imagined. The Javadi game had worked out the way they hoped, they had sent his ass home as an American double agent, but in the end, she wondered if they'd done any good. She wondered if the best thing that could have happened is that she had invited Quinn inside, and asked him to strip search her – it sounded like the better option at the moment, that was for sure.
She was about to close her computer and head back to her sterile agency apartment, when her g-phone rang. The called ID read, "Peter Quinn."
"Please don't say you pocket dialed me," she said, more pleased than she was willing to admit to see his name.
Typical Quinn, he started right in the middle of the paragraph, no explanation. "We never had a chance," he said.
"What do you mean?" Carrie asked.
"In the car. With Sandy," Quinn said, breathlessly
"What makes you say that?" Carrie asked, concerned. "Are you alright?"
Quinn said evenly, "It was premeditated – the whole thing – from start to finish. There was a guy in the crowd with an earpiece, coordinating the whole thing."
Carrie was stunned. "Go to your computer," Quinn said to her, "I just sent you the link."
She opened the link, looked, watched the vid. Sure enough, there was a guy in the foreground with a comm link, and obviously was driving what was a clearly a coordinated operation.
"Jesus, Quinn!" Carrie said, distressed.
"We never had a chance," he said, disgustedly.
A moment or two of discussion later, and Carrie was able to say what had been on her mind all along. "This changes everything Quinn. I really need you, now."
She could feel Quinn emotionally pull back after that statement, and she got a stomach ache at his tacit refusal, which then came verbally. "I can't do that, Carrie, I'm sorry."
Abandoning dignity, and remembering her previous intimate thoughts, she said, "Quinn, I wouldn't ask if there was anyone else I could count on. Don't make me beg."
"I can't do it," he said again, sounding more strained this time.
"Please," Carrie begged. "Please!"
Carrie begging him for anything was almost more than Quinn could take.
"Shit, Carrie," he said, through clenched teeth. "You're the hardest person in the world to say no to," he gritted.
"Is that a yes?" she asked, almost capering with delight. Silence on the line – but she knew he was coming.
"God, I fucking love you, Quinn, you know that, don't you?" she said?
"Yeah," he said. The line went quiet.
She closed her laptop, went back to her room, and got comfortable with a glass of wine. It was only a drink or two in that she realized what she had said – and that she had actually meant it.