Despite his miserable train of thought Brody had fallen asleep, slumped against the wall. As he awoke several different images swam in front of his eyes, disorienting him. The cuts on Carrie's wrists, Dana yelling about spilt milk, flames in the hearth at the cabin. It took several moments for the tang of burning from Langley, which still clung to his hair and skin, to bring him back to the present, to allow him to recall where he was. And why.
The backpack Carrie had handed him was just off to his right. It had been heavy on the trek here and he had been so tired when he arrived at the cabin she'd marked on the map that he'd tossed it down without examining the contents. He hadn't looked about the cabin, either, preferring just to stop a while, collapsing on to the floor, waiting for everything to stop spinning, trying to catch up with himself. It was still dark outside, it had been the moonlight he'd seen in the window before. He was colder now than ever. He rooted around in the bag. Maps, a compass, bottled water, the bundles of cash he'd seen when Carrie had pulled open her 'rainy day' trunk in the lock up. He found a sachet of something, one of those glucose preparations that marathon runners and the army carry. He bit into it and sucked down the contents. There was a tightly packed, lightweight sleeping bag, the state of the art type they'd use in the Marines, which he unravelled and got into, his legs creaking as he moved.
Carrie was awesome. He wondered about the scrapes she'd been in, the circles she moved in that meant that she had an alternate identity, emergency supplies, a huge amount of cash and a safe-house across the border all ready to go, at the drop of a hat. He had learnt a while ago not to underestimate her but he marvelled at her professionalism. She was basically a spy, party to all kinds of classified information, mixing with all kinds of heinous individuals. Heinous individuals like him, he guessed. How had they wound up so involved with each other? Didn't she know better than that?
Then his fingers brushed its cold edge. He took it out of the bag. A pistol. There would be ammo inside the bag, he thought. He stared at it. Then put it back in the bag swiftly, it unsettled him. He resolved that he needed get some proper rest before deciding what to do next, he knew he still wasn't thinking straight.
"I'm going to clear your name, Brody.", Carrie had said when he left her in tears on that track. He didn't see how this was remotely possible but he knew Carrie enough to understand that she would not let it drop. Being a lone voice at the CIA, trying to convince her colleagues of Brody's guilt hadn't worked out too well for her before. Now she'd be suddenly swearing blind that he was innocent this time, he feared the worst. He regretted the impact he had had on her life. The first time he had landed her in hospital. Knowingly. She'd let them fry her brain, for god's sake. Carrie now claimed that it was all worth it since it had meant she could take Nazir down. Brody wasn't so sure.
Nazir was gone but he'd either orchestrated this last genius act to punish Brody for his betrayal of him, or else there was already another figurehead in place who knew all about him. Probably both. It had been more than just revenge for betraying the cause, Brody knew that. Nazir had professed to love Brody like a son, had entrusted Isa to him and welcomed him into the comfort of Islam. Carrie said that Nazir had used these tools, his own son amongst them, to put Brody back together as someone else, after first tearing him apart, erasing crucial parts of who he had originally been. It wasn't just personal, Brody was a rare commodity, years in the making, that had been deployed to maximum effect. The idea that a politician, an ex-Marine, a war hero, one of their own boys could be turned, could strike so lethally from the inside, would terrify the US and its allies like never before.
Brody saw that he had been a pawn for years, whether he'd known it or not. The US military, Nazir, Carrie, the CIA and now whoever had succeeded Abu Nazir - they had all used him at some stage. And now he was spent. There was hardly anything else left for himself. He was done.