Saul was on his cell, trying to wind up the call. He was biting his lip, trying not to lose his temper. "National fucking Security Advisor.", he muttered at Quinn by way of explanation after he hung up. Quinn noted that Saul was wearing fresh clothes but that the stoop he seemed to have developed overnight was still with him.
Quinn had walked down the corridor urgently as soon as he had seen him coming. He looked disconcerted, paler than usual. Dar Adal had obviously not gone easy on him. Saul still didn't know how he felt about it. Quinn had failed to follow orders but Saul considered those orders and the agenda that prompted them to have been repugnant. Saul might just have done the same, had he been in Quinn's shoes. Dar Adal would have told Quinn that he was in good company at the CIA, that Saul had a soft belly and could be relied upon to take the moral high ground. Dar Adal would ask who died and made Saul arbiter of right and wrong, hadn't he been around long enough to know that the boundary between the two shifted back and forth like the tide, after all? Quinn had done the right thing. Tell that to 212 grieving families, thought Saul. He wondered whether the black ops mission would make the cut into the official report on the matter. He figured that there was no reason to cover it up if those responsible for issuing the dubious orders were dead, their motives could no longer be called into question and they had even been proven kind of right if Brody had been involved. Walden and Estes might even be cast in angelic light, as the heroes who were working to try and prevent the attack, even before they knew it was on the cards. Saul grimaced, he knew how things went and it made him sick.
"Shall we?", Saul ushered Quinn into his new office.
As soon as Saul had put his bag down on the desk and Quinn opened his mouth to speak, Saul's cell rang again. Quinn listened to Saul trying to placate somebody for the second time in two minutes.
"Maggie Mathison. Her sister took off, she switched off her cell and we can't find her. I'm worried she might not be coping.", came Saul's curt explanation of this latest call.
"As in Agent Carrie Mathison, the CIA's own Joan of Arc?", said Quinn.
Saul shot Quinn a don't-fuck-with-me look over his glasses.
"Try looking three doors down the hall, Saul. Last I saw of her she was acting nutty, bawling over that video of America's Most Wanted and waving a sharpie around. I warn you, she seems pissed at someone.", Quinn chirped, pleased he had finally been granted the opportunity to speak.
Saul looked to the heavens and exhaled. He dialled Maggie and they spoke for a while. Quinn listened again, feeling like a spare part. "Maggie's on her way, she'll be right here.", came Saul's now customary call summary.
Quinn frowned. "Forgive me, but is this situation a little...?"
"Irregular?...Ludicrous?...Untenable?", Saul finished his sentence, speaking Quinn's mind. "You bet it is, but I'm damn sure there's no precedent. There's no protocol for this. Not that anyone around here follows protocol anyhow.". Saul raised an eyebrow at his colleague. Point made.
Saul and Quinn discussed the modus operandi with Roya, the developing intelligence coming through from the blast, analysis of early web 'chatter' on the incident and how they would divide up tasks once the extra agents Saul had been promised finally showed up. Quinn was looking forward to getting on with something to distract him. Saul left Carrie working alone in her office. When Maggie arrived, he sent Quinn down to collect her from front desk. While he was doing so, Saul pushed back in his chair and rubbed his beard before reluctantly getting up and meandering down the hall to Carrie's room.
His tone was conciliatory, his movements slow. He didn't want another fight.
"There you are. What are you working on?", he said, stopping just inside the door.
"I'm going to prove it to you. Show you that Brody didn't do this.", Carrie gestured towards her whiteboard, which now had three or four luminous green post-its stuck at various points along a long thick black line running through the centre of the board, with 1.47 v.s. 1.22 in bold red figures at the end of it. Orange post-its floated around the green ones, connected to them with arrows drawn in marker pen. The post-its were adorned with different coloured text in quotation marks.
"Are you feeling okay? You were involved in a massive explosion just a day ago, after all. It's normal not to feel yourself after something as big as this. I sure as hell don't and I wasn't even there.", he said.
"I'm okay. I just...we just all need to get to work. Why is nobody doing anything?". Carrie said, tapping her pen against her free hand.
"You wouldn't lie to me, would you Carrie?", Saul said, letting it hang somewhere between a question and a statement, his voice cracking a little.
Somehow Saul knew, even before he knew, Carrie thought.
She stifled a gulp. She knew that this was a general question. She knew she wouldn't be able to keep him at bay for much longer. When he inevitably figured it out she wouldn't be able to bear it if she lost Saul. Her balloon would simply float away, lost to the ether without his ballast. But she also knew she had already crossed that line, the deception had begun the second she called out to him amongst the body bags. Carrie was once again risking everything, her career, her mental health, her most treasured relationships for Brody. She had to believe that she was right to do so, it was Brody she needed to cling to now. She thought back to how tightly he had insisted on holding her when they went to sleep that last night in the cabin. She had assured him that she wasn't going anywhere but he would not let go. Carrie had waited for him to drop off before squirming around enough to loosen his grip. She made sure it wasn't too loose though. Normally she liked to be left alone to sleep, she felt claustrophobic if her partner intruded on her space too much, but this had felt just right.
"I'm fine, Saul. Really.", she said, pretending that she thought they were just talking about her condition. She bit her lip to stop any rogue expression creeping on to her face.
"Well Maggie is here just to check you out. You told me you were with her and your dad last night, that she'd given you the all clear? That counts as a lie, doesn't it?".
He was mad at her, she could tell. Sometimes with Saul, the madder he was, the stiller he became. He had already figured that she was being devious and was trying to ascertain how many fathoms deep the iceberg went, she could feel him calculating it, weighing her up. She could also see that he was afraid of what he would see when he reached the answer.
There was a silence between them. Each of them wondering how it had come to this.
Quinn could see the family resemblance. Both blond, both slight and both incredibly snippy. Saul and Maggie had seemed to know each other, he thought. Quinn guessed that keeping Carrie on the straight and narrow must be a tag team thing. They waited just outside the office, able to feel the glacial standoff between Carrie and Saul through the glass wall.
Carrie spotted her sister outside the door. She was transported back to the time when she had shoplifted candy from a store in her neighbourhood, aged nine. The store owner had called her mother and none of it had seemed real to Carrie until she saw her mother's face appear at the window. Then she wailed.
"What the fuck?! Saul! I told you I am fine, I'm perfect! I just have a lot to be getting on with, I just need to focus and if you people would just let me alone for a while I could make some headway!", she blustered, voice raising.
"You need to go with Maggie, Carrie. Take a few days to get over this, get out of here.", Saul was inscrutable.
"Are you fucking firing me?", she yelled.
"No. I'm not. But I am proposing that you stay away for a while. A hiatus. You can't afford to hurt yourself over this and I can't afford to let you. I already have 212 souls on my conscience. I need you back in one piece.", Saul said sadly. He nodded Maggie into the room.
Maggie looked gaunt, too afraid for Carrie to be mad at her just yet. This was the second time she had needed to bundle her little sister away from a huge fucking CIA mess in as many years. She wondered what Carrie had done this time. Sometimes she wished she would just accept that she had limits.
"A hiatus? But this can't wait!", Carrie jabbed her pen over to the whiteboard. "I've found a lead.". "Saul", she begged, "He was recycled. His video was re-used, re-purposed, re-issued. Brody was no longer fit for his original purpose but he was too valuable a resource for Nazir to just let him go to waste. So he used him anyway! His video has been edited. Saul, there are twenty five missing seconds. They took out the parts of the video that no longer applied to this attack. They made the confession fit the crime!". Carrie was wide-eyed, animated but quickly losing heart that he wasn't showing any signs of enthusiasm at her discovery. She began to weep in frustration.
"This proves nothing, Carrie", he said simply.
"No, not in isolation, I agree, but it's a start. Come on, Saul!. I'm telling you - Brody is innocent!".
Saul heard her use the present tense. He registered it but he didn't react, he still wasn't sure if the iceberg was growing or if it was a trick of the light hitting the water.
"I think it's best if you go home, Carrie. Get some rest, take a break. But don't go too far, we'll need you.". He looked at Maggie, who put a protective arm around Carrie and was surprised when she didn't have to pull her out of there by her hair. "I'll call you in a couple of days.".
Carrie took a last possessive peep at her whiteboard diagram and allowed herself to be lead away by Maggie, who cast Saul a look that was an apology and a thank you all in one.
Carrie wondered how many red dots Brody could burn through in a couple of days.
When they had left and all was silent again, Saul approached the whiteboard. He was accustomed to deciphering her technicolor diagrams, following the thread of reason through labyrinths made of paper, Sellotape and rainbows. He agreed that colour helped in categorising certain trains of thought but like everything else about her, Carrie's reliance on it was extreme. This latest oeuvre was subdued in comparison to past works, he thought.
Quinn appeared by his side. He cocked his head to take it in, read some of the post-its. "What's this? The 101 greatest proverbs of Abu Brody?!", cracked Quinn.
Saul narrowed his eyes. "No. They're not quotations. They're the things he doesn't say. The missing 25 seconds. The things they felt the need to cut out this time. Carrie says they recycled his video. By looking at the parts they edited, she thinks we'll gain insight into what's important to them.".
Quinn thought of how he had rolled his eyes and tossed his Dr. Pepper in the trash can instead of the recycling pail after his exchange with Carrie earlier on, just to spite her for being screwy. He smiled. "Insight huh? Insight bordering on witchcraft. So what do we have?", he asked The Bear as they stared at the post-its.