Free Blowback by Valerie Plame

encounter someone they knew. They picnicked and wandered through the village markets bargaining for trinkets, Vanessa thumbing through her dog-eared Turkish phrase book while Khoury, amused, refused to bail her out.
    For those days, their lives together had been more than just a collection of stolen moments.
    The C-17 touched down. Vanessa, a connoisseur of landings, judged it rough, fast, and well done. Navy pilots—used to the limited landing space on carriers—always put down hard.
    A man stood waiting at the bottom of the stairs. As Vanessa stepped from shadow, blinking and slightly dazed, into full morning sun, she caught her first glance of his familiar, pushed-together features. Chuck Hamm, Chief of Station Ankara.
    The COS nodded once. “See you’re still packing light.”
    Six years ago at the Farm, Hamm, a smart, sober ops officer with a soft drawl and fifteen years’ field experience, taught Vanessa to jump out of airplanes in the paramilitary course. He seemed to tolerate her, always pushing her to take it to the next level—even when they butted heads over her tendency to push the envelope and fly solo. Hamm was that rare breed of ops instructor who made Vanessa want to prove herself, and he quickly earned her respect; no surprise he’d risen to COS of such a serious posting.
    â€œWhat’s the latest?” she asked, following him to a black, four-wheel-drive Suburban.
    â€œThey crossed the border about two hours ago.”
    â€œThank God.” She tossed her small duffel in back and then claimed the passenger seat.
    â€œIt will take them another ten, maybe twelve, hours if they’re lucky,” the COS said brusquely.
    Vanessa knew Hamm was fully briefed on Vienna and the exfil operation; the assassination of an asset and the extraction of his family from behind hostile borders didn’t happen every day.
    â€œWhat you need to remember,” Hamm said, breaking into her thoughts, “we’re a team at my station, and I keep a close eye on my people.” He turned the key, and the Surburban’s engine thrummed to life. “I’m in charge but can’t protect you if I get any surprises.”
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    He drove across base quickly, over dirt roads, past dusty shops, and finally past dormitories, where naked lightbulbs glowed faintly in daylight and Turkish palms offered slivers of shade.
    He braked in front of 21B, a cinder-block prefab—one of about thirty—painted a color that was almost Pepto pink. Vanessa winced; nothing she’d lived in on any Air Force base growing up had been this disheartening.
    Inside, the few bits of furniture were worn and the walls dirty white except where a brave occupant had painted the kitchen blue.
    The COS crossed his arms. “Make yourself at home.”
    She took a quick inventory and found the cupboards mostly bare. “I’ll need to get some basics,” she said. “Food. Chocolate. Juice. Coffee. Tea and a teapot. Oh, and a good bottle of Bourbon.”
    â€œSure,” Hamm said, his slow drawl heavy now. “Why don’t we throw in a Jacuzzi while we’re at it?”

Close to midnight, Vanessa turned the last corner, winding down her five-mile run. She pulled up short. A battered, dusty Mercedes sat parked in front of 21B; a disheveled, dark-haired man leaned against it, smoking a cigarette. Yassi had arrived sometime in the last forty minutes, during the one window Vanessa had taken to run off some of the nervous tension after a day of hurry-up-and-wait.
    She crossed the last twenty meters to the house at a dead sprint and entered breathing hard, and doing her best to wipe the sweat from her face with the sleeve of her
IAB-Turkey
T-shirt.
    The COS was waiting by the front door. “They just got here.” He tipped his head, indicating the disheveled woman standing just inside the living room. Even at close range, Vanessa