The morning meeting with C was normally an informal gathering, with Crocker and his opposite number in the Intelligence Directorate, Daniel Szurko, presenting any new business that had arisen in the last twenty-four hours to C, while the Deputy Chief, Simon Rayburn, offered additional interpretation and comment, as well as any bureaucratic insight that might be needed. The casualness was emphasized by the absence of a desk in the proceedings, the meeting instead conducted in the sitting-room portion of C's ample office, with Crocker and Szurko sharing the couch, Rayburn in a reading chair, and C herself seated in another, at the opposite end of the coffee table from the Deputy Chief. There was coffee and tea and sometimes pastry, and normally it was over within fifteen minutes of commencing.
This morning's business was completed within eight, barely enough time for Szurko to down his customary two cups of tea while relating the latest analysis on suspected terrorist activities across multiple theatres. Crocker presented the after-action on an operation in Venezuela that had concluded late the previous night, and Rayburn shared his planned agenda for the upcoming budget meeting he would be attending early that afternoon.
"Very well," C said, when the Deputy Chief had finished. "If that's everything, I think we can all get back to work."
Szurko sprang up immediately, sending crumbs from the croissant he'd managed between gulps of tea showering onto the couch and, in part, Crocker. "Paul, oh, damn, sorry," he apologized. "Sorry."
"It's nothing, don't worry about it."
"I really am, really am sorry."
Crocker shook his head, dismissing the apology as unnecessary. Szurko was, by far, the oddest figure in the room, and at thirty-eight years old and standing five feet five inches, also the youngest and the shortest. Unlike Crocker and Rayburn, he never wore a suit or a tie, instead dressing, as he called it, "casual Friday," in jeans or slacks, often with a button-down shirt, but sometimes, when it actually was Friday, with a T-shirt. His sense of style, or lack thereof, had begun to infect the rest of his directorate, and more and more often, Crocker felt himself out of place in his three-piece.
It would have been easy for Crocker to resent Szurko, but he didn't. Intelligence had to change with the times, it had to not only keep up, but to get ahead. Szurko, with his BlackBerry and his ever-present laptop, was the face of the new SIS, the next generation coming up through the ranks. While Rayburn and Crocker still brought paper to the daily meetings, Szurko avoided doing so if at all possible. If the technology and the clothing had been an affectation, a performance, it would have been different, but neither were, and the man was decidedly brilliant at his job, something that even Rayburn, who had been D-Int for several years prior to his promotion to Deputy Chief, readily admitted. The only real problem with Szurko, and Crocker had seen it before with other exceptionally gifted analysts, was that the man didn't actually seem to be entirely with them in the room at times.
"I did have one more thing," Crocker told C. "This morning Chace submitted her resignation from the Special Section to me. She's asking to be moved to the Ops Room staff, into Mission Planning."
"That'll hurt," Szurko said immediately, more to himself than to the others. "That'll hurt a lot, actually."
C glanced to D-Int, then to Crocker. "Has something happened?"
"She feels it's time. Past time, actually, and she may be right."
"You'll want Poole as Head of Section?"
"And move Lankford to Minder Two, yes."
"When does she plan to leave?"
"She doesn't seem to be in a hurry, said she'll stay on until we find a new Minder Three."
"Is there anyone in the pipeline?" Rayburn asked.
"I haven't had a chance to check with the School as yet," Crocker answered. "She informed me of the decision just before I came up for the meeting."
"There won't be," Szurko said. "I was looking at scores this morning, there's no one in the current class. Or in the previous class. Or the class before that one, actually."
"Thank you, Daniel." C got to her feet, and Crocker and Rayburn followed suit. "I think that's all, gentlemen. Paul, if you'll stay for a moment, please."
Szurko and Rayburn headed out of the office, but not before Crocker heard D-Int say, again, "That'll hurt."
When the door had closed, C said, "How much will it hurt us, Paul?"
"It'll depend on how long it takes me to find a replacement for the Section."
"That's not precisely what I'm asking. Can we afford to lose Chace?"
Crocker, who had been asking himself the same question ever since Chace had handed over her letter of resignation, said, "I don't think it's a question of that, ma'am. She's made her decision."
"Again, you're not answering me."
"She's one of the best Special Operations Officers working anywhere in the world today, despite what she may think of herself at the moment. Can we afford to lose her? No. Have we lost her already? In everything but body, yes, I think she's already out the door."
C frowned as she settled behind her desk. "Did you try to argue her out of it?"
"I considered it, but you didn't see her. She's made up her mind. And, to be honest, she made some very good points, not only that her departure was due, but that it was overdue, perhaps. She's been in the Section since she was twenty-four. That's a long time for anyone to be a Minder. In fact, I think it may be a record."
"Overdue, you say."
"She thinks so."
"Sometimes we stay too long," C said. "She does understand that Mission Planning is technically a step down on the career track? You didn't suggest a position in Whitehall? I should think it would be rather easy to have her assigned a position on the JIC as soon as one opens. That would preserve her prospects for future promotion, at the least."
"I can make the suggestion, but I doubt she'll entertain it. She wants to stay in the Ops Room."
C gazed at him for several seconds, her expression unreadable. Alison Gordon-Palmer-if the rumors about the New Year's Honors List were true, it would soon be Dame Alison-perhaps three years Crocker's senior, with limp brown hair that, like Crocker's own, was beginning to streak with gray. Her attire was always professional and conservative, today the blouse ivory, the long skirt a rich, royal blue, matching the blazer that hung on the stand behind her desk. As usual, she'd eschewed makeup, something she resorted to applying only while being ferried in her Bentley to Downing Street.
Rayburn was smart, and Szurko unquestionably, eccentrically brilliant, but Gordon-Palmer, as Crocker had learned from personal experience, operated from a cunning all her own. It wasn't simply her understanding of the Firm, of how SIS worked, that had made her C; she understood the political game as well, in a way that Crocker had never been able to master. It was a game she had played so deftly, it had cost the previous C his crown.
"Very well," C said finally. "If that's everything, Paul?"
"Yes, ma'am," Crocker said, and he left her office to return to his own, knowing full well it wasn't Tara Chace his C believed had stayed on too long.