THE FUSE

I was at Baghdad International Airport, March 2007. The call came as I waited in the departure lounge to fly back to DC from my last trip to Iraq as an intelligence officer. The caller, a friend who was close to the man the President had just nominated to be my new boss, said, "The news isn't great, Eric. He's just finished a project with CIA, who told him your bureaucratic meddling severely damaged the agency." As the words sank in, my gut knotted, my heart pounded, and my breath came shallow and fast. I don't remember how the call ended, just that I felt that the bottom had just fallen out of my life.