Chapter Fifty
I-95 North, Maine
Between Boston and Portland
Caspian kept the Jeep Cherokee steady in the middle lane, his fingers drumming on the wheel to the rhythm of the country song that was playing on the local FM station. Clara, Nelson’s girlfriend, was seated in the front passenger seat, her Ray-Bans pushed up into her auburn hair. In her hands, she cradled what looked less like a water bottle and more like a hydration silo.
“To be honest,” Clara said, “I never thought I’d see so much action in Kenya. I figured I’d be stuck filling out immigration paperwork and answering the occasional legal question for the ambassador, you know? But I ended up working side by side with the legat. It was fun.”
“Legat?” Caspian asked, as if he had no idea what it meant.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Clara said. “It’s the term we use for the legal attachés. They’re FBI.”
“Wow, okay. Very cool,” Caspian said, doing his best to sound impressed. “But Nelson told me you were ready for a change? I mean, I don’t think I’d ever want to leave an exciting job like yours.”
“I wouldn’t mind staying another year, but my time’s up. It’s not really my call, to be completely honest. I’ll be in DC for the next three or four years.”
“And after that?” Caspian asked.
Clara glanced over her shoulder at Nelson, whose head was against the window, his mouth slightly ajar, snoring like a man who hadn’t slept in a week.
“Then we’ll see,” she said. “Another overseas posting, maybe, or I could move to private practice here in the US. I guess a lot depends on where Nelson is and if I still like him.”
Caspian chuckled. “Fair enough.”
Clara looked at him. “What about you? Nelson said you used to work for the United Nations?”
“Yeah,” Caspian said. “I did. But nothing as exhilarating as what you’re doing in Kenya, that’s for damn sure.”
“So ... what are you doing now?” she asked, taking a long sip from her water bottle.
“Freelance consulting mostly. Most of my contracts come from the federal government. Like right now, I’m working on translating a nine-hundred-page document for the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.”
“The what now?” Clara asked.
“APHIS. It’s part of the Department of Agriculture,” Caspian said. “They regulate the importation of plants, you know? Think cut flowers, seeds, bonsai trees, that sort of thing.”
Clara leaned her head back against the seat. “Thrilling.”
“Oh, you have no idea,” Caspian said. “They even sent me on a weeklong assignment with Fish and Wildlife. That was so intense.”
“I bet,” Clara muttered, looking out her window.
Caspian decided to push the envelope a bit further. “They’re the ones who enforce compliance with international treaties on endangered species. Do you know how much contraband aloe vera is smuggled into the country every year?”
“I ... I don’t know, Caspian. You got me there,” Clara said, then she shifted in her seat and asked, “Were you always that into federal regulations, or is this a new thing?”
Caspian smirked. “Only since I realized how hard it is to ship citrus across state lines. Did you know oranges can’t legally be shipped into California without inspection?”
Clara stared at him. “You are ... alarmingly full of fun facts, aren’t you?”
Caspian shrugged, but he was still smiling.
“Nelson said he’d always thought you were dangerous, somehow,” Clara said.
“Did he?”
“Yeah, but I thought he meant in a Jason Bourne kind of way. Turns out you’re more like a particularly diligent park ranger, right?”
