Operation Mockingbird Read Online Free Page A

fun and passionate and, Matt had to admit, the closest thing to a real relationship he’d ever had.
    After they had been dating for several months, Dana started talking to Matt about his career. It started as questions about how his day went and he couldn’t help but he flattered she was interested in what he did. But Dana quickly moved from asking general questions about his job to offering specific career advice and then to pushing him in directions designed to advance his career down a sensible path. A path that required daily shaving, networking at various events and a new set of friends.
    He soon found himself being directed down a road he did not want to travel. She didn’t take it very well when Matt started ignoring her guidance and any discussions about his “professional progression” as she liked to call it.
    Matt began to realize just how driven Dana was, professionally and socially. She already had the successful career, having established herself as an expert on U.S. immigration policies. She was at a point in her life when she wanted to establish herself in the center of the Miami social scene, a place her parents had long occupied. She served on several strategically chosen charity boards. She got invited to all the right events and attended most of them, mingling easily with the Miami elite. She had enough ambition for the two of them plus half the slackers in Matt’s own social circle.
    Matt was being dragged to those networking events and fundraisers that made it to the top of Dana’s pile of invitations. Once there, he was awkwardly rubbing elbows with Miami politicos, international businessmen and professional athletes. At first, it was pretty exciting stuff, but Dana approached these events as she did her career -- with a singular focus on cultivating the relationships that would enable her to be accepted as a member of the group of professionals known as much for their connections as anything they may have accomplished.
    His aspirations were a lot less grand -- a hot wife, a couple of kids and an interesting job that enabled him to travel occasionally to exotic locations to report on the latest political scandal or civilian uprising. Sure, he wanted to make enough money to support his family, maybe even enough to own a boat and a house in the Keys. That was about the extent of his dreams. Aside from the occasional Art Deco pub crawl on South Beach or some randominternational street festival, he had little interest in the Miami social scene.
    His decision to leave for Afghanistan just when the problems between Dana and him were coming to a head didn’t help matters. Dana saw Matt’s decision to run off to the Middle East, without the support of an embedded team of other reporters and heavy army escort -- and knowing his views on the situation and guessing the nature of the stories he would be writing -- as a very career-limiting move. She had always accused him of being politically tone deaf. In a moment of clarity, just days before he left, he realized that while she meant this as an insult, he did not consider her accusation a slur upon his character. He thought the opposite was true. Being politically tone-deaf was a condition he cultivated. It was, he believed, what made him a hell of a good investigative reporter.
    One evening as they were getting ready to attend yet another fancy charity event, she gave him the ultimatum most men were faced with sooner or later. Fish or cut bait. Get engaged or it was over. Matt immediately identified the bait and the sharpened hook from which it was dangled. He didn’t go for the lure. Instead, he used his impressive communication skills learned from years of interviewing reticent witnesses -- and the avoidance techniques learned from years of bachelorhood -- to manage the situation.
    He paused and took her slender, well-manicured hand into his own. He glanced at her mouth, set with determination. He looked into her brown eyes, fierce with resolve. He