Conspiracy

by Stephen Coonts

  23

  KJARTAN “TOMMY” MAGNOR-KARR reached across the table and poured the last of the wine into his girlfriend’s glass.

  “Are you trying to get me drunk, mister?” said Deidre Clancy.

  “Nah. Just tipsy.”

  Deidre smiled at him. Tommy Karr realized he was the one who was tipsy, though not on the wine.

  “So tomorrow, we go to Disneyland Paris?” he said, picking up his glass.

  “You came all the way to Paris to go to Disneyland?”

  “I came all the way to Paris to see you,” said Karr. “Everything else is bonus.”

  “You flatterer.”

  Deidre told him in French that he was a sweet-talking foreigner whom she knew she must be careful of; Karr’s limited French allowed him to pick out every third word—the good ones, of course.

  “How about the Louvre tomorrow?” she asked in English. “With a picnic lunch in the Luxembourg Gardens?”

  “Disney Thursday?”

  “Disney Thursday.”

  “Deal.”

  As the word left Karr’s mouth, his sat phone began to vibrate.

  “Uh-oh,” he said.

  Deidre heard the buzzing. “I don’t suppose you could not answer it,” she said.

  “I could ignore it. But then they’d send someone to chase me down. Which might be kinda fun.”

  “You better answer it,” said Deidre.

  Karr took the phone from his pocket and slid up the antenna.

  “O’Brien’s Real Italian Delicatessen,” he said. “Mao Zedong speaking.”

  “Tommy, it’s always fun to hear your voice,” said Marie Telach. “Can you talk freely?”

  “Hey, Mom. Not really.”

  “Good. I know you’re on vacation, but Mr. Rubens needs you to cut it short.”

  “Gee, that sucks,” said Karr. He looked over at Deidre, who already wore a disappointed frown. “Right away?”

  “Yes. We need you to meet Charlie in Tokyo tomorrow night.”

  “Tomorrow? Do I have a choice?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact you do. Would you prefer to fly on Aeroflot or Air France?”

  24

  AMANDA RAUCI CLUTCHED her fingers together, trying to stave off the urge to put another mint Life Saver in her mouth. They were a dead giveaway that she had been drinking in the middle of the day.

  Bloodshot eyes weren’t exactly camouflage, either, but there was nothing she could do about those.

  “The director will see you now,” said the secretary. Amanda nodded, and rose from her seat. Despite her earlier resolution, she reached into her bag and took out a mint, popping it into her mouth before entering Frey’s office.

  “Please sit down,” said Frey.

  The icy tone told her everything. She forced a smile to her face as she pushed one of the modernistic seats up close to the director’s desk. The chair felt uncomfortable, oversized; Amanda’s feet didn’t reach the floor. She bit the candy she’d just put in her mouth, swallowing the tiny pieces in a single gulp.

  “I can’t believe you would hinder an investigation by withholding important information,” said Frey. “I can’t believe it.”

  Amanda said nothing.

  “Why? Why didn’t you say anything? Surely you knew Jerry was dead.”

  “What was there to say?”

  “When did you last see him?” Frey asked.

  “A few nights before he died.”

  “During your vacation?”

  “Before my vacation started.”

  “Was he depressed?”

  Amanda shook her head.

  “Why didn’t you say anything?” asked Frey again. “Didn’t you think it was relevant?”

  Because if she said anything, then it would be real. Then he would be gone, really, utterly, truly gone. And she was gone as well.

  “Where were you the night Jerry died?”

  “I was at a hotel, waiting for him.”

  “Waiting for him? Where?”

  “A few miles from … I guess … where …”

  She had to stop to control the sobs. How much was she going to tell Frey? Everything? Or just part?

  Part. Whatever she could get out before despair took over.

  “We spoke,” Amanda said. “He told me to wait. I was in the bar awhile. I was there, I guess, when he—”

  Sobs erupted from her chest so violently that she shook and couldn’t continue.

  Frey offered no sympathy. “That’s it?”

  She nodded. Clearly if she told him she’d been there—God, if she told him she’d been there, he’d have her charged with murder.

  “You still have vacation days left?” asked the director.

  Amanda formed her fingers into fists, then ground them into her cheeks to stop the tears and sobs. “Yes,” she managed.

  “Then take them. Hand in your credentials, and your weapon. Leave them here.”

  “I’m suspended?”

  “What do you think?”

  25

  LIA AND DEAN stopped at a small family-style restaurant not far from the Foresters’ house for an early dinner. Lia immediately regretted it. The restroom was filthy, in her experience never a good sign. But Dean had already ordered for both of them by the time she got to the table.

  “You really think you know what I want?” she asked him.

  “Turkey wrap.”

  “Maybe I wanted a hamburger.”

  “That would be a first.”

  It wasn’t so much that he was right as the fact that he was smug about it—quietly smug, of course—that annoyed her.

  “I felt bad for the kid,” said Dean.

  “Yeah.”

  “I’d hate to see that happen to my son.”

  “What son?”

  “If I had one.”

  Lia, confused, said nothing until the waitress came with their drinks—seltzer for Dean, iced tea for her.

  “You knew I wanted iced tea, too, huh?”

  Dean nodded.

  “I’m that predictable?”

  “Only about food.”

  “Do you have a son, Charlie Dean?”

  Dean stared at her. The words had blurted from her mouth, almost of their own volition. She’d stopped being Lia DeFrancesca, Desk Three op. She was just … herself.

  “I don’t have any children,” said Dean. “You know that.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What I meant was, when I have kids, I wouldn’t want them to think I killed myself.”

  Lia didn’t hear the rest of what Dean said. When I have kids.

  When.

  With her?

  Was that his plan? Was it her plan? Did she want kids? After her week at Tina’s, children were even further than usual from Lia’s thoughts.

  But did she want kids?

  The question was too much to think about right now. Lia forced her attention back to what Dean was saying. She’d missed the transition, but he was talking about Mrs. Forester.

  “Maybe she’s right,” said Dean. “He might have told people at the Secret Service that he wanted custody of the kids, but that might have been bull.”

  “Why do you say that?” Lia asked.

  “Because of what he did. Because if he really loved the kids, he wouldn’t have killed himself.”

  “I don’t think it was suicide,” said Lia. “And neither does Rubens—that’s why we’re going to Vietnam. Whoever tried to kill McSweeney killed Forester first.”

  Dean didn’t say anything, which usually meant he disagreed.

  “I doubt she bought those NASCAR tickets,” said Lia. “He must’ve loved the kids.”

  “Taking somebody to a car race doesn’t mean you love them,” said Dean.

  “How would you know?”

  Dean frowned—then changed the subject. “How was your friend?”

  “Still pregnant. How was your hunting?”

  “OK. I missed.”

  “You missed?”

  “The lio
n came out of the brush at less than ten yards. I had a point-blank shot. I missed.”

  “It surprised you.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “It jumped on me. I rolled around. Finally I shot it.”

  “Charlie.”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know why the hell I missed.”

  The waitress came over with the food. The turkey wrap was excellent, though Lia was loath to admit it.

  “Let’s say you’re right and Forester was killed and it’s all related,” Dean told her, returning to their mission. “Why kill him? What did he know? The Secret Service had no information. If they had, they would have prevented the assassination attempt.”

  “That’s what we have to find out. Duh.”

  “What if there’s nothing there?”

  “Won’t be the first time,” said Lia, digging into her sandwich.

  DESK THREE OPERATIONS Personnel Director Kevin Montblanc met them as they stepped off the elevator near the Art Room about an hour later.

  “Uh-oh,” said Lia. “What’s wrong?”

  Montblanc laughed. His moustache helped make him look a bit like a walrus, dressed in a soft sport coat cut in a way that made him look like an English gentleman from the 1920s.

  “Do I always signify a problem?” Montblanc asked.

  “Always,” said Lia.

  “There’s been an assignment change is all. Charlie, you’re to meet with Ms. Telach as planned. Lia, you’re going to work with the Secret Service and FBI. Mr. Rubens wishes to speak with you himself. He’s in his office.”

  “I’m not going to Vietnam with Charlie?”

  “Afraid not.”

  “OK.”

  Lia turned to Dean, sorry now that she hadn’t continued the conversation they’d started and then aborted in the restaurant about kids. Foolishly she’d thought they’d have plenty of time to talk about it.

  She wanted to tell Dean that she would miss him, and to take care of himself, and to miss her—but she felt awkward in front of Montblanc.

  “See you around, Charlie.”

  “Yeah,” said Dean.

  She spent the entire trip up to Rubens’s office trying to decipher the meaning of that “yeah,” before concluding it meant nothing more than “yes.”

  26

  MARIE TELACH WENT over the mission with Dean in a small conference room on the secure level of the Desk Three operational center. The room was spartan; there was no massive video screen, no high-tech sound system. The furniture looked a half step above what one might find on sale at Wal-Mart. Small laptop-like computers sat on the table, permanently connected to each other and the Deep Black computer system via a thick, shielded cable. The room was soundproof and, like the entire level, incapable of being bugged.

  Or as Rubens would put it, not yet capable of being bugged. No security system was impenetrable; defeating it was simply a question of devoting resources, creativity, and time.

  “Your cover will be as a salesman for agricultural machines. An agricultural exposition is being held in Ho Chi Minh City and we’ve arranged for credentials for you. There’ll be a packet of background and technical material in your briefcase. Tommy Karr will meet you in Tokyo,” continued Telach. “From there we’ve arranged for you to fly to Thailand, and then take another plane to Ho Chi Minh City. A driver will meet you at the airport.”

  “You mean Saigon, right?” said Dean.

  Marie smiled. Dean didn’t know how old she was, but he guessed she was too young to have experienced Vietnam firsthand. It was just history to her, or worse, legend.

  And to him? Only a dim memory. Something that had happened to someone else, to a young Marine not even old enough to drink. In fact, he’d lied about his real age to get into the Corps.

  Not the last lie he’d ever told, but the last one he felt reasonably good about.

  “The driver will be a local, someone businessmen use,” said Telach. “He’ll speak at least some English, but of course we’ll be able to help you with our own translator here. Please leave your communications systems on so we can do that. The CIA will vet the driver, but obviously he won’t be working for us. Be careful what you say.”

  Dean nodded.

  “Kelly Tang is the CIA officer assigned to help you. She’s covered as a Commerce employee, and she’ll be at the expo. She’ll be arranging different receptions and maybe a luncheon where you may be able to meet one if not more of the contacts. That’s still a little loose.”

  A picture of a woman in her early twenties appeared on the screen.

  “This is Tang. Look for her at the reception the first night. The CIA is trying to dig up some information on Infinite Burn as well,” added Telach, referring to the Vietnamese assassination program. “We’re all sharing information. So far, they don’t have anything. And for the most part, they’re skeptical.”

  “So am I,” said Dean.

  “Good.” Telach continued, detailing how the CIA and local embassy people could be contacted. Tang would make available local agents—foreigners who worked for the CIA—if Dean needed help.

  “There are three people you’ll have to contact. We don’t have an enormous amount of information on most of them, so you’ll have to gather some of it on the run. We do have some recent photos for two of them, and an old wartime shot of the third. They were all connected with the war, but whether that’s significant or not we don’t know.”

  A Vietnamese man a little older than Dean appeared on the computer panel.

  “This is Cam Tre Luc. He’s a mid-level official with the interior ministry. He has some responsibility for the state police, though we’re not precisely sure what his role is. I would expect that he’s the number-one candidate, simply because he’s in the right position to know about a plan like this, but he’s going to be the trickiest one to contact.”

  Dean read the biographical notes. Cam Tre Luc had been fifteen in 1968. According to the Army intelligence records, he supplied troop estimates and alerts when units were moving. His information had been rated as “often reliable”—excellent, under the circumstances.

  “He could easily have been a double agent,” said Dean. “Supplying our guys with just enough information to keep them happy, while he sucked them dry for the other side.”

  “That’s true for all of them,” said Telach. She tapped her keyboard. “This is Thao Duong. He was a low-level member of the South government who was rehabilitated following the war. He now has a job in one of their commerce agencies, helping facilitate international business. You should be able to meet during the convention. Last but not least is this man, Phuc Dinh. He was a provincial official for the Vietcong who was on the American CIA payroll. He now works for one of the Vietnamese semi-official agencies that govern and facilitate travel in the country. He lives in Quang Nam Province. We don’t have a recent photo. We’ve constructed a computer-assisted aging shot to show what he might look like, but you know how that goes.”

  According to the computer rendering, Phuc Dinh was a bald man, roughly Charlie’s age, with a dagger-shaped scar on his cheek and a scowl on his face. The outline of his face was fuzzy, as if the computer wanted to emphasize the image was guesswork rather than reality.

  “Do you have more information on them?” Dean asked.

  “A little. You can click on those tabs and bring up their entire dossiers. There are files from the war. As you’d imagine, they’re pretty sparse.”

  Dean put his finger on the touch pad at the base of the keyboard, paging back to Tre Cam Luc. The CIA’s wartime dossier consisted of a physical description, some notes about his position and the reliability of his information—three on a scale of five—and a very old photo. When he was finished reading, Dean slid his finger down on the touch pad, hesitated for a moment before selecting the next panel.

  Phuc Dinh. DOB 12/4/45. Born, Quang Nam Province.

  Communist Party member since at least 1960.

  ??Leader/lie
ut of VC cell in Quang nam-Da Nong province, near Laos border.

  Ht. 5–3 wt. 114 pnds …

  brn, brn

  Identifying marks—scar right cheek

  Contact lost Feb 23, 1971

  A small black-and-white photo accompanied the half page of text.

  Dean had seen the photo before—more than thirty years before, when he had been assigned to kill Phuc Dinh.

  An assignment Dean had successfully completed.

  “You OK, Charlie?” asked Telach. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “I’m fine,” said Dean. “When’s my plane?”

  27

  THE FACT THAT Forester had a girlfriend erased some of the sympathy Lia had felt for him, even as it added more evidence to her suspicion that he hadn’t committed suicide.

  “Very possibly, this woman will have additional information,” Rubens told Lia as he briefed her in his office. “Or some insight into the situation. I’d like you to speak to her and—”

  “I know the drill,” she said. “You don’t have to connect the dots.”

  Rubens frowned and began lecturing her on the “need for decorum” when dealing with “sister agencies.”

  “Ambassador Jackson will assist you in speaking to Ms. Rauci, and then deal with the Washington people,” said Rubens. “I’d like you to work in the field, see what you can find. If Forester was murdered, his killer may lead us back to the conspirators.”

  “Peachy.”

  “We want you to look for computers Forester might have used to send e-mail when he went to Pine Plains. Check the hotel where he was found. There is a business center there.”

  Lia found her thoughts wandering, first to the Forester family, then to Charlie Dean and what he had said about kids, then to Rubens himself.

  Rubens was, by all accounts, independently wealthy. He was also consumed by his job, often working around the clock and sometimes spending several days in a row at the NSA complex. Overseeing Desk Three was just a small part of his duties. It was no wonder then that while fortyish—she had no idea what his actual age was, though she guessed he was younger than he seemed—he appeared to have no life outside of the Agency. No wife, no child.

  Lia didn’t really know that, did she? He didn’t wear a wedding ring, but many men didn’t. She didn’t see any family photos on his walls, only fancy paintings.

  “Excuse me a second,” she interrupted. “Do you have a child?”