Loose Cannon: The Tom Kelly Novels

by David Drake

  What the hell. He showered and changed, removing the sheath for his knife from the suitcase lining. He clipped the weapon to his waistband at the small of his back. What the hell.

  IX

  One advantage enjoyed by embassies located in the Mediterranean Basin is that they need not raise eyebrows and insult the host government in order to make themselves secure. The cab pulled to the side in the middle of a curve and stopped abruptly. Kelly was staring at a whitewashed wall ten feet high. It was too close to permit his door to open. The driver reached back and unlatched the back door on his side, ignoring the scream of brakes as a passing Fiat missed them by inches.

  “American Embassy, you wanted,” the driver said. His passenger paid, then slipped out and around the taxi in a quick motion, hoping the next vehicle would not sheer him off at the knees. The taxi spurted away, leaving Kelly on a street filled with traffic and traffic noise which rebounded between the high walls on either side.

  A patrolman in a blue uniform, not the black leather of the National Police, eyed Kelly from a hundred feet away. Presumably the man was an official recognition of the embassy. Kelly walked to the nearest gate. It was steel plating on a grill-work of the same metal, probably the only change in external appearance since the place had been built a century or more ago. When he knocked on the steel, a man-sized door opened in the larger panel and an Algerian in some sort of khaki uniform waved Kelly in.

  “American Embassy?” the agent asked doubtfully in French.

  “Ah, yes,” asserted the guard. Kelly stepped through into the beautifully landscaped grounds. The building itself, set back a hundred feet from the wall, was white with the varied profusion of design which “Moorish” shares with other popular architectures. There were up to three stories—four, perhaps, because a domed turret or two were visible. Windows, even on the upper floors, were closed by gratings no less functional for being of attractively wrought iron. Glazed tiles set off the border of each flat roof. Against the wall to the right of the gate was a guest house. An archway over the curving drive was covered with wisteria. The vines were as thick at the base as a man’s thigh. A red Mustang was parked beyond the arch, and past it along the drive approached a white Chrysler sedan. There was a passenger in the back of the Chrysler, dimly visible through the tinted glass.

  The guard was already swinging the squealing gate open. Kelly moved aside, but the car stopped abreast of him anyway. The back window whined down. The passenger was a slender man of fifty or so with perfect features and a look of distaste as he viewed Kelly. He was tall enough to hunch a little in his seat to look comfortably at the agent. “Yes?” he asked without warmth.

  “Ah, Angelo Ceriani, sir,” Kelly responded. He held a sheaf of Xerox brochures in his right hand. “About the copy machine.”

  The passenger sneered with the disdain of a man who felt insulted at the suggestion a copy machine might interest him. He turned to the guard and snapped in excellent French, “Badis, you’ve been told to send tradesmen to the Chancery at once instead of admitting them here. Do so now!” The power window was already rising, clipping the last syllable as the limousine slid out into traffic. The guard looked apologetic. “The next building,” he said, pointing down the street toward the relaxed policeman.

  “Guess I’ve met the Ambassador, hey?” said Kelly. He stepped onto the street again. “This is the Residence?”

  The guard’s head was nodding, perhaps in agreement, when the gate clanged shut behind Kelly.

  X

  The Chancery grounds had something less of a manicured look than those of the Residence, but the two main buildings themselves were equally impressive. Further, there was more of a feeling of life to the place. Half a dozen Algerians were lounging on the inner side of the wall, talking and laughing. One, a slim, neat fellow, was in khakis like those of the Residence guard. The other men wore dull-colored sport coats over ordinary work clothing. Only the guard seemed interested when Kelly stepped through the open doorway.

  “I have an appointment with Sergeant Rowe,” the agent said in French. “My name is Ceriani.”

  “Sure,” the guard agreed, waving his hand toward the building which sprawled on the right of the drive. “Front door, ask the man at the desk.”

  Kelly blinked doubtfully, then walked on. A magnetic detector arch was set up a few feet within the compound, far enough from the gate that the steel plating would not affect it. Obviously, that was a relic of more troubled times. To the left of the drive and set closer to the front wall than the main buildings was a low outbuilding. He glanced through the open doorway; it was a restaurant of some sort, with what must surely have been one of the best-looking cashiers in Algeria. She was tall and her black hair, held up with combs, flashed highlights. Several men, apparently locals, walked out talking in a non-European language.

  The agent felt increasingly uncomfortable about what he had gotten himself into. Algiers was one of only a handful of US Embassies which had no Marine guard contingent. The absence was not wholly a disadvantage. A dozen young men who do not speak any of the local languages and whose idea of a good time may be limited to booze and broads can provide problems for the diplomats running the mission. That was especially true in a Moslem country with strict notions of proper conduct and a government which was not on the take from Washington.

  But the problems occurred when things were going smoothly. When the mob was coming over the walls, somebody had to carry the eighty-pound sacks of telegrams to the shredder and somebody had to stand out front laying down tear gas until the job inside was finished. Especially if Tom Kelly’s name happened to be on some of those telegrams.

  And even while things were quiet—tune in again next week—it would have been nice if somebody had at least checked the identification of the total stranger heading for the Defense Attaché’s Office. Security improved inside the building. The front door opened onto a small anteroom with a high, groined ceiling. The inner door would require blasting to open it if the magnetic latch were not thrown. Above, a TV camera flanked by a four-inch outlet eyed the visitor. Kelly suspected that the outlet was ready to dump CS on intruders, the way a similar rig had done in Tripoli a few years before when Qadafi had sent his thugs to sack the US Embassy there.

  Of course, like the magnetic detector, the tear gas system might have been disconnected by now. “I am Angelo Ceriani, to see Sergeant Rowe,” Kelly said, carefully facing the camera.

  “One moment, please,” crackled a voice in accented English. About thirty seconds later, the latch buzzed and Kelly stepped into the Chancery proper. He was in a roofed court. To the immediate right was a middle-aged Algerian seated at a desk holding a TV monitor, a telephone, and a separate intercom. A young American in sport clothes but with very short hair leaned over the stone balustrade from the floor above. “Sir?” he called. “Glad you could get here so promptly. I’m Doug Rowe and—oh, come on up the stairs, the commander’s waiting.”

  The steps were of the same polished granite as the balustrade and the railing around the second floor. Kelly trotted up them, then followed Sergeant Rowe down a hall. Someone stuck his head around the corner behind them and called, “Say, Doug—”

  Rowe and the agent turned. The speaker was a balding man wearing a white shirt and a vest, a little older and a little heavier than Kelly himself. He folded over the cable copy he held when he realized the sergeant was not alone. He said, “Sorry, I’ll catch you later,” before disappearing back around the same corner.

  “Sure, Harry,” Rowe said, waving to the man’s back. “Harry Warner,” the sergeant remarked to Kelly in an undertone as he knocked on the last office door. “He’s the Station Chief. Cover’s in Econ Section.”

  “How big’s the CIA station here?” Kelly asked.

  There was a mumble from within the office. Rowe opened the door, continuing, “Four slots with the one in Oran. Plus the Communicators, of course, though the whole embassy uses them for the cable traffic. Gee, I wish we h
ad the money to throw around that those boys do.”

  “You must be Kelly,” said the Defense Attaché, remaining seated. He held a cigarette, and the ashtray on his desk was overflowing.

  Kelly had never learned a good way of dealing with naval officers. Commander Posner extended a hand over his desk without rising. Kelly took it.

  “Yes, sir,” he said, “I’m Tom Kelly.”

  Posner gestured abruptly toward one of the basswood and naugahyde chairs with which his office was furnished. “I think the Ambassador would like to have the money Warner can throw around, Sergeant,” he said. “But I gather that’s just the sort of budget this office has suddenly been blessed with. Is that the case, Mr. Kelly?”

  “Well, I understand this operation has a pretty high priority, that’s right,” the agent said. Posner’s trick of staring at him through a stream of cigarette smoke made him uncomfortable. “I suppose if it all works out, there’ll be promotions all round,” Kelly added in an attempt to brighten the conversation.

  Posner leaned forward. “From the little I have been told, Mr. Kelly,” he said, enunciating precisely, “I would presume that if your scheme works out, the least undesirable result will be the immediate closing of this mission and the expulsion of all its personnel.”

  Kelly leaned back in his chair, crossing an ankle over a knee. Fine, if that was the way it was to be played. “Well,” he said, “from what I’ve seen, all Third World countries’d be smarter to close all great-power embassies. It’s the only way to keep their elections from being rigged and their politicians bought by outsiders. But since none of that has anything to do with our job—yours and mine and the sergeant’s, here”—Kelly waved to Rowe, already seated in another of the American-made chairs—“I propose we move on. Have you got the contact we need in the Aurassi?”

  Commander Posner held an icy silence for some seconds while the sergeant twitched on his seat. At last the Attaché said, “We have, yes, one of the desk clerks . . . the one who gave us the room numbers you requested. As we expected, none of the Russians attending the Conference will be billeted in the hotel.”

  “Sure,” Kelly agreed, “but the number you sent me is the room that the contact agent, Hoang Tanh, will be using during the Conference, isn’t it? That’s the one I booked from London as Angelo Ceriani.”

  Sergeant Rowe fidgeted again. The commander said, “I’m afraid that wouldn’t have been possible, Mr. Kelly. We gave you the number of the room across the hall from Tanh’s instead. The one in question is kept on a long-term rental for business purposes by the manager of a German cement firm. He’ll be put out for the Conference itself, of course, but the clerk refused to take the chance of disturbing that arrangement for us. I made him a very sizeable offer.” Posner’s face worked, leaving no doubt of how he felt about raw bribery. “Fifty thousand dinars.”

  “Christ Jesus!” the agent snapped. “This German clown can screw his girlfriends next door for a couple days, can’t he? He’ll have to make other arrangements during the Conference, so he can make them a couple days early! How did you put it to this clerk, anyway?”

  “Perhaps you’d like to try yourself, Mr. Kelly,” Posner retorted. “The Pentagon seems to have the impression that you can walk on water, after all!” He stubbed out his cigarette and fumbled for the pack.

  “Sir,” said Sergeant Rowe. “There was his nephew, you know.”

  Commander Posner flicked his hand enough to drop the plastic lighter he held. “I checked that,” he said. “I told you, it isn’t possible.”

  “This whole damn thing may not be possible,” Kelly said mildly. He rotated the chair seat so that he faced the sergeant’s profile rather than the desk. “Tell me about this nephew, Sergeant.”

  “I said—” Posner began.

  “If you will!” shouted the agent, snapping his head toward the Attaché like a gun turret. His right arm, cocked on the chair back, was tense. The tendons drew the skin of the thick wrist into pleats. In a quieter voice but one which would have been suitable for reading death sentences, Kelly continued, “Commander, I would not presume to tell you your business. This is my business, and I need to know absolutely everything about it.” He turned back to the sergeant. “Ah—Doug?” he prompted.

  The sergeant looked at Kelly rather than his own superior. Posner’s hands were shaking too much to successfully light a fresh cigarette. “Well,” Rowe said, “the clerk has a nephew, his sister’s son, who wants to go to engineering school in the States. Got accepted at Utah, I think it is. Only”—he waved, caught Posner’s eyes, and quickly focused back on Kelly—“the kid had goofed. A couple years ago he’d applied for a US visa while he was in Paris.”

  Kelly shrugged to move the story along. He had never heard that applying for a visa was a crime. The soldier bobbed his head and said, “It’s a game the State Department plays with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs here, you see. The MFA only grants visas to US citizens who’ve applied at the Algerian consulate in DC. So we only grant visas to Algerians who apply here in Algiers. It’s like asking why they dye pistachio nuts—doesn’t make a damned bit of sense, it just happens.”

  “Rowe,” said the commander, who had managed to light another cigarette at last, “keep to the facts and leave the insulting comments for our visitor, if you please.”

  “The nephew got turned down in Paris,” the sergeant continued more quietly, “because of that. That wouldn’t have mattered except that when he filled out the new application here, he said he’d never been turned down. Maybe he forgot, maybe he thought it’d hurt his chances the second time to have blown it before. Anyhow, they’ve got computers in Foggy Bottom, and they turned up the previous application right away. That’s lying on a visa application, and that’s the kiss of death for ever getting a US visa issued. They tell me.”

  Frowning, Kelly turned to the Defense Attaché. “OK,” he said, “so we’ve got a kid who’s eligible for a US student visa except for a technical screw-up. And we’ve got a clerk who’ll give me the room I need if the kid gets that visa. Is that right?”

  “We don’t need Room 327, we can operate from 324,” the commander said in a clipped voice. “And in any case, the rule can’t be waived. I took the matter up with Ambassador Gordon himself.”

  Tom Kelly gave Posner a smile that no one in the room thought was friendly. “What’s the word on commo here?” he asked, a cat testing the surface before leaping. “I know what I’ve been told in Paris, but that’s not always how it looks on the ground.”

  Sour but uncertain, Posner said, “We received notice of this—operation—by courier. He also brought a set of program disks. We have been instructed to encode all operational materials ourselves on the embassy mini-computer, using the disks we received from the courier. We are then to pass the encrypted message to the Communicators. In other words’’—the Commander’s voice rose and he had to tent his fingers to keep them steady—“to completely divorce this office from the mission as a whole. I can tell you that the Station Chief regards all this as a serious breach of security—and that the Ambassador is considering filing a strong protest at the insult.”

  “Yeah, well,” Kelly said. “Well, we don’t want to add to his Excellency’s severe problems, do we? He might get peeved and slobber all over the finish of his limo. . . . So we’ll hand in this cable in clear, Immediate—Night Action, addressed”—Commander Posner’s mouth opened, but the agent did not let him speak—“DAO Paris. Arrange student visa issued—fill in the name and whatever else you need, Rowe—most urgent, reply copy Ambassador Algeria, signed Cuttlefish.” Kelly’s grin was real this time and a trifle rueful as he added, “That’s me, Cuttlefish. We also serve who pacify budgies, I suppose.”

  Rowe was already out of his chair and swinging toward the door. “Sergeant, come back here!” gurgled the Defense Attaché. With his voice under a little better control, Posner turned to Kelly and added, “You can’t send that. Are you insane?”

  “It’s got
to be sent,” the agent said. “Commander, it doesn’t go out over your name, it’s in mine. And if nothing comes back, I’m the idiot for getting mixed up with the USG again and trusting them to back me. Sergeant Rowe, I don’t want to put you in the middle. If you’ll guide me to the code room, I’ll hand in the message myself.”

  Rowe looked at the Attaché. “Commander,” he said, “the orders were specific. I’ll take care of the cable.” As he passed through the door, he added over his shoulder, “I still go by Doug, Mr. Kelly.” The door closed. Behind Commander Posner, the great harbor glittered. It was closer than it had been from the Aurassi, but the film of cigarette smoke in the Attaché’s office dulled the view. Coils stirred in the draft of the sergeant’s departure. “Commander,” said the agent, wishing there were a radio on in the room, “we’ve got to work together. I don’t have the time to get you replaced, and you don’t have the clout to get rid of me. It’s just that simple.” He hunched forward a little and added, “Would you like me better if I’d been to Annapolis and wore a yard of gold braid?”

  “I wouldn’t have liked this operation if the Joint Chiefs sat down in my office and briefed me on it, Mr. Kelly,” the Attaché said. He hammered the palm of his right hand on the desk. Raising his eyes he added, “It stinks. It stinks like a sewer, and I don’t appreciate being dragged into it.”

  Kelly nodded, holding the officer’s eyes. “I understand that,” he said as earnestly as any salesman ever spoke, “believe me, I do. But you and I have our orders. And behind those orders stands the nation we serve. There are decisions that are yours and mine to execute but not to make, just as good soldiers have been doing since the world began. If you can’t accept that, Commander Posner, your argument isn’t with me—it’s with your uniform and the oath you swore when you put it on.”