Top Hook

by Gordon Kent

  Alan walked to where he had last seen him and looked around. He bit the inside of his cheek in annoyance and decided that Harry was headed either back toward the bay or up toward the Vomero and turned right, moving quickly. And there, seated at a tiny café just around the corner, was Harry, who smacked him with the newspaper as he was about to walk by.

  “We’ve got to stop meeting like this, shweetheart.”

  Alan’s annoyance evaporated in the pleasure of meeting his friend.

  “Almost lost you, there.”

  “Nah, you were fine.” Harry smiled broadly. “Good to see you, old chap.” The fake Brit accent took Alan back to the boat. They had been junior officers together. They had survived in Africa together. The new Harry, the one with only one good eye, was calmer, a little more reserved. Still Harry. They tried to crush each other’s hand.

  “How’s Rose?” Alan said. “I mean, I’ve talked to her, but you’ve seen her.”

  “Mad as hell. She misses you. I’ve got a note and some packages for you later.”

  Alan smiled ruefully. “First we work?”

  “Yeah. You ready to meet the dragon lady again?”

  “I don’t like her, Harry.”

  “No shit. Can you pretend to like her?”

  “She gives me the creeps.”

  “It shows. First, stop acting like she has leprosy. I’m not saying get her in the sack—”

  “Fuck, no!” Alan rocked back in his chair.

  “Although all things considered, that would probably be best.”

  “Harry, old boy, that is not on, capisce?” Alan’s fake Brit accent was not up to Harry’s standard.

  Harry sighed, sipped his coffee, glanced around. Alan waved to the bored waiter and asked for an espresso.

  “A little quieter, okay? Look, the dragon lady may have something really good; there were a few prize bits in her conversation. I want to give you a few pointers on dealing with her, and I’d like you to sit quietly and listen.”

  “I don’t plan to get her in the sack.”

  “Little on-the-spot psyche profile. She’s a people pleaser. She understands relationships best when they involve sex. That’s common with people who got sexually abused as kids. Her self-image is largely based on her looks and the power that gives her. Okay, that’s all way too simple, but you have to understand her. I watched you. You don’t react to her looks, you don’t respond to her allure. In effect, you are dissing her. And she likes you, or at least she did at the start.”

  “So I fucked the whole thing up.”

  “Nope. You did all the basic stuff right—you arranged another meeting; you didn’t promise her the moon; you kept her going. When she forced you, you started to sound human. But you need to do better. Today, you two are going to start real negotiations. Mike wants you to get some sort of peek at the goods, something we can use to check her out. That’s going to take some level of interaction. You can’t just order her to give you a look at her files, Al.”

  “Harry, I have a detachment to command, a bunch of guys who think I’m a spy. I can’t make a second career of dealing with this woman.”

  “Man, you were on the way to the Ranch when your orders got changed. What did you think you’d be learning to do there—deal nicely with nice people?” Harry met Alan’s eyes. He didn’t relent. “Al, this is probably pretty important. Only Mike knows the full score, but it may help Rose, and I think this could be bigger than your detachment. Bear down. Play nice. If it helps, pretend to be somebody else.”

  Alan retreated to a glazed look that meant he was now staring inward. After some seconds, he said, “Okay, Harry, but this is the last time. Then I want you or Mike to get another guy. Rafe’s on my tail about this and he’s right. Yeah, I was headed toward the Ranch, but that didn’t happen. Now I have another set of responsibilities. I ought to be writing lieutenants’ fitreps right now. That’s my job.”

  “Tell me your plan for the meeting.”

  “Three objectives: get a next meeting; get a taste of what she has to offer; get her to lower the price. In that order.”

  “Right on.”

  “I can’t do James Bond. I haven’t got the attitude. But I can do naval aviator. ‘Boy, honey, you look great!’ That kind of stuff.”

  “Exactly. Admire her. If she gets too close, hold up your wife. She can understand that.”

  “I have to carry flowers. That’s good, anyway. Flowers to say I’m sorry.”

  Harry looked at him in mock amazement. Underneath was some real amazement. “Good!”

  “No, if I’m going to do this, I better do it right. Rueful about the last meeting. Apologetic. Sheepish.”

  Harry nodded. “She’s probably pretty desperate. She kinda suggested she tried to shop this to someone else, right? And she admitted that these goons tried to kill her. So she’s a little strung out. She’s looking for a shoulder to cry on. Try a little compassion. Use it as a hook. Then reel her in.”

  “My dad used to say that when they’re crying on your shoulder they’re pretty close to getting in the bed.”

  “Yeah, well, your dad knew a thing or two.”

  “Not my style, Harry.”

  “But you’ll do us all a lot of good if it seems that it might be, okay? A little comfort is not immoral. She’s on the run, she’s alone, she needs help. Keep that in mind.”

  “So I can manipulate her.”

  “Give the boy in the leather jacket a cigar.”

  Alan went back to the glazed look. He was thinking about Harry, before and after the Ranch. About things he had said about an agent he loved, who had been killed. Had Harry manipulated her while loving her? Ugly thought. His eyes lost their unfocused look, rested hard on Harry. “It feels dirty.”

  Harry swallowed the last of his coffee, and his look when his eyes rose from the cup was just as hard as Alan’s. “It’s an ugly business, Al. I didn’t stay with it, if you recall. But this matters. It’s bigger than our little likes and dislikes. A mole in the CIA? How many people has he killed? I don’t mean to come down on you, but it’s bigger than your chivalry.”

  Alan thought about the woman. She could have the key to men who had plotted to kill his father. After nine years, that really wasn’t enough to get him to do this. But she claimed to know that there was a traitor in the CIA. That was big. That was people’s lives. “Okay. Once more. That’s it.”

  “At least once more. Let me recap: Comfort has to come first. Be clumsy, but be sorry, then wonder how she’s surviving. Can you offer to keep her on the boat? For her own protection?”

  “The admiral would have a cow. He already thinks I’m a loose cannon, maybe a spy.” “She wouldn’t accept—it would put her totally in our power. But it’s the kind of offer you ought to make.”

  Alan bit down on a reply. Either he was going to do this right, or he wasn’t going to do it. He’d never done a half-assed job in his life.

  “Whatever. I use the compassion hook. Offer her bullshit assistance. Suggest that I could fall for her. Then get the data.”

  Harry smiled.

  “I thought Alan Craik was in there somewhere. Finish your coffee. You need to be in Herculaneum in an hour.”

  She was standing by the ticket kiosk next to the bakery, just as he had asked. She looked different, however. Her poise seemed less perfect; there were faint lines on her forehead. Looking at her through Harry’s eyes, even at a distance, he saw the trapped animal, not the statue of Venus.

  As he approached her, a bunch of red roses under his arm, he felt an impulse to flee or tell her the truth or simply hand her the flowers and walk away. He reached for his dislike for her, but it was harder to dislike the vulnerable woman in front of him. For Rose, then, he thought.

  “Are those for me?” She reached for the flowers as if they were her due.

  “I thought I’d try for a new start. Never met a woman who didn’t like flowers.” This was the new tone. Act like Rafe, or as he imagined Rafe would act.


  She smiled and moved toward him. He turned, and they fell into step walking down the steep street toward the sea.

  “This road has been here for two thousand years.” That sounded contrived, even to Alan. “I think about them. Were they different? Were they worried? Did they think about the volcano?” She didn’t respond. “Probably the way we think about nuclear war. It could happen, but it’s best to pretend it won’t.”

  “Do you worry about nuclear war?” The probe was so gentle that Alan didn’t even feel it.

  “I worry about war all the time.”

  “Are you afraid?”

  “I joined the Navy to prevent it. Just in time for the wall to come down.”

  “So you are—sorry?” The change in her voice keyed him that this was not small talk. She was probing him for something.

  “No, I’m not sorry. The world is still plenty threatening without the Soviet Union.”

  “And you work to protect the United States?”

  She’s looking for a handle on me. Looking for common ground, or something she can make appear common. She’s looking for the buttons to press.

  Sauce for the goose.

  “Did you grow up with the threat of war?” he said.

  She laughed, a real laugh, a little hoarse. “I grew up in a village. We were always at war. I never thought about nuclear war; only about surviving the next few days. It is a luxury, you see? To worry about the end of the world. A luxury for those who are not fighting their neighbors.”

  “Where? Who were you fighting?”

  “What you would call the ‘Stans.’ Who did we fight? The next village. The Moslems. Other tribes.”

  “But you got out.” Alan thought of Rwanda and Bosnia.

  “Oh, yes. I got out.” There was the hunted animal, right there in her eyes.

  They had passed through the ruins and the reconstruction, and were down to the edge of the sea. The Bay of Naples was a rich, perfect blue under a sky piled with bright clouds. Fishing boats were visible between the mainland and Capri, away in the haze to the left. So was the Jefferson, its hull a menacing shape to the right, hard over toward Naples.

  “Do you ever go back?”

  “I do not wish to speak of this.”

  Okay, Harry, she’s on the verge of tears and pissed. Is that good? “Sorry. Really. I just want to know you better.”

  “Are you going to buy what I have to sell?”

  “Last time, you wanted to talk. Now it’s just business?”

  “Please. A bad subject. I am embarrassed. I don’t like to be—soft, do you say?”

  He stepped forward and put a hand on her shoulder.

  “I didn’t really think about how hard this must be on you. Guys trying to kill you. All I saw was a fashion model looking to make a few bucks.” Okay, that’s the compassion hook, Harry. And it wasn’t too smooth.

  She rotated under his hand and laid her head on his shoulder. He hugged her hard, as if protecting her, the way he would hug his son. There was no romance in it, but it had some sincerity.

  She didn’t cry. She put her arms around him for a moment, lightly, and then stepped away.

  Nervous and wrong-footed, Alan stepped back, almost stumbled against a bench, and sat down.

  She looked out over the bay and then leaned over him, one hand hesitantly laid on the back of his bench. When he looked at her, her eyes were too bright, but the face was bland. She was close to the edge. She needed something. Refuge?

  “I could protect you on the boat.”

  “That’s very kind of you. But I think it would not be long before I was in ‘protective custody,’ yes?” She sat down on the bench, her poise a little less studied than in Pompeii.

  “They’ll keep trying to kill you.”

  “Perhaps not. I may have found a way to make peace. Are you going to buy?”

  Make peace. So whoever was hunting her had either offered her a deal, or been offered one.

  “Can you give me something, Anna? Some kind of bona fides that will convince my people to release the money?”

  “More than the name Efremov?”

  “And more than the name Bonner.”

  “Efremov is not exactly a widely known name, you will agree.”

  “Anna.” He took her hand. It had been lying there between them, as if she expected him to take it. Perhaps she did. “I want this over with. It’s not my money; I’d just as soon you got it. But you have to give me something to get this moving. So that I can arrive at the next meeting with the money, and you can get free.”

  “Why do you care that I get ‘free’? This is a change, I think?”

  The only thing worse than manipulating her is to be seen to do it. Shit.

  “Your parents. Are they alive?”

  Cheap shot. But it scored: her face twisted.

  She’s doing it, too.

  “They were killed.”

  “And you escaped?”

  “Oh, yes. At least, in the television version.” Suddenly, her mouth was trembling, and there was a tremor at the base of her neck that made the veins move. The concentration of her attempt at control was scary.

  “I’m sorry. No, Anna, I’m sorry I even brought it up. You’re right. I can’t play this. Let’s get it over with. I’ll stop trying to tie you up, and you stop too, and we’ll do business and get out of here, okay?”

  The too bright eyes were gazing somewhere over his shoulder. He still had her hand. She was stroking it absently, repetitively, her thumb sliding over his palm.

  “Do you know what you are when you are a raped woman in my village? A whore. They sold me in Saudi Arabia for my blond hair. Never a wife, never a child. Just a whore.”

  He couldn’t do it. This was too real.

  “Anna—Anna—”

  “Efremov saved me. He showed me how not to be a whore. How not to be a tool. I will not be a tool.”

  She was still rubbing his hand. Her near-perfect English had slipped a little. She looked fierce. Her head flashed around and suddenly she fixed him with her eyes. She seemed to be considering something inside him.

  She leaned back with one elbow on the corner of the bench, and now her gaze was frank and appraising.

  “Perhaps it is better that we know each other a little better. Yes, I will give you something, and then you will go. But I do not want to meet you in Italy again. I want to meet somewhere I know.”

  “In the east?” Alan couldn’t see how he would make a meeting in the east. Good. I’m out.

  “Perhaps the Middle East.”

  “Israel?”

  “Don’t make me laugh.”

  “Saudi?”

  “I will never go there again, except perhaps to kill.”

  “Dubai?”

  “Perhaps. Or Bahrain? There is US Navy in Bahrain, I know.”

  Alan looked for a trap but couldn’t see one. Bahrain was friendly territory. There was an NCIS office there. The headquarters of Fifth Fleet. A vibrant city and thousands of Americans.

  “Good. Bahrain. You know it well?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “There is a restaurant with a funny name. Up a Tree, Cup of Tea. Say it.”

  “I don’t have to, I know it.”

  “We’ll meet there.” He thought that sounded safe. Brits went there, but not a lot of Americans.

  “Not to talk. Get a room. I have always wanted to visit the Gulf Hotel as a guest.”

  “You’ve been there?”

  “As a dancer, yes.”

  Alan thought of evenings at the Gulf Hotel watching Polish and Lithuanian girls strip for the rich Saudis in the front row. It had been a squadron favorite right after the war.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” he said.

  “One week from today. At eight in the evening, local time. With my million dollars.”

  She smiled at him, back in control, sure of herself. She had stopped stroking his hand and she placed it on her shoulder, leaning into him as if to kiss him. He was startled again
and his indecision became paralysis as she leaned in gracefully, but she didn’t kiss him. She put her mouth against his ear.

  “The mole is called Top Hook. That is what the Chinese call him. Two tidbits, my heart.”

  She slid out of his unintended embrace. He thought he felt the brush of her lips on his cheek, but he was never sure, because his mind was stunned by the familiar expression she had used: top hook.

  She turned like a dancer just a few feet away from the walkway to the ocean.

  “Tell your black friend he should introduce himself.” Then she was gone.

  “You’re beautiful, shweetheart, beautiful.”

  “She made you, Harry.”

  “So I heard. Hard for her not to, with me sitting twenty feet above you at Pompeii. You in love yet?”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake—”

  “I am. Christ, she’s good. The whole soiled flower thing—”

  “Harry, for God’s sake. She was crying!”

  “Hey, bud, I’m not saying it wasn’t true. I’m just saying it was well done. She got to you a little?”

  “I’m not cut out for this.”

  Harry cut him off with a chop of the hand. They were walking up the Via Angevini, almost alone in the early evening, surrounded by eighteenth-century façades now black with soot and car exhaust. The ancient castle towered above them, a malevolent gray-orange in the dying light.

  “I wasn’t kidding, Al. You were great. I’m sure that you were genuinely fed up with manipulating the woman, but the change, when you went from trying to pull her strings to self-disgust? It was perfect. It was recognition for her. If only for a second, she had converted you. It made her day.”

  “That wasn’t some tactic I dreamed up!”

  “That’s why it worked. Because it was so real. So lighten up. Did you get the goods?”

  “I didn’t lower her price.”

  “Yeah, you missed a couple of agenda items. That’s okay. She’s as tough as anyone I’ve ever worked, and you’re keeping up. Behind on points, I’d say, but still in the game.”

  “I am not taking leave to go to Bahrain.”