The Red Room

by Ridley Pearson

  “Please. You do take me for a child.” She’s pulling out of her haze, resurfacing. It’s nice to see her.

  She sits down on the bed and bites a slice of cheese. Chews thoughtfully.

  “Who was he?” she asks.

  “One of two men watching Akram. The one who was sitting on the bench awaiting the FedEx.” He explains the earlier struggle and Knox tearing the man’s ear half off.

  Her eyes battle to focus on him through the swelling. This news brings matters into her realm. Knox’s mention of the name and, by extension, a meet jolts her.

  “He searched me. Took all the paper out of my pockets. Grabbed my cash as cover.” He waits a beat and adds, “An Israeli.”

  She gasps, chokes on her piece of cheese. “You cannot possibly—”

  “Took me a few minutes to place his deodorant. Smells like cedar. There was this guy in Kuwait. A member of our team. Same stinking stuff. Something Rosenbloum—the brand, I mean. A designer’s name. Red top in a spray can. I borrowed it a couple times. Distinctive. Besides, he had good teeth.”

  “You are toying with me.”

  Knox says, “Israeli.”

  “He took only paperwork? Receipts?” She’s like a dentist, probing.

  “Sarge warned me. Listen,” he braves the topic he’s been avoiding, “he doesn’t appreciate our background work.”

  Her back straightens, brow creases. Incredulity.

  “Your background work,” he continues. “You apparently misunderstood him. The Need To Know was for both of us. He kind of flipped out.” He feels badly for her, can see the hurt he’s causing. But he thinks he can reverse the effects. “If it’s any consolation, I don’t think he knew half of what I did. He seemed surprised, informed, but cautiously appreciative. It’s like he knew we might be under surveillance, but not from whom. The Iranians grabbing you troubled him, but it was the mention of the Israelis that scored points.”

  “He was angry?” Girlish.

  “More surprised.”

  She takes a moment. “Not your phone. This mugger. He did not take your phone.” She wants to stick to the business at hand. Expressing emotion does not come easily to Grace. In this way, they aren’t so different. But the news of Dulwich’s discontent has shattered her and her lofty ambition she tries so hard to keep hidden.

  Knox plays along, but feels the pit of his stomach. “He’s followed Akram, not me. I promise you. He took me on only after the meet. I assume the other guy stayed with Akram. My guy searched me, wanting it to look like a mugging.”

  “But left your phone,” she says.

  “That’s explainable. Phones can be tracked.”

  “You could be wrong about him being Israeli,” she says.

  “I could, but I’m not. The Israelis are watching Mashe. That includes keeping track of his younger brother and any late-night contacts said brother makes. Mashe works for Iran. The pieces fit: he’s going to be terminated, whether Sarge knows it or not.” He speaks what he’s only dared think: that Dulwich has screwed up mightily.

  “Speculation.”

  “It’s what the Israelis do to Iranian nuclear scientists, Grace. They stake out restaurants in Amman; they follow the brother; they terminate the Einstein.”

  “You let him get close. You took this risk to study him.” She is definite and irate.

  “It happened fast. It wasn’t exactly like that, though I appreciate your concern.” He’s practiced at silencing her: imply an emotional component, and the professional in her shuts it down. The unspoken truth is that their relationship is important to her. Its crumbling walls must terrify her. Such walls can seldom be rebuilt.

  He says. “The deposit’s in escrow.”

  “You are changing the subject.” She eyes the wine bottle.

  “I can have vodka sent up.”

  “Coffee,” she says, but only after an internal battle. “What do we tell David about the Israelis, John? What does it mean to you? Go? No-go?”

  “Leaving my ID behind was a mistake,” Knox says.

  “Time plays into such things,” she says, trying to figure out his mugger. “He drops them. It is dark.”

  “You’re missing the point of view. This guy saw me meet Akram. He empties my pockets and keeps every last piece of paper, but leaves my license. An accident? The Israelis? Come on.”

  Grace says, “They believe the brother, Akram, to be a courier or cutout. They think he passes you something. They want to know what.”

  “It’s hard to see it as anything else. But leaving my phone while taking every scrap of paper? That’s its own message.”

  “Yes. That whatever is being passed is being done physically, not electronically.”

  “Bingo. You know bingo?” he asks. He irritates her.

  “A note given to Akram by Mashe and intended for . . . for whom?”

  “Someone watched by governments. Someone you can’t reach electronically without it being intercepted and putting everyone in danger. Old-school stuff.”

  “They believe you are also a courier,” she says. “But if so highly sensitive, why not a true cutout? Why not a legitimate dead drop where the cutout picks up a message from one hiding place and delivers it to another? You catch the cutout, and there is no way to connect the message to anyone. If the Israelis are watching Akram, they are not here to kill Mashe, but to find out whatever information Mashe is using Akram to pass.”

  “Or to identify who’s buying the intel.” Knox feels his wound, tries not to wince. “This guy risked a lot, searching me the way he did.”

  “Is he the client? The Israelis hire Rutherford Risk because you have a relationship with Akram. They are watching him. They need to see what Akram is couriering for his brother, so they need your connection to the man. This is why David can attempt to promise no one is to be killed.”

  “It fits,” Knox says.

  Grace meets his eyes and inhales sharply. “A note being passed from an Iranian nuclear physicist.” She pauses. “I wonder also: intended for whom?”

  “Plenty of buyers. Could be plans, going to the North Koreans. A shopping list of embargoed parts. Hell, it could also be medicines needed for the mother,” Knox says. “The question is: how much does Akram know?”

  It comes out of his mouth bitterly, leaving behind a taste that won’t leave his tongue.

  33

  Knox nears a boiling point five hours later when Dulwich has yet to return his messages.

  “It’s like one of those fad restaurants where you eat in the dark,” he tells Grace bitterly. “We’re being served warm dog shit when we ordered the pork sausage.”

  “Let us hope David was not ‘mugged’ as you were.”

  Thanks to nearly uninterrupted work by Grace, Mashe Okle’s finances are tied up with a neat little bow. He has some explaining to do about his sources, and this will require Grace to be part of the meeting, as Dulwich intended. Grace feels as proud as a schoolgirl. She’s drinking coffee on top of coffee.

  “We can present this any time you want,” she says. “I am prepared.”

  “I’m nearly there, too.” Knox is dancing with the devil. He claims he has involved this woman, Victoria, because she has contacts in Istanbul that offer him a “remarkable opportunity.” Grace detests the idea, but concedes its necessity. Work with the resources you’re given. He’s been texting Victoria, although she is just down the hall. The entire arrangement feels wrong to Grace.

  “You trust them so little,” she says.

  “The Harmodius is worth millions, Grace. That’s a number, something you know intimately. If we hand it over so they can test its authenticity, you and I are the only things keeping them from walking off with it. I’m being the good Samaritan: I’m leading them away from temptation. The problem is, I haven’t accounted for the Israelis.”

  “If that is who
they were.”

  “Oh, ye of little faith. He was wearing Red Top. Trust me: Israeli. It adds an element of the unknown. Poses a big risk to what’s already a risk.”

  “You know I do not mean their nationality, but their role. These men could be private, like us. They could represent the same client as us. More likely, they are art thieves who mugged you hoping to lift a storage receipt or business card that will lead them to the Harmodius. It doesn’t take a nuclear scientist to realize you succeeded in smuggling the piece into Turkey. Perhaps they are part of a global team that intercepts stolen art.”

  “So why are they tracking a particular FedEx shipment?”

  “We do not know it is the same people.”

  “Nawriz Melemet, aka Mashe Okle, has attracted more flies than shit,” says Knox.

  “If these ancillary people believe you are being used as a courier or cutout, then it follows that someone is set to receive information from Mashe Okle.” Grace feels opportunity returning in her favor. She recognizes her condition as related to that of an addicted gambler—the more one loses, the more all-in. With a little more effort, she can deliver the kind of actionable intel Dulwich needs. He will forgive all if she can pull it together. It’s loose ends he abhors. There is no choice but to pursue the intel. And Knox proves the perfect sounding board: the more she counters his theories, the more he puts forward, giving her all the more angles to pursue.

  She feels awkward manipulating John in this way, playing games within games. But she has hurt herself with Dulwich and needs to make it right. Knox would be the first to do the same.

  “At the minimum,” she says, “we are dealing with two separate interests: the Iranians and these others—possibly Israelis—who mugged you. The Iranians want to protect the asset, Mashe Okle. The Israeli objective remains uncertain. We must not discount the possibility of a third party: the end recipient of whatever information the Israelis believe you were carrying.”

  Grace presents the information clinically. Knox is more seat-of-the-pants field op than strategist, but he’s often a full step ahead of everyone else. She can feel it now: he hasn’t put the mugging behind him. They have not discussed the fact that Akram may indeed have slipped a note onto Knox without Knox’s knowledge. That Dulwich may have put Knox in Istanbul with an ulterior motive—a motive like the drop—in mind.

  “Mashe is a nuclear physicist—” Knox says.

  “What little evidence we have supports this.”

  “—who works for Iran. A government under severe sanctions.”

  She inhales sharply. “A shopping list!”

  “—can’t be sent electronically.”

  “Too easily intercepted,” Grace continues, enjoying the repartee. “The Iranian government assigns one of its scientists, a man who travels to see his ill mother, the role of mule. A dead drop. A double blind. Something to protect your scientist but make sure the list reaches the supplier.”

  “And if you are the Israelis and you can intercept Mashe’s parts list, you have a better idea how far the Iranian nuclear program has progressed. Invaluable.”

  “It is well beyond the charter of Rutherford Risk,” Grace says. “Aiding a governmental agency? If caught, Mr. Primer would face his company being shut down. No such intercept would be contracted out to the private sector. Besides, the Israelis are better at such intercepts than anyone.”

  “Which brings us back to Sarge and his client.”

  “I tell you: Mr. Primer would not accept the job.”

  “Your argument is also an explanation,” Knox says, testing her. Does he dare go there? It’s like telling the star pupil the teacher cheated in college. When she pauses, he fills in the gap. “Who says Primer knows anything about it? Have you had contact with him? Any contact at all?”

  Grace’s eyes go wide, then vacant.

  Knox continues. “Sarge told me I couldn’t contact Digital Services directly. Had to go through you. Since when?”

  She whispers now. “I have been wondering this myself.”

  “No one will get killed, he told me. Implied we were saving the world.”

  “However,” Grace adds, “the pretext of the sale—the Harmodius—the requirement that we are physically with the mark for no less than five minutes . . . these do not so easily add up if the goal is to intercept a dead drop.”

  Knox counters. “The art sale is to get me in a room with Mashe. At some point during those five minutes, the shopping list is supposed to be put on me without my knowledge. I walk out of there an unknowing cutout. We would never have considered anything like this if I hadn’t been mugged. Israeli agents—Mossad?—were never part of the Iranian plans. Without meaning to, the Israelis have tipped us off. By jumping the gun, they’ve told us that they have no idea when the exchange is scheduled.”

  “But, John, David would not . . . How can we even think such a thing?” Grace sounds unconvinced. “Crap,” she says. It’s as close to cussing as she usually gets. As close to acceptance as well.

  “If he’s rogue, then by association we’re part of it,” Knox says, thinking aloud.

  “We lack sufficient evidence.”

  “We have plenty of circumstantial evidence. And consider this: if we run, they follow. This isn’t Boy Scouts. You don’t get a pass. Neither of us want to say it, but I think Sarge got taken. He rose to the bait and bit and now it’s us—you and me—with the hooks in good and tight.”

  “Just because the column adds up to a particular sum, it does not mean the original values were accurate. One misplaced decimal—”

  “I was more of a wood shop guy,” Knox confesses. “Gym. Cafeteria. Not exactly AP math.”

  “What I am saying—” She wears panic awkwardly; it doesn’t suit her. Grace Chu is a team player; the idea of being separated from the collective appears to nauseate her.

  “I get it,” Knox says. It can be cute when his joking goes over her head, but it’s frustrating as well. She doesn’t want to face what he’s suggesting, knows that once it’s inside, the rat can’t turn around in the maze.

  The hotel room has become claustrophobic. Victoria texts him to say that she’s made the arrangements for Adjani to assay the Harmodius. Knox stares at the message for a long time, wondering where to put his trust. He’s uneasy and twitchy. A response to caffeine or the right impulse? It comes down to whom he trusts more: Akram Okle, or Victoria?

  He presents his plan to Grace, trying to read her face.

  “The mind cannot be in two places at once,” she says, quoting a proverb.

  “We need a fourth,” Knox says. “Without Sarge—”

  “Besim,” Grace says, drawing a blank look from Knox. “My driver.”

  “Who must be wondering where you are.”

  “He can watch your Victoria for us. He has helped me in this way. David need not know.”

  “Your driver could be working for Sarge.”

  She shakes her head. “No. I hired him. David did not want any connective tissue tying him—” She can’t finish the sentence.

  Knox compliments her on her solution. Her lips purse to contain a smile. She appreciates being appreciated; it is a card he can play when needed, though it slipped out this time of its own accord.

  “I will call Besim. You call Akram,” she says. “It is not the cry, but the flight of the wild duck that leads the flock to fly and follow.”

  “We say, ‘actions speak louder than words.’”

  “And we Chinese say, ‘Man who runs in front of car gets tired; man who runs behind car gets exhausted.’”

  He thinks she’s trying for a joke. Reconsiders. “We need to stay ahead on this,” he proposes.

  “Just so,” Grace says.

  Knox holds up his phone as a signal for both of them to make their calls. It feels more like jumping off a cliff than joining a path.

 
—

  IN THE DARK, the narrow, twisting streets make Knox claustrophobic. The hills of Istanbul have enough dead-end streets to get a man killed.

  Knox keeps his phone’s map app on. The tiny blue dot representing him inches along, providing some solace. Grace sits beside him in the back of the cab, their shoulders warm where they touch. She’s quietly meditative, perhaps rehearsing her role. Hers is a planned and practiced life, organized and prepared. He has no idea what that feels like.

  The location and timing of the meet have been dictated by Akram for the second time. The first didn’t go so well.

  “I felt better near the aqueduct,” Knox says after the car engine strains for several minutes to climb, the power steering crying with each turn to the left. “More public, more touristy part of town.”

  “I understand.” It’s all Grace says.

  Knox takes it as her signal that she has no interest in conversation. The talking is behind them. He suspects she, like him, is leery of a trap; she, like him, understands the op has passed a point where they can abort; she, like him, doesn’t appreciate the feeling of being a puppet instead of a player. He can’t help himself; his mouth has a mind of its own.

  “Nice view,” he says, turning around.

  She does not look, does not speak.

  A patchwork of yellow light filling the apartment windows they pass reminds Knox of a nativity calendar. He thinks of Tommy and feels guilt over his failure to stay in touch while on the job. He sees men smoking inside tight rooms; families gathered; television light pulsing. He’s never lived like that in his adult life. He wonders now if he could hack it. Dulwich is responsible for getting him re-addicted to adrenaline after Knox’s successful withdrawal following their contract work in Kuwait.

  Would Dulwich willingly sacrifice him and Grace for some wish list of maintenance parts, for the chance to gain intelligence about Iranian nuclear capabilities? Would he see the lives of two colleagues, two friends, as a necessary sacrifice in the bigger picture of Middle Eastern stability? Would he convince himself that despite the risks, Knox can and will prevail, that the danger is worth the reward?