The Prisoner's Wife

by Gerard Macdonald

  The trouble had started with NukePro. At first, it wasn’t a group at all. It was just Shawn—middle-ranking Agency operative—who had a sense that someone, in one of the rogue states, was selling fission technology: selling plans, components, triggers, and certain other items of mass destruction.

  After months of work, Shawn came up with documentation suggesting the trouble started in Islamabad and Rawalpindi. Pakistan was developing nuclear weapons and offering blueprints for sale to the highest bidder among the Islamic states. That year, the world came closer to nuclear war.

  Shawn brought in his buddy Bobby Walters to work on the proliferation project.

  Briefing Bobby, he traced the trouble back to Nashida Noon, in the nineties. “Remember?” Shawn had asked. “For a while she was prime minister.”

  “I hear she will be again,” Bobby said. “If she lives.”

  “Don’t bet the farm,” Shawn said. “Anyway, last time, when she’s running Pakistan, Noon sets up a nuclear program—puts A. Q. Khan in charge—”

  “Who he?”

  Shawn passed over a thin file.

  “Read. It’s not long. Abdul Qadir Khan. Trained as an engineer. He was working in the Netherlands, stole designs for centrifuges, took them back to Pakistan, started enriching uranium; making warheads. I mean, he made them for Pakistan, plus he had kind of a private scam going—garage business—selling nuclear kit components. Do you believe this?” Shawn asked, showing a color brochure in Urdu and Arabic. “Had these printed in Islamabad.”

  Bobby said he didn’t read Arabic.

  “Brochure for fission weapons. That’s what this is. Dr. Khan’s garage business. Guy’s coining it.”

  Bobby, distracted, pointed at a new and cute assistant who was crossing the office. “Did you talk to her yet?”

  “How would I?” Shawn asked, looking at the new girl. “She only started this week.”

  “Her name,” Bobby said, “I believe she’s called Carly. I think that’s it. I mean, Carly? What kind of a name is that? She went to Wharton. That much I know.”

  “Not possible,” Shawn said. “I never saw anyone that attractive came out of Wharton. Come on, work. Concentrate. What’s your take on the nuclear thing?”

  “That it’s a wildly unlikely story,” Bobby said. “I mean, color brochures for nuclear weapons? Hello—but listen, if there’s even a twenty percent chance it’s true, we give it to the boss. Right? Hugh takes it up to National Security. Out of our hands. Let them decide. I mean, that’s what they’re paid for, right?”

  Hugh Rockford wasn’t ready to take anything Shawn gave him to National Security. He wanted more facts, more research. He wanted a group. He liked groups.

  “Maguire,” he said, “we’ll make it small. Nuclear Proliferation Group. NukePro. Limited remit. You stay working with Bobby. Bring Ashley over from London, if you need her. Talk to her, anyway. I’ll get Calvin to organize it.”

  “Let me get this clear,” Shawn had said. “I spend months looking at covert nuclear proliferation. Looks like I’ve found a smuggling ring based in Pakistan. I find out who’s selling secrets. I have proof of Inter-Services involvement.”

  “What’s ISI do?”

  “Supports Khan. I know who they’re selling technology to—Libya, for one.”

  Rockford paid attention. “Libya? How do we know this?”

  “We know,” Shawn said, “because I have a contact in Tripoli. An asset. He tells me he saw the bomb blueprints. He saw what they were wrapped in.”

  “Surprise me,” said Rockford.

  “Laundry bags, okay? Blueprints in bags from a dry-cleaning company in Rawalpindi. Where ISI lives. Libya’s not the problem, though. Khan sold the bomb to North Korea—which I believe now has warheads and a missile—plus, he also sold to Iran. That’s for starters.”

  Rockford made notes, thinking this through.

  “So,” Shawn said, “I get to this point—then you tell me I’m reporting to Calvin McCord. Is this by chance the same Calvin McCord, superpatriot—the guy who will, no question, take the credit for every bit of work I did—”

  “We’re not individuals,” Rockford said. “We’re a team—”

  “You think Calvin knows that?”

  Rockford brought his papers into a neat pile, indicating that the conversation was over. “Sorry to tell you this, Shawn,” he said, “but Calvin’s on the up staircase. You’re on the other one. Take that aboard. Try to make nice. The guy could help your prospects.”

  “Be a cold day in hell,” Shawn said, heading back to the corner office where Bobby Walters was waiting.

  * * *

  When Calvin came into the Proliferation Group, Shawn had to admit that the man had changed. He was no longer the undernourished, somehow furtive creature who’d joined the Agency three years earlier. Now there was a palpable confidence about him. Introduced by Daddy, he moved in high circles. Though his hands still shook, he seemed physically larger; more muscular, substantial. What upset Shawn was seeing that Calvin had somehow snagged Carly, the new assistant, fresh out of business school. She introduced herself, demurely, as “Mr. McCord’s assistant.”

  Shawn had never had a personal assistant; certainly not one who looked like Carly.

  When Calvin had reviewed the evidence Shawn and Bobby presented, he asked what they recommended.

  “Pressure,” Bobby said. “White House pressures Pakistan. We call Islamabad, tell the prez call off the army, reinstate Nashida Noon as prime minister, on condition she reins in Khan, closes down the Khan Institute. Nuclear fucking Central.” By now, Bobby had read the files. “We tell the guy, break up ISI, or you’re in deep shit. No more kickbacks. No more American aid.”

  “For the White House,” Calvin said, “that’s way low priority. They have other things on the burner. Don’t spread it around. We’re going to war with Iraq.”

  After this news there was silence for a minute or so. Then Shawn said, “Tell me—why would we do that—I mean, Iraq?—when we all know the threat comes from AfPak? Like, Pakistan, Afghanistan, the border lands.”

  “Threat comes from where the veep wants threat to come from. Right now, he wants it coming from places where there’s oil. He’s an oilman. Our job’s proving Iraq has WMDs.”

  “Problem,” Bobby said. “Since it doesn’t.”

  “For Christ’s sake,” Shawn said. “We all know Israel’s the only place in the Middle East with significant WMD capability. I mean, what are we talking here? Hundred fifty nukes underneath Dimona? More?”

  “Now, now, boys,” said Calvin gently, “something else we all know—Israeli nukes don’t exist. Or if, hypothetically, they do exist, they sure as shit don’t count. Message is, focus on Iraq. Prove it has WMDs.”

  “Whether it does or not?”

  “Whether it does or not,” Calvin said. “Pakistan—we keep that low-key. I’ll tell you what we do. We kidnap this Dr. Khan. Run him through enhanced interrogation. Put him under pressure. See what he says.”

  “Kidnap how?” Bobby asked.

  “How hard can it be? If you’re right, the guy flies around the world, selling off nuke blueprints. We pick him up when he’s changing planes, Schipol, de Gaulle, Dubai, Heathrow, wherever. We render him some place has no connections. Someplace poor and mean. Poland.”

  At the time Calvin said this, his group—what had been Shawn’s and was now Calvin’s group—met in a corner office chosen not for its view of the World Trade Center but because the air-conditioning seemed to work better there than it did in other parts of the building. Even so, the heat and humidity of a Manhattan summer were hard to bear. Only Carly, slim and chic, stayed cool. Bobby—who was at a low point with his weight problem—looked like he might not make it through the afternoon. Looking that way was particularly tough on him since he had particular reasons to look relaxed. Though he was twenty years older, Bobby was planning to ask Carly out on a date. He wanted to catch her before some other agent did. Unfortunately, the thought of
asking was making Bobby nervous and physically uncomfortable. He sweated more than usual.

  It fell to Shawn to point out problems with Calvin’s kidnap plan. “First off,” he said, “you may not know this, Calvin, but Dr. Khan is Pakistan’s local hero. They feel about him the way some of us feel about George W. Protector of the nation kind of thing. Nashida Noon tells Khan—this is before the president sacks her—she tells Khan, let me know whatever you need, you’ve got it. So Dr. A. Q. isn’t flying anyplace on scheduled airlines. He won’t change planes at airports, like where the rest of us change planes. He wants to go someplace, he calls the intelligence guys. ISI. Inter-Services. Our friends in AfPak.”

  “Don’t treat me like I’m an ignorant person,” Calvin said.

  Shawn stopped himself from saying what he thought of saying.

  “Okay. So, here’s what we have. Dr. Khan wants out, he makes a request—ISI provides a military plane. Most times, what I hear, that plane is full of army. Highly trained personnel. My guess, we’d need a squad of SEALs to get Khan off of a flight. We’re basically talking Entebbe.”

  Calvin said, “Maguire, could you step outside a minute? I want a word.”

  Standing outside the corner office, Calvin lowered his voice. “Don’t do that again. Do you get me, Maguire? You follow? Just don’t do that again.”

  Shawn, not understanding, spread his hands. Do what?

  “Don’t contradict me in front of other people,” Calvin said. “Not if you want to stay in this job.” He came closer, until he was touching Shawn. His hands, his arms, were trembling. “Here’s the thing. If I don’t say it, someone will. Rockford asked me recently. He said, Calvin, be honest. Let me know what you think of Shawn Maguire.”

  In the heat of the afternoon, Shawn felt suddenly chilled, as if, in hermetically sealed Tower Seven, a sharp north wind were blowing. Through the glass door of the corner office, he could see Bobby Walters trying pre-pickup lines on the attentive new assistant.

  “I asked him,” Calvin said, “I asked Rockford, do you mean what do I think of Maguire as a person or as an agent? He told me, start with, how’s the guy as an agent?”

  Shawn wasn’t sure he wanted to know what came next.

  “So you said?”

  “I was honest,” Calvin said. “I told him what I thought. I said, I like the man. He was my first mentor. I said, believe me, I have feeling for Maguire, but you want my opinion, as an agent—as an agent, he is over the hill.”

  Later that same day, Shawn began searching for a dignified way to leave the Agency, before the Agency left him.

  * * *

  Flying back from Chastleforth to West Sussex, the Apache pilot checked his bearings for Felbourne. He circled over the church of St. Perpetua. Shawn, looking down, saw a churchyard sapling bow low in the chopper’s breathing wake.

  “Real nice place you have here, sir,” said the pilot. “You want back on the sheep field?”

  “Sure,” Shawn said. “Take care flying home.”

  “No problem,” the pilot said, landing. “Believe me, they take real good care of the veep. Clear skies over Chastleforth.”

  Danielle was waiting at the field’s gate. Machine winds fanned hair around her face. Watching the Apache lift off, she said, “You must be more important than I thought.”

  “Don’t believe it,” Shawn said. “What happened, I got demoted one rung further down. On a goddamn watch list.”

  She hooked her arm in his. Not counting last night, it was the second time she’d touched him. Together, they walked back toward the house.

  “Now,” she said, “you seem a little sad. Because of what has happened where you went?”

  Shawn shook his head. “Uh-uh. I was thinking, if I’d met you when I was younger, you wouldn’t have been married.”

  She was quiet a while, considering.

  “You, though,” she said, “a man with four marriages? You would have been.”

  15

  WEST SUSSEX, 24 MAY 2004

  Later that day, Shawn called London and spoke about Danielle to Ashley Caburn. By the time he was off the phone, Danielle had disappeared. Trying to find her, Shawn passed Kylie, the gamekeeper’s orphaned daughter. Dressed in hand-me-downs, barelegged on a dry-stone wall, she watched Shawn’s surviving doves. She reminded him of his daughter, Juanita.

  At that age, Juanita had been a thin and anxious child who stayed in touching distance of her father—sensing perhaps that he’d someday leave home for good. As Shawn did. Years later, older and sadder, he tried everything he knew to restore that closeness, but that was a clock he could never wind back. Not now, not with his God-haunted daughter, now a novitiate in some West Coast ashram.

  Down the village lane, someone had parked a late-model blue Chrysler. As he passed, Shawn glanced in at the backseat. Turning, he asked Kylie if she’d seen the car’s driver. Or a lady with long dark hair.

  Without shifting her gaze from the doves, the girl nodded. “She’s nice, that lady. Picked me up. Didn’t mind I’m dirty. Gave me a kiss. Went down there.” Kylie pointed toward the Grange. Moments later, she asked, still without turning her head, “She’s pretty. You going to marry her?”

  Shawn guessed Kylie had heard from her mother that he was now a single man. “I doubt it,” he said. “I don’t think she’d marry me.”

  “Yeah, well,” said Kylie, watching the birds, “you’re so old.”

  “Thanks for that, kid,” Shawn said. “I need reminding.”

  He waved to Justin Hallam Fox, walking slowly up the lane swinging at nettles with a blackthorn stick. Sir Justin gestured toward Shawn. “Your popsy,” he said. “Saw her this morning—on the hills, running. Damn silly sport.”

  As the old man shuffled on, Shawn entered the churchyard. For him, unbeliever that he was, this was a numinous place that drew him back. Even the trees, some of them, were centuries old. If this were Virginia, there’d be bus tours. Here, it was himself and Sir Justin Hallam Fox.

  In their years of marriage, Shawn had never known what Martha believed. Over the time they’d lived in the hamlet, she’d crossed the lane to the church every Sunday, but what she worshipped Shawn never discovered and—he regretted it now—had never asked.

  Skeptic though he was, Shawn first dated Martha after a church service in Turkey Forge. He was sixteen then, Martha a year younger. The pastor was the Reverend Jim Bob Newman. When God first called, Jimbo borrowed money from his brother Wade, who ran a low-rent gun-and-pawn-and-bait store on the road between Sugden and Shoat. With Wade’s cash, Jimbo purchased a certificate of ministry from a Christian college in Tuscaloosa. Word of his sermonizing spread across the county: Foretelling the Rapture, denouncing the sins of President Johnson, Jimbo drew crowds from the pinewoods.

  The other thing that made the preacher famous was the big hog. This wasn’t just any big hog: It was the legendary Biggest Damn Hog in Alabama, a mythical monster, rarely seen, roaming pine plantations on the outskirts of Shoat.

  Pastor Jim tracked that old beast for a year, until he pinned it down in pinewoods south of Sugden. When he saw the creature, Pastor said, he near to died of fright, Lord help us, the hog was that damn big. Jimbo stood dead still among the pines, staring at the thing, paralyzed, while the hog came, shaking the earth, heading right toward him. What saved the reverend was the fact that he had an illegal M-16 assault rifle, bought from brother Wade. Jimbo had the weapon on automatic but, the way he told it, that pig was near atop of him, more lead than meat, before the storm of shells took its legs out from under.

  Sixteen-year-old Shawn traveled down through the pinewoods to see the body of the beast, before it could be moved on a low-loader or carved up for sausage. On the forest floor, he recalled, it was bigger than you’d believe. Not so big as a bus—the way early reports had claimed—but easy the size, he thought, of a recreational vehicle, if you could imagine an RV made all out of wild and hairy pork.

  They never did get that hog on a truck scale, but the
best guess at its weight was nine hundred pounds, plus change. Biggest hog ever, at least in the Deep South.

  Another thing that was odd: Full of metal, breathing its last, the beast spoke to Pastor Newman. God, he said, spoke through the mouth of that hog. None but Jimbo heard it—it was just him and the pig there, after all—but the preacher swore blind that the creature gave voice, in tones like his mother’s, only deeper.

  The hog’s last words were what brought Shawn to church; it was how he got his date with Martha. In the First Church of Christ Betrayed he heard the reverend reveal what exactly the hog had said, which, it turned out, was a brief injunction: “Love is all you need.”

  Like the Beatles, pretty much.

  When the service ended, Shawn asked Martha out for vanilla Cokes at the Battle Flag.

  “Yes,” she said.

  Shawn was confused. “Yes, what?”

  “Didn’t you just ask me out?” Shawn nodded. “Well,” said Martha, “it was yes to that.”

  * * *

  A breeze blew through Felbourne, carrying faint wind-borne scents of coffee. Looking around, Shawn saw Danielle. She’d appeared out of nowhere: standing motionless now by the oak door of the church, watching him. He came toward her, through seed-headed grass and sycamore leaves.

  “I read the inscription,” she said. “I’m sorry. What time of year did she die?”

  “Martha? End of summer. Sixteen months back.”

  She nodded, silent. Shawn wished she hadn’t found him here, by his wife’s grave. It made him seem older, sadder, than he wished to be.

  “Come on in. Coffee time.”

  Danielle hesitated, watching him, then nodded. The smell of coffee was stronger now. There was no other house nearby; Shawn couldn’t imagine where it came from. He let Danielle go ahead, across the lane, through the kitchen door. He heard her gasp.

  “Who—?” Her question hung in the air.

  In the kitchen—an L-shaped room—the washing machine still beeped. Miss Mop was in her cat basket, hissing, watching the visitors, fur fluffed up. Danielle picked up the cat and cuddled her.