by Gordon Kent
Crannogs were late European Bronze Age. And the cold water preserved things very well indeed. Piat sipped coffee and ordered a third. He felt rich.
Lesvos was full of tourists. Piat had avoided them for a year by leaving the island during the height of the season—one of the reasons he’d headed off for Iceland, and devil take the consequences. Now Molyvos was crawling with them, and his chocolate shop perched on the edge of the town with a hundred-foot drop to the old Turkish gate below was filling up. Soon enough, Sergio would give him the eye and suggest that he move along and make room for more customers. Piat looked into the shop. There was a big, dark guy at the counter with a very pretty woman with a baby. Piat admired the woman’s backside for a moment, and then—
“Jesus,” Piat said, out loud. The man at the counter was Mike Dukas. Again.
Dukas led the woman out on to the balcony. The whole structure moved under their weight—it was sturdy, but it did protrude well out over the cliff. Dukas looked embarrassed.
“Jerry?” he said. His hand was out.
There wasn’t anywhere to run. Piat shook hands. “Mike.” He gave the woman a smile. She smiled back, and then looked up at Dukas as if exchanging a joke.
Dukas said, “This’s my wife, Leslie.” Leslie Dukas was twenty years younger than her husband, rather stunningly pretty next to such an ugly man despite the pack full of baby that she carried.
Piat indicated his table and waved through the window for Sergio.
Leslie stood for a moment, shaking hands with Piat. “You guys can just do the guy thing. We’ll go have a feed, won’t we, kiddo?” A tiny pudgy hand reached out of her baby pack and tweaked one of her nipples. She laughed. “Gotta go, guys.”
Piat was left with Dukas. Dukas ordered coffee and a big pastry. He made a joke to Sergio in decent Greek.
“Your wife’s lovely,” Piat said.
“Yeah,” said Dukas. And again, “Yeah.”
“That’s the small talk, then. What are you doing here?”
Dukas still looked embarrassed. He doesn’t want to be here, Piat thought.
“Partlow wants you back,” Dukas said. He shrugged.
“Dave’s already fucked it away?” asked Piat.
Dukas shrugged again, looking as Greek as a local, his arms spread wide on the bench back, his weight slumped a little. “Did you expect it?”
“Phff.” Piat’s noise was contemptuous. He had realized himself that he was still smarting under the speed with which he’d been tossed aside. “I don’t know what Clyde was thinking. The guy couldn’t handle a hooker.”
Dukas snorted. His eyes were on Piat’s book, but they flicked up and met Piat’s quickly. Piat was off thinking about Dave and Partlow. “So where do I meet Clyde? Is he hiding in a hotel in Mytilene?”
Dukas passed Piat a slip of paper. Piat disappeared it into his pack with a minimum of fuss. Dukas said, “Not as far as I know.”
“Still in Scotland?”
It was the look on Dukas’s face that finally warned Piat—a little look of interest, almost triumph, at “Scotland.” Dukas had been looking at the book—Dukas hadn’t said anything—
“You don’t know, do you?” Piat said.
Dukas hesitated and then shook his head. “Nope,” he said. And then he smiled and said, “But I bet it’s in Scotland.”
Piat leaned closer to Dukas. “I thought you were in on this.” He shoved the crannog book into his pack and glanced at the slip of paper—just a DC telephone number.
“Partlow doesn’t know where to find you.” Dukas rubbed his nose and his eyes met Piat’s. “I thought you might prefer it to stay that way.”
It wasn’t said as a threat, or at least it didn’t sound like a threat to Piat, and he had been threatened by experts. But it did speak volumes. Dukas was saying I could have fucked you and I didn’t, so you owe me.
“I do. I like it here.” Piat glanced out over the cliff to the brilliant blue sea and the black volcanic beach. It all flitted around his brain—Hackbutt and Irene and the birds and Dave and Partlow and the sea trout in the loch. On balance, it didn’t look very attractive from here. It looked like work. “How much?”
“I’m just the messenger.” Dukas was looking over the balcony. Piat realized that Dukas’s wife was directly below them on the street.
They both watched Leslie. Her laugh and the baby’s mewl of delight were easy to hear. Then Dukas said, “Listen, Jerry—Al Craik thinks it’s important. You know—”
“I know you two go way back. Everyone in the business knows.”
“Okay. That’s all I can say, except I’ve been straight with you, and now I’d like a little payback. I’d like to know what this is about.”
Piat sat back. “I don’t really know, Mike.” He didn’t want Dukas to feel he was shutting him out—Piat was gathering his thoughts and trying to decide where his interest lay. And, he admitted to himself, Dukas had been straight with him. “Partlow asked me to re-recruit an old agent.”
“In Scotland?”
“Mull.”
Dukas made a gesture: “Mull” had no meaning.
“Mull’s an island. Scotland.” Piat shut up. He’d said enough—way too much, probably, but he’d provided plenty of data for a guy like Dukas.
“And?” probed Dukas.
“I signed a piece of paper. Ask Partlow.” Piat indicated the backpack, and by extension, the phone number.
Dukas shook his head. “That’s the best you can do for me, Jerry?”
Piat sipped the last of his Helenika. He found that he wasn’t thinking about what favors he might owe Dukas. He was seeing another angle—his own safety. Something about this operation just didn’t smell right. Now it stank more. He felt the pull of the scrap of paper and he thought that he might just tell Partlow to suck eggs—but he suspected Partlow was going to have to make a big offer. After all, Mike Dukas had come all the way here with his pretty wife. So, big money. And Piat reacted to big money.
So, say he did it. Took the money. Dukas might give him an angle. What if the whole thing was bad. Piat had seen ops go bad, back in the day.
All that in the blink of an eye and a sip of Helenika. “The guy—my old agent—is a falconer.”
They shared a long look.
Piat pushed his cup aside and leaned forward to Dukas. “My turn. I really don’t know squat about this, okay? And I just told you everything you’d need to know—right? Okay. So here’s my side. Give me your home number and an address. Maybe I’ll tell you a thing or two as we go along. Or maybe I’ll tell Clyde to fuck off. Okay? And in return—in return, if I do this, and it goes to shit, you get me out. Because, let’s face it, I don’t like Clyde Partlow.”
He certainly had Dukas’s attention. “Get you out? Jerry, no offense, but I’m no part of this.”
Piat looked him squarely in the eye. “Bullshit. You want the goods on Partlow’s op. Frankly, I think Partlow will work overtime to keep me in the dark, but I’m offering you my ‘cooperation.’ Right? And you give me a nice number on a piece of paper somewhere, and poof! I’m an informer, and you can protect me. Right?”
Dukas shook his head. “I don’t hire informers inside the CIA.”
Piat laughed. “You would if there were any available. I’m not ‘inside the CIA’ anymore. I’m some guy, a petty crook, that Partlow wants for the great game. I could even be a pretty decent source on antiquities.”
Dukas looked so dubious that Piat laughed, and then they both laughed. Other patrons glanced at them.
Dukas leaned forward and shook his head. “No, Jerry. No protection. I’d like to hear what you have to say. I’d probably go to bat for you if Partlow tries to screw you in the end. But I’m not going to give you a security blanket so that I can find in a year that you left it wrapped around my head while you liberated the contents of the British Museum.”
Leslie returned and interrupted them. They were staying in Skala Eressos and she said they had to go. Piat walked them d
own to the old Turkish gates as if he were their host, pointing out other features they might enjoy, rating the quality of pots in each shop, indicating the good silversmith and the bad one. In the tunnel of the gate, he stopped, and he and Dukas shook hands. Dukas’s handshake included a slip of paper.
When he opened it in his house, it had a phone number in Naples and an address. Piat smiled. He realized that he felt reassured. Few things and fewer people had that effect on him anymore.
He went out the door to call Clyde Partlow.
4
Piat’s passport was less than a year from expiry. This cost him an hour in UK customs at Glasgow and preyed on his mind as he drove his rental Renault up the A82 along Loch Lomond and into the highlands. Ingrained paranoia and a horde of legal issues prohibited him from simply renewing it.
The Green Welly Stop at the turn for Oban provided him with terrible coffee and a delicious, fat-filled pastry, and fuel for his car as well. He browsed the sporting goods, annoyed as usual by the prices that the English and Scots paid for stuff that would cost a few dollars in a Wal-Mart. He was looking for something to buy for Hackbutt or Irene. Nothing offered—and besides, he didn’t have a contract yet. No need to spend his own money.
Oban reminded him of Mytilene—same harbor shape, same stone houses, same odd mixtures of industry, fishing, and tourism. He parked on the high street, checked his time, and whiled away fifteen minutes in a very promising shop that catered to high-end “anglers” and sportsmen in general. The shop carried rifles for stalking and shotguns for pheasant and grouse—not that Piat ever felt the need to have a gun, but always handy to have access. They also had a wide selection of sporting clothes—decent wellies, good boots, shooting coats. In his mind, he was spending Partlow’s money. He thought that he knew what was coming with Partlow. Why else summon him back?
When his watch read three exactly, Piat paid for a tide table for the area and a handful of flies and walked through the door, casually checking his car, the street, and the faces and apparel of passers-by in one sweeping glance. He didn’t see anything to alert him and moved off down the high street toward the Oban Hotel. He entered the lobby at four minutes after three and went to the main desk.
In minutes he was on his way to meet Partlow. The opening door revealed a cheerful room with a view of the harbor and two comfortable chairs. One of them was occupied.
“Hello, Clyde,” Piat said.
Partlow smiled. It was a rare smile—quite genuine as far as Piat could tell. It told him a great deal. Partlow was genuinely glad to see him. Piat added a zero to his fee.
“Right on time, Jerry. I’m so glad.”
Piat considered saying that the ability to be in a place on the dot of a particular minute from half the world away was a matter of basic competence in the profession. He thought about several ways of saying it—snappy, derogatory, modest. Wrong. Partlow needs me, and this is the time to make a new start. Because he couldn’t decide how to begin, he said nothing.
Partlow didn’t seem to know how to begin, either. He cleared his throat, twice. “Good trip, Jerry?”
Piat shrugged. “My passport’s almost expired. It cost some time. I’m here.” Now he was enjoying it. Partlow was discomfited by the absence of raillery or outburst.
Partlow nodded as if Piat had said something important. He clasped his hands over his knees.
Finally, Piat decided that they might sit that way all day. He was curious. “I take it Hackbutt tossed Dave out.”
Partlow rubbed his face. He looked short on sleep. Piat couldn’t remember seeing Clyde Partlow short on sleep. After a few seconds, he said, “Well, no. I tossed Dave out, Jerry. But in effect, the result is the same.”
Piat nodded. “And you want me back, I take it? Or just some advice?”
Partlow had been fed the hook, but he didn’t take it immediately. “Where did you leave Dave with the matter of the girlfriend, Jerry?”
Piat narrowed his eyes and slouched. “I told him we had to recruit the girl to get Hackbutt back. He told me to fuck off.”
Partlow nodded slowly, as if his fears were confirmed. “No bullshit, now, Jerry. You told him to recruit the girl.”
Piat was annoyed. He took his time, and then said, “Yes.”
“Dave believes you sabotaged him and the operation.”
“He’d have to believe that, wouldn’t he? Otherwise he’d have to believe he wasn’t competent to recruit and run a US national in a friendly country.” Piat allowed a little edge to creep in, but otherwise stayed at Partlow’s level—remote, professorial, as if the operation were an academic exercise.
Partlow steepled his hands and pursed his lips. “My fault. I should have kept you on board. I did have another CO lined up, but he went to Iraq instead.”
Piat spoke quietly, the way he did when he consoled a survivor. “I tried, Clyde. He just played the goon, and I walked away.”
“You could have warned me.” Partlow held up a hand and winced. “No, forget I said that.” He blew out several puffs of breath. “You did try to tell me.”
Piat raised his eyebrows.
They sat in silence for a while. It finally dawned on Piat that there might not be an operation anymore. Pisser if true. He glanced at Partlow, who was watching a sailboat, a two-masted ketch out in the harbor, as she got her foresail up, the boat and the sail crisp and clear against the blue water and the clear sky. Maybe not a pisser. Back to Greece and shot of the whole thing.
“I could run you directly. That’s how I should have done it to begin with. Free hand, Jerry. On an op that matters.”
Piat had pretended to be a gentleman for ten minutes, and he found the restraint wearing. “I could make a real difference?” he said with gentle sarcasm. “I’ve heard this speech a few times, Clyde. Hell, I’ve made it a few times.”
Partlow nodded, or rather his head swayed back and forth as if he were laughing very softly. He said, “Listen, Jerry. As such things are reckoned, you were one of the best of your generation. So good that everyone passed you over for promotion so that they could use your reports and your agents to make their careers.”
Piat shrugged. The flattery was an essential part of any recruitment speech, but he couldn’t completely resist its allure, as he suspected it was true.
“Now I have an operation with one of your old agents, a prickly man with a bitch of a wife. I need him, Jerry. I don’t have another falconer to hand, and Mister Hackbutt gets top grades from some people that matter in the falconry world. And here you are. Will you do it?”
“What, for love?”
Partlow sighed. Piat thought he was secretly pleased to be on familiar ground. “For money, Jerry.”
“How long?”
“As long as it takes.”
Piat had this part ready. “Fifteen hundred a day. All expenses and no bullshit about them. That’s going to be a lot, because Hackbutt’s a social basket case and needs clothes, deportment, time eating where rich people eat, all that stuff. No bullshit about any of it.”
Partlow looked over his hands. “Jerry, why do you think Hackbutt needs all these things?”
Piat was dismissive. “Falconry is about money and power. You’re targeting an Arab right? Somebody rich, somebody with old money and birds.”
Partlow deflated very slightly. “Touché,” he murmured.
“Ten thousand advance, ten thousand on termination. Success bonus—up to you. Payment monthly. In cash.”
Partlow nodded.
“An EU passport for me. And you walk my true-name passport through State and renew it for ten years.”
“Not possible, Jerry. I mean, sure, I can get your true-name passport renewed by Friday. You could do it yourself—I know, paranoia reigns supreme—but I don’t hand out cover passports to agents, however much I need them. I can’t, Jerry. The world has changed.”
Piat leaned forward. In his head, he was already a case officer again. It was an odd change, to suddenly think like a case offi
cer and not like an agent. “Clyde—you want me? I want to play. I want to do a good job. And I’ll still be me. You want to bury me in flattery, Clyde? Look how many ops I lost in my whole career—two, and how many were penetrated—none, and how many of my agents got waxed—one, Clyde, one, and that was the lapse of some dickhead in SOG. I run a tight ship. The tight ship starts with operational security. I’m a petty black-market art dealer. Small-time. But still—by now, somebody has noticed me—the Brits, the Swedes, the Russians. No way am I jogging back and forth from here to Dubai or Riyadh or wherever the fuck you want Hackbutt going without a passport.”
Partlow smiled. “I’ll pay fifteen hundred a day for that,” he said. “I’ll consider the passport. To be honest, I hadn’t imagined you’d travel with the falconer. Tell me why you’d need to.”
“I wouldn’t send Hackbutt to cross the street on his own. He’ll need control all the way. He’ll panic the first time he sees the target. He’ll suck at border crossing. He’ll take Irene as his security blanket, but he’ll need a shoulder to cry on—she’s hard as rock.”
Partlow uncrossed and re-crossed his legs. “The girl?”
“We have to get her on board and keep her happy.” Piat was holding Partlow’s eyes now.
“Bad operational procedure.”
“Yeah, for newbies. If this doesn’t matter, Clyde, if this is some petty-ass grab at some two-bit creep, then just walk away. Okay? Hackbutt’s a pain in the ass and Irene’s going to do something fucked up, and they’re a tangle of loves and resentments. On the other hand, Clyde, if this operation counts, if this one could make a difference, then you need that woman and all the risk and crap and baggage that she’ll bring.”
