by Gordon Kent
She looked startled. “Is this something different?”
“I think it’s connected. But it’s, mm, iffy.”
“I can’t say if it bothers me till you ask.”
“That’s fair. Okay. Three people came to DIA from another government office a couple of years ago. That office is shown on the document I’ve been talking about as the originating one—that is, before the task number was backdated. I’d like to talk to those three people, but they’re not in the DIA phone book. The security officer ‘can’t comment.’ Mrs Stillman, you’ve been here since before those people came on board.”
She blushed and giggled. “Many years before.”
“I thought you might have an idea of how to locate them.”
She sat slightly sideways, resting much of her weight on her right hip. She joined her hands in front of her. She was wearing pink, a good color for her. She said, “We’re not supposed to know about the HUMINT people or where they are. Are they HUMINT?”
“I don’t know.”
“HUMINT are not in the phone book, that’s for sure! And I don’t think Human Resources would have them, either, or Finance. They pretty much a law unto themselves. Still—” She smiled.
“Yes?”
“People are people. We talk, and we say things we don’t think about first. You get to know more than you should if you stay here long enough. You want me to try to find these folks?”
He wrote the three names he had got from Abe Peretz, the people who had moved from the Office of Information Analysis to DIA in 2002—Herman Ritter, Alice K. Einhorn, Geoffrey Lee—on a piece of memo paper and pushed it across the desk. She read it and shook her head. “Never heard of them.”
“Could you ask around?”
“Asking’s free.” She stood up. “I don’t want to get anybody into trouble.”
“I don’t think you will. As you say, asking’s free.”
She stopped before she got to the door.
“Are these folks dangerous?”
He laughed.
Her made-up eyes met his. “Why do we care so much? This is office politics, captain. It doesn’t seem your style.” Her pronunciation of the word style had three short a’s and a diphthong.
He nodded. “We signed off on this operation,” he said. “This office did. I did. Now, I think the whole thing is illegal.”
Partlow sent a signal giving Piat a meeting in Paris. Piat declined. The simple codes didn’t give him a chance to say why, but Piat had no intention of going to France again any time soon.
In less than an hour, Partlow signaled him again, this time for a meeting in Italy. Piat opened his laptop, did the numbers, and decided it could be done. He packed in two minutes and drove to Glasgow. He was at the airport at four a.m. Friday morning.
All he saw of Milan was the highway ring. He took the A4 east to Vicenza, pushing his Audi rental to one hundred and sixty kilometers an hour because no limit was posted. Having pulled any prospective surveillants into a long tail behind him, he got off at Vicenza.
Vicenza was an industrial town around a medieval core.
Piat wanted to see the medieval part and he had to make sure that no one had picked him up at the airport. Monaco had made him even more cautious than usual. He stopped and had coffee, admired what was left of the town wall, and got on the highway convinced that he was clean. He followed Partlow’s directions and drove well out beyond the town’s highway ring to a conference center that had Clyde Partlow written all over it—it was new and it gleamed, from the black marble of its two-storey foyer to the black granite of the conference room tables. Where, in due season, he found himself.
“Good to see you again, Jerry,” Partlow said. They shook hands. They were the only people in a conference room big enough for a meeting of the Joint Chiefs. There was no bottle of scotch and no sign of happiness from Partlow. “This place is secure. It was built for NATO.”
“That’s reassuring,” Piat said with an artificial smile. He wanted to say that just driving up to such a place was bad security—but what the hell. “Good to see you, too, Clyde.”
“You turned down my French venue, Jerry. That puts me on the hot seat—I’m due for a meeting in Paris in twelve hours.” Partlow raised an eyebrow. “Do we have a control problem, Jerry?”
Piat shook his head. “It’s not like that, Clyde. Wait’ll you hear it before you decide I’m a control problem.”
Partlow nodded—the renaissance prince withholding judgment. “Please tell me.”
Piat flopped back in his chair. It was a nasty chair—hard, angular, shiny. “I said Monaco was a rotten venue. It was, and I got burned by the casinos. I’m not trying to ditch the blame—whatever it was, I probably did it.” He shrugged. Partlow watched him, impassive.
And angry.
Piat told the story. The cameras. The problems. And the denouement in his hotel room.
Partlow spread his hands on the table. It was not a gesture that Piat had ever seen him make. “Jesus Christ,” he said.
Piat sat still.
Partlow clasped his hands over one knee. “We’re dead, then. And I’ll have to tell the chief of station in Paris—something.”
Piat smiled. “Blame me. I’m a well-known loose cannon.” Only after the words left his mouth did he remember that he was no longer that well-known loose cannon. Now he was a man who shouldn’t be involved in operations at all.
But Partlow had moved on. “No. No, it’s not your fault, Jerry.” Partlow was making a real effort not to shout or pound his hand on the table. “I’d never have expected them to be on to you so fast.” The content of his statement was “How did you fuck this up?”
Piat hesitated. Partlow was bristling—looking for a fight about the passport and about security. Piat didn’t see anything to be gained by giving him one. “I agree. So let’s move on. I saw the target, I saw his uncle and the entourage, and I saw the target’s bird. We can do it. The falconer can do it. The venue in Mombasa is as good as we’ll get. I want to fly down and see it, scout it, and get the right rooms. In Africa, that can be done with straight-up bribes.”
Partlow raised an eyebrow. “We have acquired the interest of French intelligence and you want to go on?”
“This is your new world order, right? Screw ’em, Clyde. They probably thought I was there to run a game on the casinos. Right? If they thought I was there to scam a guest, that’s okay, too. Right? Otherwise, who gives a fuck? By the time the wheels of the Deuxième Bureau grind, we’ll have this guy on the payroll.”
Partlow nodded, but his mind and his eyes were elsewhere. “I think perhaps it’s time to pull the plug, Jerry.” Partlow spread his hands again.
Piat didn’t like that physical sign one bit. Partlow only spread his hands when his resources were depleted. So Piat shrugged. “Sure, Clyde. If you’ve got cold feet, let’s ditch it.”
Partlow rubbed his eyes, ran his fingers through his hair. “I just don’t think it’s going to work, Jerry. And I don’t want the scrutiny. Not now.”
Piat leaned forward. “Sure, Clyde. Look, you’ve kept me out of all that—and you’ve also kept me out of the background data. I don’t know what you have on the target—whether it’s solid, whether he’s tertiary to the terrorist thing or a heavy hitter. But I do know this, Clyde—it can be done.”
Partlow sat, elbows on the table, his forehead resting on his left hand. “So you say,” he said wearily.
“I have other stuff to talk about. If we’re not going forward, it doesn’t matter.” Piat sat back and watched Partlow, who wasn’t meeting his eyes and looked like hell. Partlow looked worse every time he showed up.
“Tell me. I might as well hear it all.” Partlow crossed his hands over his knee, but he did it slowly, like an old man with aching joints.
“The woman spotted an American in contact with the target. I didn’t want to make anything of it at the time, but it raises some concerns.”
Partlow shrugged. “Most Saudis know
some Americans.”
Piat tossed a computer printout on to the table. “His name is George Kwalik. That’s Congressman Kwalik to the likes of us. He’s quite prominent on the internet—has his own blog, gets a lot of play.”
Partlow leafed through the printout. “I know who he is,” he said carefully. His face flushed and his eyes dilated. “Jesus Christ. Jesus—Jerry, he was in contact with the target?”
Piat knew he had hit Partlow very hard. He hadn’t intended to, and he didn’t know what the connection was, but Partlow was reacting as if he had been punched in the gut. “They were seen talking together. Mano-a-mano. Tête-à-tête. Pick your cliché.” Piat leaned forward. “Come on, Clyde. We’re not exactly buddies, you and me—but we’re on the same fucking side this time. Who is this guy, and why’s he talking to my target, and why does that make you turn as red as a beet?”
Partlow shook his head. “Jerry—I’d love to. I really would. But some secrets aren’t mine to tell.” He sat, still turning the pages from Piat’s download of data. “Jesus—what are they doing?”
“Who, Clyde? What is who doing?” Piat hushed his voice.
Partlow shook his head. “Forget you heard me say that.” He sat up, shot his cuffs, rubbed a hand through his hair again. “You think this can be done in Mombasa? Let’s try it, then. I’ll trust you implicitly. What do you need?”
Piat was a little stunned by the change in Partlow’s manner—and attitude. “Just like that, we’re back on?”
“Just like that.” Partlow opened his briefcase and withdrew a laptop. From around his neck he took a crypto-key. “I have most of the reservation information you requested for Mombasa.”
“Whoa, horsey. Thirty seconds ago we were done.”
Partlow spread his hands, palm up. “Now we’re not.”
“Because of George Kwalik?” Piat asked.
“Need to know, Jerry. Need to know. You don’t, I do, and that’s the equation.” Partlow raised an eyebrow. He was trying to convey something.
Piat didn’t get it. And his curiosity was fully aroused. He sensed that Partlow was using the operational data on the laptop to lead him away from the subject. But there wasn’t much he could do about it. So he read the target’s travel information on the computer. Flight reservations, hotel reservations, cars, a truck. “Who rented the truck?” he asked.
Partlow got up and looked over his shoulder. “No idea.”
Piat shrugged. “It sticks out. What do they need a truck for? It’s not big. I’ll check with the rental agency. Can you afford for me to go down in advance?”
Partlow shook his head. “Go a day or two early, Jerry, I’ll pay for that. But—I can’t afford to have you buy another set of tickets. Do you know how far over budget this thing is already?”
Piat shrugged again. “Operations cost money. Good operations cost lots of money.” He glanced up at Partlow. “Do I get a cup of coffee, or are you still so pissed at me we’re just going to sit in this basketball court until I’m done reading?”
Partlow raised an eyebrow. “Basketball court?”
Piat waved his arms to draw attention to the size of the room.
Partlow disappeared and came back with a tray of coffee and pastries.
Piat took one, bit into it, and kept reading.
Partlow poured them coffee.
Two sips and two bites later, Piat raised his head. “Clyde, do you like food?”
Partlow was still looking at the Kwalik information. “Of course.”
Piat held up his styrofoam cup and waved it. “We’re in fucking Italy, Clyde. The home of the finest coffee in the Western world. A place where bakers make pastries that make French pastries look lame. Why the fuck are we drinking Maxwell House and eating microwaved American shit?”
Partlow leaned back and drank some coffee. “This is a secure facility.”
“Yeah?” Piat asked. “Secure from who?”
When he was done, Partlow gave him an email address for more frequent communications. And he said, “I don’t imagine I’ll see you again before—before it’s done. Before you make contact.”
Piat nodded, the taste of bad coffee sour and bitter in his mouth. “I’ll want a meeting the second I’m out of Mombasa. One way or the other.”
Partlow shut his briefcase with a snap. “Let’s do Germany.”
Piat thought about it for a moment. “Yeah. That suits—it’s on my way. Frankfurt?”
Partlow hesitated. “Stuttgart,” he said.
A major American military base. Another “secure facility,” no doubt. “Give me the particulars.”
Partlow rattled through a meeting spot, a set of recognition signs, a fallback. Solid tradecraft, the stuff that made espionage work. All the stuff that Partlow hadn’t wanted to do in Athens. Another red flag. Piat created a mnemonic for the comm plan “Okay. Stuttgart. I’ll signal you when I’m out.”
Partlow offered his hand. “Good luck, Jerry. I really, really hope you succeed.”
Piat took his hand and they shook. “Hakuna matata, bwana,” he said. “No problems. What do you want me to do if I run across the congressman?”
Partlow’s grip tightened for a moment. “Run like hell,” he said.
On the way to the airport, Piat stopped at an “illy” sign and drank two cups of espresso. Because he was in Italy and because he was more than a little scared, he wrote Mike Dukas a postcard. Then he drove back to the airport, dropped his rental car, and flew to Glasgow in time to catch the last ferry to Mull.
15
Saturday morning, Piat woke to his alarm and got himself out the door as quickly as he could. He hadn’t run in so long he was feeling like a slug—a slug who lived on airport food and slept in hotels. He ran up the long hill from the Mishnish to the antique pile of the Western Isles Hotel, and then he ran through the less touristy parts of Tobermory at the top, where 1950s housing jostled the older cots and cottages, and then out into the countryside past the Dervaig road. The day was cold, but the sun, where he could find it, was warm, and by the time he’d made his loop and started down the long hill from the traffic circle to the town’s waterside main street, he felt better. He sprinted along the front of the eighteenth-century buildings, the shops and pubs and restaurants to his left and the sea to his right, without a thought in his head beyond the euphoria of movement and exercise.
Even the shower was easy.
While the hotel filled his thermos, Piat called the farm and got Irene.
“Why don’t I take you guys for dinner tomorrow?” he said.
“Dinner, or some kind of training?” Irene sounded as if her patience was sorely tried.
“Dinner. Just dinner. Italian, over in Salen.” Piat tried to convey calm reassurance.
“Eddie says you want him to keep Bella,” she said. “Sometimes I wonder if you and I are on the same side.”
“This isn’t the time to have this conversation, Irene. Yes, we’re on the same side.”
Piat packed his fishing gear in the boot of his new rental (a spaceship-shaped Renault product too damned wide for the Mull roads) and drove south toward the hills. He parked in the valley and started the climb to the loch, immediately aware of the length of his run and the age of his legs, but pleased nonetheless to make the top, and its view. He stopped, as had become a habit, and drank tea from his thermos. Dykes was standing on the crannog, fishing. McLean was fishing from the bank, well around the loch, more a shadow against the bright surface of the water than the shape of a man.
Piat slugged back the last of his tea and started down the hill. He noted that the path, a barely visible sheep track when he had first come to fish, was now well beaten down. He walked down to the shingle by the crannog and looked for signs of activity. The only thing he could find was the tarp covering the pumps—and he’d helped to place it. There was a small refuse heap—if a pool of mud could merit the name—and a single PVC pipe that ran down through the grass and vanished into the water. Not much to see.
McLean hailed him from across the water. “Anything?”
Piat shook his head and shouted back, “Little browns!”
McLean gave him a resigned nod.
At noon, they met behind the crannog for lunch. Dykes had an American gas stove and he used it to cook the little brown trout like anchovies or sardines. Piat wasn’t sure the proprietor would approve, but then, he wasn’t likely to approve of the dig, either. The fish were delicious.
McLean fetched a heavy plastic bag from under the tarp. “Not a waste of time at all,” he said. In the plastic bag was a Reicher mount with two bone fishhooks, a bead of lapis, a gold disk and a bronze pin.
“There’s more,” said Dykes. “That’s the best shit. We got some arrowheads and some broken stuff.”
Piat had to laugh. It was the irony of the thing. He laughed and took another bite of fish. “You guys are the best. No, really. Okay, when I sell this, you guys get a cut. But now that we actually found something, I guess we ought to document it for the buyer—a couple of photos. Can you get a few underwater?”
It was McLean’s turn to laugh. “Well, I could,” he said. “I have the camera. On the other hand, you could just take a picture of a piece of brown felt. That’s what it looks like under there. We’re finding stuff by touch and feel. Most of it is old twigs and pebbles. God only knows what we’re missing.”
“I have one more hole to do,” Dykes said. “Then we’re just taking your money to fish.” He shrugged. “Not that I mind, but I’ve got bills to pay and shit to do at home.”
Piat took out two envelopes and handed one to each. “That ought to cover pay to the end of next week,” he said. Both men counted the money right there.
“Thanks,” McLean said. He looked out at the crannog. “I could get a couple of shots if they were posed—if we didn’t actually have the pump on.”
Piat smiled. “The whole thing is posed, Tank. Doesn’t matter if the pictures are posed.” He laughed again. “Last thing I expected was a genuine artifact. But it’ll make the whole thing easier to sell.”
