Liar's Market

by Taylor Smith

  Karen Ann Hermann was only nineteen years old, a pretty young student from Maryland with a slim build, shy brown eyes, and a thick, nut brown braid that ran down her back nearly to her waist. She’d arrived in Britain only the day before, eagerly anticipating the sights—London Bridge, Buckingham Palace and all the other tourist draws ticked off in her dog-eared guidebook. An innocent abroad. She was only meant to spend ten days in England, and then go home to a long, happy, productive life.

  Instead, only thirty-six hours after her plane landed at Heathrow, Karen Ann Hermann was cut down in a hail of bullets in rainy Grosvenor Square.

  American Embassy, Grosvenor Square

  4:15 p.m

  A somber overcast sky shrouded the city. Cold dreary rain had been falling all afternoon. The roads and sidewalks were slick and treacherous. Stubby London cabs kept their headlamps lit in order to see and be seen through the dank, gray mist.

  But ominous as the day was, city life trudged on and the streets were crowded with pedestrians. From the roof of the fortresslike American Embassy, surveillance cameras peered down on a steady stream of umbrellas that passed through Grosvenor Square like a river of bobbing wet multicolored mushrooms.

  Gunnery Sergeant Brian Jenks of the United States Marine Corps stood watch just inside the embassy’s main front doors, stationed in a booth fronted by an inch and a half of bulletproof glass. The receptionist at the window was locally engaged, the wife of one of the junior consular officers. At the moment, she was handing out temporary passport applications to a couple of American tourists who’d been scammed by a team of wallet-lifting pickpockets in the Earl’s Court Underground station.

  Sergeant Jenks, known to his men as “Gunny,” was seated just behind and off to one side of her. It was his job to manage the security watch. A bank of closed-circuit monitors before him carried the feed from a dozen or so stationary and panoramic cameras located both inside and outside the chancery. The cameras were only a small component of the hardware mounted on the embassy, a spiny porcupine of a building bristling with antennae, sensors and filters attuned to the slightest noise, vibration, chemical or biological compound that might pose a threat to the building, its occupants, or the secrets it housed. Other equipment sent out a defensive array of silent, invisible beams to foil intrusions of the electronic, acoustic, microwave or infrared variety.

  But none of this fancy equipment, the Gunny figured, was worth a damn without equal measures of human vigilance, precaution-taking, and plain old common sense. Overconfidence on technology opened the door to deadly intrusions of the low-tech variety, and when that happened, it was grunts like him and his men who paid the price with their lives. That’s what had gone down in Beirut, Saudi, Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, and they were probably due for another nasty surprise any day now. If so, it wasn’t going to happen on his watch.

  The Gunny was five feet and seven inches of rock-solid muscle. As middle age loomed, it was getting harder to maintain the integrity of that bulldozer frame, but Jenks was proud of his powerful arms and rock-solid abs. “Small but mighty,” he liked to think of himself, as he worked up a sweat every morning on the free weights and Universal set in the basement of Marine House, the nineteenth-century Victorian mansion where the embassy’s twenty-eight-man Marine detachment bunked and where the Gunny and his family occupied a top-floor apartment.

  The Gunny’s head was shaved in classic Marine style, high and tight, with a circular patch of blond stubble on top waxed to ramrod attention. It made for a slightly pointed skull that seemed a little too small for his thick neck and broad shoulders, but in this, the Gunny was the perfect Jarhead, a well-oiled machine of raw strength and pure military efficiency—a role model for his men.

  In the past, the Marine Guard had worn dress uniforms for embassy duty, but with the heightened security climate now, they manned their stations in battle dress, the better to intimidate. The Gunny’s mottled cammies were starched to within an inch of their lives and pressed into razor-sharp creases. His webbed belt and holster cinched tight on his narrow waist, and his pants were tucked into black combat boots that spit-polish gleamed under the recessed overhead lights. His small forehead was permanently pressed into a corrugated line of worry wrinkles as his sharp eyes scanned the bank of monitors before him.

  In the marble-floored lobby on the other side of the bullet-proof glass, hundreds of embassy visitors and staff passed each day through security scanners operated by his men. At the front gates, a guard hut stood inside a zigzagged row of concrete barriers erected to thwart any determined terrorist with an explosive-laden vehicle.

  The Gunny’s focus zeroed in now on the monitor display of the guard hut out front, where two young Marines were scrutinizing visitor IDs. A car bearing diplomatic plates had just pulled past the concrete barricade and approached the high, wrought-iron embassy gate.

  Parking inside the embassy compound was at a premium. Only the ambassador and selected senior diplomatic staff were permitted to drive or be driven inside, along with a very few high-level visitors, such as other ambassadors and representatives from the Foreign Office. Agents from MI-5 and MI-6, the British security and intelligence agencies, had also been showing up ever more frequently in recent months to liaise with their American counterparts.

  The Gunny could almost feel the cold drizzle running down his shirt collar as one of his oilskin-jacketed boys bent low, rifles at the ready, to peer into the window of the chauffeur-driven Mercedes, whose tricolor flags fluttered wetly from staffs mounted on the front fenders. This would be the French ambassador, arriving for a private meeting with the visiting delegation of U.S. senators—late, of course, the Gunny thought, snorting lightly. A reception would follow the ambassadorial meeting, and it was scheduled to kick off shortly.

  Trust the goddamn Frogs. If they couldn’t even show up on time for a high level meeting, how the hell could you count on them to do their bit in the war on terrorism?

  With his attention focused on the action at the front gate, the sergeant failed to hear the footsteps approaching from behind. “Hey there, Gunny. Who do we have here?”

  The Marine, to his credit, didn’t flinch.

  When Drummond MacNeil peered over his shoulder at the screen, the Gunny noticed a flush rising on the receptionist’s cheeks. Typical. Most of the women in the embassy seemed to hover near MacNeil at internal office get-togethers or follow him with their eyes whenever he passed in the hall. “Gorgeous,” one girl had called him. Amazing how a mysterious job, six feet of lanky slouch, and a pair of blue eyes could turn some perfectly nice girls into total bimbos.

  “Looks like the French ambassador, sir,” the Gunny told him.

  “Ah, oui, Monsieur Chevalier de la Haye.” MacNeil’s expression was arch, his accent fruity, but it sounded dead-on to the Gunny’s untrained ear. “Fashionably late and ready to make a dramatic entrance, as always, I see.”

  “I guess.”

  They watched on the monitor as the young Marine at the gate waved the car through.

  “Too bad he didn’t just take a miss altogether,” MacNeil added. “I’m sure our visiting dignitaries could do without this guy and his constant whining.”

  “Don’t care for our French allies, sir?”

  “Avoid ’em as much as I can. My old man used to say, ‘Count on the French to hide behind your back when the shooting starts and to stick a knife in it as soon as victory’s declared.’”

  The Gunny glanced up with interest. “Your father served over there during WWII?” MacNeil’s much-decorated father, General Naughton MacNeil, had been a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the early days of Vietnam, so it made sense that the old man would have seen service in the Big One.

  MacNeil nodded. “He was with Patton’s Eighth Army in North Africa, then arrived in Paris in time for the liberation. Not that the French ever thanked him for it. He said they drove him nuts when it came to working together in NATO.”

  MacNeil stepped back from the
monitor and perched his long, lean frame on the corner of a desk near the door, his gaze shifting to the receptionist as she bent low to withdraw some paper from a bottom drawer of her desk, revealing a hint of cleavage and a lacy patch of pink bra. The girl seemed to feel his eyes on her, because she looked up and her face flushed even deeper. She turned back to the window as MacNeil gave the Gunny a sly wink. His suit jacket was unbuttoned, shoulders slouching as his hands slid into the pockets of soft gray pants that even the Gunny could tell were custom-made and must have cost a fortune.

  “Your father was a great military leader, sir.”

  “Well, he died with his boots on, anyway. Dropped dead of a heart attack while reviewing the troops. All Army, all the way.”

  MacNeil didn’t sound too broken up about it, the Gunny thought. Bad blood between them, maybe?

  The younger MacNeil was about as different from the General as it was possible to be. Drummond MacNeil was in his late forties, with a thick head of hair that was considerably longer than the Gunny thought appropriate, even for a civilian. It took constant raking to keep the silvery mop from spilling into the man’s perpetually amused eyes. MacNeil always looked like the whole world was walking around with “KICK ME” signs stuck to their backs while he was the only one in on the big yuck.

  The Gunny focused on his monitors so MacNeil wouldn’t see his frown of disapproval. The General, by contrast, had been a towering mountain of a man—not a Marine, of course, but pretty damn tough just the same. Once, on a visit to the Pentagon, Jenks had seen the old man’s portrait hanging in a corridor. Built solid, buzz-cut and stern-looking, General MacNeil had radiated leadership. The Gunny would’ve followed that guy into any field of action he named, and so would just about every Marine he knew.

  But the son was another kettle of fish. Had never even served in the military, which must have been a real disappointment to the old man. The Gunny had a son himself, and the kid’s first words, swear to God, were Semper Fi. (Of course, Jenks had coached the baby for months, much to his wife’s disgust, but still…) Now six, Connor practically slept in his miniature size cammies and could hardly wait to join the Corps.

  MacNeil the younger hadn’t gone the military route, though. Apparently he’d washed out of West Point and avoided the service altogether after that, trading instead on his rep as a Yale man. The Gunny had heard people in a position to know say Drummond MacNeil had done more partying than studying at the Ivy League school. Only the family’s connections had swung his admission and protected a bare “C” average. After spending most of the seventies swanning around beaches, bars, and no-brainer jobs, MacNeil had apparently used those same connections to land himself a job at Langley.

  Still, he must have done something right at the Agency, the Gunny conceded, since he’d ended up with this plum London job and, by all reports, was on the fast track to the top. Go figure. Her Majesty’s official diplomatic list identified MacNeil as a trade counselor, but a select few knew he was actually chief of the CIA’s London station.

  “Anyway, sir, did you need anything?” Jenks asked him.

  “I just stepped out of the meeting to see this guy in,” MacNeil said, nodding at the monitor as the French ambassador’s car pulled up to the double front doors. “I was also hoping to spot my wife. Has she shown up yet, do you know?”

  “I haven’t seen her, sir.”

  Now, that’s what wasn’t fair, the Gunny thought. The guy was married to a great girl, his second wife, by all accounts. Carrie MacNeil was young, pretty, and nice as all get-out. The MacNeils’ son, Jonah, was in Connor’s kindergarten class at the American International School, and Carrie was one of the hardest-working parent volunteers there. Their boys always ended up playing together at embassy family functions, like the Fourth of July picnic and the annual Christmas party, where by tradition the biggest Marine in the detachment dressed up as Santa and handed out presents to the diplobrats and assorted other embassy offspring. And when Carrie got herself done up to the nines for some fancy dress function, with her long, reddish hair and those shy, gray-green eyes—well, all the Gunny knew was that he’d had to warn several of his randier guys that wives of senior staff (especially the CIA head of station, for chrissakes) were strictly off-limits.

  “She’s supposed to be coming in for this reception and dinner of the ambassador’s,” MacNeil was saying. “Wives were originally invited to both, but then the ambassador’s wife begged off dinner, so now the other wives are uninvited and it’s turned into a working dinner. I tried calling Carrie to let her know, but there’s no answer at the house and she doesn’t seem to have her mobile turned on. What’s the point of having a cell phone, I keep asking her, if you don’t turn it on? That’s why I got her the damn thing.” MacNeil leaned closer to the monitors to scan the surrounding streets. “Jesus! Who can spot anybody under all these umbrellas. Anyway, Gunny,” he added, straightening as the French ambassador swept into the lobby, “I’ve got to get back upstairs. Could you let her know when she comes in that dinner’s off? As long as she’s here, she might as well come up for the reception, though, meet a couple of senators.”

  “I’ll pass the message on, sir.”

  But the Station Chief was already out the door, embracing the Parisian envoy like a long-lost brother and leading him back into the embassy’s inner sanctum.

  The Gunny sighed and turned again to his monitors, studying the feeds from the street outside, wondering which umbrella belonged to Carrie MacNeil, and how she’d feel about finding out she’d been uninvited to the ambassador’s dinner after trekking out in this dismal weather.

  Gunnery Sergeant Jenks wasn’t the only one in Grosvenor Square on the lookout that afternoon.

  Across from the embassy, a hard-eyed man was parked in a squat London cab with its service lights switched to the “Off Duty” position. The cab was parked out of sight next to a London branch of the Canton-Shanghai Bank. A knit black watch cap was pulled low over his forehead, completely obscuring his hairline, but the thick black stubble on his chin and his heavy moustache suggested a heritage rooted anywhere around the Mediterranean or beyond—which could mean Spain, Italy, Greece, India, or any one of half a dozen Middle Eastern countries. There were so many immigrants in London nowadays that the man’s swarthy appearance was completely unremarkable.

  In fact, this man’s ancestors hailed from the Caucuses, but he himself had been born and bred in an east-end London suburb only four miles from where he now sat waiting for his target to appear out of the mist.

  National Gallery, Trafalgar Square

  4:28 p.m.

  The clerk at the youth hostel near St. Paul’s Cathedral had told Karen Ann Hermann and her two girlfriends that morning that heavy rain was predicted to begin in the afternoon and continue for the next couple of days, so the girls had decided to see the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace first thing, while the weather was still on their side. From there, they’d wandered up to Trafalgar Square to feed the pigeons, then ducked into the National Gallery across the road as the rain moved in.

  It was late afternoon when Karen, sitting on a padded bench near the gallery’s Leonardo etchings, consulted her much-thumbed guide book, her finger tracing a map of central London.

  “The American Embassy’s just a few blocks from here,” she told her friends. “I think I could run over there and be back in an hour or so.”

  Kristina Finch looked doubtful. “Maybe we should go with you.” The girls had been roommates at the University of Maryland.

  “Seems like a waste of time for you guys if you’re going to bother registering,” said Karen.

  Caitlin Bercha, the third in the group, had lived across the hall from the other two. “You don’t really have to, you know. That’s just something you do in places where there might be a revolution or something. Not much chance of that here.”

  “Yeah, plus we’re only going to be here for ten days,” Kristina added.

  Karen hesitated, then exh
aled wearily, the much-put-upon sigh of youth everywhere. “I know, but I promised my parents.”

  “But it’s pouring out there. You’ll get soaked walking all that way.”

  “Why don’t you just tell them you registered?” Kristina suggested brightly.

  “Yeah! How are they ever going to know?” Caitlin asked. “Then we can see if we can get some stand-by tickets for the theater tonight. The guy at the youth hostel said they disappear fast, so we should get to the box office early.”

  Karen looked from one eager face to the other, sorely tempted. But then her conscience kicked in. She was an only child and her parents worried more than most. She couldn’t lie to them.

  “I can’t. I promised. Look, I’ll tell you what. How about if you guys go over and see about the tickets, and I’ll do this embassy thing, and then we’ll meet up at, umm…” Her forefinger slid across her guidebook map. “Leicester Square. That’s in the theater district.”

  The two other girls exchanged glances. “I don’t know,” Caitlin said. “Maybe we’d better stick together.”

  “No, really, guys, this is a good idea. You go for the tickets and I’ll do this. No point in all of us wasting what little time we have.”

  “Are you sure you’ll be all right?”

  Karen waved away their worries and gathered up her things. “I’ll be fine.” She shrugged into her long tan raincoat, leaving her braid inside and flipping up the collar. From her pocket she withdrew a black knit tam which she pulled onto her head. “Watch for me at Leicester Square—say around six-thirty, just to be on the safe side. I don’t want to leave you guys hanging around in the rain.”

  So, the plans were made.

  Karen left her friends with a smile on her face, secretly glad for a little quiet time as she stepped out onto the wide, white front steps of the National Gallery and popped open her black travel umbrella. Not that the streets around Trafalgar Square were all that quiet, what with the swish of tires on wet pavement and the roar and honking of rush hour traffic. But the average teenage girl abhors a conversational vacuum, so Karen had been inundated with high-pitched chatter almost non-stop since she and her two friends had met up at Dulles Airport three days earlier to catch their flight for London. At this point, her craving for quiet was almost physical.