The Bancroft Strategy

by Robert Ludlum

  “Brown eyes, then, no problem. There’s a subtle latex wash I can do around the eyes that crinkles a bit—looks natural, but it definitely adds age. We can work on the corners of your mouth, too.

  Maybe add just a bit to the nose. But we keep the balance, we keep it subtle. You don’t want people to be admiring your makeup artist, am I right?”

  “I don’t want people to take a second glance,” his visitor said.

  “Easier if you can stay out of direct sunlight,” Roland cautioned. “It’s hard to get dermal appliqués that work equally well in all kinds of lighting.” He studied the man’s face a little more. “I’m going to give you a mandible appliance, too. Orthodontic wax is easy to mold, but don’t expect to be getting a lot of use out of it. Be careful when you talk.”

  “Always am.”

  “In your line of work, I guess you have to.”

  His visitor winked. “You’re a good man, McGruder. I’m grateful to you, and not for the first time.”

  “You’re sweet. But please. I just do what I get paid to do.” He smiled happily. “Don’t they say that happiness is having to do what you want to do? Or is it wanting to do what you have to do? I can never keep that straight. Or anything else, much.” He inserted two wedges of orthodontic wax into a microwave. “We’ll have you out of here in no time,” he said.

  “Appreciate it. Really.”

  “Like I say, I do what I get paid to do.”

  An hour later, after his visitor had left, McGruder made himself a cranberry and vodka, and did something else he was paid to do. He dialed a phone number that rang somewhere in Washington, D.C. He recognized the voice of the man who answered.

  “You told me to let you know if Mister Man showed up, right?” Roland took a long sip of his cocktail. “Well, guess what. I just got done with him. So what do you need to know?”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  A sliding sound. The same guard as before, one hand on the lever knob and the other at the keyhole, easing the heavy door open on its hinges. Andrea Bancroft stood at the far wall even before she was told to. But the guard was not alone this time. Another man—taller, lankier, older—stepped in after him. A few murmured words were exchanged, and the guard left, apparently stationing himself behind the door.

  The tall man took a few steps toward Andrea and regarded her appraisingly. Despite his size, there was something catlike about his movements, she decided. He was elegant, somehow too elegant, and his gray-green eyes settled upon her with almost penetrative force.

  “Two men were killed at a storage facility at Rosendale,” he barked. “You were there. What happened?”

  “I think you know,” she said.

  “What did you do to them?” His voice was loud yet toneless, and he was no longer looking at her. “We need answers.”

  “Tell me where I am,” Andrea demanded. “Goddammit—”

  The tall man’s eyes roved across the walls of the cell as if searching for something. “Why did you travel to Cyprus?” he demanded. Yet it somehow seemed that the question wasn’t even directed at her. “There’s no point in keeping secrets anymore.” Suddenly he turned over the nylon-and-canvas blanket on her bed, his fingers probing the heavy fringe of canvas along the outer seams.

  “What the hell are you—”

  The man turned to her with a worried look, placed his fingers to lips in a brief, frantic signal. “If you don’t cooperate with them,” he intoned, not meeting her eyes, “they’ll have no reason to keep you alive. They’re not big on second chances. I suggest you start talking if you know what’s good for you.”

  He wasn’t speaking to her at all, then. He was speaking for the benefit of unseen listeners.

  His long fingers suddenly yanked at a wire that had been cunningly concealed beneath the canvas. With a series of forceful jerks, he removed almost a yard of a thin, silver-colored wire. At its end was a small globular device that had been concealed in one corner of the suicide-blanket seam.

  “Fine,” he blared, “sit down and start talking to me. I’ll know if you’re lying. You see, there’s very little about you I don’t know.”

  Then he twisted the black plastic globule until a snapping sound could be heard.

  The man turned toward Andrea and spoke quietly, urgently. “We don’t have much time. When the recording cuts out, they’ll assume a malfunction. But there’s a chance someone will notice the problem sooner rather than later.”

  “Who are you?”

  The man looked at her, his face taut with fear. “A prisoner, just like you.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I told them I’d be able to get to you. That I’d know how to interrogate you, that I’d know your weakness. It’s the only reason they’ve put us together.”

  “But why—”

  “Probably because of who you are, and who I am. There’s something we have in common.” His expression was harrowed. “You see, I’m a friend of Todd’s.”

  Andrea’s eyes widened. “My God. You’re Jared Rinehart.”

  Washington, D.C.

  In his office, Will Garrison glowered silently for a few moments. The alert had flashed on his desktop monitor, an interagency message that was instantaneously relayed by the Consular Operation Intranet. Confirmation was swiftly secured. The name provided by the informant in New York had been added to the FAA watch list, and now it had been triggered. One “Henry Giles” was on the move. Bet you didn’t think we’d be on to this one, Todd-o.

  Yet Gareth Drucker was frustratingly hesitant when Garrison arrived with the news. Behind those rectangular rimless glasses, his eyes seemed veiled, shifty. He stood against the Venetian blinds, his slim form silhouetted against the afternoon light, and seemed reluctant to meet Garrison’s gaze.

  “There’s a shitstorm coming, Will,” Drucker said, exhaling noisily, “and I don’t even know whose shit it is.”

  “Goddammit, we can’t screw around at a time like this,” Garrison exploded. “We need to strike, and we need to strike now.”

  “It’s this goddamn Kirk Commission,” Drucker said. “I’m already getting my balls fricasseed over the Hart Building debacle. There’s a time for stepping up and there’s a time to duck and cover. My political instincts tell me that if there’s one more operation goes awry, we could all be answering questions about it for the next twelve months.”

  “You’re not going to dispatch another retrieval?”

  “I have to think about it. Oakeshott tells me that Kirk’s guys have developed protective feelings toward our rogue. That’s the word he’s received, and Oakeshott’s pretty wired with the boys on the Hill. Go talk to him.”

  “Fucking Oakeshott,” Garrison fumed. “So what’s the deal with Kirk? This because Castor’s got something on them? Or he’s masquerading as a goddamn whistleblower?”

  The director of operations pursed his lips. “We don’t know. But say he’s convinced these godforsaken investigators that he’s a whistleblower, and then we come down and clobber the guy. How’s that going to look?”

  “How’s it going to look? How’s it gonna look if you let a goddamn unhinged rogue go wreak havoc yet again? He’s a menace, and you know it as well as I do. You read the internal report from Larnaca. The bastard murdered a prominent businessman, a guy we used as a confidential informant more than once. Belknap is out of control; he’s deranged with rage and paranoia—a menace to everyone he encounters. I mean, Ruthie Robbins was killed just four goddamn days ago!”

  “I got investigators telling me Castor wasn’t the doer. She was sniped, and he’s no sniper. Larnaca is looking more complicated than we thought. Meanwhile, I got people raising a lot of questions about Pollux. There may be some surprises there. There are some dark holes in that vita, and we don’t know what’s in ’em. But I’m guessing it’s more than a bunch of golf balls.”

  “Shit. The ankle-biters are throwing up a bunch of distractions. Chasing after rocking-horse dung. I’m so sick and tired of the godd
amn cult of Castor. Young shit-for-brains who refuse to see what’s in front of their faces, always trying to come up with some other explanation. Like that Gomez kid. Ought to be given walking papers, or posted to fucking Moldova.”

  “Junior analyst Gomes, you mean? He’s raised questions, that’s true. But he’s not the only one. Trust me on this. Something isn’t trig, okay? Something isn’t right.”

  “No argument there. Something isn’t right.” And it won’t be until I set it right.

  Garrison had calmed down some by the time he made his way down the hall and poked his head in the office of a junior member of the operations directorate.

  A heavyset man with brown hair, blunt features, and a puffy face swiveled to face him. His name was O’Brien, and he had been a protégé of Garrison’s at the beginning of his career. His desk was cluttered with family photographs and a nonregulation PDA on a cradle. He wasn’t trig, he wasn’t tidy, but Garrison knew he would come through.

  “What’s up, Will?”

  “How are the kids, Danny?” He paused to remember their names. “Beth, Lane? They doing good?”

  “They’re doing good, Will. What’s up?”

  “Need to requisition a jet.”

  “So do it.”

  “Need you to do it. Got to keep things special-access.”

  “You don’t want your signature on the authorization paperwork.”

  “You got it.”

  O’Brien swallowed hard. “This going to get me in trouble?”

  “You worry too much.”

  “As the lawyers say, that’s nonresponsive.”

  “We really don’t have time to play pattycakes. Operational time has already commenced.”

  “This part of the Castor recoup?”

  O’Brien was slow but he wasn’t stupid. “You see, Danny,” Garrison said levelly, “we’ve tried teams before, haven’t we? This time we’re going to play it different. A single top-drawer operative, like a single well-aimed arrow.”

  “Who?” O’Brien asked. “Who’s the passenger?”

  Garrison’s quilted cheeks spread in a tight smile. “Me.”

  He wasn’t just making a virtue of necessity. On reflection, Garrison had realized that he’d actually have a better chance of catching Belknap on his own. A multiperson team was too easy for a skilled operative to detect, and could be slowed by coordination problems. In fact, Garrison recalled a time when Belknap had apprehended a rogue single-handed because he knew that the arrival of a team would, as it said, “spook the hare.” Drucker’s reluctance would serve him well.

  “You?” O’Brien’s eyes widened. “Can I ask you something, Will? You were a legendary field op in your day—everybody knows that. But you’re all grown up, at the top of the goddamn tree, just about. Whatever you need done, can’t you send someone to take care of it? I mean, what good is seniority if it doesn’t keep you safe in the office?”

  Garrison made a harrumphing noise. “You know what they say. You want a job done right, you better do it yourself.”

  “They sure don’t make ’em like you anymore,” O’Brien said, shaking his head. “Which, all told, might be a good thing. So, you going…equipped?”

  Garrison nodded.

  “Need a requisition there, too? Or are you taking care of that part?”

  “A soldier always does his own packing, Danny.”

  “You sound like you’re going off to war.”

  “I’m going off to win, Danny.”

  They had come close, so close, in Washington the other day, and if Garrison had been on the scene personally, it wouldn’t have merely been close. Castor was a wily son of a bitch, but he’d never been able to outplay Garrison. Garrison had been around long enough to learn every damn trick, dodge, and subterfuge that had ever been invented. You didn’t retrieve somebody like Belknap. That was just asking for trouble. With a customer like that, the only way to make sure he could do no more mischief was with a bullet in the brain. You wrote THE END, not TO BE CONTINUED. When the story was over, it was over. No sequels. No jaw-jaw. Just war-war.

  “Where to?”

  “Dominica. Fifty clicks south of Guadeloupe. You need to get my ass in the air within the hour. Chop-chop, baby.”

  “What’s in Dominica?” O’Brien was already reaching for the telephone.

  “I don’t know,” Garrison murmured, half to himself. “But I can guess.”

  Jared Rinehart sat close to her. “There’s so much I wish I could explain.”

  “Where are we?”

  “My guess? Somewhere in upstate New York. Someplace rural, remote. But also in striking distance of Montreal and New York.”

  “I keep thinking this is all a nightmare, and I’m going to wake up from it.”

  “You’re half-right,” Rinehart said. “It’s a nightmare, all right. Listen, there’s no time. We need to talk about Genesis. Todd was on the trail, wasn’t he?”

  Andrea nodded.

  “I need to know exactly what he’s found out. Where does he think Genesis might be located?”

  She swallowed hard, trying to think. “Last thing I know, he was meeting with Senator Kirk.”

  “Yes, we know that. But he must have had ideas, suspicions, instincts. Please, Andrea, this is vital. He must have said something to you.”

  “He was turning over rocks. Going through the possibilities. He even wondered whether you were Genesis.”

  Rinehart looked startled, even wounded.

  “Or Paul Bancroft, or—but I think he knew it wasn’t anybody we’d thought of. I think he’d decided it was someone else altogether.”

  “This isn’t helpful. You’ve got to rack your brains. He trusted you, didn’t he?”

  “We trusted each other.”

  “Then he must have let something drop.”

  “You mean like he knew and was trying to keep it a secret? That’s not how it was.” Andrea looked at the other man hard, feeling a tickling in the pit of her stomach. “Otherwise he wouldn’t have gone to see the senator.”

  Yes, we know that.

  Yet who was “we,” and how did they know? “Jared,” she said, “forgive my confusion. But there’s something I don’t understand.”

  “They could come for us at any moment,” he reproved. “Please focus.”

  “Have we been taken hostage by Genesis?”

  “What are you asking?”

  She knew. “It’s the others who want to know about Genesis, isn’t it? And you’re helping them.”

  “You’re mad!”

  Yes, we know that.

  “Or are you trying to find out who’s on your heels? A threat assessment—isn’t that what you call it?”

  Suddenly she lashed out at him, but Rinehart caught her wrist in a grip of steel and abruptly threw her onto the floor. She fell hard, returned to her feet slowly.

  Now he was standing before her, regarding her with a baleful gaze. The pretended fear had abruptly vanished from his countenance. It was replaced by contempt.

  “You’re a beautiful woman,” he said at last. “Apologies for the unflattering lighting.”

  “I suspect that’s the least of my worries.”

  The smile of a lynx. “You have a point.” He reminded her of a figure from a painting by Pontormo or some such sixteenth-century Florentine. A little stretched, but with a coiled strength. “Then again, we all have our roles to play. And yours is a crucial one.” She felt as if he were drawing her soul from her through the magnetism of his gaze.

  “Please, have a seat.” He gestured toward the cot. “And, just to head off any reckless lines of thought, do bear in mind, at all times, that I am a professional.” He produced a small metal stylus in his hand, like a conjurer. “If I had a mind to, I could insert this into the back of your neck, between the second and third cervical vertebrae. In a flash. It’s a matter of Fingerspitzgefühl, as the Germans would say. Don’t be misled by the fact that I don’t carry a lot of hardware on my belt. I don’t need to.” For
a moment his eyes were twin beams of absolute malevolence. Then he blinked and once again his countenance assumed a deceptive civility.

  “I have to admit, you really had me there for a while.”

  “It was worth a shot. Clearly, Todd has taken you as his helpmate.” He smiled his feline smile, all teeth and no warmth. “He always did have a weakness for clever women. But it’s clear you have no actionable intelligence for us. No great surprise there.”

  “Is Todd such a threat to you? Am I?”

  “On the whole, I’d say we don’t respond to threats. We make them. And then we carry them out. More so now than ever. The Ansari network is among the world’s largest, and now it’s ours. Nikos Stavros himself has been a formidable presence in the transshipment of arms, and Stavros Maritime is in our control as well. As are a dozen other wholesalers in armaments and munitions. I’m aware that you know something about business. In the corporate world, it’s called a rollup.”

  “A rollup. As in the strategy of acquiring many small firms in the same product category in order to create a market-dominant player. I know about rollups, all right. Coventry Equity backed a few.”

  “Nobody imagined it could be done in the parallel economy, the so-called black market. I think we’ve proven otherwise. Which means, of course, that we’re poised to become even more powerful than ever before.”

  “Who’s ‘we,’ kimosabe?”

  “I think you know.”

  “Theta.”

  “You’ve named the seed crystal.” Another mirthless smile. “Do you understand what we’re on the verge of becoming?”

  “I understand that you people have been manipulating elections around the world.”

  “That’s merely a sideline. So few countries have meaningful elections anyway. In most of the world, the gun is ascendant over the ballot box. It’s why we have proceeded as we have. We now effectively control the availability of revolutionary violence. The only way for nonstate forces to gain weaponry is through us. We can ensure the stability of regimes that would otherwise be overturned. We can destabilize regimes that would otherwise have clung to power. Which means we’re moving into a whole new phase of operations, you see. We’re operating beyond the level of the nation-state. Soon it will be clear what we’ve built—in effect, our own league of nations.”