Nearly eight hours after their meeting, he could still smell Limoges’s cigar smoke on his clothes. One sniff of his sleeve brought back the whole surrealistic conversation in the limousine. Brewer shook his head at the image of Limoges. Riding around in his limousine to evade eavesdroppers while trying to sneak a new invention into the national arsenal, Limoges was the prime symbol of the twentieth century: another bringer of unwanted gifts to the world, the bearer of another new weapon to be thrust into man’s bewildered arms. Here was yet another stroke of the brush that was painting the entire world more and more into the same tight, explosive corner.
“Without a net,” Limoges had told him. “I want to make that perfectly cleah, Brewah.” A high-wire act without a net. The secret was never to look down.
He removed his clothes and got into her bed with her. She stirred, full of sleep, and pulled off her nightgown. “I love you,” she said. “Love you. Love you.” She kissed him. Lovingly. Longingly. Lingeringly.
She slept in his arms, holding his hand on her breast.
I love you: He had never said that to anyone. Never felt it. Passion, yes. Fondness yes. But a thundering, rocketing, downtown, brass-band love? No.
Yet she did: love unabashed, unreserved, uncomplicated. Flat out, with nothing held back. How her face would light up whenever they met. She glowed with her affection for him. It was carved on her heart with a clasp knife: M.L. loves C.B. Complete with cupids and a fretted lace doily.
In his heart was warfare—maces and shields: he’d picked his battle ground; he’d picked his weapons; he’d picked his adversary. But was there no room left for love?
He awoke in her arms. His head and chest were soaked.
“You were having a nightmare,” she said. She got a towel and dried his face and hair. Then she put the light out and held her arms around him. “It’s going to be okay,” she said.
“No,” he said. “It’s never going to be okay again. I can’t get back to that place where I was before prison. I can’t get out of my head the sound of those heels kicking on the wall when that kid hung himself. I can’t see with the same eyes as before.”
“Then see with my eyes,” she said.
“Love,” he murmured.
“Yes. Love.”
“You have to be very crazy or very brave to love someone,” he said. “You know you’re going to take a terrible beating. I had it once and walked away from it. I thought it was a trap.”
“The alternative is worse,” she said. She stroked his hair. “I love feeling love. It’s like a purr here.” She pulled his hand between her breasts. “Right here. It’s the only thing that can help you live with those nightmares in your head.” She kissed his brow. “It’s the only thing that can make life worth living.”
Before dawn he heard snow grains tapping on the windowpane. Snow at the window, seeking the way in. Malice patiently waiting.
The President lay asleep in the White House. His cabinet dozed in their beds. The Congress snored. The members of the Supreme Court slept the sleep of the just. And all about town the foreign ambassadors in their multitudes slumbered toward another day. In the morning all would rise, rub the sleep from their eyes and begin to push the great creaking, lumbering cart of history another mile on its reluctant squealing wheels. Each would try to push it in a different direction.
He asked himself yet again what he was to do with this lump of life called Brewer. What was he do with the rest of his days?
When Margie woke, she stepped to the window and peeped under the shade.
“Good God,” she exclaimed and slipped back in bed. “Not fit for man nor beast. No school today, sports fans.”
“The CIA will never make it without you,” Brewer said. “Langley will never be the same.”
“A pox on the CIA,” she said. “Listen, Brewer, you’ve got a naked broad in your arms, and she definitely does not want to discuss her cockamamy research job in Langley.”
Listen Brewah. Her Boston accent echoed Limoges’s.
“You should call her,” she said.
“Who?”
“The lawyer who cleared your name. Madeline Hale.”
When you have a naked broad in your arms talking of love, should you be thinking of Madeline Hale getting married in Vermont?
Chapter 8
“You been a bureaucrat too long, Brewer.”
“Have I?”
‘“Have I?’ You want the truth, Brewer, or you want bullshit?”
“Are you giving me a choice? Which do you do best?”
“Hey, Brewer, let’s cut the comedy. You want jokes, call Las Vegas. You interested in a deal, a nice deal, you call me. Okay?”
“Wonderful.”
“Okay. Here’s the deal. I got this client. He’s looking to sell. He’s getting on in years, and he has this nice security agency on the waterfront in a city along the East Coast. His customers buy his security services against pilferage. Larceny. Highjacking. He probably saved his clients upward of eight million last year alone. You know what that does to insurance rates, Brewer? It brings them down. Way down.”
“What city?”
“I’ll tell you later. This is a good deal, Brewer. You could make some real bucks. Better than the fishcake you get from the Fed. You interested? I could get you a financial statement.”
“I’ll let you know.”
Chapter 9
Within hours city traffic was paralyzed. Schools were closed. Businesses that had managed to open, shut down a few hours later. The federal government dismissed its army of civil servants officially before noon, although few had actually come in.
By one o’clock seven inches had fallen and it was still coming down thickly. The streets belonged to the wind-driven snow. Brewer walked the six blocks to the delicatessen, clambering several snowdrifts on the way to his meeting with Sauer. The front of his overcoat was soon snow-caked, and he entered the delicatessen slapping it off with his cap. There were only a few people in the place.
In the last booth Sauer sat alone. Head on chest, arms folded, one leg cocked over the other, the man scowled at the floor, the picture of desolation: the battle lost, the stock market crashed, the dice crapped. Beside him on the seat was a thick brown envelope.
Brewer rapped a knuckle on the booth table.
Sauer grunted.
“Is that the file?” Brewer asked. He sat down and looked directly at Sauer.
Sauer raised his head and looked irritably back at Brewer, like a man roughly awakened from a deep sleep.
“Let’s skip the crap,” Sauer said. “My orders are to show you this file on the Vienna job.”
Brewer pictured himself going down a dark alley, backed up by this slouching desolate figure opposite him. The thought made the hair on the nape of his neck prickle. Sauer the brooding backup.
“Goddamn snow,” Sauer said. “If Russia was in a warm climate, I’d defect.”
The waiter brought a sandwich—a mound of corned beef topped by a high hump of leaking cole slaw and Russian dressing between two thick slices of rye bread. Sauer studied it solemnly then roused himself.
As he shook out his napkin, Sauer looked appraisingly at Brewer. “So you’re the kind of hairpin that likes long odds, hey?”
“What brought that on?” Brewer asked.
“This is the Game of the Cornered Rat,” Sauer said. “And you look like the type that’s hooked on it. No sane man would take the assignment you’ve got,”
He spread the paper napkin on his lap. “We’re all set,” he said, patting the thick envelope by his side. “I’m going to eat and you’re going to have fun.”
“Fun,” Brewer said.
Something in his tone made Sauer look attentively at Brewer’s face. Sauer cleared his throat carefully. “Okay. Joke’s over. Where would you like to begin?” he asked.
Brewer watched Sauer bite into his sandwich. He had met many Sauers—sometimes German with pale hair, sometimes British with a time-ruined face or American
with a purple whiskey saddle over the cheeks. Whatever the type, there were always deep lines of sourness between the brows and around the mouth: an intelligence man who had spent too many days looking into the void, surrounded by talk of Armageddon and gotterdammerung. Then one day he looks into the void once too often and loses his nerve. After that he clings like a limpet on a seawall, holding on until retirement day. Sauer was a limpet.
“Start at the beginning,” Brewer said.
“Okay.” Sauer put down his sandwich, chewing. “You wanted information? Okay.” He opened the brown envelope. “Here’s information.” From the envelope he pulled out a file folder. “I was the one who got the original complaint. That’s why I was put on the case. We got it from the Department of Commerce in November. From a computer-parts wholesaler in Texas. He thought there was something fishy about this outfit in Kansas City that’s buying parts from the no-no list for cash. So Court and I flew down to Kansas City. ’Kay?
“After we looked the situation over, I called it in. I said that we might have found a smuggling operation. This outfit—Three Tee it called itself—consists of three guys with a rented house and garage, a white Toyota van and a brand-new checking account. They’ve been there less than two months. They’re not listed in any industrial directory. They don’t have a track record of any kind, and the telephone is listed under the name John Paul Jones. On their purchase orders they list themselves as a V.A.R. A value added repackager. They’re a customizer of high-tech equipment for medical schools and hospitals. ’Kay? But what they’re ordering doesn’t have medical applications. It has military applications. You see what I’m saying?
“So upstairs told us to camp on this for a while and see where it goes. We figured we could nail them anywhere along the way. Here.” Sauer slipped the topmost sheet from the folder and handed it to Brewer.
“Three Tee always attached to their orders this Department of Commerce form,” Sauer said. “It covers the export of hightech equipment.” He pointed at the printed text. “The form declares that the equipment is intended for medical purposes, domestic use only. No export. You’ve seen these before, right?”
“Many times,” Brewer said.
Sauer handed Brewer another copy—this time of a check.
“And they always sent a check with the order,” he said. “Like this. Drawn on a small bank in Kansas. Nice clean deal for a wholesaler. All the paperwork done and cash in hand. ’Kay?”
Sauer pulled another sheet from the folder. “Each one of these wholesalers did the same thing,” he said. “They processed the check and filed the government form away with the invoice. The minute the check cleared, they sent the merchandise by air freight with a waybill. Like this. Always air freight.”
Brewer looked at a copy of Waybill number 458–88643–2124, conveying an itemized order to Three Tee in Kansas City from a supply house in Texas.
“Is this the whistle blower?” Brewer asked.
“That’s him,” Sauer said. “See? Nothing big. A small part here, a little unit there. Nibbles. But it adds up big: they’ve placed a lot of small orders with a lot of high-tech wholesalers—all over Texas and all up and down the West Coast. ’Kay? But this Texas dealer was different. He took the money, shipped the goodies—then blew the whistle. One phone call did it.
“So Court and I hung around the Kansas City airport. And every day packages were arriving for Three Tee. And every day a guy in a white Toyota van would claim them. He drove the stuff to a garage behind a private residence. Three guys in a garage. The list of stuff they were buying was impressive—hardware no hospital ever needed. Every few days they packed all the stuff up, put labels on it and drove it to the airport. Then they would assemble another load. So we decided to follow one of their shipments. This time they list the stuff as air-conditioning equipment. Seventeen cartons and crates. They shipped it all by air right out of the country, contrary to their sworn statements.”
“Where did they ship it?” Brewer asked.
“To Toronto, Canada, addressed to an air-conditioning and heating firm that turned out to be ficticious.” Sauer slipped out another sheet—a waybill—and handed it to Brewer.
“I even remember the number,” Sauer said. “Waybill number 339-14256-9538. Right?”
Brewer looked at the waybill number. “What happened in Toronto?”
“Guess who claimed the merchandise in Toronto?” Sauer asked. “You got it. The same three jokers—Three Tee. They drive up to the common carrier’s airport loading platform and drive off with all seventeen pieces. They take the whole load to a loft a few miles from the airport, and—sure enough—they repacked and relabeled everything all over again, this time as repair parts for home heaters. They shipped the stuff to Europe in four different cargoes.” He handed Brewer another sheet.
“This is one of them,” Sauer said. “Waybill number 4356-95995-5138—from Toronto to Stuttgart on Lufthansa airlines. Including all the correct customs forms.”
“These three men were Americans?” Brewer asked.
“One was Canadian.”
“Go on.”
“So Court and I flew to Stuttgart,” Sauer said. “And there different people claimed the shipment. Two German nationals and an Englishman. One of their regular contacts was a Russian, from the Moscow ExImport Company—so you don’t need to guess where the stuff was going.”
“Mashproborintorg,” Brewer said.
“Yeah. Mashproborintorg in Cologne. This Russian’s name was Revin. One of the Germans met him for a drink one afternoon. Then right after that, wham—these three smugglers repacked and redocumented the stuff yet again with new labels and—” He cued Brewer with a pointing forefinger.
“A new waybill,” Brewer said.
“Head of the class.” Sauer slipped out another sheet of paper with a flourish. “Number 7767–85674–2321. The stuff now went to Austria—all seventeen items. They moved it three times inside Austria—and eventually shipped it to a freight office in Vienna. That’s when I got nervous. Vienna isn’t all that far from the border to Czechoslovakia and Hungary.
“So we get the Austrian authorities involved at this point. And when the stuff arrives in the Vienna freight office, we secretly go over it. Everything’s in order. We’re all set. We’re ready to follow the shipment to the border and grab whoever claimed the merchandise. Then we can roll up the operation all the way back to the three jokers in Kansas City. See what I’m saying?
“It’s cold in Vienna. So goddamn cold. Sitting in cars, standing in doorways and freezing around the clock. And the stuff sits there. Just sits there. Day after day and night after night. Everyone’s bitching. We all want to go home. Then one snowy afternoon we enter the warehouse and check the merchandise. And that’s when we find out the cartons are all empty.
“Beautiful, ha?” Sauer asked. “The bastards let the stuff sit there until everyone got bored and careless. Then they would sneak away one item at a time. And replace it with a duplicate carton that was empty. One by one they got all seventeen, and we ended up watching seventeen empties. This was with someone inside the warehouse at all times watching the whole shipment.”
“Sleeping,” Brewer said.
“Who knows? My Christmas stocking ends up with a hole in it.” Sauer snorted angrily at Brewer. “Know what that operation cost the American taxpayer? Just the surveillance. More than one million U.S. dollars. And it cost me everything.” Sauer looked up at the ceiling, remembering. “I wanted to take the whole crew in and sweat them,” Sauer said. “But I was voted down. There were Americans and Austrians involved. They said it could cause an international incident.”
Sauer felt Brewer’s eyes studying him and looked up. “So?”
“So what did they get?” Brewer asked.
“Who?”
“The Moscow smugglers. In Vienna.”
“Oh.” Sauer pulled out a folded sheet of paper. “Confidential, of course.”
Brewer studied the list then glanced at Saue
r. “You know how bad this is?”
“You’re the computer expert, Brewer. You tell me.”
“This is state-of-the-art, top-of-the-line computer technology. The latest computer-operated soldering station. A prototype unit for disk drives. Vital parts for two central processing units.”
“So?”
“So this helps the Russians make state-of-the-art electronic components for space weapons—Star Wars stuff. It’s just the kind of capability we don’t want them to have.”
“It’s that bad?”
“If they’ve managed to swipe the software to go with this, they’re in production right now, making military hardware to use against us.”
“We were set up,” Sauer said.
“How were these units wired—like this clean-room contamination indicator?”
“For East European voltages and plug configurations … just as you would expect.”
“What’s been done about the Americans and the Canadian and the two Germans and the Englishman?”
“Who knows? Interrogations didn’t help a bit. They all said they were hired by telephone and paid cash up front.”
“In Swiss francs?”
“Yeah,” Sauer said. “How did you know that?”
Two policemen came into the delicatessen, stamping their feet and shaking snow off their greatcoats.
“Doesn’t make sense,” Sauer said. “You see what I’m saying?”
“No,” Brewer said.
“All our brilliant minds turning out all these brilliant inventions and discoveries, and all we can think of doing with it is making fearsome weapons or building a network of television stations so that a roofer’s apprentice’s wife can watch a moronic quiz show between other roofer’s apprentice’s wives. Yet we can’t devise a system to stop our enemy from stealing it.”
Sauer studied Brewer’s eyes for a moment, then put down his sandwich and pushed the plate away. He dipped a paper napkin into his water glass to swab his fingers and palms.
“This thing looked like a dream operation to me,” he said. “See what I’m saying? I was in the doghouse anyway. A few years ago my marriage was in bad shape. Too many trips away from home. So I began to turn down assignments to spend more time with my family—wife, mainly. My bosses noticed, and I was put on the shelf—desk jobs with no travel. Didn’t help—my marriage went bust anyway. So there I was—a failure in private life, a failure in my job. Then the divorce rocked me pretty good. I had a tough time with the solitude. Anyway, I tried to get back into the game. But it was tough. I drew down a couple of things, but nothing noticeable. I was down in Panama for a while. Then we picked up on this Kansas City thing. I figured I can make myself look good. Instead, what a goddamn mess it made of my life.”
Triple Trap Page 6
