by Tinnean
“Did you get it for Mark Vincent?”
I raised the frosted glass to my lips. A single swallow, and then I placed the glass in the exact center of its coaster. I crossed my right leg over my left knee. She sipped more of her juice, waiting me out, and I laughed.
“Yes, Mother. It’s for Mark. He had a very similar statue, only it was ceramic. When his apartment was destroyed in that explosion, so was the statue. He called it Sam.”
“‘Sam’? After Sam Spade?”
“You’d think, but he said not. I can’t think of any other, though, that would appeal to him.”
For a long moment she looked thoughtful, and then the corner of her mouth quirked up in a grin. “Did you know your father was an avid Louis L’Amour fan? He actually met him a few times.”
“Really?” It was common knowledge that he had been acquainted with Ian Fleming, so I shouldn’t have been surprised that he’d known other authors.
“Yes. He enjoyed all of L’Amour’s westerns, but he loved Hondo best. There’s an autographed copy that Louis sent him somewhere in your father’s study.” It was exactly the way it had been the last time he’d been in it, shortly before he’d left on that final, fatal assignment to South Asia. “That was the book he chose whenever he felt he needed a breather.” Her expression softened as it always did when she spoke of the man who had been her one love.
“That’s very interesting to know, Mother, but I fail to see what that has to do with Mark’s statue.”
“Hondo’s dog was ‘remote and dangerous,’ to quote the author.” She fell silent as I digested that information.
“So, Hondo’s dog was Sam?”
She smiled proudly, pleased that I had made the connection so quickly, then offered, “He kept everyone at a distance, you know. Even the man to whom he was closest.”
I paused with my glass to my lips. “Is that supposed to be Freudian, Mother?”
She leaned forward to pat my cheek. “You’re so quick on the uptake, sweetheart.”
I couldn’t help laughing ruefully. “You are amazing.”
“Of course I am. That’s a mother’s job! If you’ve finished your Perrier, we should be on our way. Gregor has promised a delicious luncheon.”
I placed some money on the table, walked around it, and pulled out Mother’s chair for her. She took my arm, and I escorted her to my car.
XIV
“I REALLY do have an apartment lined up,” Mark assured me once again as we showered the residue of the previous night’s passion from our bodies. “It just needs some more work.”
I swallowed my smile. It must need a good deal of work, since it was now the middle of May, and he’d been living with me for almost six weeks.
“No problem, Mark.”
The corner of his mouth kicked up in a pleased grin, which he quickly erased. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
He gave me a sharp look, but I just raised an eyebrow.
“You sure I’m not putting you out?”
“I’m sure. Believe me, you’d be the first to know.” Truthfully, I wasn’t looking forward to the day he moved out, but I wasn’t going to tell him that. He hadn’t shown any signs of getting skittish and bolting again, but I was wary that he would. “It’s Friday.”
“Not like you to state the obvious, Mann.”
“I was just wondering if you’d like to have dinner at Raphael’s tonight.” I turned off the water, opened the door, and stepped out, taking a couple of towels from the warming bar and handing one to him.
“Yeah.” He ran the towel over his hair. “As long as I’m in town….”
I didn’t want to tease him that he was always in town now; he wasn’t happy about that. It seemed to me that Trevor Wallace was grooming Mark for something, but if my lover didn’t see that, I wasn’t going to be the one to tell him.
“I’ll look forward to it, then,” I murmured against his lips.
“Yeah. Me too.”
And then we didn’t say anything for a while.
XV
THINGS were growing tense at Langley. Over the past several weeks, a number of young men and women had failed to get in touch with their contacts. At this point in their careers they wouldn’t be given anything remotely dangerous to handle. The more mundane assignments would help them hone their skills.
Now, two more of our officers were missing, and none of our usual contacts could come up with anything solid as to who was taking them, or why. It was as if one moment they were traveling to a meeting in Zurich, or Paris, or Prague, and the next they had vanished off the face of the earth, leaving no trace behind.
To add to that, Bram Rayner, Director of Operational Targeting, would be away indefinitely, having been called out to the California offices, and Edward Holmes had stepped into his position.
It was an ill-kept secret that Holmes aspired to the position of Director of the CIA. If he ever attained it, I’d be giving serious thought to Mark’s invitation to join the WBIS.
Well, no, of course I wouldn’t, but Holmes had been behind my Uncle Bryan’s resignation. For some reason Holmes didn’t seem to like Sebrings. Or Manns.
“Mr. Mann.”
“Yes, Janet?”
“Director Holmes is on line 1.”
“Thank you.” I picked up my phone and pressed 1. “Yes, sir?”
“I’d like to see you in my office at your earliest convenience, Mann.” What DCI Holmes meant was immediately.
“I’m on my way.” This had to be about the officers who were missing. It had been impossible to learn of their whereabouts, and I hoped we had finally caught a break. I headed out of my office, pausing at my secretary’s desk. “I’ll be with DCI Holmes until further notice, Janet.”
“I’ll hold all your calls, and see about rearranging your two o’clock meeting. I think the four-thirty meeting can be rescheduled for later this week.” She knew as well as I did that meetings helmed by this DCI tended to run very long.
“Excellent, Janet. You’re a gem. Oh, and if McKenna comes in, tell him I need his report as soon as it’s humanly possible.”
I strode toward the elevator.
“Quinn, hold it for me, would you?”
“DB. I haven’t seen you around lately.”
“I took some vacation time, Quinn. Have to give the old johnson time to regroup if I want to keep my ladies happy.”
“Is that why you look all worn out?” I laughed softly. It was always the quiet ones. Who would have thought DB of all people would be part of a ménage à trois? “Are you ever going to tell me who they are?” All I knew was that they worked for the Company.
“I’ll make a deal with you, Quinn. As soon as you tell me who’s put the smile on your face, I’ll consider it.” He’d tried to discover who I was taking to bed on a regular basis, unsuccessfully, and he would dangle the lure of revealing the identity of the women he was sleeping with before my nose at least once a week, in hopes that I’d crack.
“Mmm, I don’t think so, DB.” There was no way in hell I could tell him that not only was my lover a man, but that he was Mark Vincent, the most notorious member of the WBIS. I noticed the stack of printouts in his hand. “Where are you headed?”
“Holmes’s office. You too?” He was suddenly serious. “This thing in Europe is getting nasty. We’ve lost five agents over there.”
“Have any of the other agencies lost people?”
“Yeah. The Mossad, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, MI6. Shit, pick an agency, and the odds are they’ve had people go missing.” He handed me a top sheet. “Even the WBIS has agents who’ve disappeared.”
Mark hadn’t said anything about that to me, but then, I hadn’t brought up the subject either. We didn’t discuss business at home.
I scanned the page. The names were unfamiliar. I said as much to DB.
“Yeah. Each one of them was recruited within the last couple of years. And look at this.” He handed me another page. “I intercep
ted this message for Leonard Burroughs.”
“Don’t tell me. Another one of our newer recruits.”
“You’ve got it. The message was encrypted, and I ran it through that program I’d created. It looks authentic enough, and an inexperienced officer would have no cause to think otherwise. He’d go to the assigned meeting.”
“Do we know where it was scheduled to be?”
“We do.” DB didn’t look happy. “Burroughs was instructed to go to a specific location on the outskirts of Paris to meet with someone from this organization. Prinzip.”
“Hmm. I don’t believe I’ve come across that name before.”
“Would have been something if you had. It’s only come on the grid in the last few days.”
We stepped out of the elevator together and walked down the corridor side by side. Holmes’s secretary was carrying a tray with four steaming mugs of coffee, and she was fumbling with the doorknob to his office. I opened the door for her, and she smiled her thanks.
I wondered who else DCI Holmes would have in this meeting.
“Mann. Cooper. You know General Kirkpatrick?”
I nodded. He was Drum’s superior at the Department of Defense. What was he doing here?
“Have a cup of coffee and get comfortable. We appear to have a joint problem, and this is going to take a while.”
XVI
“A WHILE.” That was an understatement. It was a couple of hours before Holmes and Kirkpatrick stood, signaling the conclusion of the meeting. It had only seemed like an eternity.
“I’ll expect you to track down Major Drum, Mann. I can’t afford to lose such a valued member of my staff.”
“Of course not, General,” I agreed sourly. Not only were five of our agents missing, but so was Jonathan Drum II. “I’ll do my best.”
The general raised his eyebrow. “See that you do,” he said in that cool, commanding voice of his. Apparently he felt the CIA owed him.
DB and I were finally able to leave the office. “Y’know, I always thought Mondays were the pits, but lately Wednesdays are right up there with them,” he said. “I wonder if the WBIS has days like this.”
“Frankly, I don’t want to know.”
“I don’t envy you, Quinn. That’s going to be one bitch of an assignment.”
“If I don’t find Drum, Kirkpatrick will keep after me until I do.” I scowled at my friend. “Trust Drum to get himself into trouble like this!” I thought of the message that had been on my machine when I’d returned from Cape Cod with Mark.
Mann, pick up, goddamn it! This is important! Fuck! You’re never around when I need you!
I’d told myself if it was that urgent, Drum would get in touch with me again.
Only he hadn’t. He’d applied for emergency leave, been denied, and had gone to Europe anyway, determined to learn the whereabouts of his half brother, Kirill Aleksandrov, who had disappeared while returning to his unit in the Russian Army stationed in Chechnya.
I’d met Aleksandrov myself a few years ago. I’d been in Europe at the time, and Drum had tracked me down and “persuaded” me to help him. It seemed he’d just learned of the existence of a half brother.
“Half brother, Drum? How did that happen?”
“You know my father became a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War.”
“Yes.” The senior Drum had been a highly decorated officer.
“He was taken to one of the satellite Soviet countries.”
“And?”
He’d given me a cold look, before he remembered he needed a favor from me. “Dad managed to escape with the aid of a resistance group.”
“Yes.” Word had gotten back to the States that he was alive, but before a mission could be launched to get him out, he’d vanished. “Drum, you are aware we have evidence that he was killed in Kyrgyzstan.”
“Yes… yes, I know. But, well, apparently my father had a… a relationship with one of the resistance fighters.”
“That explains the half brother.”
“Yes. His name is Kirill Aleksandrov. He’s in the Russian army.”
“And what do you want of me?”
“I want you to help me get him out. He’s half American. He shouldn’t be fighting a useless war for a foreign country!”
“I’ll get you a meeting with him, Drum, but that’s as far as I go.”
I’d managed to arrange the meeting with the assistance of a former KGB agent, who did it as a favor to Mother.
“Please tell the lovely Portia Mann that Sidorov sends his regards,” he’d told me, and then he’d smiled and walked away. I didn’t have time to wonder about that then, but I intended to ask Mother about it when I got home.
Aleksandrov was pleased to meet the older brother he’d heard about, but he refused to leave his unit.
Drum had given him his phone number. “If you ever need me, call.”
Knowing Drum, who in his private life had the attention span of a goldfish, I’d assumed this would turn out to be one of his “ooh, shiny!” moments.
He had always struck me as shallow, and to realize now that he was willing to risk his life and his career to help young Aleksandrov—no one knew better than I the importance of family—for the first time I felt a measure of empathy toward the major.
I turned to DB. “It’s a good thing I keep an overnight bag packed and ready to go in my office.”
“If anything new comes up, I’ll forward the information to your PDA.”
“Thanks, DB. I’ll see you around.”
“Um, Quinn? Want me to pass a message on to your lady? Tell her that you’ll be out of the country for a while?” His expression was so innocent. “I wouldn’t mind, you know.”
“Anything for a friend?” I laughed and clapped a hand lightly to his shoulder. “It isn’t going to work, DB. I’m not about to tell you who I’m seeing, not unless you’re prepared for a little quid pro quo?” I paused at the door to my office. “Listen. If you see Syd—” McKenna was a decent officer, but Syd was better. “No, never mind. Odds are I’ll see her before you do.”
“Uh—yeah. Right. See you, Quinn.” He hurried down the corridor, and I wondered briefly at the color that had swept over his cheeks, then shrugged it off and went into my office.
“Janet—”
“The director’s secretary just called to let me know you have to go out of the country.” She spoke at the same time I did, and I felt like Colonel Blake to Janet’s Radar O’Reilly.
“I’ll cancel all your appointments until further notice.”
“Cancel all my appointments.”
“Do you want me to call Mrs. Mann, or will you?”
“Call Mother for me, if you don’t mind?”
Janet smiled and reached for her phone. A pearl beyond price. I had no qualms leaving the office in her care.
There was one other phone call that needed to be made, but I would make that one myself.
I retrieved my overnighter from the closet in my inner office, wrapped the shoulder holster around my Smith and Wesson, and slid it into an inside pocket. I hesitated for a moment. There was a concealed drawer in the bottom right side of my desk. I opened it and removed a small, subcompact .45 pistol and the holster that strapped to my ankle. Its weight would be comforting, an insurance policy. Then I put on my suit jacket and left.
XVII
THE boarding pass waiting at the Air France ticket counter was under the name Leonard Burroughs, the actual agent I was purporting to be. I took it from the smiling airline representative and went into the business class lounge. It didn’t take long to find a spot that was relatively deserted. I took out my cell phone and hit the number to speed-dial my lover’s cell phone. He picked up on the first ring. “Vincent.”
“Hi.” I leaned against a pillar, keeping an eye on the few passengers who were waiting for the flight to start boarding.
“Hi, yourself.” No question that he recognized my voice. I liked knowing that. “What’s up? We still on for tonigh
t?”
“No. That’s why I’m calling. I have to go out of town, and I’ll be away for a few days.” I couldn’t resist asking, “Will you miss me?”
“Hell, no!” The vehemence in those two words took me by surprise. “I have to move my stuff out of your place anyway. This will be as good a time as any to get it done.”
Mark had ordered the furniture for his new place more than a month ago, but he’d placed it in storage, telling me any number of times the apartment needed more refurbishing before he’d even consider moving. I had rather hoped that was simply an excuse, that he enjoyed staying in my home as much as I enjoyed having him there. Could I have been that wrong?
“Does… does that mean it’s over between us?” I asked cautiously, feeling ill.
His response was an immediate and emphatic, “It’s over when I say it’s over!”
I released the breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. “Yes? All right.” I cleared my throat. “I’ll be looking forward to seeing your new place. I have a housewarming gift for you. And don’t go looking for it.”
“As if I’d do something like that!” He had the nerve to sound insulted, and I couldn’t help laughing.
“Of course! I don’t know who I was thinking of. It must have been some other WBIS agent who kept breaking into my house! But just so you don’t wear yourself out, I gave it to Mother to keep for me.”
“Spoilsport.”
“That’s me.” Was I actually relieved enough to be flirting with him?
Over the PA system came the announcement, “Air France flight 024 with nonstop service to Paris will begin boarding…”
“That’s my flight; I have to go. Get some help moving. I don’t want you to hurt yourself. I should be home by Wednesday, Thursday at the latest, and I have some serious plans for you.”
“I’ll see you then.”
Yes, you will. I turned off the phone before I could say something stupid, picked up my overnight case, and walked to the gate.