The Orpheus Deception

by David Stone

  “All right.” She lowered her voice to a throaty purr. “Last year, in August, we—I mean, Clandestine Ops—had the snake eaters extract three Chinese nationals from the Mexican port of Veracruz. They were on shore leave from a SINOPEC oil-exploration vessel in the Gulf of Mexico, called the Hao Hai Feng. They were supposed to be seismic techs verifying a drilling ground, but Crypto City was picking up ultrafast-burst encryptions from the ship that were being relayed to a Chinese satellite we know is tasked for the military.”

  “What does the Agency think they were looking at?”

  “We’ve got some SigInt and TechInt operating out of Pensacola. Crypto City figured the Chinese were trying to dip into the stream to try to get an outline of what gear we were deploying. And what we were looking at.”

  “I would imagine the Chinese got cranky.”

  “They don’t know for sure who snatched their lads. They strongly suspect it was us, but, according to the Monitors, they’re also shaking trees in North Korea and Venezuela. Apparently, the field unit deliberately left some indications that the techs had been taken in a commercial espionage op in order to claim-jump on future Chinese oil-field developments.”

  “Clues that pointed to No Dong or Boy Chavez?”

  “I would assume. Good to have those two quarreling.”

  “And now Cather is ready to let these guys go?”

  “Yes. I’m told they held the techs at a quarantined site inside Fort Huachuca. All the interrogators were Hispanic. They wore Mexican police uniforms, and the compound was tricked out to look very Third World shabby. So they had no idea they were being held by the U.S., and that amped up the fear factor. They rolled pretty fast, but most of it was stuff we already knew about or suspected. The main idea was to let the Chinese know the Gulf of Mexico was an American lake. Point got made—obliquely—so now it’s time to deal the kids out.”

  “Duly chastened.”

  “Of course.”

  “Why would Singapore care enough about three Chinese techies to trade off Ray Fyke?”

  “Singapore is worried sick about China—”

  “Who isn’t?”

  “Exactly. So the SID would get the techs, along with everything they told us about Chinese surveillance methods. Bandwidth. Encryption methodologies. Targets. Tactical and strategic inferences could be made from what the techs knew and what they were trying to find out.”

  “If they’re getting all that data, the SID wouldn’t need the techs.”

  “True. We’re setting a condition. The SID has to relay the techs straight back to Peking. Unharmed. Intact.”

  “Why?”

  “So the Chinese will finally know who took them. And why.”

  “They already suspect we took them.”

  “Yes. But now they’ll know. Point made directly.”

  “Okay. I see that. And we get the undying gratitude of the SID—”

  “For a minute and a half—”

  “So we’re coming in to Singapore as declared agents?”

  “No. Undeclared. At least until the trade is confirmed. You’d be playing a freelance broker representing a third-party interest.”

  “But if the Agency wants gratitude from the SID, they’ll have to declare themselves eventually.”

  “They will. When we’ve made it reasonably safe to do so.”

  “We’re going in under the Burke and Single legend?”

  “Why not? We both know it backward. You and Porter practically invented it, if you recall.”

  “Yes. But it’s a financial cover. Investment banking. That hardly puts us in the way of prison officials at Changi.”

  Mandy reached into her carry-on and pulled out a large envelope made of pebbled navy blue silk. It carried a red logo and was addressed to a Miss Mandy Pownall, care of Burke and Single, London SW 1. The logo said HSBC: the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation outfit.

  “It’s an invitation. To a reception at Raffles. The Home Secretary will be there. The Home Ministry is in charge of prisons.”

  “Who is he?”

  “Chong Kew Sak.”

  “Don’t know him.”

  “He’s new. He just came over from another agency.”

  She put a slight weight on the word another.

  “Did he? Let me guess which one.”

  Mandy reached out and placed her fingertip on Dalton’s upper lip. He felt a rush of memory heat in his lower belly, Cora’s body in the half-light of early dawn streaming in through the balcony window, her lips half open and her breasts rising and falling as she slept. Mandy sensed the force of the emotion but not the proximate cause. She took her finger away.

  “Yes,” she said, unsettled. “That one.”

  11

  Kotor, Montenegro

  Branco Gospic was at his carrier-sized teak desk in the old dining hall of his home in Kotor, studying marine charts and punching in numbers on a calculator, when his BlackBerry buzzed at him from the cherrywood credenza behind him, skittering across the gleaming wood like a shiny black cockroach. He stared at it for a while with a look of mild disgust, thinking it might be Stefan Groz calling back yet again to bitch and grizzle and snark about his now-exploded source in Brancati’s office. Gospic looked at the caller ID— UNKNOWN—sighed, picked it up, and waited. It was not his custom to speak until he knew who was calling. The caller identified himself as Gianni from Padova—Kiki’s alias. Gospic checked his watch. It was a little after noon. The call was twelve hours late.

  “Boss, how are you?”

  “You are late.”

  “I know. I got caught in that—”

  “Where are you now?”

  “In transit. Off the coast. I have some news.”

  “Yes.”

  “Saskia says good-bye.”

  “You gave her my best?”

  “Right after I gave her mine. I need your advice, boss.”

  “Certainly.”

  “It’s about our American friend.”

  “I assumed this. You gave him our message?”

  “Well, actually, not yet.”

  Gospic said nothing, letting the silence run. On most men, this worked very well, but Lujac had a steely core under his playboy persona and was hard to intimidate. Gospic’s control over him was unsteady. This worried Gospic, and he intended to do something about it as soon as Lujac began to disappoint him. Gospic could hear gulls in the background, the churning of heavy waves, a steady wind, and the low mutter of the Subito’s engines.

  “Aren’t you going to ask me why, boss?”

  “I don’t care why. I made myself clear. You disappoint me.”

  “It’s complicated. He’s not alone, and he’s on his way to Singapore. Saskia heard you had some kind of thing going on in Singapore, so I figured I better hold off until I talked to you.”

  Silence then, and Lujac’s question hanging. Gospic looked out the leaded-glass windows onto the ragged mountains across the fjord of Kotor. The sky was slate gray, and a steady cold rain was falling. Why was the American going to Singapore? Gospic already knew that the Singapore police were holding this drunken sailor, whom they considered the sole survivor of the wreck of the Mingo Dubai. He knew where he was being held—in Cluster C—and exactly what was being done to him, because he had a contact in the local police department, who kept him regularly informed. So, the Prisoner of Changi issue was under control.

  But now the American was going to Singapore.

  Americans went to Singapore every day. It could be nothing more than a coincidence. He could see no possible connection between Dalton and this drunken sailor rotting in Changi prison. But it worried him, anyway.

  It also worried him that someone as unstable as Saskia Todorovich had gotten wind of his interest in Singapore. He would have to begin a quiet search for the man who was talking; there were only a few possibilities, but he would check them all.

  Had Saskia heard anything about Gospic’s plans for the Mingo Dubai? Gospic ran his operations as inde
pendent cells, but Lujac would already have his suspicions confirmed by this long silence. He would know that his news had left a mark. This was a dangerous breach of operational security, and now Lujac had himself become a threat.

  Lujac would have to be handled carefully.

  “You allowed this flight to Singapore?”

  “I had him at one point, yes. I know. I know. You’re pissed. But listen, boss, the guy’s . . . interesting. He’s making moves. I thought you should know about them. I thought you should have a chance to think it over. Our guy says he had a long talk in Florian’s with an English woman—says she’s a real stunner who had some kind of mojo with Galan—he says she helped Galan nail a mole inside the Carabinieri—our friend got the idea she was connected in some way to the CIA—anyway, she had a long private talk with our American friend—Galan bugged the entire meeting, but our guy wasn’t able to get near the transcript. What he did get was that maybe the American is now back in the club, if you get me. Like all is forgiven? Anyway, the next day he’s on a Thai Airways flight to Singapore. With the English woman.”

  “It would have been more simple if he had not been in a position to take a flight to Singapore.”

  “Yes. Yes, I get that. But this guy’s not a singleton anymore, boss. If he’s back in the CIA, then maybe we should stay on him and see what he’s up to. Your name was taken in vain, by the by.”

  “My name?”

  “Yeah. By Brancati and Galan and this Dalton guy. They talked about you, about coming after you directly. Dalton, he’s a hunter. You can see it in his face, the way he moves. He’s got some crocodile in him.”

  Gospic winced at the mention of Dalton’s name but let it pass. He realized that he had been talking on this device—this wireless device—for far too long, and now Lujac was becoming . . . careless. The phone was heavily encrypted, but one never knew.

  “Is Galan sending someone to Kotor?”

  “He said no. Said the Carabinieri were not assassins. Dalton says maybe not, but he is. We gotta stay on him, boss. See how big a threat he is, maybe peel him off, get up close and personal with him, and then a dio.”

  “What about the Florentine arista? The Vasari.”

  “Brancati had her driven back to Florence in an armored limo. She’s at the university now, with a couple of Galan’s Jew boys riding shotgun.”

  “So you lost her as well?”

  Lujac’s voice got tighter. He lost some of his easy charm.

  “Look, Branco, my dear friend, I’m trying to do you some good here. This is my thing, what I do best. I don’t do this for money; I have more than I can use. I’m in this for the charge I get. So what I’m saying is, all you want is to cancel a couple of bad debts; I can do that. Sure. But I took this ball on the hop because sometimes you’re your own worst enemy, all this macho vendetta stuff. I’m giving you good info, and your Poppa always said that good info is better than bad blood. But you’re pissed off. Okay. Fine. You want me to break off the Dalton thing, daisy on up to Florence and create some lovely splatter, I’ll do it. Frankly, it’s nuts, but I’ll do it.”

  Gospic held his temper, barely; he never snarled at his people, but he always remembered insolence, and Lujac was insolent. He was also very smart and very good, and he made good tactical decisions. And he had never failed Gospic in any important work. Lujac was valuable and Lujac knew it. Gospic thought about it and decided it might be useful to have a secondary asset in the region, just in case his associates there became . . . what?

  Problematic.

  “Okay. Go to Singapore. One of our Gulfstreams is in Bari. I’ll have Larissa find out where they’re staying, and she’ll get the details to you in flight. Pick them up in Singapore and stay on them. I want to know where he goes in Singapore and who he meets with.”

  “I get the idea we got something going in Singapore?”

  “No. Nothing.”

  Lujac sensed the evasion but said nothing. Before Saskia died, he had worked her over for everything she knew about Gospic’s operations. In the end, all she had to tell him was that Gospic had sent Emil Tarc to Singapore over a month ago. She had no idea why. Lujac filed the information away, against the day he and Gospic would no longer be friendly. And now Gospic had confirmed her story. Okay, duly noted, and time to back off. Lujac could push Gospic a little because Lujac was good, but Gospic would not tolerate an inquisitive subordinate no matter how useful.

  “Okay. One last thing. What about the arista?”

  “I’ll send Radko Borins to deal with her.”

  “Radko Borins screwed that stunt his last time out. Is he up to it?”

  “Yes. He’s in Trieste. He can be in Florence in two hours.”

  “Is he motivated?”

  “I gave him a special incentive.”

  “Yow. Hope he was wearing a diaper. Boss, I gotta ask you . . . why go after the broad? I mean, right now? Brancati knows it was you behind the marathon thing. You really want to start a war with him, just to take out some upper-class puta? Galan may be saying the Carabinieri are not assassins, but Brancati made his bones many times over, and he’s already pissed at us. You make him mad enough, he’ll unload the entire Carabinieri on us, and some of those guys are as hard as anyone we got.”

  “The woman has a debt. She will pay it.”

  “Boss . . .”

  “No more talk. That is the end of this. You failed to take her, so Radko will do it for you. But, at the end of the day, when I tell you to do it, our American friend will get my message. Am I clear?”

  “As megapixels, boss. I’ll be in touch. Ciao.”

  ON THE SEVENTH floor of the giant glass cube at Fort Meade, Maryland, that houses elements of the National Security Agency’s global computer systems, a brown-eyed, olive-skinned, heart-attack brunette named Nikki Turrin, one of the Monitors, was sitting at a thirty-inch LCD watching a running scroll of numbers and letters fly over the screen, thinking about her new Great Dane pup’s case of separation anxiety, when she got a hit on a flagged target phone that brought her upright. The screen showed a digital packet ID and an adjacent routing number, an indication the mainframe had detected a transmission, targeted at a specific phone matrix, that contained a trigger word or phrase, a voice-recognition hit, or a reference to some person or operation of interest to an element of the nation’s Intelligence community. Unlike the paranoid nightmares of the ACLU and MoveOn.org, the NSA was technically unable to monitor every single communications transmission in all media all over the globe.

  Even God would have to outsource that. But they could monitor thousands of identified targets. And this was one of them. The digital packet showed only a tag and a reference code—the targeted transmission had been detected seconds ago—and, from the source numbers, it looked like a wireless cell-phone transmission originating somewhere in the upper Adriatic.

  The codes did not indicate the content of the packet—Monitors are neither cleared for, nor remotely interested in, content—but the routing code was quite familiar to the tech. This packet—from the size of the file, an audio packet—was to be relayed immediately to Langley, Virginia. Something in the intercept was important to some operation or other inside the CIA. Nikki, a pragmatic but dedicated young woman seraphically free from the chief sin of the career NSA staffer—inappropriate curiosity—hit the requisite codes and the slice of data was duly fired off to a computer in Langley. There, it was received, tagged, and bounced upstairs to another equally pragmatic tech, who transcribed and reencrypted it and fired it through a series of secure channels that terminated in the flat-screen LCD on the desk of a horse-faced, cold-eyed, yellow-toothed, thin-lipped old man in a charcoal pinstripe who was talking on the phone, in his soft, Tide-water Virginia cadences, to a nervous contact in Prague, who had another man in an Internet café across the street pinned in the long lens of a night-vision scope.

  The old man, whose name was Deacon Cather, chief of the Clandestine Services section of the CIA, did not stop listening
to his nervous man in Prague while he read the transcription of the audio packet, which contained references to Singapore, Dalton, Vasari, and CIA. Cather scanned the text: someone calling himself Gianni from Padova had contacted a Serbo-Croatian mafia don called Branco Gospic and warned him that Micah Dalton was on his way to Singapore.

  Cather knew a great deal about Gospic and his network, but he would dearly love to know much more, which was why he had arranged for the NSA to monitor his communications systems. He was also keenly aware of Gospic’s vendetta against Micah Dalton. With half his mind on his agent in Prague and the other half on Micah Dalton and the operation known as Orpheus, Cather weighed the uses that could be made of Gospic’s sudden interest in Singapore. Perhaps it would be useful to hear the actual conversation. Much could be learned from a living voice. Cather listened to his feckless agent go on for a time, silenced him with six words of simple instruction that sent the man out into the twilight streets of Prague with twenty thousand euros in a vacuum pack labeled Lavazza Espresso, and then reached out to his keyboard to hit ARCHIVE. The audio packet was then reencrypted in an asymmetric code unique to Cather’s Zip drive. The transcript disappeared from the screen, from the system, from ever having existed, and now resided only in a small black steel slab that Cather detached every evening when he left the office, slipping it into his breast pocket, next to a sterling silver case containing Montecito cigars. This being done, Cather leaned back in his chair, crossed his long legs, and placed his liver-spotted hands gently on his belly. Through the tinted window he could see a great deal of rolling Virginia countryside, the tree canopy bathed in a light so pure and clean this could have been the first morning of the ancient world.

  He leaned his head back, exhaled theatrically, a thin stream of acidic contentment flowing through his once-powerful frame. The question of Micah Dalton’s war with Branco Gospic, seen in the light of Gospic’s apparent interest in Singapore, required some careful thought. It was pregnant with tactical possibilities. He slowly pulled his pale blue lips back from his long yellow teeth in a leathery retraction, producing a kind of frozen predatory grimace that stretched the corded muscles of his neck and cracked his blue-veined cheeks into deltas of scaly, sagging flesh. This reptilian display, which his associates had learned to regard with carefully blanked faces, was Deacon Cather’s legendary smile.