“Yes,” she said, but she ate in silence.
The others made up for her. Hook told wild stories about Thailand—cannily tailored to a six-year-old audience of one—and JP played along, feeding him lines and allowing himself to be the butt of jokes.
Kate tuned the conversation out, feeling the way she had before a mission. Focusing her thoughts, toughening herself.
Suzie giggled at some jest of Hook’s and said, “That is so lame, Grandpa.”
Kate saw the look of delight on her daughter’s face and her heart broke a little more. This won’t last, she told herself. It never does.
When the food was done JP asked Suzie if she wanted to watch a cartoon DVD and she nodded and he took her through to the cramped living room where a sofa, a cane chair and a TV stood among a mess of diving gear.
The soundtrack of the movie was loud enough to drown out conversation in the kitchen and Kate leaned closer to Hook and said, “How do you think it’s going to go?”
“You heard about that reporter getting hit?”
“Yes. Benway?”
Hook shook his head. “I can’t see it. It’s too obvious.”
“Who then?”
“I don’t know. But it’s upped the heat on Lucien and his only way out is to prove you didn’t die on that plane.”
“Enter Dudley Morse?”
“Yes.”
“And you reckon we can take him?”
“I can create the scenario. You can take him.” He looked at her. “That’s what you do, isn’t it?”
“Did.”
“Okay, did.”
“Yeah, there were none of the Cold War niceties that you cut your teeth on.”
“I know that. I was there, remember, after 9/11?”
“Yes, but you faded from the picture when things got really interesting. These days it’s all about either getting the bad guys positioned for interrogation or taking them down.”
“It never bothered you?”
“The killing?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Some Manhattan kid just woke up one day and found out she could do that?”
“Not quite. You’re to blame.”
“Me?”
“Yes. I was fourteen when the Towers fell and my mother died. A friend of hers took me in and I spent the next few years in a sort of daze. I was okay at school but not brilliant. I was pretty but not beautiful. I had no idea what to do with my life and I started making the wrong choices that kids make. Got into some trouble. Then I decided to look for you.”
“Why?”
“Some romantic daddy thing. That I’d find you and you’d change my life.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be.” She drank beer from the bottle. “You weren’t easy to find.”
“No.”
“Google didn’t hack it.”
“I’ll bet not. What did you do?”
“I was a teenager. Every teenager knows a kid who knows computer shit. My one knew how to penetrate firewalls and bypass security systems. He found you. It cost me a six pack of beer and a blowjob.”
“Cheap at the price.”
“I thought so. When he saw who you were, who you worked for, he backed off, but he’d got me far enough in to let me fumble on. Of course I was detected and Philip sent some people. Anyway, as I told you before, he decided to take me under his wing and suddenly my life had a purpose. I started out looking for a father and I found a calling. I found out what I was good at.” She laughed. “Imagine my surprise.”
“Be all you can be.”
“Hell, yes.”
“You’re not angry with him?”
“Philip?”
“Yes.”
“Why would I be?”
“You were a just kid. He bloody indoctrinated you.”
“Oh he did, as only that fucking old Svengali could.” She shrugged. “But I would’ve used that skill set in another way. Probably would’ve ended up in prison by the time I was twenty. Or worse.”
“You never questioned what you had to do?”
“No. I loved the certainty of it all. The us and them thing. We were right. We were good. They were wrong and they were bad. Simple. No ambiguities.”
“I was all about the ambiguities. That’s where I thrived, out in the place where certainties crumbled, where people could be turned and bought and corrupted.”
“We were different weapons, you and me. With different purposes.”
“Yes, we were.”
“Why did you do it Harry?”
“Same as you: because I was good at it.”
“But you were never a believer?”
“In flag and country?”
“Yes.”
“No. Not like you were.”
“Yes, I drank that fucking Kool-Aid. If, a decade ago, you’d asked me what I loved the most in the world I would’ve said, without hesitation and not a whiff of irony, ‘I love my country. I love the United States of America.’ So if I had to use my body, I used it. If I had to kill, I killed.”
“And now?”
“What do I love now?”
“Yes.”
“My daughter.”
“That’s it?”
“Yeah, that’s it.” She smudged a finger in a puddle of beer. “I’ve been through too much. I still want to live in America and I still want my kid to grow up there, but I see it for what it is. And I’ll make sure Suzie sees that, too, when she’s old enough.”
“Do you have any regrets?”
“Well, Jesus, my husband’s dead.”
“I’m not talking about what was done to you, as grievous as it was.” He looked at her. “I’m talking about what you did.”
“You really want to open that door?”
He shrugged. “I’m thinking you haven’t had a chance to talk about this stuff.”
“No. For the last two years all I’ve spoken about is kids and the PTA and double glazing and television. And you know what?”
“What?”
“It was okay. It was numbing. But I had the dreams.”
“Yes. That happens. The septic tank has to be emptied.”
“Nicely put.”
“Thank you.”
“And you? You had the booze?”
“Yes. And the sex.”
“Okay.”
“I’m done with that.”
“Hell, I’m not judging.”
“I didn’t think you were. I live quietly. I try to stay sober. I try to still my mind. I re-read books I’ve already read and I paint badly.”
“And then we came along.”
“Yes, and then you came along.”
She drank and looked at him. “So, lay it on me.”
“What?”
“Your master plan.”
“It’s a work in progress.”
“Don’t try and snow me with that Zen shit, Harry.”
“I’m not. It’s organic. That’s how I work. Which, for you, must be a nightmare.”
“Yeah. You don’t take a haiku to a gunfight.”
“I think you mean a koan.”
He laughed and for a moment she saw how devastatingly charming he must’ve been, back when that had been his thing. Then he was serious again.
“I want you to hide in plain sight.”
“Jesus, now here he comes with the aphorisms.”
“I want it to appear that you’re in hiding, but you’ll be visible enough for Morse to find you.”
“And then I take him down?”
“No. The other option.”
“Get him positioned for interrogation?”
“Yes. Can you do that?” He stared at her over his Coke can.
“Relax. I’m not squeamish.”
“Good, because Morse isn’t going to be easy to crack.”
“What do we want from him?”
“To know what he knows.”
“About Lucien?”
“Yes, about what Lucien has on
the great and the good. That’s the path to you being resurrected and invited back to the table.”
They sat without speaking for a minute, listening to the cartoon gabble from the other room, then Hook stood. “You okay with me taking the kid to town for ice cream?”
“You sure you want to do that?”
“Yes. And maybe you need to start saying au revoir to JP?”
“Yeah, maybe.”
Hook disappeared into the living room and got Suzie and Kate heard the clatter of the dirt bike and then she went through to where the Frenchman sat on the couch drinking beer, staring at her.
“Everything’s fine?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“If you want my help, I am here.”
She hesitated before she spoke. “You said you have connections?”
“Yeah.”
“Can you get weapons?”
“Guns?”
“Yes.”
“What do you need?”
“Do you know guns?”
“A little.”
“I need a Glock 19 and something smaller. Like a .32 snubnose.”
“Anything else?”
“A sawed-off shotgun.”
“Double or single barrel?”
“Double.”
“Are you starting a war?”
She said nothing and stared at the static on the TV screen.
JP set down his beer took his cell phone and went into the kitchen and she heard him speaking in makeshift Thai.
He came back into the room. “I will hear in the morning.” He sat beside her. “What is going to ’appen, Kate?”
“Let’s not talk, okay?” she said and straddled him, kissing him.
He kissed her back and then he lifted her and carried her into his bedroom.
SIXTY-EIGHT
“Motherfuckin groundhog day,” Congressman Antoine Mosley said to himself as his MKZ hybrid came to a halt on Capitol Hill and yet another white man with an agenda lowered himself into the seat beside him.
As the driver accelerated the Plumber said, “Thanks for meeting with me, Congressman.”
“Let’s make this speedy, okay? I got me a lunch engagement.”
“Then I’ll get straight to it: how would you like to be appointed chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence?”
Mosley stared at the Plumber. “You fuckin with me?”
“I am not. We can make it happen.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes.”
“And how much of his soul does this nigger have to sell?”
“All we need is for you to spearhead an investigation into Lucien Benway.”
“Last time I heard Benway was an independent contractor with no ties to the intelligence community. Therefore he does not fall within our remit.”
“Come on, Congressman, surely there’s enough motivation now with all these allegations around AirStar Flight 2605? With the assassination of David Burke?”
“Assassination?”
“What would you call it?”
Mosley shrugged.
“The administration has to act,” the Plumber said. “The Thais are furious and the Israelis are threatening to recall their ambassador.”
“Understandably.”
“And the governments of Australia, Great Britain and China are righteously aggrieved that all signs point to their nationals having been murdered by a senior intelligence officer until recently in the employ of this country.”
“Do you believe that Kate Swift died on that plane?”
“I believe that if it quacks it’s a duck.”
“It was expedient, wasn’t it, for the White House to say that she did?”
“It brought some closure, yes.”
“So you want me to steer an investigation into Benway? You want me to find that he has no connection to this administration and that his actions regarding AirStar Flight 2605—if any—were his and his alone?”
“That would be the ideal outcome.”
“Are you sayin he took that plane down?”
“For the purposes of this conversation, yes.”
“Do you believe he did?”
“That’s not germane,” the Plumber said
“Germane? Germane?”
“It means not relevant to this conversation.”
“I know what the fuck it means. I need to know what you believe. You and your handlers before I agree to participate in some bright and shiny motherfuckin lie.”
The Plumber shrugged again. “I don’t know, Congressman. Nobody does. What we do know is that Lucien Benway needs to be stopped.”
“Then why don’t you stop him?”
“The way he stopped that journalist yesterday?”
“Is it germane to ask if you believe he killed that poor fool?”
“I think he did, yes. But proving it is another matter.”
“My question stands. Why don’t you stop him?”
“We have to be seen to be going after Benway legitimately.”
“Even though the outcome is predetermined?”
The Plumber shrugged. “Let’s call it house advantage.”
“Hmmm, mnnn. I dunno. There’s a shitload of heat here.”
“Standing up to Benway will bring you a lot of visibility.”
“I’m already visible.”
“In the 13th Congressional District, maybe. What I’m offering you is the national stage.”
“And what makes you so goddam sure this nigger is just going to leap up onto that stage and dance like Bojangles? Tippy tappin his feet and smilin his watermelon smile?”
“I know you’re ambitious.”
Mosley stayed uncharacteristically silent.
“I need an answer, Congressman.”
“What if the propeller heads investigating that plane crash come back with pilot error, or turbulence or metal fatigue?”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“No?”
“No.”
“You guys got your thumb on the scale?”
“It’s what we do.”
“Yeah, that’s why there’s an oversight committee.”
“Exactly. So?”
“I’ll admit your offer is appealin.”
“I’m pleased.”
“Chairman? For real you’ll make that happen, if I do this?”
“Yes, we will.”
“Damn,” Mosley said with a sigh, “then I guess old Bojangles is lacin up his tap shoes.”
SIXTY-NINE
It took Janey Burke just two phone calls to track down Lucien Benway’s Q Street address.
When the first person she’d spoken to, her once-upon-a-time journalistic mentor (a hard-bitten second-wave feminist who’d been in the trenches with Steinem) had tried to interview her about David’s murder—cunt!—she’d hung up and called her most recent editor, a Waspy ex-jock with a crush on her, who’d made awkward expressions of sympathy before giving her the address and a warning: “Now, don’t you go and do anything impetuous, Janey.”
She’d thanked him, wrapped herself up against the cold and caught a taxi over to Georgetown, not trusting herself to drive their rusted old Toyota since she was given to sudden, violent fits of shaking.
Still no tears, just these savage expressions of convulsive grief that shook her tiny frame, causing her to flail her skinny limbs and shake her head, making her look as if she were in the mosh pit of her very own death metal club.
The first such attack had hit her after she’d drifted out of an Ambien-assisted slumber around dawn and, still more asleep than awake, had reached for David’s big, warm, furry body and had found only pillows and the rumpled comforter.
When her zolpidem-fogged memory had, at last, reminded her that David was gone, gone, gone forever—no warm and fuzzy notions of the afterlife for godless Janey—her body had started flinging itself around the bed like she was auditioning for a part in the latest installment of the Exorcist franchise, the
first of which—her wildly raging mind had spewed up at her—had been set (but of course) in Georgetown.
When she’d finally quietened her body she’d padded across to the window, cracked the curtains and peered down, relieved to see that none of her erstwhile colleagues were lurking outside—there’d been a contingent when she’d returned from the morgue last night, some familiar voices trying to lure her to them by sprinkling their barked questions with nuggets of griefspeak, but she’d dashed inside, locked her door and ripped the battery from the buzzer, before she’d unplugged the landline, muted her cell and shut herself down with a trio of white oblong pills.
She was sitting in the cab as it passed Georgetown University, watching with blank eyes as the snow fluttered around the Neo-Medieval spires of Healy Hall, when David spoke to her: “Who the fuck do you think you are, Janey? Nancy Drew?”
She answered out loud, “No, Veronica Mars, fuckhead. And I’m only doing this because you Woodward-Bernsteined your lard ass onto a morgue slab, buster.”
When the driver, some kind of Arab, regarded her suspiciously in the rearview she bit on her woolen glove to shut herself up for the rest of the ride.
Any questions Janey may have had about where the media contingent had gone were answered when she arrived at Lucien Benway’s house: a swarm of journalists, cameramen and primping news reporters doing stand-ups occupied the sidewalk and spilled over into the street, to the ire of the genteel locals returning home from Union Market with their organic provisions, or Banana Republic with tasteful tropical wear for their snowbird jaunts to St. Kits.
She paid the taxi driver and, as she stepped out into the chill, said out loud, “So what the fuck are you doing here, Janey?”
Which in the way of many good questions had no easy answer.
For a mad moment she considered shoving her way through the throng and tripping up the eight steps to Lucien Benway’s ivy-fringed door and addressing the media in some sweeping Evita-like tirade, in which she demanded justice and swore vengeance.
But she didn’t, she just walked away (unrecognizable in her coat and her beanie) and circumnavigated the block and when she arrived back ten minutes later nothing had changed.
So she walked again, a little farther this time.
And kept on doing this until she knew this part of Georgetown better than Google Earth did, and as she walked her eidetic memory channeled the campy voice of a long-ago college professor waxing lyrical about the rowhouses’ architectural styles (Federal townhouses, ornate Italianate bracketed houses, late 19th century press brick houses with their often whimsical decorative elements combining Richardsonian Romanesque, Queen Anne, and Eastlake motifs) until she felt sick and totally unhinged.
The Truth Itself Page 21