We waited. There was no conversation. There wasn’t much air in the truck. The weather was warm again. Frasconi released the Syrian after forty minutes. He came strolling into view from the north. He had been warned what would happen if he gave us away. Kohl had written the script and Frasconi had delivered it. They were threats we probably wouldn’t have carried out. But he didn’t know that. I guess they were plausible, based on what happened to people in Syria.
He sat down at a sidewalk table. He was ten feet from us. He put his briefcase on the floor, level with the side of the table. It was like a second guest. The waiter came and took his order. Came back after a minute with an espresso. The Syrian lit a cigarette. Smoked it halfway down and crushed it out in the ashtray.
“The Syrian is waiting,” Kohl said, quietly. She had a tape recorder running. Her idea was to have a real-time audio record as a backup. She was wearing her dress greens, ready for the arrest. She looked real good in them.
“Check,” the judge said. “The Syrian is waiting.”
The Syrian finished his coffee and waved to the waiter for another. He lit another cigarette.
“Does he always smoke so much?” I asked.
“Why?” Kohl said.
“Is he warning Quinn off?”
“No, he always smokes,” Kohl said.
“OK,” I said. “But they’re bound to have an abort sign.”
“He won’t use it. Frasconi really put a fright in him.”
We waited. The Syrian finished his second cigarette. He put his hands flat on the table. He drummed his fingers. He looked OK. He looked like a guy waiting for another guy who was maybe a little overdue. He lit another cigarette.
“I don’t like all this smoking,” I said.
“Relax, he’s always like this,” Kohl said.
“Makes him look nervous. Quinn could pick up on it.”
“It’s normal. He’s from the Middle East.”
We waited. I watched the crowd build up. It was close to lunch time.
“Now Quinn is approaching,” Kohl said.
“Check,” the judge replied. “Quinn is approaching now.”
I looked to the south. Saw a tidy-looking guy, neat and trim, maybe six feet one and a little under two hundred pounds. He looked a little younger than forty. He had black hair with a little gray in it in front of his ears. He was wearing a blue suit with a white shirt and a dull red tie. He looked just like everybody else in D.C. He moved fast, but he made it look slow. He was neat in his movements. Clearly fit and athletic. Almost certainly a jogger. He was carrying a Halliburton briefcase. It was the exact twin of the Syrian’s. It flashed slightly gold in the sunlight.
The Syrian laid his cigarette in the ashtray and sketched a wave. He looked a little uneasy, but I guessed that was appropriate. Big-time espionage in the heart of your enemy’s capital is not a game. Quinn saw him and moved toward him. The Syrian stood up and they shook hands across the table. I smiled. They had a smart system going. It was a tableau so familiar in Georgetown that it was almost invisible. An American in a suit shaking hands with a foreigner across a table loaded with coffee cups and ashtrays. They both sat down. Quinn shuffled on his chair and got comfortable and placed his briefcase tight alongside the one that was already there. At a casual glance the two cases looked like one in a larger size.
“Briefcases are adjacent,” Kohl said, into the microphone.
“Check,” the judge said. “The briefcases are adjacent.”
The waiter came back with the Syrian’s second espresso. Quinn said something to the waiter and he left again. The Syrian said something to Quinn. Quinn smiled. It was a smile of pure control. Pure satisfaction. The Syrian said something else. He was playing his part. He thought he was saving his life. Quinn craned his neck and looked for the waiter. The Syrian picked up his cigarette again and turned his head the other way and blew smoke directly at us. Then he put the cigarette out in the ashtray. The waiter came back with Quinn’s drink. A large cup. Probably white coffee. The Syrian sipped his espresso. Quinn drank his coffee. They didn’t talk.
“They’re nervous,” Kohl said.
“Excited,” I said. “They’re nearly through. This is the last meeting. The end is in sight. For both of them. They just want to get it done.”
“Watch the briefcases,” Kohl said.
“Watching them,” the judge replied.
Quinn put his cup down on the saucer. Scraped his chair back. Reached forward with his right hand. Picked up the Syrian’s case.
“Quinn has the Syrian’s case,” the judge said.
Quinn stood up. Said one last thing and turned around and walked away. There was a spring in his step. We watched him until he was out of sight. The Syrian was left with the check. He paid it and walked away north, until Frasconi stepped out of a doorway and took his arm and led him right back toward us. Kohl opened up the truck’s rear door and Frasconi pushed the guy inside. We didn’t have much space, with five people in the truck.
“Open the case,” the judge said.
Up close the Syrian looked a lot more nervous than he had through the glass. He was sweating and he didn’t smell too good. He laid the case flat on the floor and squatted in front of it. Glanced at each of us in turn and clicked the catches and lifted the lid.
The case was empty.
I heard the phone ring inside the Xavier Export Company’s office. The door was thick and heavy and the sound was muffled and far away. But it was a phone, and it was ringing exactly five minutes after Duffy and Villanueva must have left the garage. It rang twice and was answered. I didn’t hear any conversation. I guessed Duffy would make up some kind of a wrong-number story. I guessed she would keep it going just long enough to look significant in a phone log. I gave it a minute. Nobody keeps a bogus call going longer than sixty seconds.
I took the Beretta out of my pocket and pulled open the door. Stepped inside into a wide-open reception area. There was dark wood and carpet. An office to the left, closed up. An office to the right, closed up. A reception desk in front of me. A person at the desk, in the act of hanging up a phone. Not Quinn. It was a woman. She was maybe thirty years old. She had fair hair. Blue eyes. In front of her was an acetate plaque in a wooden holder. It said: Emily Smith. Behind her was a coat rack. There was a raincoat on it. And a black cocktail dress sheathed in dry-cleaner’s plastic hanging on a wire hanger. I fumbled behind my back left-handed and locked the hallway door. Watched Emily Smith’s eyes. They were staring straight at me. They didn’t move. They didn’t turn left or right toward either office door. So she was probably alone. And they didn’t drop toward a purse or a desk drawer. So she was probably unarmed.
“You’re supposed to be dead,” she said.
“Am I?”
She nodded, vaguely, like she couldn’t process what she was seeing.
“You’re Reacher,” she said. “Paulie told us he took you out.”
I nodded. “OK, I’m a ghost. Don’t touch the phone.”
I stepped forward and looked at her desk. No weapons on it. The phone was a complicated multi-line console. It was all covered in buttons. I leaned down left-handed and ripped its cord out of its socket.
“Stand up,” I said.
She stood up. Just pushed her chair back and levered herself upright.
“Let’s check the other rooms,” I said.
“There’s nobody here,” she said. There was fear in her voice, so she was probably telling me the truth.
“Let’s check anyway,” I said.
She came out from behind her desk. She was a foot shorter than me. She was wearing a dark skirt and a dark shirt. Smart shoes, which I figured would go equally well later with her cocktail dress. I put the Beretta’s muzzle against her spine and bunched the back of her shirt collar in my left hand and moved her forward. She felt small and fragile. Her hair fell over my hand. It smelled clean. We checked the left-hand office first. She opened the door for me and I pushed her all the way inside and s
tepped sideways and moved out of the doorway. I didn’t want to get shot in the back from across the reception area.
It was just an office. A decent-sized space. Nobody in it. There was an Oriental carpet, and a desk. There was a bathroom. Just a small cubicle with a toilet and a sink. Nobody in it. So I spun her around and moved her all the way across the reception area and into the right-hand office. Same decor. Same type of carpet, same type of desk. It was unoccupied. Nobody in it. No bathroom. I kept tight hold of her collar and pushed her back to the center of the reception area. Stopped her right next to her desk.
“Nobody here,” I said.
“I told you,” she said.
“So where is everybody?”
She didn’t answer. And I felt her stiffen, like she was going to make a big point out of not answering.
“Specifically, where is Teresa Daniel?” I said.
No reply.
“Where’s Xavier?” I said.
No reply.
“How do you know my name?”
“Beck told Xavier. He asked his permission to employ you.”
“Xavier checked me out?”
“As far as he could.”
“And he gave Beck his OK?”
“Obviously.”
“So why did he set Paulie on me this morning?”
She stiffened again. “The situation changed.”
“This morning? Why?”
“He got new information.”
“What information?”
“I don’t know exactly,” she said. “Something about a car.”
The Saab? The maid’s missing notes?
“He made certain deductions,” Emily Smith said. “Now he knows all about you.”
“Figure of speech,” I said. “Nobody knows all about me.”
“He knows you were talking to ATF.”
“Like I said, nobody really knows anything.”
“He knows what you’ve been doing here.”
“Does he? Do you?”
“He didn’t tell me.”
“Where do you fit in?”
“I’m his operations manager.”
I wrapped her shirt collar tighter in my left fist and moved the Beretta’s muzzle and used it to itch my cheek where the bruising was tightening the skin. I thought about Angel Doll, and John Chapman Duke, and two bodyguards whose names I didn’t even know, and Paulie. I figured adding Emily Smith to the casualty list wasn’t going to cost me much, in a cosmic sense. I put the gun to her head. I heard a plane in the distance, leaving from the airport. It roared through the sky, less than a mile away. I figured I could just wait for the next one and pull the trigger. Nobody would hear a thing. And she probably deserved it.
Or, maybe she didn’t.
“Where is he?” I said.
“I don’t know.”
“You know what he did ten years ago?”
Live or die, Emily. If she knew, she would say so. For sure. Out of pride, or inclusion, or self-importance. She wouldn’t be able to keep it in. And if she knew, she deserved to die. Because to know and to still work with the guy made it that way.
“No, he never told me,” she said. “I didn’t know him ten years ago.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
I believed her.
“You know what happened to Beck’s maid?” I said.
A truthful person is perfectly capable of saying no, but generally they stop and think about it first. Maybe they come out with some questions of their own. It’s human nature.
“Who?” she said. “No, what?”
I breathed out.
“OK,” I said.
I put the Beretta back in my pocket and let go of her collar and turned her around and trapped both her wrists together in my left hand. Picked up the electrical cord from the phone with my right. Then I straight-armed her into the left-hand office and all the way through to the bathroom. Shoved her inside.
“The lawyers next door have gone home,” I said. “There won’t be anybody in the building until Monday morning. So go ahead and shout and scream all you want, but nobody will hear you.”
She said nothing. I closed the door on her. Tied the phone cord tight around the knob. Opened the office door as wide as it would go and tied the other end of the cord to its handle. She could haul on the inside of the bathroom door all weekend long without getting anywhere. Nobody can break electrical wire by pulling on it lengthwise. I figured she’d give up after an hour and sit tight and drink water from the sink faucet and use the toilet and try to pass the time.
I sat down at her desk. I figured an operations manager should have some interesting paperwork. But she didn’t. The best thing I found was a copy of the Keast and Maden order. The caterers. 18 @ $55. Somebody had penciled a note on the bottom. A woman’s handwriting. Probably Emily Smith’s own. The note said: lamb, not pork! I swiveled her chair around and looked at the wrapped dress on the coat rack. Then I swiveled it back and checked my watch. My ten minutes were up.
I rode the elevator to the garage and left by a fire exit in the rear. The rent-a-cop didn’t see me. I walked around the block and came up on Duffy and Villanueva from behind. Their car was parked on the corner and they were together in the front, staring forward through the windshield. I guessed they were hoping to see two people walking down the street toward them. I opened the door and slid into the back seat and they spun around and looked disappointed. I shook my head.
“Neither of them,” I said.
“Somebody answered the phone,” Duffy said.
“A woman called Emily Smith,” I said. “His operations manager. She wouldn’t tell me anything.”
“What did you do with her?”
“Locked her in the bathroom. She’s out of the picture until Monday.”
“You should have sweated her,” Villanueva said. “You should have pulled her fingernails out.”
“Not my style,” I said. “But you can go right ahead, if you want. Feel free. She’s still up there. She’s not going anywhere.”
He just shook his head and sat still.
“So what now?” Duffy asked.
“So what now?” Kohl asked.
We were still inside the utility truck. Kohl, the judge advocate, and me. Frasconi had taken the Syrian away. Kohl and I were thinking hard and the judge was in the process of washing his hands of the whole thing.
“I was only here to observe,” he said. “I can’t give you legal advice. It wouldn’t be appropriate. And frankly I wouldn’t know what to tell you anyway.”
He glared at us and let himself out the rear door and just walked away. He didn’t look back. I guess that was the downside of picking out a royal pain in the ass for an observer. Unintended consequences.
“I mean, what happened?” Kohl said. “What exactly did we see?”
“Only two possibilities,” I said. “One, he was ripping the guy off, plain and simple. Classic confidence trick. You drip, drip, drip the unimportant stuff, and then you hold back on the final installment. Or two, he was working as a legitimate intelligence officer. On an official operation. Proving that Gorowski was leaky, proving that the Syrians were willing to pay big bucks for stuff.”
“He kidnapped Gorowski’s daughter,” she said. “No way was that officially sanctioned.”
“Worse things have happened,” I said.
“He was ripping them off.”
I nodded. “I agree with you. He was ripping them off.”
“So what can we do about it?”
“Nothing,” I said “Because if we go ahead and accuse him of scamming them for personal profit, he’ll just automatically say no, I wasn’t doing that, actually I was running a sting, and I invite you to try to prove otherwise. And then he’ll not very politely remind us to keep our big noses out of intelligence business.”
She said nothing.
“And you know what?” I said. “Even if he was ripping them off, I wouldn’t know what to charge him with. Does th
e Uniform Code stop you taking money from foreign idiots in exchange for briefcases full of fresh air?”
“I don’t know.”
“Neither do I.”
“But whatever, the Syrians will go ape,” she said. “I mean, won’t they? They paid him half a million bucks. They’ll have to react. Their pride is at stake. Even if he was legit, he took a hell of a big risk. Half a million big risks. They’ll be coming after him. And he can’t just disappear. He’ll have to stay on-post. He’ll be a sitting target.”
I paused a beat. Looked at her. “If he’s not going to disappear, why was he moving all his money?”
She said nothing. I looked at my watch. Thought: This, not that. Or, just perhaps, just for once, this and that.
“Half a million is too much money,” I said.
“For what?”
“For the Syrians to pay. It’s just not worth it. There’ll be a prototype soon. Then there’ll be a preproduction batch. There’ll be a hundred finished weapons down at the quartermaster level within a matter of months. They could buy one of those for ten thousand dollars, probably. Some bent corporal would sell them one. They could even steal one for free. Then they could just reverse-engineer it.”
“OK, so they’re dumb businessmen,” Kohl said. “But we heard Quinn on the tape. He put half a million in the bank.”
I looked at my watch again. “I know. That’s a definite fact.”
“So?”
“It’s still too much. The Syrians are no dumber than anybody else. Nobody would value a fancy lawn dart at half a million bucks.”
“But we know that’s what they paid. You just agreed it’s a definite fact.”
“No,” I said. “We know Quinn’s got half a million in the bank. That’s the fact. It doesn’t prove the Syrians paid him half a million. That part is speculation.”
“What?”
“Quinn’s a Middle East specialist. He’s a smart guy, and he’s a bad guy. I think you stopped looking too soon.”
“Looking at what?”
“At him. Where he goes, who he meets. How many dubious regimes are there in the Middle East? Four or five, minimum. Suppose he’s in bed with two or three of them at once? Or all of them? With each one thinking it’s the only one? Suppose he’s leveraging the same scam three or four times over? That would explain why he’s got half a million in the bank for something that isn’t worth half a million to any one individual.”
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