by Gayle Lynds
Taking a deep breath, he put a pleasant smile on his face, set the bottle on the floor, and strolled outdoors. Casually, he checked around, noting two of DeLoreto’s sentries about a hundred yards away. He raised his wineglass and nodded. They nodded back.
As he retraced his route to the front of the house, he planned. He would lose the wineglass in the bushes by the front porch and be at the entry gate in less than five minutes, just about the time he figured the guard would return to the kitchen window. By then the smoke would be thick, and he would be inside his car, driving away.
On the road, Northern Virginia
The Jaguar hurtled along the highway among rolling hills. In the valleys, veins of fog shimmered. Traffic was moderate, allowing Elaine to push the speed limit. With luck, they would reach the rendezvous with Raina on time.
She watched Jay pick up his cell phone. “Are you trying Ben again?” There had been no answer the first time.
Jay’s jaw tensed. “I am.” He tapped numbers and listened. “This is my second message, Ben. Hope you’re okay. Phone as soon as you can.” Without looking up, he said, “Elaine, I’m going to call someone else for help. Don’t ask questions.” He dialed and put the cell to his ear again. Finally he cursed. “No answer.” He left a message: “You know who this is. There’s been a development. Send people to Ben Kuhnert’s place fast.” He relayed the address. “Tell them to look for a saluki. Her name is Houri. If she trusts them, she’ll lead them to him.” He dropped the cell into his lap.
Elaine watched traffic. “What more can we do?”
“We can only wait.”
The possibility of Ben’s death lay between them like an open grave. They fell into guilty silence. Sunlight streamed inside, and dust motes danced crazily in it.
As Jay scanned the highway and an approaching intersection, he said, “This thing with Ben reminds me of a story Palmer told me a long time ago. It’s about a famous English actor named Leslie Howard. You’ve probably heard of a couple of his movies—Gone With the Wind and The Petrified Forest.”
“I know the movies.”
He nodded. “Howard was really too old to fight in World War Two, but he volunteered anyway, and the Brits wanted him because he traveled a lot, entertaining troops and doing radio broadcasts. Perfect cover for intelligence work. So one day in 1943, the British prime minister—Winston Churchill—was sitting in a car at the Lisbon airport. When he rolled down his window to take a plane ticket from an assistant, a Nazi spy spotted him. The Nazi investigated and found out Churchill planned to fly home to London that night. The spy told Berlin, and Berlin ordered the Luftwaffe to take out the plane. What they didn’t know was their spy was wrong—the man was one of Churchill’s doubles. But we knew everything, because we’d cracked their Enigma codes. This is where Leslie Howard comes in. He was in Lisbon, too, scheduled for the same flight. It was just a regular passenger plane, unarmed. The solution seemed simple—make up an excuse and cancel it.
“But the problem was, by then we’d been using so much decrypted intel that the Nazis were beginning to suspect we’d broken Enigma. If they brought another coding machine into use, our river of intel would dry up, and we needed it to win the war fast. So we decided we had to let the plane fly. The crew and the double volunteered—they were necessary for the charade. But Leslie Howard wasn’t. Still, if a big movie star like him went, too, and then the Brits leaked he’d been on a secret mission, the Nazis would have to believe Enigma was secure. Howard said we couldn’t take the chance. He boarded with everyone else, and right on schedule the Nazi night raiders attacked over the Bay of Biscay.” He hesitated, seeming to gather himself. “The plane didn’t have a chance. It went down with no survivors.”
She felt a bolt of horror instantly followed by pride. “He died to keep the secret.”
“Yes. For something bigger than himself. All of them did.” His expression troubled, Jay ran his fingertips along the car’s windowsill. “Was their sacrifice worth it? For the ‘greater good,’ as the cliché goes—probably yes. But if Howard could choose again, would he make the same choice? Or would he think it was enough the others had given their lives? If so, he’d thrown his away. I don’t know. Was Ben’s going into danger to protect us worth it—and would he do it again? Again, I don’t know. Still, considering who Ben is, I doubt he had a choice.”
As the Jaguar soared onward, memories careened through Elaine’s head, and somehow each ended with Rafe, the sight of him riding away on horseback across the desolate Tora Bora. He, far more than she, had understood how large a gamble it was that backup would arrive in time. But what did that mean? That she was even more responsible for his death—because she should have understood it, too?
Jay’s phone rang. The noise was like a series of small detonations. He snapped up the phone.
“Yes?”
“This is Frank. I found out who Mr. G is.”
Elijah and Palmer picked up, too. Still driving, Elaine listened in to the conference call.
“The arms merchant is Martin Ghranditti,” Frank announced.
“Ghranditti?” Jay repeated, surprised. “Who in hell is that? Should I know him?”
“Not necessarily,” Palmer informed them. “Ghranditti wasn’t good enough to be high-level. Still, he had connections and eventually got wealthy. I investigated him for a couple of situations in Belarus and the Ukraine but never found anything substantial. He was damn slippery, hungry as hell for respectability—and smart. He shielded his holding companies under a mountain of pseudonyms and kept out of the limelight so he could act legitimate. His base was West Berlin, and he was a real swashbuckler there, flashing his money. During the DEADAIM operation, I suspected he was Faisal al-Hadi’s dealer—and what we’ve got now is another al-Hadi deal.”
“Okay, it’s starting to come back to me,” Jay said. “Every time you think one of those gunrunners has quit or died, he turns up somewhere else, still peddling arms.” He paused, thinking. “Frank, you did a hell of a good job. Dig deeper into Ghranditti. We still need to know the where and when of the shipment. What about you, Elijah? You have anything new?”
“Nothing concrete,” Elijah reported.
Palmer asked, “Does anyone know whether there’s a clearinghouse for thefts and robberies of national security–related product?”
“Not my end of the business,” Elijah answered instantly. “But I can find out.”
“No need to.” Jay’s fingers drummed his thigh. “Go to the Department of Homeland Security. They started centralizing the intel before I left Langley. Palmer and Elijah, since you both have pieces of that puzzle, check it out together. Anyone have anything else?”
Everyone was silent.
“Okay,” Jay said. “We’re finished. Stay in touch.”
Langley, Virginia
For a few minutes, Laurence Litchfield was free. Bobbye Johnson had released her stranglehold on him so she could join a secure online conference with the U.S. and Iraqi intelligence chiefs in Baghdad. Frustrated, he hurried back to his office to check for a message from Martin Ghranditti. There was none. Ghranditti’s men should have found Jay Tice and Elaine Cunningham through the old DEADAIM spies by now. Angry, Litchfield dialed the arms trader’s number and left a message, demanding an answer.
Restless and disgusted that he had to wait, he looked at his watch. It was time. He switched on his television then went to CNN—and smiled. Newsman John King was standing outside the ugly concrete facade of the Hoover Building, setting the scene for the forthcoming joint CIA-FBI press conference.
“It’s not official yet,” King was saying, “but we have word from a usually reliable source that Jay Tice escaped from prison early yesterday. . . .”
The FBI auditorium appeared on the TV screen. Litchfield smiled wider. Agency and Bureau spokesmen stood at the podium, properly serious as they took turns reading the press release. Hoping Jay was watching, Litchfield sank into his expensive executive chair, reminding himself that it w
as the double-crosser’s own. He leaned back, enjoying that—and that the show was going exactly as he had advised the joint intelligence committee. Bobbye Johnson had lost. He had won—again.
When his phone vibrated, he picked it up quickly. Ghranditti at last.
“Hello, Litchfield.” The voice was hollow, disguised as always. Litchfield was stunned. It was a voice from the past, one he had given up hope of ever hearing again. “Moses? I can’t believe it. After all these years . . . is it really you?”
“As always, that swift intellect of yours is impressive,” Moses said in his peculiar disembodied tones.
“Where in goddamn hell have you been? There were a few times I could’ve used you.”
Moses was an anonymous intel dealer whose reputation ran high during the last years of the Cold War. From the beginning, his modus operandi had been simple—he serviced favored clients on both sides of the Iron Curtain, in both government and private industry He charged a great deal of money, but inevitably his information had been well worth it. Some swore he must be Venezuelan and a former disciple of Abu Nidal. Others thought he was Sicilian with ties to La Cosa Nostra. Still, when anyone wanted Moses’s help, they did not care who or what he was.
“I’ve been here and there.” As always, Moses revealed nothing—unless he had a reason. “You seem glad to hear from me again.”
“That depends. What are you selling—and how much is it going to cost me?”
Litchfield had mixed emotions about the peddler. Although Moses’s tips had helped to propel his career, he hated paying for them, and he hated that the man had no loyalty. Plus he resented never being able to uncover Moses’s identity, despite assigning top technicians to track his calls. They always appeared to have originated in Bali or Cabo San Lucas or some other offshore haven, but the numbers inevitably turned out to be shams.
“The cost?” Moses repeated. “Cheap, when compared to how much you value your career and freedom. I know you’re looking for Jay Tice and Elaine Cunningham.”
“Of course. It’s on the news.”
“As well as Raina Manhardt.”
Litchfield tensed. “How in hell did you find that out!”
“I wouldn’t be any good to you and my other clients if I didn’t protect my sources. Now, here’s the real news, and why you need me—Tice and Cunningham escaped the thugs you sent to Ben Kuhnert’s place. At this moment they’re driving to meet Manhardt. I can deliver that location, which means if you hustle, you can grab all three at the same time. I like the efficiency of that, don’t you? In fact, I like it so much that my fee just went up ten percent.”
Litchfield swore. If Moses knew Ghranditti’s men had been at Kuhn-ert’s, then he must be telling the truth that Tice and Cunningham had gotten away.
As if he were reading Litchfield’s mind, Moses laughed. “They’re all alive, Litchfield. Yes, alive. Do you want them—or not?”
38
Washington Dulles International Airport
Sterling, Virginia
Sheltered in the pack of deplaning passengers, Raina Manhardt moved out of the flight tunnel’s gate, still in her Gunnar Hamsun disguise. She carried her gym bag in one hand, and a guitar case she had bought at the Milan airport in the other.
Instantly she spotted the big CIA man from Geneva, Alec, hulking where he had a wide view. His shrewd eyes moved fractionally, studying faces in the crowd like a biometrics machine. He was holding a walkie-talkie and a flyer. At least one BND photo of her had to be on that sheet of paper. At the same time, she was sure her real name was not. The CIA would be as eager as the BND to keep that secret.
Chest tight, she lifted her bearded chin and slapped on her sunglasses. She could hear Jay’s voice:Remember the power of distraction. Annoyed, she swung the guitar case. She slouched Gunnar’s shoulders and moved Gunnar’s lips as Gunnar sang quietly to himself and did his own jive thing. The big CIA man focused on her face then shifted to the gym bag and the case. But then his mouth twitched, and his gaze snapped away to examine a woman wearing a chic turban.
She told herself to breathe as she kept pace with the flowing crowd, but her disquiet increased as she noted more security people, all holding flyers. All stationed at gates where flights from Europe were due. That was when she saw her old BND colleague Volker Rehwaldt. His arms were crossed, and anger showed in the thin slice of his mouth as he sorted passengers through slitted eyes. He had a walkie-talkie, too. She would pass much too near, within ten feet.
Volker caught sight of her. He frowned and stared. He and she were the same height. The exact height. They had always looked evenly into each other’s eyes, an oddly strong bond. He started toward her.
Her lungs contracted, and she angled away, desperately considering options for escape. But then Volker raised his walkie-talkie but not to talk—to listen. She glanced around. Other surveillants listened to their walkietalkies, too. She looked again for Volker, but he was striding off. The others on stakeout were leaving, too. She did not like it. Something had happened.
Washington, D.C.
The brown brick building was World War II vintage and ordinary-looking, set on a busy downtown street. The door’s single glass pane, which was opaque, showed only the street number. As pedestrians and traffic cruised past behind them, Elijah Helprin and Palmer Westwood raised their CIA IDs to the glass and waited.
The DHS had grown so huge—more than 180, 000 employees—that it was scattered in buildings similar to this one throughout the District, handling such myriad responsibilities as intelligence, warning, transportation security, domestic counterterrorism, and homeland defense.
A DHS guard opened the door and confirmed their IDs. With a polite nod, he let them pass. Elijah and Palmer marched twenty more feet across a weathered parquet floor and came to a clipped stop at a tall mahogany counter.
Elijah held up his ID again and announced his name. “We have an appointment in Room 222A. George Popescu.”
Slower, showing his impatience at last, Palmer displayed his identification, too.
“Sign in,” the uniformed clerk ordered. He checked their signatures against their IDs and handed them visitors’ badges. “Careful you don’t go into any room but 222A.”
Elijah gave a curt nod, and he led Palmer through a metal detector to an elevator that whisked them up to the second floor. Their quarry, George Popescu, looked up as they reached his cubicle. He was a retired CIA analyst called back to work with the rapidly expanding DHS.
“Eli! It’s been a while.” He stood up and shook Elijah’s hand.
Palmer had no time for small talk. “You have it for us, Popescu?”
George raised an eyebrow. “Hello to you, too, Palmer. A little nervy, are we?”
“It’s kind of important, George,” Elijah soothed.
“Sorry.” Palmer smiled his patented friendly smile. “Afraid I am a tad on edge.”
George nodded. “Aren’t we all. Okay, I’ve got it—a printout of our complete databank of missing national security–related material in the past month. Everything from fully confirmed thefts to disappeared computers that may never have existed in the first place. Checked, cross-checked, and rechecked according to every reference made during the investigations by anybody involved. As soon as I got your call, I ran your request through ForeTell and had it integrate everything new that’s come in over the past twenty-four hours. Took only five minutes.” He held out a massive printed document in a cardboard box. “Careful. It’s heavy. Could give you a hernia.”
Palmer grabbed it. “How’s it indexed?”
“By commonality. You said that’s what you wanted.”
Without another word, Palmer headed to one of the small soundproof reading rooms that lined a wall.
“Great work, George. Thanks.” Elijah hurried to catch up.
Once inside, Elijah took the first half of the alphabet, Palmer the second, and they checked the commonalities. The only sound was the turning of pages.
Elijah wa
s the first to spot a hit. “Palmer! Here’s a category named ‘Jerry.’ No last name.” He flipped to the referenced pages, studying the entries. “Ten items, and each time Jerry was mentioned by someone involved in their disappearance. Our StarDusts and GyroBirds are among them. Guess your security guy and my business guy decided to come clean with Homeland Security after we twisted their arms.”
Palmer nodded. “Here’s another—a category labeled ‘Los Angeles voices.’ See, your ten are there plus another eight. One of them is the Retaliator key-chain gun. Search for a Ghranditti category. I’ll check Mr. G.”
Elijah thumbed rapidly, shook his head. “No ‘Ghranditti.’ ”
“But thirteen ‘Mr. Gs’—and only four appear on our other category lists. The new ones include the Sky Sword missile and the Mirror-Me nanometrics fabric.”
They looked for ‘al-Hadi’ and ‘Majilis al-Sha’b.’ For ‘BMW’ and ‘limousine.’ For ‘bribe,’ ‘disgruntled,’ and ‘blackmail.’ In the end, they had a list of twenty-two incidents.
Palmer stared at the list, then swore. “Hell, this is worse than we thought!”
Elaine parked near the Maine Avenue Fish Wharf in Southwest Washington and watched as Jay checked his weapons. His motions were controlled, precise. Gazing into the small mirror in the sun visor, he adjusted his new aviator sunglasses and tugged the brim of his baseball cap low. His skin was now the color of café au lait. The dark makeup gave him a faintly Latin look, perhaps Carribean, definitely exotic. He was no longer the lily-white man from the upright Caucasian world of most CIA spies and spymasters.