by Greg Rucka
Lankford smiled across the table at her, confident. He wasn't yet thirty, with the kind of face that would hold all signs of aging at bay for at least another twenty years, and his sincerity made him seem all the younger and, consequently, made her feel all the older. "I'm going to solve it."
"You do, you'll get a nice Christmas bonus."
"I will, just you wait, Boss."
Chace grinned, then looked to the multiple clocks positioned on the plasma wall, each giving the time in various zones around the world, and she saw that it was now nearly a quarter past nine. Crocker would have just finished going through the Immediates on his desk, now moving on to the Moderates and then the Routines, the less pressing files and reports that demanded his attention. Unless he hit something that caused outrage or panic, he'd be at his desk for another fifteen minutes or so, before heading to his daily meeting with D-Int and the Deputy Chief.
Chace stretched, feeling her left knee pop with an almost-pleasant pain as her leg extended, then got to her feet. "Don't be stupid, Chris, all right? It may be a base, but it's a base in Iraq, and there are a hell of a lot of guns about."
"No fear," Lankford said.
"Yes, fear-it'll keep you alive. Stop by the Pit when you're finished, all right?"
"Yes'm."
Chace started for the door, saw that Alexis, still wearing her coms headset, leads gathered in one hand, was in consultation with Ronald Hodgson at Duty Ops, standing on her tiptoes to reach the top of the raised desk. Ron had a signals sheet in his hand, reading it with a bemused expression.
"Nah, it's a mistake," he was saying.
"Barnett's asking for a confirmation," Alexis told him. "I've run it twice, it's gibberish."
Ron saw Chace, motioned for her to join them, saying, "Falcon's in Jakarta, I think. There's no one running in Iran under that name. Tara, take a look at this."
He handed down the note for Chace to read.
"Lee Barnett sent it Saturday night, as a routine inquiry," Alexis said, by way of explanation. "He says the first part is a book code and queried if we knew what it meant. The second part he maintains is a substitution code, but they don't have the key. He's asking for instructions how to proceed. I've spent the last hour trying to decipher it, but the computer keeps spitting out 'no known code' for the lot."
"Barnett's Tehran?" Chace asked. "How'd he come by this?"
"He didn't say."
Chace read the message again. The grapes are in the water. Falcon. "The substitution, it's a number sequence."
"Agreed."
"You've contacted Jakarta?"
Ron shook his head. "I was about to send it up to D-Ops, see if he knew what it meant."
"I'm on my way up there now, I'll give it to him. Meantime, signal Jakarta, query Falcon's whereabouts. And Lex-send back to Tehran. Ask for details on the message, how they came by it."
Alexis nodded, hopped down off the platform, and headed back to her workstation.
"You have any idea what it means?" Ron asked.
"None," Chace said. "But it certainly doesn't bode well for the grapes." The door to the inner office was closed. Kate Cooke, Paul Crocker's long-suffering personal assistant, was seated at her desk in the outer, her fingers flying over her keyboard. She paused midkey-stroke when Chace entered.
"Minder Three?" Kate asked.
"Still briefing. Operation: Bagboy."
"Bagboy," Kate repeated. "When's he due back?"
"Kate, he hasn't left yet. Should be back Sunday, all goes well."
"It's Iraq."
"He's on-base the entire time."
Kate nodded, then resumed her typing. She and Lankford had been on-again, off-again for the last few years, and from the change in her manner, Chace guessed they were on-again once more. Not that Kate would have cared any less about his well-being if they weren't, but Chace knew that she'd never have dared ask for details otherwise.
For a second, Chace thought about saying something to her about discretion, and that perhaps Kate might want to be more circumspect. But the fact was, Chace knew Kate would never have asked the questions of Crocker or Poole. Even if she disapproved of the relationship-and she wasn't certain that she did-the fact was, Chace didn't have a leg to stand on, and Kate knew that better perhaps than most.
Chace moved to refill the mug she'd brought with her from the Ops Room. "Can I see him?"
"He's on with Seale right now," Kate said. "Should be done in another minute."
"What's the CIA want now?"
Kate managed the rather impressive feat of shrugging without missing a keystroke. Chace tilted her head, trying to listen for Crocker's voice over the sound of the keys and through his closed door and, not hearing anything, concluded that whatever it was Julian Seale wanted, it wasn't worth the raising of a voice. She wasn't particularly fond of the CIA Chief of Station in London, though Crocker seemed to get on with him just fine, certainly maintaining the time-honored "Special Relationship" between the two services. But Chace had found the American to be more political than his predecessors, and she didn't trust him. She wasn't naive; she understood that the intelligence service of any country would always be embroiled in the politics of the same. But she felt, strongly, that agencies like SIS and the CIA should walk a fine line, serving what she admitted was often an ill-defined and long-term "national interest" rather than an administration's politics and polling results of the moment. Seale made her uneasy.
Chace slipped back out from behind Kate's desk, sipping at her refreshed coffee, which was infinitely better than what she'd sampled earlier in the Ops Room but had the detriment of being decaf. Yet another change since Chace had come to work for the Firm; in the beginning, it had seemed that all intelligence work was fueled by caffeine and nicotine, in roughly equal proportions. Chace had given up smoking while pregnant with Tamsin, then again some two years ago, and thus far had managed with only a few stumbles. Crocker, for his part-at least as far as she knew-had gone without a smoke for over a year, quitting at roughly the same time his coffee had become decaffeinated.
The heart attack, when it came, hadn't surprised anyone who knew Paul Crocker; the only shock was that it had taken so long to finally happen. And the irony was that, while the job certainly was a contributing factor, it hadn't been the job, specifically, that had caused it. Crocker, his wife, and their younger daughter had taken a weekend trip to visit his older daughter, who was attending university in York. They'd spent a November Saturday together, retired to their hotel for the night, and, as Crocker told it, an invisible elephant had leapt onto his chest and refused to move.
Technically, Chace thought, D-Ops had actually died. Crocker's heart had stopped beating, and for seven minutes before the paramedics arrived, he survived on his wife's breath, on her repeated compressions of his heart. The medics managed to restart a rhythm before rushing him off to the hospital, and by Sunday noon, Paul Crocker had two stents and a new lease on life, one that the doctors told him he was damn lucky to have at all, and if he wanted to preserve it, some lifestyle changes were in order. No more fags, no more red meat, easy on the caffeine, and-this was a laugh to everyone who heard it-less stress.
Between recovery and rehab, Crocker was out of the office for just over nine weeks, through the holidays and into early February, during which time Chace was named Acting Director of Operations, Poole advanced to Head of Section, Minder One, and Lankford to Minder Two. It wasn't the first time Chace had found herself named Acting Director; on three separate occasions since becoming Minder One, Crocker had been forced out of the office, almost always on official business, and she'd been obliged to step into his place, though never for longer than five days.
This time it was different, and markedly so. The question of whether or not Paul Crocker would actually return to the Firm at all hovered, unasked, throughout the building. There were many who felt he had long since passed his sell-by date, that it was more than time for him to go. His list of allies, both within Vauxhall Cr
oss and over the Thames, in Whitehall, had grown perilously short over the years, while the list of those he'd double-crossed, ignored, abused, or enraged had just as significantly lengthened. In certain quarters, Chace was sure the news of his heart attack had led to celebration.
But if those same people had thought that Tara Chace, as Acting D-Ops, would be easier to manage than her absent predecessor, they had clearly forgotten both her loyalty to Crocker and the fact that everything she knew of the job she'd learned from him. While she was less prone to shouting than Crocker, and perhaps a little more liberal with honey than with vinegar, she was no less fierce in pursuit of the D-Ops mandate. She'd handled the day-to-day bureaucratic chores of running the Operations Directorate with skill born of nearly a decade in SIS, but that had been expected. The real test of a D-Ops, everyone knew, was how they reacted in a crisis. Prior to Crocker's prolonged absence, there'd never been an opportunity to see Chace in action in that role.
The opportunity came on three separate occasions. At each, Chace responded as decisively, as quickly, and as knowledgeably as Crocker ever had done. Two of the situations she'd been able to diffuse from the Ops Room alone, dashing off signals to the Stations in question, once getting on the phone to threaten a recalcitrant Number One in Hong Kong.
The third had been different, and as potentially lethal to Chace's career as anything Crocker had ever faced. The son of a leading MP had been kidnapped in the Philippines, along with his girlfriend, and the political pressure within the Government itself to locate and then effect a successful rescue had been both instant and enormous. It was the first time Chace found herself running a legitimate special operation, designated Operation: Tiretrack, and she'd immediately ended up fighting with both the Deputy Chief and C about who to send for the job.
Gordon-Palmer demanded she send both Minders. Chace refused, allocating Poole for the job, and maintaining that Lankford had to be held in reserve in case another Special Op arose elsewhere. Less than twenty-four hours after Poole hit the ground in Manila, London received the ransom demand, and with it, the ticking clock. Forty-eight hours or the boy would start coming home in pieces, wrapped in what was left of the girlfriend.
For two days, Chace had walked Vauxhall Cross, aware of the whispers, of a looming sense of doom. C pressed again for Lankford to be deployed, and Chace again refused. She was called to Whitehall, to the office of Sir Walter Seccombe, the Permanent Undersecretary to the Foreign Office, certainly the most powerful person in Government she'd ever been made to answer to. He demanded to know the disposition of Tiretrack. He interrogated her at length about each and every decision she'd made, then asked why she wasn't doing more. He informed her that, without question, HMG could not concede to the kidnappers' demands. He then warned her about the acute embarrassment to HMG if the operation failed. He pointed out that the MP in question was of the Opposition, and that a successful operation would have as profound political repercussions as a failure. He sent her back to Vauxhall Cross with the clear knowledge that, should SIS blow this, it would be her head sent to the MP in question.
With just under two hours left on the deadline, at four in the morning London time, Poole contacted Chace via the Ops Room. She hadn't been home since the crisis began, and had even resorted to sending Kate to her home in Camden to look after Tamsin the previous night, when no one else could be found for the task. In the three days since the kidnapping, she'd managed, perhaps, three hours of sleep, and had been forced to send a runner out to buy her clean clothes, just to keep from smelling like the inside of a gym sock. She'd been called a bitch twice to her face, and behind her back so many times she'd lost count.
Poole had a lead on a possible location where the two were being held. Could he get support for a rescue attempt? Lankford, preferably, or at least some CIA assistance?
No, she told him. There isn't time.
You're going to get me killed, Poole said.
At which point Chace told him, in front of God and the Ops Room, to draw arms from the Station and get on with the fucking job, and that if he had wanted things easy, he should have stayed in the fucking SAS.
Two hours and six minutes later, Poole contacted the Ops Room again. He had the boy. He had the girlfriend. Might he come home now, please?
Yes, Chace said. You can come home now, Nicky. Nicely done.
And she could swear she heard the smile over the crackle of the satellite phone, as he said, "Thank you, ma'am."
She'd informed C, the Deputy Chief, and the FCO of the successful completion of the mission. She'd told the Ops Room staff they'd done a damn fine job. Then she'd gone home, hugged her daughter, and managed a full six hours of sleep before returning to the office.
Crocker came back to work a week and a half later. Lankford became Minder Three again, Poole Minder Two, and Chace returned to the Pit as Minder One, with a sense of relief only matched by her sense of regret. "Minder One to see you," Kate said as the door to the inner office cracked open.
"Is there coffee?"
"You know, even decaf has caffeine in-"
"Shut up." Crocker's head appeared past the doorframe. He glared at Kate, then at Chace. "You can come in if you bring coffee."
Chace took the mug Kate handed her, stepped into Crocker's office to find him standing behind his desk, sorting the folders heaped there. She handed over the coffee, which he set aside without tasting. He continued playing solitaire with the files, so Chace turned and closed the door, then took a seat opposite the desk.
"Make it quick," Crocker said, still searching the paperwork. "I'm already late for the daily with Daniel and Simon."
"Ops Room wanted me to give you this." Chace handed over the copy of Barnett's signal. "There's no Falcon running in the Iran theatre. They can't crack the second sequence, but it looks like a number string."
"Thomas Bay's got a Falcon in Jakarta." Crocker glanced at the paper without taking it, went back to sorting, stopped, and pulled the signal out of Chace's hand. "What the hell does this mean?"
"That was Barnett's question, though phrased more politely. I've already got Lex onto Tehran for more details, and Ron's put a signal in to Bay."
Crocker grunted, thrust the sheet back. "Well in hand, then. Anything else?"
Chace hesitated. "It can wait."
"Is it quick?"
"Depends, really."
He stopped, fixed her with a stare. Crocker had three inches and a dozen years on her, black hair and mean, brown eyes that had seemed to grow meaner since the heart attack. Always lean to the point of thin, he'd lost weight, too. The combined effect now made him look, more than ever, like a malevolent scarecrow dressed in a dark three-piece suit. "What is it?"
"No, we can talk later."
She saw his eyes dart past her, to the door, registering that she'd closed it. Crocker took his chair. "Tell me."
"You heard about what happened at the School?"
"You took a fall."
"Yes."
"I talked with Chester when the scores came in. All of you did exceptionally well, as expected. The fall is nothing, Tara. It happens, could've happened to Nicky or Chris."
Chace shook her head slightly. She'd told herself the same thing. Then she'd told herself that wasn't the point. She set the copy of the signal down on his desk; then, after a moment to commit herself, took the letter she was carrying from her pocket and handed it across to Crocker. She watched his jaw work while he read, imagined the ferocity of his desire for a cigarette. At the moment, she wanted one, too.
"The Ops Room?" Crocker asked.
"I think I'd do well in Mission Planning."
He set the letter on the desk in front of him. "This is because of the fall."
"No."
"Because if it is, I'll tell you again, it happens to everyone. Chester says it was raining. He says you were ahead of Nicky when it happened, you were leading."
"It's not the fall, Boss. I'm nine years in. It's enough, it's time for me to go."
"I did nine years."
"You did eight," Chace corrected. "Four as Minder One, and I'm coming up on my sixth, now. And that's not the point. Tamsin's five, Boss, and I've lost count the number of times she's called the nanny 'Mommy' instead of me. She's starting school, she deserves to know that I'll be there when she gets home. Even if I weren't getting old, even if I weren't slowing down, I long ago outlived my operational usefulness to the Firm."
"If this is about self-esteem-"
"Don't be daft. Nine years in the field, Paul. For Christ's sake, if there's an intelligence agency anywhere in the world that doesn't know who I am at this point, it's because they're not bloody trying."
"I think you may be overstating things a bit."
"Hyperbole for the sake of rhetoric."
"I thought you wanted my job."
"I thought I did, too." Chace grinned at him. "Then I did it."
"You did it very well, by all accounts."
"I'm not a vulture, Boss, I'm not going to sit on a branch and wait for your time to come to an end. Nicky's more than ready to run the Section, and Lankford's learned all that we can teach him."
She went silent, watching as Crocker frowned at her from across his cluttered desk. Now that the deed was done, Chace was all the more certain it was the right thing for her to do. She had expected a twinge of regret, had been afraid of taking the step, but there was no anxiety in her at all, just the same certainty that had come to her at the base of the climbing wall, the knowledge that this was right.
She was done, and from Crocker's expression, she knew he saw it, too.
"I'll need you to stay on as Head of Section until I can find a new Minder Three," Crocker said, finally. "Once that's done, I'll move you to Mission Planning, promote Lankford and Poole in order. Will that work for you?"
"More than fair. I'm not looking to leave you holding the bag, Boss."
"No, I know you're not."
He checked his watch, pushed himself up from his chair, and Chace took the cue, got to her feet, as well. "You've informed Nicky and Chris?"