12 Drummers Drumming

by Diana Deverell

  Jet-engine noise filled the silence. We watched green and red marker lights drop to our level as an airliner bound for National made its approach down the river. The glass doors vibrated.

  “Then what can I do for you?” he asked.

  Harry worked as special assistant to the director of intelligence policy and coordination in State’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research. His job was grandly described as the nexus between the Department’s consumers of intelligence and the collectors of intelligence. Translation: He did hush-hush liaison work with Langley. He’d personally handled the diplomatic fallout from the CIA’s economic espionage fiasco in France.

  We were both forty and single and we’d been friends since our first tour together as consular officers in San Salvador. I didn’t have to pretend I’d interrupted my Christmas vacation to make a social call. I said, “Tell me what you’ve got on Global Flight 500.”

  “How much do you know?”

  “Not much more than I’ve read in the newspapers.”

  “So you don’t know we lost Billy Nu?”

  “Billy Nu?” I shoved hair off my forehead with the heel of my hand. “I didn’t see his name on the passenger list.”

  “You probably didn’t recognize it.” Harry pushed his glasses higher on the bridge of his nose. “Only his mother is Vietnamese. He’s named for his father. Williamson Neuminster Junior. Boarded in London.”

  “Damn.” Williamson Neuminster, Billy Nu, was a State Department investigator who followed up on threats against U.S. diplomats assigned abroad. “I can’t believe—”

  Harry cut me off. “Plus a LegAtt out of Brussels.”

  LegAtt was shorthand for Legal Attaché, the diplomatic title for FBI agents assigned overseas.

  “You’re saying they ignored the warning.” My brain kicked into gear as if I’d gotten a hit of caffeine. Four U.S. intelligence agents had died when Pan Am 103 blew up on exactly the same date in 1988. No one ever explained satisfactorily why they’d ignored a similar warning not to fly an American carrier. Both Billy and his companion had known the risk when they boarded Global 500 out of Heathrow on December 21. I felt a familiar ache between my shoulder blades, like a silent alarm.

  Harry put my thoughts into words. “Maybe something drew them to that particular plane.”

  Drawn by the same thing that Stefan was after? I looked down at my cup. I didn’t try to pick it up. My shaking hand would have slopped coffee across the table. I said, “What else have you got?”

  “The NTSB says there was explosive decompression.”

  “I read that.” All three of the plane’s radios and both transponders had gone dead at the same second. There were only three possible causes for instantaneous and total loss of power to the cockpit: midair collision, massive structural failure or a bomb.

  “Had to be a bomb,” Harry said. “They won’t go public without evidence of high-speed particle penetration. But the same date, virtually the same flight, so close to the other site—everyone knows it was a bomb. Very cleverly designed, to get past all the detection systems at Heathrow. Triggering device must have been state-of-the art.” He shook his head. “We figure they could have put it right down on Lockerbie again. Guess they didn’t want to make it easy for us to recover their handiwork.”

  I’d seen pictures of the crater Pan Am 103 had gouged in the quiet Scottish neighborhood of Sherwood Crescent. Eleven people on the ground had died that time, crushed when the cockpit tore through their homes. The terrorists had gotten so skillful, they could repeat that horror whenever they chose. Despite the warmth of the mug, the tips of my fingers were cold and the chill was spreading up my arms, toward the ache at the back of my neck.

  “What’s the theory on motive?” I asked.

  “We see it primarily as a demonstration of what they can do.”

  My shoulder twitched, an involuntary shudder. “But nobody’s claiming credit?”

  Harry shook his head. “Nobody’s inviting U.S. retaliation for this one.”

  “So what do you think of the theory?”

  “Logical in a big-picture way. If they want to frighten us, they accomplished that. But you know me, Casey. I’m little-picture. Personal reasons always have more explanatory value for me.”

  “Somebody had a personal motive for blowing up two hundred and twenty-seven people?”

  Harry shook his head again. “For blowing up one person. The other two hundred twenty-six were for free.”

  I went over to stand in front of the sliding door. The glass was cool against my forehead. While I stood there, another airliner swooped from the sky and roared down the river toward National.

  Harry stood beside me, not touching. When he spoke, his voice was scarcely audible. “He was on it, wasn’t he?”

  “Seems pretty likely.” My throat was closing and my words came out thick.

  “I’m sorry.” When he spoke again, the consoling tone was gone from his voice. “If he was the target,” Harry said, “they’ll be coming after you next.”

  3

  Something cold twisted in my stomach. “After me?” I said. My voice was pitched too high, my fear too plain. I breathed deeply, tried again. “They wouldn’t come here.”

  “Can’t rule that out,” Harry said. “If Stefan Krajewski was the goal, we’ve got a different soccer game. One where you’re a player.”

  The cold knot in my stomach was coming undone, twisting and undulating, sending bitter liquid up my throat. Harry was trying to scare me. He was succeeding. I sat back down. “You don’t know killing Stefan was their objective.”

  Harry took the chair beside me. The light from the overhead fixture glinted off the metal frames of his glasses. “Right now, we don’t know much of anything. The FBI and half of Interpol are working on it. Until they identify the culprit, you’d be wise to lie low.”

  “Lie low?” I made a disgusted noise. “Don’t you start in on me.”

  “Somebody better,” he said. “You’re still not cleared to work anywhere overseas.”

  I started to protest and he raised a hand to stop me.

  “Canada doesn’t count,” he said. “You told me what Diplomatic Security said the last time they reviewed your clearance.” He squinted slightly, as if trying to make his words perfect before he threw them at me. “Assigning you to a European embassy would be like setting up a shooting gallery.”

  “Billy Nu said that.” I swallowed. “He was a sharp guy. But he overstated the case. I’d almost talked him out of it. All this time’s gone by and nobody’s bothered with me.”

  “But if they took out Stefan . . .” He brushed the back of my hand with his fingertips.

  His touch was like a warm breeze of solace. I felt my throat closing. Not here. I clutched the mug tighter, willed away my grief.

  Harry kept watching me. “They know that you worked with Stefan in Warsaw. And then there’s the night you fled Poland. You, Stefan, the killer Abu Nidal sent after you—all three of you got on that ferryboat to Denmark. But the killer wasn’t on board when it docked on the other side of the Baltic. Some nasty people said they’d pay you both back. Maybe they’re getting started.”

  “Right,” I said, staring at the muddy liquid in my cup.

  His voice became more earnest. “And then the stuff you did after Pan Am 103 exploded.” He paused, looked at me hard. He knew I wouldn’t deny that I’d done work good enough to call attention to myself. “Now this bombing. We keep finding parallels. Don’t you see how it could be meant as a threat directly against you?”

  “You’re stretching,” I said.

  “I don’t think so. You have to stay out of sight for a while, till we figure out what’s going on.” Then his tone sharpened. “What have you done so far?”

  I didn’t answer.

  His eyes went to my carry-on bag. A band of white tape crisscrossed the openings, unbroken since the pre-boarding search at Kastrup. The lettering spelled out AIRPORT SECURITY in royal blue. Harry glared at me. “
What did you think you were doing?”

  “I had to find out—”

  “Why don’t you paint a bull’s-eye on your brain stem?”

  The chromed legs of my chair rasped against the carpeting as I stood. “I don’t need this—”

  “Calm down. This is your old pal Harry. I’m worried about you.”

  I made a conciliatory gesture. “Guess I’ve gotten too much of that advice. ‘Lie low. Play it safe. Take it easy.’ ”

  “You have to wait for the dust to settle—”

  “Not dust. Body parts.”

  He was standing, too. “Look, you can’t start acting crazy. I know he was important to you. But—”

  “‘Important’?” I was at the door by then. “Stefan wasn’t important to me. I loved him.” I shoved my arms into my jacket sleeves and grabbed my bag. “Losing him is tearing me apart. If you don’t understand that, anything I do is going to look crazy to you.”

  Harry was at the door. “Casey, I didn’t mean—”

  “I appreciate your telling me as much as you did,” I said. “But don’t tell me how to handle this.”

  He kept on as though he hadn’t heard me. “Go home. Get some sleep. Come and see me tomorrow. Let’s put together a plan.”

  “Sure,” I called from the foyer. The tired look on his face told me he knew I didn’t mean it.

  The frozen cement rang hollowly under my boots. Three cabs idled in the stand next to the Hyatt Hotel, their exhaust milky in the cold air, throbbing engines the only sound echoing off Rosslyn’s concrete high-rises. I got into the car at the head of the line. The black skin on the back of the driver’s shaved head glistened under the hotel security lights as he U-turned and headed downhill. Harry was right: I had enemies in Libya and in the Abu Nidal Organization. Good idea to be watchful. I was relieved I’d found one of the few cabdrivers in northern Virginia who hadn’t been born in the Middle East.

  The cracked vinyl of the rear seat was slippery as ice beneath me, the air stuffy with the smell of the exhaust. As we crossed Key Bridge, another inbound flight roared over us. The driver got off Rock Creek Parkway at the National Zoo exit and dropped me farther up Connecticut Avenue, in front of the brownstone where I owned the rear half of the second floor.

  I paused outside my door, fumbling with my keys. There was nothing but lonely emptiness on the other side of that door. And two gaily wrapped packages, lying in ambush for me in the back of my closet. I jingled my key chain and regretted for the hundredth time that I’d never gotten another dog. No room ever felt empty when my Rhodesian Ridgeback was in it. Cecil had been only two when I was posted abroad for the first time. He’d accompanied me to San Salvador, gallantly accepting his new job in diplomatic protection. He’d prowled my walled yard every night, washed my face every morning, kept me safe as long as he could. He’d tried to stop the men who came over the wall, but got out only one piercing howl before they slit his throat. The State Department awarded me a fifteen-thousand-dollar salary bonus during my tour in San Salvador. There was a good reason for the extra compensation. I’d made a bad decision, taking Cecil to a danger-pay-post. I didn’t want another dog until I was living in a safe place.

  I wasn’t there yet.

  But Stefan could have protected me and a dog. A few weeks past August, I’d dreamed up that scenario, goofily singing, “Stefan and me and puppy makes three.” The fleeting memory was like a cold draft, a chill reminder that I hadn’t yet totaled my losses. I shivered as I shoved the door open.

  The first thing I saw was the red light blinking on my answering machine. Stefan!

  I dropped my bag and rushed over to push the playback button. The cassette spindle hummed, rewinding. It spun on and on, as though the messages were infinite in length. I clicked on the table lamp and flipped open the plastic lid. The top spindles were empty, the left one endlessly rewinding nothing.

  My incoming message cassette was missing.

  I pressed the playback button again, but the eerie spinning continued. I grabbed the handset and the spindle’s motion ceased. I stared at the device. The LED readout showed the digit 3. Three messages of unknown length, from unknown person or persons, of great interest to an unknown intruder. I noticed gray finger smudges on the inside of the lid. I dropped the phone and held my hand palm-up under the pool of light. My fingers were coated with dust.

  I switched on the overhead light. More evidence that I’d had visitors while I was away. Bookcases lined the walls of my living room. Mostly they held paperbacks and remainders, books of all sizes and shapes, shoved tight against the veneer backing, leaving a jagged edge of open shelf in front. Before I’d set out to meet the Father-Major, I’d carefully withdrawn and replaced a couple of volumes. I’d been gone only three days. The marks I’d intentionally left on the never-dusted shelves should have still been there. But all the exposed wood was powdered with dirt. Just like my telephone.

  Someone had come looking for something. And my poor housekeeping had made his efforts too obvious. He’d covered his tracks with grit. I wondered why he’d gone to so much trouble to conceal his search—and then given himself away by removing the cassette. I didn’t stop to puzzle that one out. Someone was too interested in me.

  In fifteen seconds I was closing my door from the other side. Nobody in the hallway. Good. And nothing unusual outdoors either. But I kept my eyes roving as I hurried down the block. Nobody was following me and I wouldn’t make it easy for anyone to pick up my trail. One more stop, and then no taxicab, no credit cards, no showing my ID to anyone.

  Five minutes later I was in front of an ATM. The lights above it turned the skin on my hand greenish red. My hand shook on the first try and I nearly lost my card to a computer programmed for ultra-suspicion after midnight. I willed myself to stay calm and managed to extract five hundred dollars from my account. Then I made my way by public transportation to the southeast side of the District. I found a budget motel near the Anacostia River, registered under a false name and paid cash for a stingy room.

  On Monday morning I walked the few blocks from that motel to an anonymous office building in Buzzard Point. At eight-thirty, I was looking across a desk at Mike Buchanan, his eyes watery from a winter cold. He blew his lumpy nose, jammed the handkerchief back into his pants pocket and waved me into the visitor’s chair.

  “Some cold.” I sat down. “Taking anything for it?”

  “You kidding? FBI agents don’t need drugs.” He sneezed and reached for the handkerchief again.

  “Maybe the germs can’t tell you’re such a tough guy.”

  He snorted. He knew he didn’t look the part. Too short, under six feet, with too much flesh hanging loose around his middle and under his chin. And no crew cut either—he wore his hair long, wavy and parted in the center.

  But Mike was a veteran counterintelligence analyst in the FBI’s National Security Division and one of its top spy-chasers. We’d traded information before in situations involving the illegal export of U.S.-made weapons—guns that linked the American traitors who smuggled them out to the foreign terrorists who paid big bucks upon receipt.

  Mike put the handkerchief away and asked, “What’s up?”

  “I thought you might be able to get some answers for me.”

  The chair squealed as he tilted back. “What are the questions?”

  “About the Global 500 bombing.”

  “Out of my area,” he said.

  “But your people are working on it?”

  “Sure.” He jerked his head to indicate the wall in back of him. “Staff’s getting set up in there, all ready to convene the interagency task force, lay out everything we’ve got.”

  I knew there was a major case room on the other side of the wall. A long, rectangular cave with a threadbare carpet and air permanently stained by nicotine. I said, “Maybe you’ve picked up info you could share with me.”

  “You people have everything we’ve got.”

  “Right,” I said, not bothering to disp
ute the tired falsehood. “I’ve been on leave. Figured I’d get a quicker fix on things, coming to you.”

  “But you’re not officially part of the task force?”

  “Not till I get an upgrade of my security clearance.”

  Bushy eyebrows rose to the midpoint of Mike’s forehead. “I hear the head honcho in your shop handpicked you as the next candidate to fill State’s position. Think folks would hurry up your background check to please him.”

  “You’d think that.” Mike was surprisingly knowledgeable about my job situation. Obviously well aware that I’d been waiting three months for the bureaucracy to unclog and spit out a clearance that should have been automatic.

  He tilted back his chair once more and spoke with a casualness that seemed studied. “ ‘Course, your case is complex. You are involved with an old SB agent.”

  In the five years I’d known Mike, he’d never mentioned Stefan. Why now? And why in a manner certain to annoy me?

  “A former agent of a former enemy,” I reminded him. “And even before we got a friendly government in Poland, Stefan defected to the West.”

  “Sure. To the Danes.”

  “They’re an ally.” I gestured at the wall behind him. “I’ve spent a lot of time in that room with you. You’ve never worried about how I handled sensitive information.”

  “I admit, no one’s got a better handle on the issues than you do. No wonder the boss-man picked you for the task force.”

  I said, “You’re not telling me anything.”

  Mike shrugged. “You say you’re still not cleared—”

  “Oh come on.” I clipped off the words, my irritation audible. “Nobody in the Department thinks I’m a security risk.”

  The eyebrows seemed to rise higher. “The Bureau is less certain.”

  I stood up slowly, trying not to let my anger get in my way. “If that’s how you feel, I won’t waste any more of your time.”

  “Sit down,” Mike said. There was no invitation in his tone.

  I stayed on my feet.

  “Sit down.” This time spoken with all the authority inherited from J. Edgar Hoover.