Counterfeit Conscience

by Helena Maeve

  He had started out as an analyst. He had a good read on people, a decent head on his shoulders. He could help coordinate, or decode—or fetch coffee.

  He could still be useful.

  Karim cocked his eyebrows, more pitying than incredulous. It was the same expression he’d worn when Will came to him with unverified intelligence, when he’d spoken about instinct and feelings as though they were a substitute for cold, hard evidence. Find me actionable data and I’ll consider it, he’d say. It’s my arse on the line if we go in blind.

  His approval had been Will’s weathervane for years. Now it was a reminder, the sordid proof that even gods could fall from Olympus, so what hope was there for the likes of Will?

  “Your time here is fast coming to an end,” Karim pointed out tersely. “But before it does, there’s one last thing you can do to end this cycle of violence.”

  Will snorted and leaned back in his seat. “You’re kidding me. Since when have you become a pacifist?”

  “Is that what you think this is?” Mirroring him, Karim tipped against the backrest of his chair and ran a hand over his mouth. “Mate—”

  “I’m not your mate.” The snarl tore out of Will before he could swallow it down. It was a mistake—emotion had no place in negotiations. It certainly had no place among spies.

  He knew he’d given Karim the upper hand when his old friend sighed.

  “Simply put, there are more of us than there are of you. Traitors, fugitives…we’re an amorphous collective, I’ll give you that, but we’re very concerned with our own survival. What’s more, we have nothing to lose if we peel back the curtain on your ops. Stop hunting us and we’ll stop hunting your agents. It’s that simple.”

  It took Will a moment to puzzle why that struck him as odd. Then the penny dropped.

  “You’re speaking for someone else.” The chair creaked as he sat up and joined his fists over the desk. “Who is it? Your toy boy—”

  “You can consult Jennings’ opinion when you report to him, as I’m sure you will. See what he has to say. But this offer is strictly for your ears only.”

  A shiver raced down Will’s spine in spite of the cloying heat. He was sure that his office was bugged. And even if it hadn’t been, he still intended to report everything to his superiors. Double-dealing was precisely how men like Karim wound up on the wrong side of the barricades, deluding themselves into believing they had made the nobler choice.

  “You must have forgotten how hierarchy works. I don’t have that kind of authority—”

  “Manuel Sosa and Arthur Foley,” Karim said.

  “Never heard of them,” Will replied, for once utterly sincere.

  “They’re MI6 assets—or were. One is still in custody, the other not. Both are on London’s to-do list. It would be prudent to show clemency.” Karim let that sink in for a moment. “By the way, does Section still outsource its dirty work to local thugs?”

  “No more than usual,” was the evasive answer Will offered, tit for tat.

  He wasn’t sure what Karim was after. Did they forge mutually beneficial relationships with crime syndicates and nefarious characters? Certainly. It was hardly news. Ever since the days of the Cold War and Nazi Germany before it, holding one’s nose was an essential part of the job. He saw no need to let Karim know that budget constraints had intensified the practice in recent years. His airways were permanently clogged from all the backrooms he’d visited and all the blood-soaked hands he’d had to shake on behalf of Her Majesty’s Secret Service.

  Karim seemed to take his vague reply as confirmation. He made to reach for something in his breast pocket but curbed the motion as Will stiffened in his chair.

  “If I wanted you dead, my friend, I would have begun this meeting with a revolver in my hand. And we wouldn’t still be talking.”

  “How comforting.”

  Ignoring the quip, Karim plucked out a folded photograph from his pocket and placed it on the desk. “We have information that this man is in charge of the Macias family affairs. He married into the clan, but he’s risen to new heights since the patriarch’s death last year. Rumor has it that his authority is unchallenged.”

  Fingers itching, Will resisted the urge to flatten the photograph and take a better look. He didn’t want Karim to think he was curious. “What does this have to do with your two blokes?” he asked instead, determined to tamp down his interest.

  “Last fall, MI6 made a deal to stop pursuing our people in exchange for intelligence from Sosa. He was about to follow through on his end of the bargain when Macias sent Arthur Foley to assassinate him.”

  “Spy on spy? How poetic…”

  “The attempt failed. Arthur Foley is now at large and Manuel Sosa remains in Section custody. Officially, the Macias clan is a prosperous dynasty of wealthy entrepreneurs who just happen to have ties to every dictator in South America. Unofficially, it launders money for some unsavory non-state actors in the Middle East. Though, of course, you already know this.”

  Will fought to school his features into a blank, indifferent moue. “You’re barking up the wrong tree. I have no influence with Macias or their affiliates.”

  “I think you might,” Karim said and rose ponderously from his seat. “Persuade them to cease their efforts to eliminate Foley and Sosa and we will leave Section in peace.”

  “Haven’t you heard?” Will opened his arms wide, chair creaking beneath him as he pretended to lounge in sweet relaxation. “I’m about to be pensioned off. What makes you think I give a damn about Section?”

  Karim’s smile was rueful. “Take it from someone who has seen what lies on the far side of retirement… Once you leave, your legacy is all you have. I’m giving you the chance to end this feud. It’s your choice what you do with it.” He turned slowly, resting one hand on the back of his chair. “Oh, and before I forget…” From his trouser pocket, he produced a fistful of pea-size listening devices, most shattered into revealing their sinewy innards.

  “You searched my office?”

  “Something you should do more often,” Karim replied. He upended his find all over the desk, bits of plastic and copper wiring sprinkling over the chipped wood. “We’ll speak soon, Will.”

  “Doubt it.”

  Next time, Will promised himself, there would be a loaded gun and Section operatives to take Karim in. There would be a reckoning.

  The door squeaked as it swung open. Karim’s voice echoed from the antechamber, but his words were indistinct. Will imagined him trading small talk with Cleo, charming her, then doing the same to grinning, cheerful Luis downstairs.

  With a steady hand, he reached for the photograph on the desk.

  It was a color snapshot of a street at night. In the top left-hand corner, half of a neon sign glowed in a buttery gradient. The photographer had focused his lens on a scrum of men beneath the logo. He had snapped his shot from above, so the faces were slightly indistinct, most of the subjects turned away from the camera.

  A Sharpied loop encircled the one man who was facing the camera head-on.

  Will could tell that the photo was recent. The last time he had seen Ignacio, he’d been fond of snakeskin boots and gold chains. He’d looked like an adolescent wet dream sprawled naked in Will’s bed, sheets tangled around his tapered waist.

  The man Karim wanted him to parlay with had the same eyes, the same lush mouth, but he was older. He had an empire to command.

  What was it he’d told Will the last time they met? ‘If I ever see you again, you’re dead?’ Will knew better than to test the sentiment. Karim’s offer was an unpinned grenade.

  He needed another goddamn drink.

  Chapter Two

  When hair of the dog didn’t sober him up, Will got himself hopped up on caffeine. Three cups later and he was too restless to sit still.

  “I’m going out,” Will announced around noon, stomping out of his office with necktie in hand.

  Cleo looked up from her wilted summer greens, fork halfway raised
to her mouth. “Are you sure? I can order in—”

  Will waved off the suggestion and dropped the tie on her desk. “I need to stretch my legs.”

  “That bad, huh?” Cleo crunched down on a piece of lettuce and, her mouth full, added, “Oh, Jennings left this for you.”

  A stab between the eyes wouldn’t have awakened Will’s dormant migraine half so well. He whirled around. A brown paper parcel rested on Cleo’s desk, perfectly innocuous.

  His first thought was to tell Cleo to evacuate. His second was that Karim didn’t need to bring a bomb in if he wanted to blow them up. It wasn’t a matter of trusting that the traitor meant well—Will didn’t trust anyone that far, including his own hand-picked staff—but he had worked with Karim for more than a decade.

  Sophistication in wet-work was something their generation still prized.

  “I’ll… I’ll look at it when I get back,” Will said.

  “Shall I put it on the desk?”

  “No, leave it,” he told Cleo. “It’s a mess in there, anyway. Don’t need any more clutter.” He turned his back on her stunned expression and made for the door, photograph burning a hole through his shirt.

  He could only hope he hadn’t overestimated Karim’s methods.

  Downstairs, Luis had been replaced at his post by the day guardsman—a recent hire at half the cost of his more experienced predecessor. He was dozing as Will let himself out. He sat up abruptly at the electric hum of the gate, but didn’t get the chance to make excuses before Will stalked off. He wasn’t in the mood to hear them, anyway.

  His lace-ups sunk into the pavement with every step that carried him farther from the office. It wasn’t so long ago he would’ve had a car he could call up, with a driver who knew his way to the seediest parts of the city and who didn’t ask any questions. The unpleasantness of constant surveillance by his own staff hadn’t always seemed like it could be outweighed by the comfort of having his slightest needs tended to. Unfortunately, when every mile of wasted gas became an expense that had to be justified in writing, it was easier to fire the driver and learn to do without.

  Bitterness burned in Will’s gut.

  Maybe Karim has a point. Maybe this has been a long time coming.

  He locked down the thought before it put down roots.

  The metro worked just fine for his purposes. The lunch hour didn’t mean it was any less packed, as travelers and tourists sought the blessed chill of the underground over the more scenic bus routes that crisscrossed the city.

  Will squeezed into a car with the rest of the throng and pretended he belonged.

  Crowds made it easy to hide. The constant hum of voices around him drowned out the riot between his ears. It wasn’t much colder on the subway, yet every time his sweat-soaked shirt pulled against his back, Will shivered. Someone could have stuck a fistful of snow under his collar and it wouldn’t have been half so unpleasant.

  He passed panhandlers and street musicians on his way back to the surface. Dust stung his eyes behind tinted shades, but he pressed on through the thinning mob of pedestrians, up the cobblestoned roads where police rarely visited and foreigners were advised not to venture.

  The last time Will had made the journey, he had affected a French accent and let a couple of local miscreants make off with his wallet. Anything to sell his cover to the Lebanese businessman he’d been hoping to turn.

  It must have been five or six years, but the restaurant was still there, as immovable as the ocean that held London at bay.

  Will eyed the men loitering outside and they returned the favor, scrutinizing him with hostile stares until it became clear he wasn’t going to change course to avoid them. One put out a leg in a motion too ostensible to trip Will up.

  “Your kind ain’t welcome here,” the man rasped, in Portuguese. He was well-fed, built to last, with spidery ink crawling up the side of his neck. He didn’t seem like the joking type.

  Will offered him a princely smile. “What kind is that?”

  The man looked him up and down. “Cops.”

  Ouch. “Flor,” Will called through the open shutters of the little hole in the wall, “you want to call off the attack dogs?”

  Silence answered.

  The tattooed fellow grinned, showing off two rows of pearly whites. “Get lost, mano.”

  “Is the boss in or not?” Will countered. He wasn’t put off by ill-mannered thugs, but the way his day had started, he didn’t have the patience to indulge their territorial antics.

  Zen was in short supply today.

  “I said—”

  The man made to stand. It was the only reason Will planted his foot into one of the four chair legs and split it in half with a harsh, effortless kick. The chair collapsed beneath its occupant.

  His companions rose in outrage and surprise. The mirth in their eyes veered toward indignant fury.

  “Filho da puta!”

  Will braced himself for the brawl, knowing he had to lose, when a voice rang out from within the restaurant.

  “Let him through.”

  The man on the ground spat at Will’s feet, but he and his buddies desisted at once. The boss-lady had spoken and Flor’s word was still the law around these parts.

  Inside, the bistro proved darker than Will recalled. Plaster had cracked on the walls and ceiling to reveal the coarse brickwork beneath. A single lamp drooped from wires overhead, bulbless. The lights were down behind the bar, too, and only a faint, hot draft blew through the kitchen doorway, ferrying in the scent of sun-baked stone and roasted almonds.

  Flor sat at one of the two tables, a game of solitaire spread before her. “What do you want?” she asked, without lifting her gaze from the cards.

  She was in her late forties, but she still looked twenty-something. She had the kind of face that would never age, a Winona Ryder of the favelas, with a knack for matchmaking.

  That the object of her profession had never been romance didn’t matter.

  “Good to see you too.”

  Flor flipped another card—ten of clubs, useless to her with the hand she’d been dealt. Her indifference was as loud as any reply.

  That’s how it’s going to be, is it? Will sighed. “Do you still have contacts at the Blue Dragon?” It had taken him a fraction of a second to puzzle out who featured in Karim’s photograph and half the morning to determine where it been taken.

  “Suppose I do,” Flor replied. “What’s it worth to you?”

  Will plucked out his wallet and counted two hundred reals. He also retrieved the black and white photo. He laid both on top of Flor’s solitaire spread, so they would be harder to ignore.

  A shadow passed over her features, astonishment flashing briefly into view. “I see.” Flor sat back and slowly hoisted her charcoal-black eyes to his.

  “I need to speak to that man,” Will told her.

  Flor snorted. “I look like his secretary to you?” She didn’t ask who the guy was, which lent further credence to Will’s suspicion that Karim hadn’t been lying about everything. “Say I do it,” Flor went on, “and I’m not saying I will—that man is trouble I don’t need—but let’s say I play ball with you and your friends… It’ll cost you more than a couple hundred.”

  “You know money’s not a problem.”

  It was a dangerous thing to say in this part of the city, but Will had taken far worse risks for far less payoff. If there was a chance he could put Section a step ahead for a change, he’d gladly do it.

  It had nothing to do with what Karim had said. This wasn’t about fear.

  Flor smoothed the photograph with her fingertips, suddenly pensive. “I can get you into the Blue Dragon if he stops by again,” she said, “but that’s it.”

  Will shook his head, pushing the envelope because he had to. “I need to see him on neutral ground.”

  “This isn’t neutral, gringo. This is my home.” Flor stood abruptly and rounded the table, the swiftness of a woman half her age seething in her limbs. Her small, beady eye
s pierced with their scrutiny. “You think I’m bringing that into my home, you have another thing coming.” She sneered as she ran a hand over his lapel, rising up on tiptoe to bring her nose to the side of his neck. “You reek of liquor.”

  “That makes two of us,” Will shot back impatiently.

  Flor stood a head shorter and a good eighty pounds lighter, but she didn’t hesitate to cuff him over the ear, much less badger him until they were far enough away from the window that their voices wouldn’t carry into the street outside.

  “You daft boy! This couldn’t wait until I was back at the office?” she growled, in English.

  “You can’t come back,” Will gritted out. “We’re being watched.”

  Ire gave way to bewilderment and dread. Flor’s jaw slackened. “Macias?”

  Will desperately wanted to tell her that yes, their problems began and ended with the mob. He shook his head. He tried not to lie to his agents if he could help it. “Much worse.” He straightened, raking fingers through his hair, and pitched his voice high enough to be heard by the trio outside. “I’ll have your money next time, I swear.”

  “Damn right you will,” Flor said, equally loud. Then, sotto voce, “We need to talk.”

  Will’s nod seemed to suffice.

  “Three grand. Two days from now. Understood? Good. Now get out.” She gripped his arm when he made to turn. “Be careful.”

  He nodded. He didn’t need to be told twice.

  * * * *

  Cleo’s knock roused Will from the mire of his thoughts. “Do you need anything else?” she asked tentatively. “It’s just that—well, it’s six o’clock and we’ve got dinner reservations…”

  “Go home.” Will ran a hand over his face and waved her off. “Say hi to Julian for me.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “So sure I’m making it an order.”

  He had met Cleo’s husband only once, at their wedding three years earlier, and he’d discovered with little surprise that they had absolutely nothing in common. Julian, a chef turned middling investor in Brazil, had no love for foreign bureaucrats. He just barely tolerated his wife working for one when he wasn’t suggesting she give up work altogether and was thoroughly convinced that all they did all day was push paper. Recently, his assumptions were spot on.