Tracy listened intently, taking all this in.
“If Group 99 were smart they’d play their advantage and stick to cyberattacks. But they aren’t smart. Or at least, the smart elements are having their voices drowned out by the Lost Boys. You know they started in Greece, right?”
“I know,” said Tracy. She was a little surprised by how much Cameron knew. Then again, he was a CIA asset/advisor, just like her. Maybe they’d read the same files?
Does he know about Hunter Drexel, running from his American rescuers? Tracy wondered. Greg Walton had stressed to her that this was top-secret information. She mustn’t assume anything. Still, she wished she knew more about just how close Cameron Crewe and the CIA really were.
“I know Greece,” Cameron continued. “We do a lot of business there and I’m involved in numerous charities. It was a tragedy what happened to that country. A classic case of what happens when you push a people beyond their limits.”
“Their prime minister called it a humanitarian crisis,” said Tracy.
“He’s right. Like Germany with the reparations after World War I, the suffering of the man on the street simply became too much to bear. Politically you start to see the rise of men like Calles. And beneath the surface, men like Argyros starting Group 99. Alexis Argyros might be smarter than your average ISIS militant. But his agenda was always violence, in the end.”
The waiter cleared their empty plates. Tracy wasn’t hungry but she found herself ordering dessert anyway, some sort of milk pudding made with rice that Cameron recommended. It sounded disgusting, but was in fact quite ambrosially delicious. They kept talking.
“What about the tactics issue,” Tracy said. “Drexel and Daley’s kidnaps, Daley’s murder, the Cranston bombing. Surely you don’t put that down solely to testosterone-fueled boys lusting for blood and guts?”
“Not solely, no,” Cameron agreed. “Even if the Lost Boys are taking over Group 99, and the likes of your Althea are being pushed out, they’d have had to try to sell the idea of a shift towards old school violence internally.”
“And how would they do that?”
“There are plenty of arguments you could use,” Cameron said breezily. “Kidnap and murder have proved highly effective tools for other terror groups, especially if the aim is to engage the enemy, to escalate conflict. Plus it’s a shock to the enemy’s system. People are used to seeing medieval barbarism in the Middle East and Africa, but not in Europe. The irony is, it’s precisely because hacking has gotten so sophisticated and so virtually unstoppable that we’re seeing a return to old school methods. U.S. nuclear codes are stored on paper files these days. Once you know the Pentagon can be hacked to the core, it’s only a short step to the major powers moving back to cannons and bows and arrows.”
Tracy laughed.
“OK, maybe not bows and arrows. But technological weaponry like drones might easily fall out of favor. And once armies start heading back to the dark ages, why not companies, or banks? It would certainly suit Group 99’s ends to see a return to bartering, for example. The abolition of financial markets, maybe even of paper money itself. I know it sounds crazy to us, sitting here, about to pay for a five star meal with our platinum visa cards.”
“Your platinum visa card,” Tracy corrected him.
Cameron laughed. “You really are old school, aren’t you?”
“I try.” Tracy raised her glass.
“But it could happen. Financial anarchy. Or utopia, depending on how you look at it. Group 99 embracing more traditional terror tactics could certainly be presented as a step in that direction. That would make it consistent with their views.”
Tracy changed the subject. “Tell me about Hunter Drexel.” She found Cameron fascinating and could listen to him theorize all night. But she was here to find Althea, and to do that she needed facts, not theories. She felt sure that there must be a connection between Althea and the abducted American journalist. Something none of them had thought of yet.
“I’m sure you know far more about Mr. Drexel than I do,” Cameron answered cautiously.
“I know he was on his way to meet you in Moscow when Group 99 abducted him.”
“That’s right.”
“Why had you agreed to meet him that day?”
Cameron looked surprised by the question.
“Drexel was working on a piece about the fracking industry. As I assume you already know. Specifically about corruption in the business.”
“I hear there’s a lot of it about.”
“I hear that too.” Cameron smiled briefly. “I imagine that’s what he wanted to talk to me about but I’m not certain. He was rather cryptic on the telephone. And of course, we never actually met, in the end.”
“You don’t usually give interviews,” Tracy said. “In fact you never give them. According to the CIA files you’re notorious for avoiding the media.”
“Notorious? Am I really?” Cameron gave Tracy a wry look, taking a sip of his jasmine tea. “What else do Greg Walton’s files say about me?”
Tracy blushed, thinking about Marcus, Cameron’s only son, lost to leukemia, and his divorce. It was embarrassing to know these private things about a person. She’d already said too much.
“It’s all right,” Cameron said. “It’s true I’m a very private man. After my son died I withdrew pretty much completely from public life. It’s also true I don’t like journalists. They all bang on about how we need to break our dependence on Saudi oil, yet they have no qualms in slagging off the fracking business, or in tarring all oil and gas companies with the same brush.”
“So why meet Drexel?”
“I was curious. Hunter Drexel was just different from all the others.”
“In what way?”
Cameron considered for a moment. “Better, I suppose. A better man and a much better writer. Did you read his article in Time about the Nazi hunters?”
Tracy admitted that she hadn’t.
“You must,” said Cameron. “It’s a beautiful piece of writing, moving without being schmaltzy, meticulously researched. Hunter Drexel is really, really good at his job. He’s also fearless. But of course, there’s a downside to that, as he learned in Moscow. I imagine the man has a lot of enemies.”
“Such as?”
“Ex-lovers. Disgruntled poker players. Drexel’s reneged on a lot of debts in his time. He’s a serious gambling addict. The subjects of his op-eds. Pretty much any editor he’s ever worked with.” Cameron calmly listed the potential Drexel-haters out there. “He’s a great writer but he’s also a maverick. Erratic. Famously impulsive. He’s one of those guys who puts a lot of store by his instinct, without necessarily always having the facts to back it up. When someone sues for libel, it’s the editor who ends up picking up the pieces.”
“But you said his Time piece was well researched?” Tracy reminded him.
“It was. But they haven’t all been. He’s written some outrageous takedowns of public figures—like Senator Braverman, remember him?”
Tracy cast her mind back. “The orgy guy?”
“Yes, except he wasn’t. Drexel’s source was flat-out wrong on that story, had him confused with some other sleazy republican. The magazine that ran that story’s gone now. Filed for Chapter Eleven just to pay Braverman’s damages. But the Senator’s career never recovered. Drexel walked away without a scratch, or a shred of remorse. He’s been sued more times than a tobacco company and fired more times than a cheap shooting range pistol.”
“And Group 99? Why would they want to harm him, do you think?”
“I don’t know,” Cameron admitted. “Perhaps something he’d uncovered in his research had rattled them? On the face of it, they don’t make natural enemies.”
Tracy decided to cast a fly over the water. “What about the U.S. Government? Were they his enemy?”
Cameron frowned. “What do you mean?”
Greg Walton had given Tracy strict instructions not to tell anybody about Hunter running from th
e task force sent to rescue him. Unfortunately for Walton, Tracy had never been a big follower of instructions. Like Hunter Drexel, she trusted her instincts, and her instincts told her that she could trust Cameron Crewe.
With a deep breath, she told Cameron the whole story. How Hunter had run. How the CIA and MI6 were working jointly to find him, before Group 99 did, so far with no success. How President Havers had lied outright to the world’s media about what happened that fateful night in Bratislava.
“Holy shit,” Cameron said, once she’d finished. “But, why? Why would he run from his rescuers? Especially after what happened to poor Captain Daley.”
“I don’t know,” said Tracy. “But I expect the answer lies with Althea. There’s a connection between her and Drexel. I feel it in my bones.”
It was getting late, but neither Cameron nor Tracy was ready to end the conversation. Cameron paid the bill and they moved to one of the Mandarin Oriental’s smaller, more intimate bars. Settling themselves into a corner, candlelit table, Tracy ordered a Cognac and Cameron a single malt.
“Tell me about you, Tracy,” Cameron said. “Walton told me you were helping them try to track down Althea. But he didn’t say why. Where do you fit into all this?”
Tracy gave him the summarized version. How Althea had sent a coded message to the CIA, after she’d directly ordered Bob Daley’s brutal murder, mentioning Tracy by name. “She thinks she knows me. She certainly knows of me.”
“But you don’t know her?”
“I’ve been wracking my brain, obviously. Trying to think of a connection. There are a number of different chapters in my life where our paths may have crossed. I’ve had what you might call a checkered past,” Tracy admitted.
Cameron’s eyebrow shot up playfully. “Really? Greg told me you were a retired art specialist.”
Tracy laughed loudly. “That’s one way of putting it I suppose.”
“What’s another way? Come on. I’m curious. I won’t breathe a word, I promise you.”
“It’s complicated,” said Tracy. “I spent some time in prison in my twenties. But I’m sure I never knew Althea there.”
“What for?” Cameron found it hard to imagine this poised, beautiful, intelligent woman behind bars.
“Something I didn’t do.” Tracy smiled sweetly. “I’ve also worked in banking, as a computer specialist.”
“That sounds more Althea-like.”
“It does,” Tracy agreed. “But I was the only woman I knew at that time in my bank, other than the secretaries. Later I, er, developed an interest in fine art,” Tracy said tactfully. “And very expensive jewelry.”
“Other people’s very expensive jewelry?” Cameron guessed.
“Not for long.” Tracy grinned. “I was living in London then but traveling a lot. I met a lot of interesting people in that chapter of my life, but still no one like Althea comes to mind at all. Then, after my marriage ended, I moved back to the States with my son.”
She hadn’t intended to mention Nick. It had just slipped out naturally. As if he were still alive. The instant Tracy said it a cloud passed across her face. The change in her was so sudden and so total, Cameron couldn’t fail to notice it.
“Tracy?” Without thinking he reached across the table and put his hand over hers. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” Tracy lied. She was trying not to meet Cameron’s eyes. There was something incredibly intense about his eyes that made her feel panicked. It was only in that moment that she realized what it was.
He reminds me of Jeff.
Cameron said kindly. “You’re not fine. Please tell me what’s wrong.”
To her own surprise, Tracy looked up and heard herself say, “My son died.”
She wasn’t sure if she’d ever said those words before out loud. She realized now she’d been holding them in, as if by not saying them she could make them less real. Of course, it hadn’t worked. Blurting them out to Cameron Crewe, an almost total stranger, was a profound relief.
“I’m so sorry.” Cameron squeezed her hand more tightly. “What was his name?”
“Nicholas. He was killed in a car accident.”
“When?”
“Six weeks ago.”
Cameron couldn’t hide his shock. “Six weeks ago? My God, Tracy, that’s horrible. This just happened?”
Tracy looked at him blankly. Had it just happened? It felt like a lifetime ago to her. Eons of loss had come and gone since the day of the accident.
I must stop calling it an accident. It was murder.
Althea, whoever she is, murdered my son.
Her face hardened.
“You shouldn’t be here, you know. Working,” Cameron said. “You must give yourself some time. Six weeks is nothing. It’s the blink of an eye. You can’t possibly have processed what happened yet, never mind come to terms with your grief.”
Tracy said simply, “If I didn’t work, I’d die.”
Cameron nodded. He understood this better than anybody. It was a mistake. But he understood it. The need to be distracted. The need to find a purpose, any purpose, beyond the pain.
“I lost a son too, you know,” he told Tracy. “Marcus. He was fourteen.”
“I know,” Tracy said numbly. “The same age as Nick. He had leukemia. Your foundation has made large donations towards cancer research and developing stem cell treatments.”
She’s reciting from my file, Cameron realized. Poor thing. It was as if she were in a trance. He’d been there himself, in those early, dark months after Marcus’s death.
“That’s right,” he said calmly. “Marcus was sick for a long time. That was hard, but it also meant we had time, his mother and I. To prepare. I’m so grateful for that now. I’m not sure I could have coped with losing him suddenly. Like you did with your boy.”
“How did you cope?” Tracy found herself asking. Cameron seemed so calm, so together. Not like her. Was there a trick to this, a path of some sort that she’d missed?
Cameron quickly disabused her of that notion.
“Very badly,” he replied. “Charlotte and I tried to hold it together afterwards. But we grieved so differently. She needed to talk. I needed to work.”
Like me.
“And I know it sounds stupid, but just looking at her face was a constant reminder of Marcus.” Cameron added. “I couldn’t handle it.”
Tracy thought about Jeff. How Nick had been his clone, alike in every way. How the thought of seeing Jeff again and talking to him about Nick had filled her with such indescribable panic, such dread, that she’d run out on both him and her old life in Colorado, slamming the door so hard behind her that its echo was no doubt reverberating through the mountains to this day.
“Greg Walton thinks Althea may have been involved in Nick’s death,” she told Cameron. It was bizarre the way the words kept tumbling out of her mouth, as if her body were vomiting out a sickness. “That’s why I’m here. Why I agreed to get involved. He thinks she may have sabotaged the car that my son was riding in that night. She may even have meddled with his drugs at the hospital later, when the doctors were trying to save his life.”
“Jesus Christ,” Cameron gasped. “Why?”
“To force my hand? So I would try to find her? Or just to hurt me. I don’t know, because I don’t know who she is. But I will know,” Tracy said darkly. “I’ll know everything in the end.”
Knowledge won’t make you happier, Cameron thought. It won’t bring him back. And it won’t bring you closure, because there’s no such thing.
“Being Nick’s mother made me a different person. A better person. But now that he’s gone, that side of me is gone too,” Tracy announced. “All the softness. All the caution, the holding back, the setting a good example. There’s no one to protect anymore.”
“Except yourself,” Cameron reminded her.
“But that’s just it,” Tracy said. “I’m not sure I have a self now, at least not one I care about. It sounds terrible but it’s actuall
y amazingly freeing. I have no boundaries, no limits. I feel reckless.” Incongruously, she started to laugh. “I daresay I sound like a lunatic!”
“Not to me.”
As suddenly as it had started, Tracy’s laughter stopped. When she spoke again she was deadly serious.
“She was here, in Geneva. Althea. I know she was. I lost her this time but I’m getting closer.”
“Well, if I can help in any way, any way at all, I’d like to,” said Cameron. Reluctantly releasing Tracy’s hand, he pulled a business card out of his pocket. Scrawling a separate, private cellphone number on the back he handed it to her. “Call me any time, Tracy. About anything.”
Tracy took the card. “I will,” she said gratefully. “And thank you for dinner.”
“The pleasure was mine.” Cameron stood up. “I’d better go. I have early meetings tomorrow.”
Tracy watched him leave. She still couldn’t quite believe she’d spent the entire evening talking so intimately with a man she barely knew. But perhaps it was because they barely knew each other that she felt able to talk to Cameron Crewe. To reveal her true feelings, her true pain. We’re like two Vietnam vets. Strangers, but also family in a way, bonded by the loss of our children.
The curtain of loss that had fallen over both their lives had given them a sort of emotional shorthand. Like a fast forward button in their relationship. But fast forward to what?
Tracy could still feel the warmth of Cameron’s palm over hers. Guiltily, she recognized the long-forgotten stirrings of arousal in her body. Faint traces of a part of her that had once been there, once known intimacy of a different kind.
Life goes on. Isn’t that what people say? Tracy didn’t agree. It seemed to her that life had no business going on, not without her darling Nicholas. What she was doing now wasn’t living. It was existing. A mere mechanical matter. Inhale, exhale. Eat, sleep. Day, night. Anything more would be a betrayal.
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