I handed it back to him and said, “I thought that secret agents never carried credentials.”
“Times have changed, Horace,” A said. “This way, please.”
Squat and muscular and sure of his strength, he reminded me of the man on the stairway in Moscow.
We were standing next to the iron fence that marks the boundary of the vice president’s grounds, not the best place for a clandestine conversation. This perimeter bristled with hidden cameras and listening devices and motion detectors, and the times being what they were, maybe even atomizers filled with some kind of secret gas that freezes trespassers in their tracks. His feet planted on the sidewalk, A had taken what police training manuals call the stance of authority, not exactly blocking my way but giving me a broad muscle magazine hint that it would be unwise to try to step around him.
I said, “Tell you what, my friend. I’ll meet whoever’s waiting for me around the corner at the café in Whole Foods in half an hour. Alone. He or she should pick up two tomatoes on the way in and place them on the table when sitting down with me.”
“That’s not what we had in mind,” A said.
“Life is full of adjustments.”
“You’re making unnecessary difficulties.”
“Well, you and your friends can overpower me if you think that’s a good idea,” I said. “But for all you know I have a friend watching over me, ready to dial 911 and take pictures of the mugging with a fancy cell phone while waiting for the cops to arrive. Or maybe the vice president’s security cameras will pick up the action. ‘Goon Squad Jumps Notorious Ex-Spy.’ The ten o’clock news should love it.”
“One minute,” A said. He stepped away, turned his back, and made a call on his phone. Then he said, “Okay, the Whole Foods café at seventeen fifty-five hours.”
“I’ll be there,” I replied. “And no offense, but I’d rather not see you or your friends in the elevator or shopping for cabbages.”
A controlled himself quite nicely.
At precisely five minutes of six, just as I had begun to drink a scalding hot caffe latte that had too much milk and too little coffee in it, a thirtyish couple wearing barn coats over office attire joined me in the café. The man glumly placed two bright-red vine-ripened tomatoes on the table. He had palmed them like a shoplifter, as if they might be of overwhelming interest to whoever was shadowing us. The woman was slender with buzz-cut hair and discreet gold earrings and slightly unfocused eyes, large and blue, behind contact lenses. She did not return my smile. Neither did her colleague. Both wore wedding rings. The rings were of different designs. Apparently they were not married to each other except professionally. They looked like GS-12s or -13s, go-ahead young officers who had just started to rise through the career bottleneck that would probably be corked, for them as for most, at GS-14.
They looked around in dismay. All the tables in the café were occupied by homeward-bound lawyers and such, so we were cheek by jowl with a roomful of fruit-juice and latte drinkers, none of whom had a right to overhear our conversation.
“These are not ideal circumstances for this meeting,” the man said.
How right he was from his point of view. Clearly and distinctly I said, “My name is Horace Hubbard. What shall I call you?”
“I’m Don,” he muttered. “This is… Mary.”
“Just act like you’ve never heard the word security, Don and Mary, and everything should be all right. Want something to drink? My treat. Mary? No?”
They shook their heads in unison. Their eyes were fixed on me, matching what they observed to whatever description had been provided to them. I guessed that I had been painted as a difficult, unpredictable, a dinosaur in disgrace. I had the impression that I was going to conform to their worst expectations no matter how hard I tried to be good company.
I said, “If you’re not thirsty why don’t we just get this over with? What can I do for you?”
“We have some unpleasant news for you,” Don said. “You’re wanted for murder in Moscow.”
Of course I was. I asked no questions and, I hope, showed no sign of worry.
“I’m innocent.”
“They have an eyewitness,” Don said.
Of course they did. I said, “Do they also have an extradition treaty with the United States?”
Don’s turn not to answer.
Mary said, “That’s not all, Horace. A rare and valuable painting by Edward Hicks, known to have belonged to the late Paul Christopher, has surfaced in the Paris art market.” To go with her big blue eyes she had a sweet little-girl voice. “According to our information, the painting was sold privately,” she said. “If it was sold by an American citizen, that person has broken federal law.”
I sipped my latte and held my tongue. This had the usual effect. My questioners filled the silence.
Mary said, “You’ve spent a lot of money lately, Horace. Airplane tickets, hotels, fine restaurants.”
I didn’t remember the fine restaurants, but denied nothing.
“This spending pattern is interesting,” Mary said. “It makes people wonder.”
“Makes what people wonder about what?” I asked.
“Well, two things, actually,” Don said with an edge of sarcasm in his voice. “Why you’re spending all this money and where you got it.”
“The answer to the first question is common knowledge,” I said. “I’m trying to find my cousin, Paul Christopher.”
“But he’s dead.”
“That’s the official report. I happen not to accept its accuracy.”
Don said, pouncing, “Where did you get the money?”
I said, “What a rude question, Don. That’s none of your business, is it?”
“The IRS might consider it their business.”
“You mean you’re not with the IRS?”
Mary blinked rapidly, as if the insult—IRS indeed!—was a speck of grit that had gotten into her eye. Don flushed and injected more menace into his tone.
“You may think this situation is funny,” he said. “But I assure you it is not.”
“Then maybe you should tell me what this is all about.”
“We’ve been trying to do that.”
“Then please try harder. You’re too subtle for me.”
After a long moment of hard eye contact, Don said, “Mary, you try.”
Mary, the good cop, said, “Actually, Horace, it’s pretty simple. We’re just trying to give you a friendly heads-up.”
“Thank you very much. About what? And why?”
“For old times’ sake,” Mary said. “You’re in danger. You should take precautions before it’s too late.”
First you try to kidnap a fellow in broad daylight, then you advise him to take precautions? Who wrote this comic strip?
“Funny,” I said. “Just days ago I had this same talk with some fine young folks in Budapest and before that in Moscow. Except that they were armed to the teeth. Friends of yours?”
Don said, “We don’t know anything about that.”
I believed him. He and Mary weren’t high enough on the totem pole to be told about such interesting people as Kevin.
“Look, it’s very simple,” Mary said. “We’re fond of people like you. You’re well and gratefully remembered. But you and your old-timer friends are causing a lot of unnecessary trouble. You’re getting between our people and an important target. What is desired—and this comes from the very highest level—is for you and your shuffleboard team to get out of the way. And stay out of the way.”
Maybe Mary wasn’t the good cop after all.
“I don’t quite follow,” I said. “All I’m doing is looking for my missing cousin who, if I may say so, should really be remembered fondly and gratefully.”
Mary’s glassy eyes came into focus behind the contact lenses. Through her teeth she said, “Look, Horace. The message is simple. I’ll deliver it one more time. Get out of the way. If you’d rather make fun of us than do the sensible thing, be my guest.
You can be debonair or you can be something else that starts with d.”
What a shocking thing for Mary to say. I stared at her.
“You’ve embarrassed us in the past,” she said. “All we’re asking is that you don’t get you and your pathetic friends killed and embarrass us even worse.” With a squeal of chair legs, Mary got to her feet. “I hope that’s not too much to ask,” she said. “Because this is the last time we’ll ask you nicely.”
The Outfit certainly was using a tougher vocabulary since it started recruiting female case officers.
Mary strode away. Clattering heels, shapely legs, shortish skirt. Don followed along behind. He forgot his tomatoes.
8
When I emerged onto Wisconsin Avenue with a shopping bag full of groceries I found A, B, and C waiting for me. They stood in a cluster at the crosswalk like so many high school boys meeting on the corner. All three stared boldly at me, letting me know that they had testosterone to burn and no friendly intent. I joined them at the curb and waited for the DON’T WALK sign to change. With his eyes fixed on the traffic signal, A said, “Take a good look at the crowd.”
“What am I looking for?”
“Try ethnic characteristics.”
Across the street I saw three Middle Eastern types, one of them talking into a cell phone. A bit farther down the avenue, another one was talking into his cell phone. I assumed they were talking to each other and perhaps to others elsewhere in the crowd. Then I saw them everywhere I looked. It was like quitting time at the mosque. It was hard to believe, but it looked like I was being swarmed. This was an unexpected compliment. An exercise of this kind, called waterfall surveillance in the jargon, is very, very expensive and can also be seen as an admission of defeat on the part of the people who are watching you. Waterfall surveillance involves walking right at the target face to face and making eye contact instead of sneaking along behind in the usual way. It requires a small army of agents, all targeted on a single person who would, of course, have to be blind and stupid not to understand what was happening.
The whole idea is that the victim does understand what is happening, that he cannot fail to understand. The objective is to make a show of intimidation, to spoil the day if not the life of someone you know to be a bad guy but who for one reason or another you cannot neutralize by the usual dirty tricks. Unless you want to keep this up for the rest of the subject’s life and bust your budget, the idea is to scare him so badly on day one that he’ll go into another line of work or flee the country. Or if you’re really upset, you can kill or maim him when you’re through playing big cat, little mouse with him. Was this some sort of zany Outfit operation? It seemed unlikely, but we were living in a new age with a new ethic and it was entirely possible that the people of the new Outfit had become what Hollywood and the media and academia had relentlessly taught the young the old Outfit always was—a ruthless outlaw agency staffed by homicidal maniacs.
Waterfall surveillance works most efficiently in deserted neighborhoods where the target can clearly see his adversaries and wonder when the fear in his heart is going to be extinguished by a bullet. However, this was a Friday evening in upper Georgetown, the day and hour when young people with money in their pockets, educated voices and radiant smiles hit the bars and restaurants. Apart from the ones with beards and angry eyes, these kids looked and sounded like a convention of Kevins. This was not the sort of crowd into which I could disappear. Of course, neither could the other guys. However, this was America, not Xinjiang or Russia, and all was not lost—at least not yet. Rescue was possible, at least in theory. I could call the police and tell them exactly what was happening. In that case the cops would have taken me to St. Elizabeth’s, the local loony bin, for a night of observation, and I would have been inaccessible—not such a bad outcome. What I needed was sanctuary, a place where my enemies could not enter. It was next to impossible to elude them, but I might be able to confuse them, if only for the fraction of a minute I needed to slip out of the net.
The light had not changed. It was rush hour and cars had the right-of-way, so the signal was set for a long, long pause. A and his friends still stood beside me. Still gazing fixedly at the DON’T WALK sign, lips barely moving, A muttered, “Like we told you, you’ve got problems. And there’s not a thing we can do to help you.”
“I was thinking of calling the cops.”
“Nothing they could do. These guys haven’t done anything except stand on the sidewalk and talk on the phone. It’s a free country.”
Ah, was that the problem?
Still, I had certain advantages. Tactically, this was a bad place to execute a waterfall surveillance because we were in the middle of a steep hill and there were no cross streets for a couple of blocks in either direction. The way an operation like this works is that the operatives walk past the subject, turn into the first cross street, jump into a waiting car or van, and are ferried two or three blocks in the direction in which the subject is walking. Then they hit the sidewalk again and walk right at the poor fellow, making awful faces. This is great fun if you have the temperament for it.
My advantages were these: (1) I knew where I was going and my tormentors did not; (2) my pursuers stood out in this crowd at least as much as I did; (3) it was getting dark fast; and (4) I do have the temperament for it.
Needless to say I wasn’t thinking as sequentially as this suggests. The moment I’ve just taken such pains to describe was just that— a moment. What I did next I did without conscious thought. The only nanosecond in which it’s possible to escape the waterfall is the first one, before you are swept over the edge. So far all the thugs I had spotted were downhill from me. My house was only a few blocks in that direction. Evidently these people were thick-headed enough to assume that I was human enough to head for home.
Looking uphill, the only way out, I saw a Metro bus approaching and people waiting for it half a block away on the opposite side of Wisconsin Avenue. The signal clicked at last and changed to WALK. I charged into traffic even before it stopped. It took about thirty seconds—though of course I remember all this in slo-mo—to dash across the street and leapt through the door of the bus just before it closed behind me with a whoosh and the vehicle lurched into motion. Along with a couple of other people who also had not had time to find seats, I fought for balance. I had never before in my life been on a Metro bus, and I had no idea where it was headed or what the fare was or how to pay it. A motherly Haitian woman wearing a maid’s uniform under her coat helped me count out the change as the bus rolled down the avenue, gathering speed with every turn of the wheels.
I rode the bus to M Street. No gorillas got aboard at either of the two stops in between, maybe because they were all pointed in the other direction and had to be reprogrammed. Leaving my groceries on an empty seat and hoping the Haitian lady would take them home with her, I exited by the rear door, jumped into a taxi that already had two witnesses in the backseat—sharing taxis is a quaint old Washington custom—and asked the Punjabi driver to take me to the club.
He turned out to be a natural-born getaway driver. While he weaved in and out of traffic and jumped red lights, we chatted about his cousins, half a dozen of whom were also cabdrivers in the District of Columbia. Finally he made a hard left turn across traffic, tires squealing, and sped into the club’s circular drive and dropped me at the door. I didn’t even have to cross the sidewalk. I gave him a handsome tip, walked into the foyer, and was as safe from my enemies as one of Dumas’s noble fugitives in the Cathedral of Notre-Dame. None could enter here except members and their guests, and nobody I had met so far this evening had much chance of being nominated for membership—or, for that matter, even being invited to lunch.
Happily—this seemed to be my lucky day—the front desk had just received a cancellation from someone who had booked one of the larger upstairs bedrooms for the weekend, so I was able to move right in. This had many advantages besides a comfortable bed, unlimited clean towels, and a shelf of unrea
dable books written by members. Chief among these was an unbugged telephone, safe to use at least for the time being.
I immediately called Zarah and described my circumstances. I invited her to lunch at the club the next day. Zarah accepted calmly. There was no need to explain to her that it wasn’t wise just now for me to go to her house. This would likely remain the case until the present excitement faded away. The way things were going, this might not happen in my lifetime.
9
“I’m finding it mind-boggling,” Zarah said.
“The fatwa?”
“No,” she said. “The job you asked me to do.”
We were seated at a small table in an alcove of the club dining room. I was conscious that Zarah wore no perfume and realized for the first time that she never had. She smelled of skin and hair, scrubbed teeth, the wool of her dress, the leather of her shoes, the tang of metal polish on the handsome Arabian silver belt that she wore.
“You’re finding the translation difficult?” I asked.
“No, Lori’s translation is in words that cannot possibly be misunderstood,” Zarah said. “But it’s disorienting to read a fifth Gospel that sounds like it was written by an investigative journalist. This man Septimus Arcanus has his own slant on the miracles. He sees them as a series of pranks cooked up by Roman case officers. He’s laughing at these dupes.”
“Does he describe Roman purposes in running this operation?”
“In the clearest possible terms. The Israelite priesthood was a thorn in the side of the Roman governor, fomenting unrest. The Romans wanted to put the priests in their debt so they could control them. So they manufactured a threat to their authority, namely one Joshua ben Joseph, financed the mischief he made, and then made the problem go away by crucifying him.”
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