Exposure

by Alan Russell

“I doubt it. When you got in bed with me earlier the only thing I could think of was sleeping.”

  “That was then, this is now.”

  “I like the way you think.”

  He had a broken arm, and a host of cuts that were bandaged, stitched, and sutured. His lips looked like discolored sausages that wouldn’t have passed muster at even the most dubious slaughterhouse. His head felt like it had been used as an anvil to a hammer.

  None of that mattered. He was still instantly aroused.

  “Does this hurt?” she asked, kissing one of his wounds.

  “I’ll need more than one kiss to be sure.”

  Lanie’s gentle kisses traveled along his chest.

  Graham murmured, “Don’t stop, Florence Nightingale.”

  But she did, pausing long enough to take off her clothes.

  He looked at her, sighed happily, and said, “I think my heart just stopped again.”

  “Then it’s time to do CPR.”

  She did some gentle straddling to get atop him, then did her best to position herself without adding to his injuries.

  “You sure this is CPR?” asked Graham.

  “Are you complaining?”

  “God no.”

  Lanie started moving up and down. The pleasure more than compensated for the pain.

  “Porcupines,” gasped Graham.

  Her breath was short as well: “Porcupines?”

  “When they make love, they have to do it very carefully.”

  This time he slept deeply, and when Graham awoke he didn’t feel quite as panicked.

  “How long was I out this time?”

  “About three hours.”

  “It must be late.”

  “It is.”

  “Did you sleep again?”

  “I’m ashamed to say that I did. But for the last hour or so I’ve been watching you.”

  “Which did you like better? My drooling or my snoring?”

  “Too hard to choose.”

  “I shouldn’t have slept so much.”

  “Why not?”

  “We need to think through our situation. Figure out what to do. I should have made calls. I need to know what happened to Pierre Thierry. He was supposed to contact the Agency and tell them about his Citroën, the assassination attempt, and Hans Jaeger. In case I didn’t make it, I wanted them to know they had a rogue agent.”

  “The Gray Man.”

  “I never said anything about you and Tennesson. And I never told Thierry I was in the accident in the tunnel. I made it sound like I was investigating their missing car.”

  “That’s what has shackled us from the beginning,” Lanie said.

  “What?”

  “Our secrets. They’ve paralyzed us from acting.”

  “Manslaughter and sexpionage,” Graham said.

  Sexpionage. The word made Lanie feel tawdry and cheap and stupid. “It wasn’t that way,” she said.

  “But it would have been made to appear that way for both of us.”

  “Why didn’t Thierry report his car stolen?”

  “Because by doing that, the biggest magnifying glass in the world would have turned on him, and he was sure his CIA connection would be exposed. Thierry was comfortable with being a retired diplomat in his own country. He didn’t want to be known as a quisling.”

  “How did Thierry get a replacement car?”

  “He called Walter Carey, the field agent who originally recruited him. A few days later, an identical Citroën appeared in their garage. Thierry said it was a hush-hush operation. He said Carey took care of the problem unofficially. It’s possible the CIA didn’t know about it. Or maybe they did. It was just a fluke that I borrowed a car from owners who wanted their past to remain anonymous.”

  Lanie said, “Carey might be the Gray Man.”

  “Carey is dead.”

  She shook her head in frustration. “Another dead end. But there still has to be some kind of trail. You can’t hide an operation like this.”

  “Can’t you? Jaeger didn’t think it was over. I doubt the Gray Man does either. That means our lives are still in jeopardy.”

  “I still don’t understand why he did all of this.”

  “To gain the ultimate blackmail on the next president.”

  “We can’t let that happen.”

  “No, we can’t. We need to put a face to the Gray Man. It’s possible I saw him and didn’t even know it.”

  “Where?”

  “New York City. He might have been right next to me when he shot down Monroe. But why did he leave me alive? It doesn’t make sense.”

  Graham sighed. He had to give up on that mystery for the moment. “Where did you park the catering truck?” he asked.

  “About a mile away.”

  “Too close,” Graham said.

  “For the Gray Man?”

  Graham shook his head and smiled. “The more immediate threat is the paparazzi. No one’s better at discovering love nests.”

  “Is that what this is? A love nest?”

  “It sure is.”

  “I better call Tina. She can drive the truck to Westwood or Santa Monica. That ought to throw the paparazzi off the trail.”

  Tina had driven in the catering truck and posed as the original vendor. She and Lanie had switched clothing at the hospital. Outside scrutiny had started and finished with the colorful bandana. No one noticed the cart was more weighted down coming out than going in.

  Tina picked up Lanie’s call on the first ring. She had been waiting to hear from her, and started talking immediately. From Lanie’s expression, Graham could tell she didn’t like what she was hearing.

  As Lanie hung up the phone, Graham asked, “What?”

  “We have to leave. Government agents swept down on the hospital just after we left. They questioned everybody and were upset at our absence.”

  “I’ll call a cab. We’ll rent a car.”

  “Where will we go?”

  “We’ll figure that out once we are on the road.”

  “Is it possible all those agents are working for the Gray Man? Could it be that large of a conspiracy?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The dispatcher told Graham the cab would be there in fifteen minutes. In obvious pain, Graham left the bed and made his way to the window. He cracked the curtain and looked around. There was no activity outside.

  The time passed in silence. Every minute the tension built exponentially. Graham kept peering out from behind the curtain. He saw a few motel guests, or what looked like guests. Nothing else caught his attention. Finally, they heard the sound of a motor outside. Graham sneaked another look.

  “The cab,” he said.

  They walked outside. As they approached the cab, Gray Men appeared on all sides. There were six of them, all wearing identical dark suits.

  “Say nothing,” Graham yelled to Lanie. “Get a lawyer.”

  He was being optimistic. It was possible the men were there to kill them, not arrest them.

  Two cars pulled in behind the cab. Lanie resisted, but to no avail. She was bodily lifted in the air, a man on each side. Her yelling was abruptly silenced as she was stowed in one of the cars.

  Though he was obviously incapacitated, Graham was still held while being frisked. One of the agents tapped on his cast. When he was satisfied Graham wasn’t holding a weapon, he said, “This way.”

  Graham disappeared into the waiting car.

  CHAPTER

  FIFTY-THREE

  “What do you know about Graham Wells, Ms. Byrne?”

  Her interrogator attempted a smile. Bad mistake. He wasn’t good at it. The man had identified himself as James Finn. Lanie thought his name was appropriate. Shark fin, dorsal fin. He had that look, hungry and rapacious. Finn kept encouraging
her to call him Jim. Lanie hadn’t.

  “He’s a paparazzo.”

  “Sometimes people use their professions as a cover.”

  “Are you saying that’s what Graham does?”

  “I’m just asking how well you know him.”

  “I haven’t known him long.”

  “Did he ever mention the name Jefferson Monroe to you?”

  “I am not going to answer that question.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I don’t want to. It’s probably the kind of question a lawyer would advise me not to answer. In fact, I would like to talk to my lawyer now.”

  “We’re not adversaries, Ms. Byrne. In fact, I think you are very talented. I enjoy your work very much. But people like Wells have a talent for taking advantage of people.”

  “How did he take advantage of me?”

  “If you can tell us about all your dealings with him, we can be more forthcoming with our suspicions.”

  “I’d like a lawyer.”

  “That’s your right, Ms. Byrne, but I think you should consider carefully before taking an adversarial position against us.”

  “You’re not giving me a choice.”

  “On the contrary, we are extending an olive branch to you. It’s Mr. Wells we are interested in. Cooperating with us is to your benefit.”

  “How so?”

  “You scratch our back, we’ll scratch yours.”

  “It’s hard to imagine which would be more repugnant to me.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, Ms. Byrne. I was hoping to offer you amnesty, but instead we might have to see you charged as an accessory to murder.”

  Lanie didn’t react, didn’t say anything. The shark moved closer, excited by blood.

  “Do you know we found a body at your Ojai property?”

  “Where is this going?” Lanie asked.

  “That all depends on you.” Finn paused, pretended to be listening to something. “Hear that?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “It’s the sound of a career flushing down a toilet. We leak news of the body to the press, and you go from diva to deviate. You take the O. J. Simpson elevator down, down, down.”

  “Do you practice this bad dialogue or does it come naturally?”

  “Maybe you’re too used to movie talk, Ms. Byrne. This is real. There’s a big difference. Prison can give you a lot of leisure time to see that difference.”

  “Are you charging me with a crime?”

  “That’s not my charter, ma’am. That’s police work. And you know what, something tells me the police still don’t know about that body.”

  She heard the unsaid enticement: and they might never know. But for a price.

  “Why are you so interested in Graham? He’s been a victim in all of this. We both have.”

  “Some victims are innocent. Others ask to be a victim because of their activities. We have had Mr. Wells on our radar for quite a while. We believe he has worked closely with the Russian mob for some time.”

  Lanie laughed. “You’ve got to be kidding. He’s a celebrity photographer.”

  “What better front to have? Wells traveled the world, and wherever he went, he met with the mob. We think he was a middleman between Jefferson Monroe and New World Financial to Ivan Proferov, a well-known Russian gangster. The three of them were seen meeting together on two different occasions.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  “It’s documented. Your Mr. Wells is very, very dirty. During his time in the Baltics, he saw to the establishment of a drug pipeline. He was also an active participant in an elaborate money-laundering scheme. It was all perfect for him until there was a falling-out among the thieves. Proferov was the first casualty.”

  “You’re crazy.”

  “Am I? What do you really know about Graham Wells?”

  That I love him, Lanie wanted to say. That he saved my life.

  But the truth of the matter was that she knew very little about Graham.

  Two of them took turns with Graham. At the onset of the interview, they had introduced themselves, but Graham didn’t remember their names. They looked alike—both were white, with dark hair, impassive, even generic faces, and thin, bloodless lips. Neither man perspired. Not a single drop. It was almost as if they didn’t have sweat glands. Their eyes were reptilian and hard; one pair blue, the other pair brown. That’s how Graham thought of them: Blue and Brown.

  And when you combined blue and brown you got gray. The Gray Men.

  Blue said, “Your best chance is to make a deal with us.”

  “I’m trying to do that. You just don’t want to hear that you have a rotten agent.”

  “But you don’t seem to want to provide any details,” said Brown.

  That’s because there were implications to anything Graham said. He couldn’t talk about being blackmailed, because that would involve Lanie. And he had to skirt around Paris to save himself.

  “Everything started in Paris,” Graham said. “Like I told you, somebody took Thierry’s Citroën. That was the car involved in the accident that took Le Croc’s and Lady Godwin’s lives. Thierry contacted his former CIA handler, and he came through with a substitute Citroën that looked the same.”

  Blue: “And how were you involved in all of this?”

  “I heard the rumor about their Citroën, and was trying to track it down.”

  Even to Graham, his answer sounded lame. He tried a little harder: “On good authority, I know where the Citroën was dumped. I told Thierry to tell you that. I told him to have you check out the spot.”

  “We did,” said Brown. “There was no car.”

  “You must have missed it.”

  Brown shook his head. “We checked very thoroughly.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “Why do you say that?” asked Brown.

  Because I pushed the car over the cliff, Graham thought. But he didn’t confess that. He couldn’t.

  “Thierry’s a witness. He told you his car was missing.”

  “And then it turned up again.”

  “Someone substituted for it.”

  “They did a heck of a job then. The vehicle identification number matches. We’re satisfied the Citroën is the original.”

  How could that be? Graham wracked his mind for an explanation. Either there were others in the cabal, or the Gray Man had salvaged the Citroën and removed parts from it. All he would have needed were a few parts to make the substitution look like the original car.

  The Gray Man had apparently gone to great lengths to make Graham look guilty. There had to be holes in his being set up, though. There had to be.

  “How do you explain the attempts on my life?” Graham asked.

  “We were hoping you would explain them,” said Blue. “How well do you know Hans Jaeger?”

  “I didn’t even know his name until I tracked it down in Berlin. He hired Bernd to kill me in Paris. Pierre Thierry told your people that, didn’t he? And you did interview Bernd, right?”

  “Bernd’s disappeared,” said Blue.

  “We’re afraid he might be dead,” said Brown. “Bodies seem to follow wherever you go. You killed Jaeger, didn’t you?”

  Graham didn’t know whether they were fishing or whether they knew.

  “Why do you think that?”

  “Because we found his body,” said Blue. “It appears the two of you had a bit of a falling-out.”

  “Take a look at me. I had no choice.”

  “Why did you go to New York?” asked Brown.

  “I was following Hans Jaeger’s trail and trying to see where it led. That’s how I stumbled onto the New World Financial connection.”

  Both Brown and Blue had thick folders in front of them. Each took turns opening their folder and surrep
titiously reading from various papers in them. They looked like men holding royal flushes.

  “New World Financial,” said Brown. “Yes, that does interest us.”

  “As does Jefferson Monroe,” said Blue. “The New York City police have a composite sketch of Monroe’s murderer. A dozen people saw the man who killed him. Does this face look familiar to you?”

  From his folder, Blue brought out the sketch. Graham eagerly leaned forward. He thought he would be looking at the Gray Man. Instead, he saw a drawing that looked amazingly like himself.

  Too late, Graham realized why the Gray Man hadn’t killed him. He had been too busy setting him up.

  “I was there when Monroe died,” Graham said, “but I didn’t shoot him.”

  Blue said, “Were you afraid he was going to bring you down? Or did you do the hit for the mob?”

  “The mob?”

  Brown tapped the thick folder. “It’s all here, Wells. Your meetings. Who you saw and when. Your activities.”

  “I snap pictures.”

  Brown said, “You’ve worked for the Russian mob for years.”

  “That’s crazy.”

  “Part of our job is watching the flow of drugs and weapons. You were caught in our web.”

  “Someone’s been feeding you misinformation.”

  Graham desperately tried to think. The web had been carefully constructed. The first plan had been for Jaeger to kill him. That meant this was the default plan. How long had the Gray Man been building a case against him? Probably from the first. He would have hedged his bet. This was his insurance, his contingency plan.

  “When your field agents submit a report,” said Graham, “I imagine there’s a protocol that shows time and date.”

  “We’re asking you the questions,” said Blue.

  “Someone in your agency has made a convincing case against me. They placed the fiction neatly with the facts. I imagine they were tracking me through credit card expenditures or maybe real surveillance. I was in places where innocence could easily be shrouded in guilt. I need to know something about your protocol.”

  Brown relented. “Reports are submitted in timely fashion. They are logged in.”

  “And can those reports be subsequently changed?”

  Brown shook his head. “Not without our knowing.”