They wouldn't find him.
He drifted until he found himself at Piazza San Vito, a small square where two churches had been sitting for seven hundred years. The Santa Lucia and San Vito were both closed, but, according to the ancient brass plate, they would reopen from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. What kind of place closes from noon to four?
The bars weren't closed, just empty. He finally mustered the courage to sneak into one. He pulled up a stool, held his breath, and said the word “Birra” when the bartender got close.
The bartender shot something back, waited for a response, and for a split second Joel was tempted to bolt. But he saw the tap, pointed
at it as if it was perfectly clear what he wanted, and the bartender reached for an empty mug.
The first beer in six years. It was cool, heavy, tasty, and he savored every drop. A soap opera rattled from a television somewhere at the end of the bar. He listened to it from time to time, understood not a single word, and worked hard to convince himself that he could master the language. As he was making the decision to leave and drift back to his hotel, he looked through the front window.
Stennett walked by.
Joel ordered another beer.
The Backman affair had been closely chronicled by Dan
Sandberg, a veteran of The Washington Post. In 1998, he'd broken the story about certain highly classified papers leaving the Pentagon without authorization. The FBI investigation that soon followed kept him busy for half a year, during which he filed eighteen stories, most of them on the front page. He had reliable contacts at the CIA and the FBI. He knew the partners at Backman, Pratt & Boiling and had spent time in their offices. He hounded the Justice Department for information. He'd been in the courtroom the day Backman hurriedly pled guilty and disappeared.
A year later he'd written one of two books about the scandal. His sold a respectable 24,000 copies in hardback, the other about half of that.
Along the way, Sandberg built some key relationships. One in particular grew into a valuable, if quite unexpected, source. A month before Jacy Hubbard's death, Carl Pratt, then very much under indictment, as were most of the senior partners of the firm, had contacted Sandberg and arranged a meeting. They eventually met more than a dozen times while the scandal ran its course, and in the ensuing years
had become drinking buddies. They sneaked away at least twice year to exchange gossip.
Three days after the pardon story first broke, Sandberg called Pratt and arranged a meeting at their favorite place, a college bar near Georgetown University.
Pratt looked awful, as if he'd been drinking for days. He ordered vodka; Sandberg stuck with beer.
"So where's your boy?' Sandberg asked with a grin.
“He's not in prison anymore, that's for sure.” Pratt took a near lethal slug of the vodka and smacked his lips.
“No word from him?”
“None. Not me, not anyone at the firm.”
“Would you be surprised if he called or stopped by?”
“Yes and no. Nothing surprises me with Backman.” More vodka. “If he never set foot in D.C. again, I wouldn't be surprised. If he showed up tomorrow and announced the opening of a new law firm, I wouldn't be surprised.”
“The pardon surprised you.”
“Yes, but that wasn't Backman's deal, was it?”
“I doubt it.” A coed walked by and Sandberg gave her a look. Twice-divorced, he was always on the prowl. He sipped his beer and said, “He can't practice law, can he? I thought they yanked his license.”
“That wouldn't stop Backman. He'd call it 'government relations' or 'consulting' or something else. It's lobbying, that's his speciality, and you don't need a license for that. Hell, half the lawyers in this city couldn't find the nearest courthouse. But they can damned sure find Capitol Hill.”
“What about clients?”
“It's not gonna happen. Backman ain't coming back to D.C. Unless you've heard something different?”
“I've heard nothing. He vanished. Nobody at the prison is talking. I can't get a word from the penal folks.”
“What's your theory?” Pratt asked, then drained his glass and seemed poised for more.
“I found out today that Teddy Maynard went to the White House late on the nineteenth. Only someone like Teddy could squeeze it out of Morgan. Backman walked away, probably with an escort, and vanished.”
“Witness protection?”
“Something like that. The CIA has hidden people before. They have to. There's nothing official on the books, but they have the resources.”
“So why hide Backman?”
“Revenge. Remember Aldrich Ames, the biggest mole in CIA history?”
Sure.
“Now locked away securely in a federal pen. Don't you know the CIA would love to have a crack at him? They can't do it because it's against the law-they cannot target a US. citizen, either here or abroad.”
“Backman wasn't a CIA mole. Hell, he hated Teddy Maynard, and the feeling was very mutual.”
“Maynard won't kill him. He'll just set things up so someone else will have the pleasure.”
Pratt was getting to his feet. “You want another one of those?” he asked, pointing at the beer.
“Later, maybe.” Sandberg picked up his pint for the second time and took a drink.
When Pratt returned with a double vodka, he sat down and said, “So you think Backman's days are numbered?”
“You asked my theory. Let me hear yours.”
A reasonable pull on the vodka, then, “Same result, but from a slightly different angle.” Pratt stuck his finger in the drink, stirred it, then licked his finger, thinking for a few seconds. “Off the record, okay?”
“Of course.”They had talked so much over the years that everything was off the record.
“There was an eight-day period between Hubbard's death and Backman's plea. It was a very scary time. Both Kim Boiling and I were under FBI protection, around the clock, around the block, everywhere. Quite odd, really. The FBI was doing its best to send us to prison forever and at the same time felt compelled to protect us.” A sip, as he glanced around to see if any of the college students were eavesdropping. They were not. "There were some threats, some serious movements by the same people who killed Jacy Hubbard. The FBI de
briefed us later, months after Backman was gone and things settled down. We felt a bit safer, but Boiling and I paid armed security for two years afterward. I still glance in the rearview mirror. Poor Kim has lost his mind."
“Who made the threats?”
“The same people who'd love to find Joel Backman.”
“Who?”
“Backman and Hubbard had made a deal to sell their little product to the Saudis for a trainload of money. Very pricey, but far less than the cost of building a brand-new satellite system. The deal fell through. Hubbard gets himself killed. Backman hurries off to jail, and the Saudis are not happy at all. Neither are the Israelis, because they wanted to make a deal too. Plus, they were furious that Hubbard and Backman would deal with the Saudis.” He paused and took a drink, as if he needed the fortitude to finish the story. “Then you have the folks who built the system in the first place.”
“The Russians?”
“Probably not. Jacy Hubbard loved Asian girls. He was last seen leaving a bar with a gorgeous young leggy thing, long black hair, round face, from somewhere on the other side of the world. Red China uses thousands of people here to gather information. All their US. students, businessmen, diplomats, this place is crawling with Chinese who are snooping around. Plus, their intelligence service has some very effective agents. For a matter like this, they wouldn't hesitate to go after Hubbard and Backman.”
“You're sure it's Red China?”
“No one's sure, okay? Maybe Backman knows, but he never told anyone. Keep in mind, the CIA didn't even know about the system. They got caught with their pants down, and ol' Teddy's still trying to catch up.”
“Fun and games for Tedd
y, huh?”
“Absolutely. He fed Morgan a line about national security. Morgan, no surprise, falls for it. Backman walks. Teddy sneaks him out of the country, then watches to see who shows up with a gun. It's a no- lose game for Teddy.”
“It's brilliant.”
"It's beyond brilliant, Dan. Think about it. When Joel Backman
meets his maker, no one will ever know about it. No one knows where he is now. No one will know who he is when his body is found."
“If it's found.”
“Exactly.”
“And Backman knows this?”
Pratt drained the second drink and wiped his mouth with a sleeve. He was frowning. “Backman's not stupid by any measure. But a lot of what we know came to light after he went away. He survived six years in prison, he probably figures he can survive anything.”
Critz ducked into a pub not far from the Connaught Hotel in London. A light rain grew steadier and he needed a place to stay dry. Mrs. Critz was back at the small apartment that was on loan from their new employer, so Critz had the luxury of sitting in a crowded pub where no one knew him and knocking back a couple of pints. A week in London now with a week to go before he pushed himself back across the Atlantic, back to D.C. where he would take a miserable job lobbying for a company that made, among other hardware, defective missiles that the Pentagon hated but nonetheless would be forced to buy because the company had all the right lobbyists.
He found an empty booth, one partially visible through a fog of tobacco smoke, and wedged himself into it and settled in behind his pint. How nice it was to drink alone without the worry of being spotted by someone who would rush over and say, “Hey, Critz, what were you idiots thinking with that Berman veto?” Yakety-yaketyyak.
He absorbed the cheery British voices of neighbors coming and going. He didn't even mind the smoke. He was alone and unknown and he quietly reveled in his privacy.
His anonymity was not complete, however. From behind him a small man wearing a battered sailor's cap appeared and fell into the booth across the table, startling Critz.
“Mind if I join you, Mr. Critz?” the sailor said with a smile that revealed large yellow teeth. Critz would remember the dingy teeth.
“Have a seat,” Critz said warily. “You got a name?”
“Ben.” He wasn't British, and English was not his native tongue. Ben was about thirty, with dark hair, dark brown eyes, and a long pointed nose that made him rather Greek-looking.
“No last name, huh?” Critz took a sip from his glass and said, “How, exactly, do you know my name?”
“I know everything about you.”
“Didn't realize I was that famous.”
“I wouldn't call it fame, Mr. Critz. I'll be brief. I work for some people who desperately want to find Joel Backman. They'll pay serious money, cash. Cash in a box, or cash in a Swiss bank, doesn't matter. It can be done quickly, within hours. You tell us where he is, you get a million bucks, no one will ever know.”
ilHow did you find me?"
“It was simple, Mr. Critz. Were, let's say, professionals.”
“Spies?”
“It's not important. We are who we are, and we're going to find Mr. Backman. The question is, do you want the million bucks?”
“I don't know where he is.”
“But you can find out.”
“Maybe.”
“Do you want to do business?”
“Not for a million bucks.”
“Then how much?”
“I'll have to think about it.”
“Then think quickly.”
“And if I can't get the information?”
“Then we'll never see you again. This meeting never took place. It's very simple.”
Critz took a long pull on his pint and contemplated things. “Okay, let's say I'm able to get this information-I'm not too optimistic-but what if I get lucky? Then what?”
“Take a Lufthansa flight from Dulles to Amsterdam, first class. Check into the Amstel Hotel on Biddenham Street. We'll find you, just like we found you here.”
Critz paused and committed the details to memory. “When?” he asked.
“As soon as possible, Mr. Critz. There are others looking for him.”
Ben vanished as quickly as he had materialized, leaving Critz to peer through the smoke and wonder if he'd just witnessed a dream. He
left the pub an hour later, with his face hidden under an umbrella, certain that he was being watched.
Would they watch him in Washington too? He had the unsettling feeling that they would.
The siesta didn't work. The wine at lunch and the two after
noon
beers didn't help. There was simply too much to think about.
Besides, he was too rested; there was too much sleep in his system. Six years in solitary confinement reduces the human body to such a passive state that sleep becomes a principal activity. After the first few months at Rudley, Joel was getting eight hours a night and a hard nap after lunch, which was understandable since he'd slept so little during the previous twenty years when he was holding the republic together during the day and chasing skirts till dawn. After a year he could count on nine, sometimes ten hours of sleep. There was little else to do but read and watch television. Out of boredom, he once conducted a survey, one of his many clandestine polls, by passing a sheet of paper from cell to cell while the guards were themselves napping, and of the thirty-seven respondents on his block the average was eleven hours of sleep a day. Mo, the Mafia snitch, claimed sixteen hours and could often be heard snoring at noon. Mad Cow Miller registered the lowest at just three hours, but the poor guy had lost his mind years earlier and so Joel was forced to discount his responses to the survey.
There were bouts of insomnia, long periods of staring into the
darkness and thinking about the mistakes and the children and grandchildren, about the humiliation of the past and the fear of the future. And there were weeks when sleeping pills were delivered to his cell, one at a time, but they never worked. Joel always suspected they were nothing more than placebos.
But in six years there had been too much sleep. Now his body was well rested. His mind was working overtime.
He slowly got up from the bed where he'd been lying for an hour, unable to close his eyes, and walked to the small table where he picked up the cell phone Luigi had given him. He took it to the window, punched the numbers taped to its back, and after four rings he heard a familiar voice.
“Ciao, Marco. Come stai?”
“Just checking to see if this thing works,” Joel said.
“You think I'd give you a defective phone?” Luigi asked.
>lNo, of course not."
“How was your nap?”
“Uh, nice, very nice. I'll see you at dinner.”
“Ciao.”
Where was Luigi? Lurking nearby with a phone in his pocket, just waiting for Joel to call? Watching the hotel? If Stennett and the driver were still in Treviso, along with Luigi and Ermanno, that would add up to four “friends” of some variety assigned to keep tabs on Joel Backman.
He gripped the phone and wondered who else out there knew about the call. Who else was listening? He glanced at the street below and wondered who was down there. Only Luigi?
He dismissed those thoughts and sat at the table. He wanted some coffee, maybe a double espresso to get the nerves buzzing, certainly not a cappuccino because of the late hour, but he wasn't ready to pick up the phone and place an order. He could handle the “Hello” and the “Coffee,” but there would be a flood of other words he did not yet know.
How can a man survive without strong coffee? His favorite secretary had once brought forth his first cup of some jolting Turkish brew at exactly six-thirty every morning, six days a week. He'd almost married her. By ten each morning, the broker was so wired he was
throwing things and yelling at subordinates and juggling three calls at once while senators were on hold.
The flashback did
not please him. They seldom did. There were plenty of them, and for six years in solitary he'd waged a ferocious mental war to purge his past.
Back to the coffee, which he was afraid to order because he was afraid of the language. Joel Backman had never feared a damn thing, and if he could keep track of three hundred pieces of legislation moving through the maze of Congress, and if he could make one hundred phone calls a day while rarely looking at a Rolodex or a director}', then he could certainly learn enough Italian to order coffee. He arranged Ermanno's study materials neatly on the table and looked at the synopsis. He checked the batteries in the small tape player and fiddled with the tapes. The first page of lesson one was a rather crude color drawing of a family living room with Mom and Pop and the kids watching television. The objects were labeled in both English and Italian-door and porta, sofa and sofa, window and finestra, painting and quadro, and so on. The boy was ragazzo, the mother was madre, the old man teetering on a cane in the corner was the grandfather, or il nonno.
A few pages later was the kitchen, then the bedroom, then the bath. After an hour, still without coffee, Joel was walking softly around his room pointing and whispering the name of everything he saw: bed, letto; lamp, lampada; clock, orologio; soap, sapone. There were a few verbs thrown in for caution: to speak, parlare; to eat, mangiare; to drink, here; to think, pensare. He stood before the small mirror (specchio) in his bathroom (bagno) and tried to convince himself that he was really Marco. Marco Lazzeri. “Sono Marco, sono Marco,” he repeated. I am Marco. I am Marco. Silly at first, but that must be put aside. The stakes were too high to cling to an old name that could get him killed. If being Marco would save his neck, then Marco he was.
Marco. Marco. Marco.
He began looking for words that were not in the drawings. In his new dictionary he found carta igienica for toilet paper, guanciale for pillow, soffitto for ceiling. Everything had a new name, every object in his room, in his own little world, everything he could see at that moment became something new. Over and over, as his eyes bounced from one article to another, he uttered the Italian word.
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