The Broker

by Grisham, John

  and they had copies of his dental records. Their specialists across town at the headquarters of Israel's Central Institute for Intelligence and Special Duties, better known as Mossad, had prepared excellent computer images of what Backman would look like now, six years after the world last saw him. There was a series of digital projections of Backman's face at a hefty 240 pounds, his weight when he pled guilty. And another series of Backman at 180, his rumored weight now. They had worked with his hair, leaving it natural, and predicting its color for a fifty-two-year-old man. They colored it black and red and brown. They cut it and left it longer. They put a dozen different pairs of glasses on his face, then added a beard, first a dark one, then a gray one.

  The Broker

  It all came back to the eyes. Study the eyes.

  Though Efraim was the leader of the unit, Amos had seniority. He had been assigned to Backman in 1998 when the Mossad first heard rumors of the JAM software that was being shopped around by a powerful Washington lobbyist. Working through their ambassador in Washington, the Israelis pursued the purchase of JAM, thought they had a deal, but were stiff-armed when Backman and Jacy Hubbard took their goods elsewhere.

  The selling price was never made known. The deal was never consummated. Some money changed hands, but Backman, for some reason, did not deliver the product.

  Where was it now? Had it ever existed in the first place?

  Only Backman knew.

  The six-year hiatus in the hunt for Joel Backman had given Amos ample time to fill in some gaps. He believed, as did his superiors, that the so-called Neptune satellite system was a Red Chinese creation; that the Chinese had spent a hefty chunk of their national treasury in building it; that they had stolen valuable technology from the Americans to do so; that they had brilliantly disguised the launching of the system and fooled US., Russian, and Israeli satellites; and that they had been unable to reprogram the system to override the software JAM had uploaded. Neptune was useless without JAM, and the Chinese would give up their Great Wall to get their hands on it and Backman.

  Amos, and Mossad, also believed that Farooq Khan, the last surviving member of the trio and the principal author of the software, had

  been tracked down by the Chinese and murdered eight months ago. Mossad was on his trail when he disappeared.

  They also believed the Americans were still not sure who built Neptune, and this intelligence failure was an ongoing, almost permanent embarrassment. American satellites had dominated the skies for forty years and were so effective they could see through clouds, spot a machine gun under a tent, intercept a wire transfer from a drug dealer, eavesdrop on a conversation in a building, and find oil under the desert with infrared imagery. They were vastly superior to anything the Russians had put up. For another system of equal or better technology to be designed, built, launched, and to become operational without the knowledge of the CIA and the Pentagon had been unthinkable.

  Israeli satellites were very good, but not as good as the Americans'. Now it appeared to the intelligence world that Neptune was more advanced than anything the United States had ever launched.

  These were only assumptions; little had been confirmed. The only copy of JAM had been hidden. Its creators were dead.

  Amos had lived the case for almost seven years, and he was thrilled to have a new kidon in place and was urgently making plans. Time was very short. The Chinese would blow up half of Italy if they thought Backman would end up in the rubble. The Americans might try and get him too. On their soil he was protected by their Constitution, with its layers of safeguards. The laws required that he be treated fairly then tucked away in prison and protected around the clock. But on the other side of the world he was fair game.

  Kidon had been used to neutralize a few wayward Israelis, but never at home. The Americans would do the same.

  Neal Backman kept his new, very thin laptop in the same old battered briefcase he hauled home every night. Lisa had not noticed it because he never took it out. He kept it close, always within a step or two.

  He changed his morning routine slightly. He'd bought a card from Jerry his Java, a fledgling coffee and doughnut chain that was trying to lure customers with fancy coffee and free newspapers, magazines, and wireless Internet access. The franchise had converted an abandoned drive-through taco hut at the edge of town, jazzed it up

  with funky decor, and in its first two months was doing a booming business.

  There were three cars in front of him at the drive-through window. His laptop was on his knees, just under the steering wheel. At the curb, he ordered a double mocha, no whipped cream, and waited for the cars in front to inch forward. He pecked away with both hands as he waited. Once online, he quickly went to KwyteMail. He typed in his user name-Grinchl23-then his pass phrase-post hoc ergo propter hoc. Seconds later there it was-the first message from his father.

  Neal held his breath as he read, then exhaled mightily and eased forward in line. It worked! The old man had figured it out!

  Quickly, he typed:

  Marco: Our messages cannot be traced. You can say anything you want, but it's always best to say as little as possible. Delighted you're there and out ofRudley. I'll go online each day at this time-at precisely 7:50 a.m. EST. Gotta run. Grinch

  He placed the laptop in the passenger seat, lowered his window, and paid almost four bucks for a cup of coffee. As he pulled away, he kept glancing at the computer to see how long the access signal would last. He turned onto the street, drove no more than two hundred feet, and the signal was gone.

  Last November, after Arthur Morgan's astounding defeat, Teddy Maynard began devising his Backman pardon strategy. With his customary meticulous planning, he prepared for the day when moles would leak the word of Backmans whereabouts.To tip the Chinese, and do so in a manner that would not arouse suspicion, Teddy began looking for the perfect snitch.

  Her name was Helen Wang, a fifth-generation Chinese American who'd worked for eight years at Langley as an analyst on Asian issues. She was very smart, very attractive, and spoke passable Mandarin Chinese. Teddy got her a temporary assignment at the State Department, and there she began cultivating contacts with diplomats from

  Red China, some of whom were spies themselves and most of whom were constantly on the prowl for new agents.

  The Chinese were notorious for their aggressive tactics in recruiting spies. Each year 25,000 of their students were enrolled in American universities, and the secret police tracked them all. Chinese businessmen were expected to cooperate with central intelligence when they returned home. The thousands of American companies doing business on the mainland were constantly monitored. Their executives were researched and watched. The good prospects were sometimes approached.

  When Helen Wang 'accidentally" let it slip that her background included a few years at the CIA, and that she hoped to return soon, she quickly had the attention of intelligence chiefs in Beijing. She accepted an invitation from a new friend to have lunch at a swanky D.C. restaurant, then dinner. She played her role beautifully, always reticent about their overtures but always reluctantly saying yes. Her detailed memos were hand delivered to Teddy after every encounter.

  When Backman was suddenly freed from prison, and it became apparent he'd been stashed away and would not surface, the Chinese put tremendous pressure on Helen Wang. They offered her $100,000 for information about his location. She appeared to be frightened by the offer, and for a few days broke off contact. With perfect timing, Teddy got her assignment at State canceled and called her back to Langley For two weeks she had nothing to do with her old friends undercover at the Chinese embassy.

  Then she called them and the payoff soon climbed to $500,000. Helen turned nasty and demanded II million, claiming that she was risking her career and her freedom and it was certainly worth more money than that. The Chinese agreed.

  The day after Teddy was fired, she called her handler and requested a secret meeting. She gave him a sheet of paper with wiring instructions t
o a bank account in Panama, one that was secretly owned by the CIA. When the money was received, she said, they would meet again and she would have the location of Joel Backman. She would also give them a recent photo of Joel Backman.

  The drop was a “brush by,” an actual physical meeting between mole and handler, done in such a way that no one would notice anything unusual. After work, Helen Wang stopped at a Kroger store in

  John u^u

  Bethesda. She walked to the end of aisle twelve, where the magazines and paperbacks were displayed. Her handler was loitering at the rack with a copy of Lacrosse Magazine. Helen picked up another copy of the same magazine and quickly slid an envelope into it. She flipped pages with passable boredom, then put the magazine back on the rack. Her handler was shuffling through the sports weeklies. Helen wandered away, but only after she saw him take her copy of Lacrosse Magazine.

  For a change, the cloak-and-dagger routine wasn't needed. Helens friends at the CIA weren't watching because they had arranged the drop. They'd known her handler for many years.

  The envelope contained one sheet of paper-an eight-by-ten color xerox photo of Joel Backman as he was apparently walking down the street. He was much thinner, had the beginnings of a grayish goatee, European-style eyeglasses, and was dressed like a local. Handwritten at the bottom of the page was: Joel Backman, Via Fondazza, Bologna, Italy. The handler gawked at it as he sat in his car, then he sped away to the embassy of the People his Republic of China on Wisconsin Avenue NW in Washington.

  At first the Russians seemed to have no interest in the whereabouts of Joel Backman. Their signals were read a variety of ways at Langley. No early conclusions were made, none were possible. For years the Russians had secretly maintained that the so-called Neptune system was one of their own, and this had contributed mightily to the

  confusion at the CIA.

  Much to the surprise of the intelligence world, Russia was managing to keep aloft about 160 reconnaissance satellites a year, roughly the same number as the former Soviet Union. Its robust presence in space had not diminished, contrary to what the Pentagon and the CIA

  had predicted.

  In 1999, a defector from the GRU, the Russian military's intelligence arm and successor to the KGB, informed the CIA that Neptune was not the property of the Russians. They had been caught off guard as badly as the Americans. Suspicion was focused on the Red Chinese, who were far behind in the satellite game.

  Or were they?

  The Russians wanted to know about Neptune, but they were not

  willing to pay for information about Backman. When the overtures from Langley were largely ignored, the same color photo sold to the Chinese was anonymously e-mailed to four Russian intelligence chiefs operating under diplomatic cover in Europe.

  The leak to the Saudis was handled through an executive of an American oil company stationed in Riyadh. His name was Taggett and he'd lived there for more than twenty years. He was fluent in Arabic and moved in the social circles as easily as any foreigner. He was especially close to a mid-level bureaucrat in the Saudi Foreign Ministry office, and over late-afternoon tea he told him that his company had once been represented by Joel Backman. Further, and much more important, Taggett claimed to know where Backman was hiding.

  Five hours later, Taggett was awakened by a buzzing doorbell. Three young gentlemen in business suits pushed their way into his apartment and demanded a few moments of his time. They apologized, explained that they were with some branch of the Saudi police, and really needed to talk. When pressed, Taggett reluctantly passed on the information he had been coached to disclose.

  Joel Backman was hiding in Bologna, Italy, under a different name. That was all he knew.

  Could he find out more? they asked.

  Perhaps.

  They asked him if he would leave the next morning, return to his company's headquarters in New York, and dig for more information about Backman. It was very important to the Saudi government and the royal family.

  Taggett agreed to do so. Anything for the king.

  Every year in May, just before Ascension Day, the people of

  Bologna march up the Colle della Guardia from the Saragozza gate, along the longest continuous arcade in the world, through all 666 arches and past all fifteen chapels, to the summit, to the Santuario di San Luca. In the sanctuary they remove their Madonna and proceed back down to the city, where they parade her through the crowded streets and finally place her in the Cathedral of San Pietro, where she stays for eight days until another parade takes her home. It's a festival unique to Bologna, and has gone on uninterrupted since 1476.

  As Francesca and Joel sat in the Santuario di San Luca, Francesca was describing the ritual and how much it meant to the people of Bologna. Pretty, but just another empty church as far as Marco was concerned.

  They had taken the bus this time, thus avoiding the 666 arches and the 3.6-kilometer hike up the hill. His calves still hurt from the last visit to San Luca, three days ago.

  She was so distracted by weightier matters that she was lapsing into English and didn't seem to realize it. He did not complain. When she finished with the festival, she began pointing to the interesting elements in the cathedral-the architecture and construction of the

  dome, the painting of the frescoes. Marco was fighting desperately to pay attention. The domes and faded frescoes and marble crypts and dead saints were all running together now in Bologna, and he caught himself thinking of warmer weather. Then they could stay outdoors and talk. They could visit the city's lovely parks and if she so much as mentioned a cathedral he would revolt.

  She wasn't thinking of warmer weather. Her thoughts were elsewhere.

  “You've already done that one,” he interrupted when she pointed at a painting above the baptistery.

  “I'm sorry. Am I boring you?”

  He started to blurt out the truth, but instead said, “No, but I've seen enough.”

  They left the sanctuary and sneaked around behind the church, to her secret pathway that led down a few steps to the best view of the city. The last snow was melting quickly on the red tiled roofs. It was the eighteenth of March.

  She lit a cigarette and seemed content to loiter in silence and admire Bologna. “Do you like my city?” she asked, finally.

  "Yes, very much.1'

  “What do you like about it?”

  After six years in prison, any city would do. He thought for a moment, then said, “It's a real city, with people living where they work. It's safe and clean, timeless. Things haven't changed much over the centuries. The people enjoy their history and they're proud of their accomplishments.”

  She nodded slightly, approving of his analysis. “I'm baffled by Americans,” she said. “When I guide them through Bologna they're always in a hurry, always anxious to see one sight so they can cross it off the list and move on to the next. They're always asking about tomorrow, and the next day. Why is this?”

  “I'm the wrong person to ask.”

  “Why?”

  “I'm Canadian, remember?”

  “You're not Canadian.”

  “No, I'm not. I'm from Washington.”

  "I've been there. I've never seen so many people racing around,

  going nowhere. I don't understand the desire for such a hectic life. Everything has to be so fast-work, food, sex."

  “I haven't had sex in six years.”

  She gave him a look that conveyed many questions. “I really don't want to talk about that.”

  “You brought it up.”

  She puffed on the cigarette as the air cleared. “Why haven't you had sex in six years?”

  “Because I was in prison, in solitary confinement.”

  She flinched slightly and her spine seemed to straighten. “Did you kill someone?”

  “No, nothing like that. I'm pretty harmless.”

  Another pause, another puff. “Why are you here?”

  “I really don't know.”

  “How long will you sta
y?”

  “Maybe Luigi can answer that.”

  “Luigi,” she said as if she wanted to spit. She turned and began walking. He followed along because he was supposed to. “What are you hiding from?” she asked.

  “It's a very, very long story', and you really don't want to know.”

  “Are you in danger?”

  “I think so. I'm not sure how much, but let's just say that I'm afraid to use my real name and I'm afraid to go home.”

  “Sounds like danger to me. Where does Luigi fit in?”

  “He's protecting me, I think.”

  “For how long?”

  “I really don't know.”

  “Why don't you simply disappear?”

  “That's what I'm doing now. I'm in the middle of my disappearance. And from here, where would I go? I have no money, no passport, no identification. I don't officially exist.”

  “This is very confusing.”

  “Yes. Why don't we drop it.”

  He glanced away for a second and did not see her fall. She was wearing black leather boots with low heels, and the left one twisted violently on a rock in the narrow pathway. She gasped and fell hard onto the walkway, bracing herself at the last second with both hands. Her

  purse flew forward. She shrieked something in Italian. Marco quickly knelt down to grab her.

  “It's my ankle,” she said, grimacing. Her eyes were already moist, her pretty face twisted in pain.

  He gently lifted her from the wet pathway and carried her to a nearby bench, then retrieved her purse. “I must've tripped,” she kept saying. “I'm sorry.” She fought the tears but soon gave up.

  “It's okay, it's okay,” Marco said, kneeling in front of her. “Can I touch it?”

  She slowly lifted her left leg, but the pain was too great.

  “Let's leave the boot on,” Marco said, touching it with great care.

  “I think it's broken,” she said. She pulled a tissue from her purse and wiped her eyes. She was breathing heavy and gritting her teeth. “I'm sorry.”

  “It his okay.” Marco looked around; they were very much alone. The bus up to San Luca had been virtually empty, and they had seen no one in the past ten minutes. “I'll, uh, go inside and find help.”