by David Lender
“Please, don’t ask me more. You wouldn’t want to know me if I told you everything. At least leave me my dignity.”
“Stop this. Now.”
“I have to go. I’ll pack my bags and get out of here.”
“No. I’m not letting you. Particularly not if you’re in danger. You’re staying right here. We’ll figure this out together.” Daniel heard the command in his voice. Now he wondered what she’d done that made her say he wouldn’t want to know her. Wondered what he could do about her situation. Trying to reason it out. At least get the right questions framed. One, just one mental step at a time.
“You can’t figure it out!” She moved her face to within inches from his, and he could see the hopelessness in her eyes. “You just run from it. Constantly. These people are crazy.”
“I said we’ll figure it out.” Daniel felt a shock of urgency. “But the first step is, you need to tell me the whole truth. Who are you and what’s going on?”
She threw her arms around him. “Oh God, just hold me.”
BOOK 4
CHAPTER 23
AUGUST, TWENTY-ONE YEARS AGO. NICE, France. Tom Goddard had invented himself, years earlier, Jay Gatsby style, on a Greyhound bus from Troy, Michigan, to New York City. Thinking that made Tom smile. He supposed that made him the ultimate spook: even his own past was made up. He went back further into his bio, killing time, thinking he was good at it, because that’s what he did. Lots of time to kill. Cops on stakeout ate donuts; Tom thought about things. Smoked cigars. Thought about politics, like why the al-Mujari kooks he was working in Nice did what they did. He’d tracked Abdul and Waleed here, and now watched their involvement with Ibrahim, but still didn’t have much more than what he knew when he arrived two months earlier: Muslim fundamentalist group with terrorist ties fomenting Saudi dissent, all stewed in the pressure-cooker of the increasing gap between the royals and the average Saudi shlub. He thought about things like that and smoked cigars, and watched.
He was watching for his mark, the black-haired girl. He figured she’d see him if she came out, realize he was looking for her. He knew from his conversations with Nigel, and those he’d overheard the other night, she wasn’t stupid. And she was pretty well primed. All he needed to do was see if he could get her to open up. He sat on the patio of the Sea Wall Cafe and Lounge at the Baron David de Duval Hotel. It was a typically gorgeous day in Nice. The air smelled of sweet flowers, the pungent Mediterranean dirt and dried vegetation. A cool breeze on the hill where the Baron David sat offset the sweltering midsummer Mediterranean heat. A few guests populated some of the tables. He could hear the clinking of glasses and the rattle of silverware as the waiters prepared the tables for lunch.
He saw a midfiftiesh man wearing a silk Hawaiian shirt, tan slacks that drooped in the ass, and cheesy-looking perforated shoes walk out to a table with a leggy brunette on his arm. He thought for a half second it was the black-haired girl. Girl was maybe twenty-five, with pushed-up breasts and a great ass but it wasn’t her. She also wasn’t this guy’s daughter. Guy kind of slithering into the tan canvas seat like he had a herniated disk. Probably Miss Boobs-in-Your-Face worked him over. You knew the only reason she was with an old fart like that—ugly, too—had to do with his solid gold Rolex.
He’d need to kill more time, so he went back further in his bio to where he was born Terrance Godchaux, in Flint, Michigan, the son of a plumber and a cocktail waitress. His own undistinguished high school career, playing second-string tight end in football, no chance of a scholarship to college. His mother constantly having “friends” over, then him realizing it’s for money, his father not doing anything about it and—Jesus, enough already, I’m out of here—and off to the Greyhound station with one bag and only a copy of Gatsby, of all things, and by the time he’s to New York, Tom Goddard had been created. Tom summoned a waiter and had a plate of the Baron David’s Famous Nicoise Salad with Seductive Anchovy-Vinaigrette Dressing. That killed another forty-five minutes.
After getting to New York, Tom Goddard wanders around for a while, waits on tables, manages two years at SUNY, then a degree in Political Science at NYU. He gets recruited by the CIA directly out of undergraduate school. That he’d lied on his application was a plus. The recruiting head for New York thought it showed an enterprising nature, and pursued Tom aggressively. After four years as a junior intelligence operative in home base in Langley, he moved around. Costa Rica. England. Israel. Saudi Arabia.
A bony kid, maybe twenty-five, strutted out toward a table behind the maître d’, a tall dark-haired girl following him, print sundress, yellow with green flowers, thin legs with a nice tan. Nope, not her either. This one’s wearing mirrored sunglasses, must be pissed at the kid because she’s staring straight ahead after they sit down, not moving her head or saying anything while the kid has the sinews in his neck standing out, talking at her while he looks at his menu, talks at her now while the fat busboy pours water, still talks at her as she gets up and walks back into the hotel.
Sasha looked toward the dining area at a tall girl in a print dress and mirrored sunglasses, her jaw set as if in anger, walking briskly toward her. She focused over the girl’s shoulder and felt her pulse pick up. It was the scruffy American. He was seated at a table, lounging with his cigar. He wore a rumpled cotton shirt with a few buttons to just above his chest hairs, and characteristically wrinkled Bermuda-type shorts and sandals. Only his farm-boy blond hair was trimly in place like he’d just walked off a movie set. What was he doing here? She doubted if it was a coincidence. Yes, she wanted to talk to him. She lowered her eyes, stepped forward and, yes, he saw her. She walked toward a table under an umbrella near the wall. Directly in his line of sight in case he needed encouragement. She settled herself in the chair, behind her sunglasses, watching, as he flicked the ash off his cigar. Yes, she’d wait before going to Yassar, until she knew more. She’d watch Ibrahim, see what Nigel, and perhaps this scruffy American knew, then go to Yassar.
Now, at thirty-five, Tom Goddard was a Station Chief based in Riyadh running fifteen agents in Saudi Arabia…he was going on in his head, then: Ah, there she is. He flicked his ash off his cigar and stood up. The black-haired girl walked in and sat down underneath an umbrella, looking out from behind big round sunglasses. Tanned skin, sandals, blue bikini showing through a white cotton beach cover-up barely down to her ass—a fine ass at that.
Good, Sasha thought, seeing the scruffy American stand. He sauntered without even trying to appear nonchalant, heading toward her with a smile of recognition as if he were going to say something silly like “We meet again.” He reached her table. He wasn’t bad looking if one got past the wrinkled pants and shirt. The sandy hair was something out of a Midwestern high school yearbook and he had blue, blue eyes that almost looked like they weren’t real. She guessed he was about six feet tall, and he had athletic, broad shoulders that even the baggy shirt couldn’t hide. He appeared to be in his midthirties.
“Hi,” he said. “I’m Tom Goddard. We’ve met before. Once or twice at parties.”
Meeting implies being introduced. You observed me. Or listened in, rather I should say. “Yes, I recognize you. I remember you and Nigel were intensely engaged on the Christina a few weeks back.” She took her glasses off, wanting to seem approachable, to make sure he sat down. Yes, of course she was going to invite him to lunch with her.
“Are you alone?” he asked.
“Not if you’ll join me.” He pulled the chair back and sat down. “I’m Sasha,” she said, extending her hand. They shook. She was observing his eyes carefully. They were more than blue, impossibly blue, and she imagined that if she hadn’t seen so many, hadn’t lived the life she had, they could induce her to tell him things. “One of the idle rich of Nice, or just visiting?” Sasha asked. Not too casually, she wanted to make sure he knew she had an agenda, so this wouldn’t be a waste of time. Besides, he’d come over to her table anyhow. He probably had his own agenda, and she doubted it involved try
ing to pick her up. After all, he’d seen her with Ibrahim, knew their connection.
He chuckled like it wasn’t something he was used to doing. “Neither. Just here on business.” She imagined most women found him quite fetching.
“I’m surprised. Seems you fit right in, at the parties I mean. I met your friend Nigel on the Staid Matron a few nights ago. I saw you there too. What is it you two are up to?”
He heard it without blinking. “I don’t know what you mean. I just met Nigel myself this year.”
Oh, come on now. This man could get annoying. She looked at him skeptically, but he either didn’t pick up on it or wasn’t acknowledging it. “Really? I’ve seen the two of you locked in such conspiratorial conversations all summer.”
“Oh, that. We share certain political views.”
Politics. Exactly. “Judging by my conversation with Nigel I guess they have to do with what’s happening in Saudi Arabia.”
“You might say that. It’s part of my beat anyhow.”
“Oh?” Yes, he was beginning to get annoying, coming over here and only wanting to pitter-patter with roundaboutness. What did he want?
“State Department. U.S. Embassy in Riyadh.”
Sasha allowed herself to smirk and made sure he saw it. Right. Got you pegged. Just happened to be here. A couple of spies, you and Nigel, I’ll bet. “I didn’t know U.S. State Department employees could afford vacations on private yachts in Nice.”
He repeated that infrequently used chuckle. “I’m on special assignment for some State Department business.”
“Oh?” I’ll bet. And just what are you snooping around about now?
“Agriculture. How to grow grapes in Saudi Arabia.”
She looked at him even more skeptically. Now certain he was seeing it and reacting to it, a bit defensive.
“Agriculture’s the second-fastest-growing industry in Saudi Arabia, believe it or not,” he explained. “It’s a big priority for the government.”
She was now bored with the chitchat. “Funny. I’ve never heard Yassar mention it.” That ought to get a rise out of you.
Tom remained serene. “Oh, you know him? He’s greatly admired. Very impressive.”
You aren’t going to ask me how I know him? He’d seen her with Ibrahim, but just being Ibrahim’s consort wouldn’t necessarily give her access to Yassar. Not the kind of woman one normally bothers to introduce to Father. No, this Goddard was intentionally sitting back. “Well, I’m ordering,” she said, with an edge in her voice. She motioned to a waiter. “I’d be grateful if you’d put out the cigar, now.” He’s definitely up to something. Holding out on me. So why the approach from Nigel, and the stonewall today? Who are these people?
Tom put his cigar in the ashtray and handed it to the waiter at the moment he walked up.
Sasha said, “I don’t need a menu, I’ll have the Nicoise salad, dressing on the side, and an iced tea.” She looked at Tom. “Will you be joining me for lunch?” she said, now with more than an edge, a curtness in her voice. “I’d recommend the Nicoise salad. It’s famous.”
“So I’ve heard.” He nodded to the waiter. “And a beer.”
She stared off over his shoulder now, telling herself to calm down. No sense in taking out her frustrations on some State Department functionary, since maybe that’s all he was anyhow. Have lunch with the unfortunate sot and be done with it.
Goddard leaned forward in his chair, the way she’d seen him do in those hushed conversations with Nigel. “I’m not intruding or anything, am I?”
Sasha felt her face flush with embarrassment for her impatience with him.
“You sure you wouldn’t like to be alone?” he said.
“To the contrary.” Now she was feeling guilty about her curtness. Maybe he was just trying to be friendly. Maybe he wasn’t up to anything, even if Nigel was. She sighed and felt the tightness in her shoulders. “I’m just a little tense today.”
She realized he was observing her. He was definitely thinking about something, poised on the edge of saying it. No, this chap was no dolt. He leaned back in his chair now, as if he were still luxuriating in his cigar, hand poised aloft as if cradling it. “That’s what Nigel said about the other night,” he said. There was an insinuation in his voice that told her that her initial instincts were correct.
She met his gaze, letting him know she wasn’t uncomfortable. “Go on,” she said. “What else did he say?”
He was silent, giving it more thought. Then he relaxed. He smiled now, with his entire face, accentuating the wrinkles at the corners of his mouth and eyes that gave him that rugged look. The real smile and not the stifled grin that had accompanied his earlier chuckles. “Just that you were tense,” he said. She knew he was holding back on her again, but sensed the recognition that passed between them, aware he knew he’d made contact, sent his message, however veiled, and that it had been received. She knew then he’d been testing her, whether it was to see if he could trust her, whatever, she didn’t know. But she knew she’d passed and she’d be hearing more from this Tom Goddard.
CHAPTER 24
AUGUST, TWENTY-ONE YEARS AGO. CAP Ferat, France. Tom sat in the dining room on the Staid Matron, anchored off Cap Ferat, killing time as usual, waiting for Nigel, his counterpart from British intelligence. Three generations of boredom had overcome Nigel and he’d joined the British Secret Service. Nigel was one of the few Brits Tom could rely on, and he’d done so throughout his career. And now he needed all the help he could get.
Waiting for Nigel to get back after seeing “where the hell his bloody waiter was.” He felt the boat sway incongruously in the blue-green water he’d noticed was almost perfectly calm as he’d motored out to the yacht. The scent of some fowl—sweet aromas accompanying, maybe citrus—being roasted in the galley intermingled with the pungent salt air. He looked at the hand-rubbed mahogany walls, heard the ice pop in his gin and tonic, then watched beads of sweat roll down the sides of a crystal highball glass. He picked it up, wiped the mahogany table with his hand and put the glass on the coaster.
Nigel came back. “You were saying?” he said.
“I think she may be ready to listen to us.”
Nigel nodded. “Got that sense in our latest chat.” He wore a yellow woven silk tie against a white cotton broadcloth shirt. His blue blazer, brass buttons with little anchors on them, was laid over the chair. Tom was listening and at the same time thinking that Nigel was probably the only guy in Nice on a boat this big wearing a tie. And today it had two dimples, right below the knot where he always had one, perfectly in the middle. Must’ve gotten dressed in a hurry.
Tom said, “She’s pretty twisted up inside.”
Nigel said, “Uhm, agreed. Senses she’s in a jam.”
Tom wondered if he should tell Nigel about the double dimple. But was that like telling a Brit he had bad breath? “Yeah, she mentioned Yassar. Wanted me to know she knows him.”
“And?”
“That may be our hook. All our checks say she’s almost like family with him.” Nigel nodded. Tom thought again about his conversation with John Franklin, his Section Head back in Langley. “Use her if you can but be careful,” Franklin had said. “Assume she likes things the way they are.” Tom didn’t think so, but he’d see.
“Ditto from Whitehall. Ari’s people in Tel Aviv as well.” A fiftyish waiter with sandy hair brought in a silver tray. Two goldedged bone china plates of Duck l’Orange. Hardly a roll-up-the-sleeves working lunch. Tom was thinking he’d be happier with a turkey sandwich when Nigel asked him, “Like some wine?”
“No thanks.” He held up his gin and tonic, saw Nigel glance down at the coaster, then the moist spot on the table. “Where is Ari?” Tom asked.
“Back in Saudi Arabia playing his role of Mosin Mahavandi, oil broker.”
Tom felt his juices start to flow. He thought about those bastards Abdul and Waleed, that nut who sent them, Sheik bin Abdur, Mr. Happy Face the Clown, the holy son of a bitch who at the
drop of a turban became an epithet-spewing lunatic.
“Okay, so where are we? You got anything new?”
“Nothing particularly new, just uhm, uhm, more confirmation of what we’ve had, some more clear links to the Sudan terrorist training camps. Although we do know the Sheik’s brother, rich bastard based in London, has been funding them. But he’s been bloody clever; no clear ties, at least no paper trails.” Nigel squinted as he talked, showed a mental toughness beneath that frail exterior, the tenacity Tom liked so much.
“We’ve got nobody inside,” Tom said. “Our guys were the ones who turned up Abdul and Waleed with Ibrahim at Harvard. Based on your guys linking them to him back in Saudi Arabia last year.” Tom felt impatience welling up inside him, and forced it back down. These al-Mujari bastards were getting to him, making him feel the old urgency he’d learned to restrain as a junior operative. “But still no luck in turning up any of the U.S. splinter terrorist cells they’re linked to.”
“Ari thinks he’s found three splinter organizations linked to them out his way, and we’ve got to have some in the UK if the Sheik’s brother’s there, but no luck uncovering them.”
Tom sighed. “So, add all that to the Sheik and his fundamentalist cronies sticking pins into the Saudi faithful to get them agitated about jobs, and what do we have? And now these guys trying to turn Ibrahim, not even being subtle enough to whisper, about returning the country to fundamentalist Muslim values. Sounds to me like the same deal we had in Iran after the Shah. A bunch of fundamentalist bastards drag the country back into the Stone Age, for who knows how long? So how much time we got in Saudi Arabia?” Tom felt his heart pump faster.
“Hard to say. I can tell you what we’re afraid of, old boy,” Nigel said. “They topple the Saudis and we’ve got precious little but the bloody Russians to look to for our oil.”