“That’s what the Pisanis thought,” Hennesey said through another cloud of smoke. “They simply wanted to share in distribution and get a small import fee as a gesture of respect. It’s the way it should have been done.” Hennesey gave a few furious puffs on his pipe, sending up a billowing cloud that caused Piers to bat the air in front of his face.
“Sorry,” Hennesey said, setting the pipe in an ashtray. “Anyway, Montoya told them to get fucked, that he wanted the entire operation—no share, no respect money, nothing. And the war was on. So far Ludwig has assassinated a half dozen of the Pisanis’ top people and they haven’t been able to respond in kind in Medellin. Their people have been stopped at the airports.”
“So what do we have?” Baldwin asked. “One crazy greaseball who has enough money to send an army of shooters to France?” He shook his head. “Doesn’t make sense. Somebody’s got to be backing him.”
“We think so too,” Piers said. “And we think it’s our own people in Colombia.” He leaned forward again. “They’ve been using Montoya as an asset for years now, providing him protection and reaping some nice political and, we think, personal dividends on the side. We believe they want to expand that role to Europe. Not only for the financial rewards, but for the power it will give them inside the agency.”
“So sit on them,” Baldwin said.
“That would be difficult,” Piers replied. “Almost impossible without exposing what we’ve been doing for the Pisanis for the past forty years.” He sat back again. “And they know that.”
“So let’s come to some kind of agreement,” Baldwin suggested.
“We’ve tried,” Hennesey said. “They’re playing dumb. They claim they have no idea what’s going on there, that Montoya’s just a loose cannon. They claim they’ve threatened to withdraw their protection, but that he’s so powerful now, he can tell them to fuck off as well.” Hennesey offered a disbelieving smile. “In short, they’re telling us to fuck off.”
“So what are our options?” Baldwin asked. “I lose the Pisanis, and my French network, especially in the south of France, turns to shit.”
“We cut the head off the snake Montoya has loosed in France,” Piers said. “We take out Ludwig. Then Montoya has no one but his greaseballs, as you so aptly describe them. And they won’t last a month without him.”
“So who do we use?” Baldwin asked. “The Pisanis haven’t been able to do it, and whoever it is has to be someone who knows how Ludwig works, and who can work with the Corsicans. It will have to be someone the Pisanis trust. Christ, I don’t have anyone who even knows what Ludwig looks like.”
“I think we have a volunteer, although he doesn’t know it yet,” Hennesey said.
“Who?” Baldwin asked.
“Piers’s son, Alex.”
Baldwin made a face, mirrored by Batchler. Hennesey hadn’t discussed the idea he and Piers had hatched, not even with his number two, who had been foisted upon him through agency politics. He didn’t particularly trust the man.
“I remember Alex Moran,” Batchler said. “I was new to the agency then, but he caused quite a stir.” He turned to Piers. “Sorry, but I have to raise some doubts about him. He was somewhat of a loose cannon himself back then. And this is personal with him, not business.” He made a face. “I remember the scuttlebutt about him, after he was cashiered out. Ended up teaching at some small college in New Hampshire, didn’t he?”
“Vermont,” Piers said. “Middletown College. Quite a good school. Teaches English. It’s what he was trained to do.”
“Talk was he hit the sauce pretty heavy back then. But I suppose that’s understandable,” Batchler offered. “Is that under control?”
“Completely,” Piers said, a bit stiffly.
Batchler nodded. “It’s been ten years, he must be past forty.”
“He’s forty-three,” Piers said, a glint of annoyance in his eyes now.
“A bit long in the tooth for this kind of work,” Baldwin chimed in. “Is he in shape for it?”
“We can send him to Bragg and make him fit enough,” Hennesey snapped. He too was becoming irritated with the two younger men.
Piers placed his forearms on the table and hunched over them. “He’s the only man alive who’s seen Ludwig face to face. And the Pisanis are like uncles to him. If you recall, they hid him from us when he was under sanction. Do you have anyone better suited for the job?” There was a hint of sarcasm in Piers’s voice, and it was not lost on either of the younger men. Both knew they had no one as good.
Baldwin inclined his head to one side, indicating it was acceptable to him, if for no other reason than the lack of alternatives. “How about the Russians?” he asked. “I recall there was a deal with them to keep Alex out of Europe and away from Ludwig.”
“Ludwig doesn’t work for the Ruskies anymore,” Hennesey said. “He’s gone on to greener pastures, and they don’t particularly like that he did. As long as Alex leaves their people alone, they won’t care that he’s back in Europe.”
Baldwin nodded. “Yes, I can see that. They’ve got enough on their plate right now. And we’re their new buddies.” He said the last with distaste. “I don’t think they’ll even raise the issue,” he said.
“But he’ll be free-lance, right?” Batchler said.
“This has to be official,” Hennesey said. “Full agency backing. It’s the only way we have of protecting ourselves. But we have a perfect right to be going after Ludwig. He’s a legitimate target. Moran will be a contract employee. Hired for the one hit, at the going rate. He qualifies because he has expertise none of our people have.”
“I’m not crazy about it,” Batchler said. “But I don’t see as we have a choice.” He stared down the table at Piers. “How do you feel about using him this way? Ludwig has stayed in practice. Your son has been busy screwing sophomores.”
Piers bristled inwardly at the allusion. The man was a swine. “I promised him ten years ago, he’d have his shot at Ludwig,” he said. “I simply did not expect to make good on it.”
Baldwin hunched forward, imitating Piers’s own position. “Is he stable?” he asked, a demanding edge in his voice.
Piers’s mind flashed to a scene four Christmases ago. Alex had come to Palm Beach to attend a family gathering. He had been drunk, and Richard had begun baiting him about life in the backwoods of Vermont.
He had suggested, not too kindly, that Alex should come and work at his bank, where Piers himself was now a director.
“We can always find something to fit your talents,” Richard said.
Alex sent the stiffened fingers of one hand snapping into Richard’s windpipe. Then, as his older brother gasped for breath, he grabbed his hair and bent his head back over the chair, amid the cries of his mother and Richard’s wife.
He leaned close to Richard, bathing him in his boozy breath. “I’ve always wanted to hurt you, Richbird,” he said. “Don’t give me an excuse to live out childhood fantasies.”
Piers shouted at him, demanding to know if he’d lost his mind.
Alex had turned to him and said: “Years ago, Dad.” He had spoken the name with sarcasm. Then he had walked out of the house. Piers had not seen him since.
Piers returned from the flash of memory and stared Baldwin in the eye. The years had been kind to Piers. Now, at seventy, he looked no different than he had ten years earlier. He looked lean and sharp and capable.
“He’s perfectly stable,” he said. “I wouldn’t suggest sending him otherwise.”
CHAPTER
32
Alex sighted in on the target and squeezed the trigger three times. The Walther jumped in his hands with each shot, was brought back on line smoothly even as the trigger was being squeezed again. The bullets smacked into the silhouette target as if his hand hadn’t moved at all.
It was evening, and it was early in May, and warmth and daylight savings time had finally come to Vermont. He was wearing yellow-lensed shooting glasses against the fading light, an
d it brightened everything to a warm, clear summer day.
He removed the glasses and stared at the target, which was only seven yards away. It was the average distance of most combat situations involving pistols, and the one you were taught to practice at. There were three holes in the target, all in an area the size of his fist.
“Not bad. But not the best shooting I’ve seen either.”
Alex turned toward the voice, blinked, and then smiled. Pat Cisco stood about ten yards behind him. He had put his glasses on to see the target, and now he removed them. “What the hell are you doing here, General?”
“Would you believe me if I told you I came up to do some fishing? It’s trout season, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is. And no, I wouldn’t believe it.”
“Good,” Cisco said. “I think all people who fish are assholes anyway.”
He walked to Alex and took his hand. “It’s good to see you again,” he said. “It’s long overdue.”
“How’d you find me out here?”
“Beautiful young woman at your house.” Cisco raised his eyebrows in approval. “Don’t think she wanted to tell me, didn’t know if she should. This some kind of sanctuary for you?”
Alex nodded.
“I told her I was an old friend who was just passing through. That I really wanted to see you, and wouldn’t be able to wait around. So she gave in. Nice lady,” he said. “But I’d never hire her. Too trusting.”
“She’d never work for you,” Alex said. He grinned at Cisco. “Too smart.”
“There should be more people like her,” he said.
Alex removed the clip from the automatic and ejected the shell in the chamber.
“You still shoot a lot?” Cisco asked.
“Few times a week. It’s a hard habit to break.”
Cisco ignored the lie. He glanced at a picnic table behind them. “Can we sit and talk a bit?” he asked.
Alex walked back to a shooting bench, slipped the pistol in its case, then joined Cisco at the table.
“So, what are you really doing here?” he asked.
“Came to see you.”
Cisco had aged over the past ten years. His black hair was almost completely gray now, but the riveting blue eyes were still hard and clear, and the stocky body and military bearing still seemed intact. But he seemed tired, weary of the job perhaps, and the once easy laugh that used to embarrass him as out of place with who he was and what he did was now gone.
“Actually, I’ve been directed to see you. Ernst Ludwig is back in Europe.”
Alex felt his stomach tighten. “Who directed you?” He knew few in government had that power.
“One of the president’s top people.” Cisco’s jaw tightened. “One who plays flunky for the CIA. So it comes from them.”
Alex knew how angry that would make Cisco, being manipulated that way. “I always thought my father would tell me,” Alex said.
Cisco nodded. “I spoke to him.” He stared at Alex. “I wanted him to urge you to turn them down.” He paused. “He said that was up to you. He also said he thought the news should come to you officially.”
“We had a falling-out,” Alex said.
“I know. He told me. But he said that wasn’t the reason. He said it would give you more leverage to deal with them directly. I think they knew that too. That’s why they pawned it off on me.”
“So what are they offering? And why?”
Cisco explained the Pisani-Montoya drug war and Ludwig’s role in it.
“They need the Pisanis. Want to keep them in place. And they figure you’ve got the clearest shot at getting Ludwig. Because you know what he looks like. That’s bullshit, and we both know it.”
“My father’s just keeping a promise. It’s ten years late, but he’s doing it.”
“Maybe,” Cisco said. “But I still think you should turn it down. They want you reinstated in the DIA as a contract employee. Then they want you seconded to CIA. You’re official, but you don’t have any authority other than what they dole out one piece at a time. And they can always say: Yeah, he worked for us. But he wasn’t working for us when this happened. It stinks.”
“I don’t care,” Alex said. “I don’t expect them to do anything but screw me if they have to. Or want to. My father will be behind the scenes somewhere. At least I’ll have him watching my ass.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t like this, Alex. There’s something wrong with it. And I haven’t the slightest fucking idea what it is. You’re too far out of the loop, Alex. You’re too old, and you’re too out of practice. And I don’t care how well you can still use that Walther. Your instincts just aren’t there anymore.”
“Have you told them all that?”
“Of course I have. I don’t want to see you sent into a meat grinder.” His jaw tightened. “They want you to do a quick refresher course with Special Forces at Bragg.” He shook his head. “Christ, they might kill you there. Then we won’t have to worry.”
“I’ve been staying in shape,” Alex said.
“There’s a big difference between being in shape and keeping up with those crazy fuckers. We send kids there. Kids. And you know what it’s like for them.”
“I remember.” Alex thought about it. “But they said a refresher course, right? Not the whole thing.”
“That’s right. But you’re forty-three years old.”
“I’ll survive it.”
“You think so.” Cisco stared at him. “Yeah, you probably will. But I’m damned glad I’m not going with you.”
They were silent, then Cisco started again.
“I still say it stinks. We have enough good people. So does CIA.”
“The Pisanis won’t work with anyone they don’t know. CIA knows that. So does my father.”
“Yeah, there’s that. But I don’t like those people. I never have. They’re nothing but a pair of sleazy drug pushers and killers. I know how you feel about them. But that’s personal. You know what they are too. And that’s business.”
“I know what they are,” Alex said. “I know what we are too. There’s not a lot of difference, is there?”
Cisco let out a long breath. “Yeah, I think about that. The older I get, the more I think about it. Conning yourself about God and country only goes so far.”
“When do I go to Bragg?” Alex asked.
“They’ll be ready for you next week. You won’t reconsider?”
“It’s the only shot I’m going to have at Ludwig. I could try it alone, but I wouldn’t have a chance. I need support and intelligence, and they can give me that.” He stared at Cisco, his eyes pleading for understanding. “I have to do this, Pat. I won’t be able to live with it if I don’t.”
Cisco stared at the ground. “Stephanie was a special woman, Alex. But she’s dead, and nothing changes that. I don’t know if you’re going after Ludwig for revenge, or to get answers to questions you didn’t get answered before.” He looked up. “Maybe you’ll get answers, and revenge. I don’t know. But I do know it won’t make any difference. It won’t change anything. Don’t do this expecting that it will.”
Alex didn’t respond, wasn’t sure how to.
“And you’re wrong about something else too,” Cisco said. “Your father won’t be the only one watching your ass. I will be too. And you can take that to the bank.”
CHAPTER
33
Alex drove along the two-lane rural highway, trying to concentrate on the quaint, bucolic setting he would not see again for many months. Perhaps never again, he thought. To his right, cows dotted a rock-strewn hillside framed by distant mountains. On the other side of the road, Lake Champlain cut a broad swath through a valley several miles wide, it too shimmering in the shadow of yet another line of mountainous peaks. When he had first come to Vermont ten years before, he had laughed about the idyllic vistas that seemed to rise up on command. He told himself then that farmers went out every morning and staked their cows along selected hillsides under orders fr
om the Department of Tourism. That the stark white church steeples that seemed to rise from every valley were nothing more than the empty husks of movie sets, erected every winter before the skiers arrived. But it was all real—or unreal in the context of actual life—and he realized now he had grown accustomed to it, fond even.
But that was past. All that existed for him now was what lay ahead, and the fact that he had left everything behind in as cowardly a fashion as possible. He regretted having done it that way—of leaving Jody with just a note saying he was gone and couldn’t be sure when, or if, he’d be back. He’d visited a lawyer and had the house put in her name, and he’d signed over the registration of the Jeep and left an extra set of keys, telling her to pick it up at the airport in Burlington. Christ, he’d even left ten bucks to cover the parking costs. He just hadn’t had the courage to face her, to see the hurt in her eyes.
It had been easy with the others. They’d simply grown weary of him—a kind phrase, Alex told himself—and had packed up and left. But Jody had hung on, caring too much to give up. Yet. He added the word in a final rebuke. And she had deserved better. Better than Alex Moran, and certainly better than a gently worded note and title to some possessions.
He had lied to himself, of course. It was easy to do. To fall back on the legitimate excuse that he couldn’t talk about the assignment, or the agency behind it. But that did not forgive a cowardly way out. He hoped it might help her get on with her life more quickly. But even that hope had the weak ring of yet another excuse, and he wished he’d had the guts to handle it differently.
He hadn’t handled it much better with the college either. A simple note tending his resignation. No explanation, no expression of regret. It suited his image, he had told himself, and it satisfactorily burned a bridge he never again wanted to cross.
Back to your Corsican past, he told himself as he entered the built-up environs near the airport. That was the one salvation. How good it would be to return to Marseilles and the two aging Corsicans who had been more of a family to him than his own had ever chosen to be. He had not seen his uncles in ten years. They had spoken often on the telephone, and they had written. But, true to their nature, those conversations and letters had been guarded at best, and he longed to sit with them and hear what had happened in their lives in the past decade. Perhaps, he thought wistfully, they could even go hunting again in Corsica, or sit in a café over a glass of pastis, or just walk and enjoy the aromatic fragrance of the maquis. Wishful thinking, he told himself. First you have to survive Ernst Ludwig and his minions, and possibly even those who were sending you. Oddly, he felt surprisingly calm about the task on which he was embarked. The hatred was still there, burning slowly, as it had for years. But the reality of what he was about to do still seemed distant and uncertain. Reality would come, he knew, when he was back in France, in close proximity to the man he had hated for so long. In the place where it had all happened. Where his life had crumbled in hands too weak to stop it. To stop any of it. Then it would be real and immediate, and he had no doubt the hatred would boil up again and drive him until he reached the man who had dominated his thoughts, his dreams, every unwanted moment when he had freed his mind from everyday events.
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