alacrity. The scenario Jessica Kincaid had described sounded accurate, but
incomplete.
“That’s not all,” she said, a little shyly. “I went through heavy-duty training
when I joined up Cons Ops, and everyone in my class had to prepare a history
paper on something or somebody.”
“Ah, yes, the Spy Bio paper. And who’d you pick for Spy Bio—Mata Hari?”
“Nope. A legendary field officer by the name of Paul Janson. Did a whole
analysis of his techniques and tactics.”
“You’re kidding.” Janson built a fire in the stone fireplace, stacking the logs
and crumpling sections of the Italian newspapers beneath them. The dry logs
caught on quickly and burned with a steady flame.
“You’re an impressive guy, what can I say? But I also identified certain
mistakes you were liable to make. A certain … weakness.” Her eyes were playful,
but her voice was not.
Janson took a long sip of the hot, strong Java. “Shortly before Rick Frazier’s
1986 match with Michael Spinks, Frazier’s coach announced to the boxing world
that he’d identified a ‘weakness’ in Spinks’s position. There was a lot of
discussion and speculation at the time. Then Rick Frazier got into the ring. Two
rounds later, he was knocked out.” He smiled. “Now, what were you saying about
this weakness?”
The ends of Jessica Kincaid’s mouth turned down. “That’s why they chose me, you
know. I mean, for the hit.”
“Because you were a veritable Paul Janson scholar. Someone who’d know my moves
better than anybody. Yes, I can see that logic. I can see an operations director
thinking he was pretty clever to come up with it.”
“For sure. The idea of staking out Grigori Berman’s place—that was mine. I was
sure we’d catch up with you in Amsterdam, too. Lot of people were guessing you’d
be lighting out for the U.S. of A. Not me.”
“No, not you, with your graduate-equivalency degree in Janson Studies.”
She fell silent, staring into the lees of her mug. “There’s one question I’ve
been meaning to ask you.”
“Have at it.”
“Just something I’ve always wondered about. In 1990, you had a drop on Jamal
Nadu, big-deal terrorist mastermind. Reliable intelligence accounts, from
sources you cultivated, identified an urban safe house he was using in Amman,
and the car he was going to be transported in. A raggedy, funky ol’ beggar
approaches the car, gets shooed away, falls to his knees in apology, moves on.
Only, the beggar is none other than Paul Janson, our own Dr. J, and while he was
kowtowing, he rigged an explosive device under the vehicle.”
Janson stared at her blankly.
“An hour later, Jamal Nadu does pile into the car. But so do four high-priced
ladies—Jordanian hookers he’d hired. You notify control of the changed
circumstances, and the orders are to proceed anyway. In your report, you say
that you subsequently attempted to blow up the car but that the detonator
failed. Operation foiled by mechanical screwup.”
“These things happen.”
“Not to you,” she said. “See, that’s why I never believed the official account.
You were always a goddamn perfectionist. You made that detonator yourself. Now,
two days later Jamal Nadu is on his way back from a meeting with a group of
Libyans when suddenly his brains start to leak down his collar, because
somebody, with a single well-aimed shot, had blown off the back of his head. You
file a report suggesting that a rival from Hamas did him in.”
“Your point?”
“You might have thought what really went down was pretty obvious. Four women in
the car—the operative didn’t have the stomach to kill ’em. Maybe didn’t see why
it was necessary. Maybe figured once he had a drop on the sumbitch, he could
find another way to do it without a lot of collateral killing. And maybe the
Department of Planning didn’t see it that way. Maybe they wanted a flashy, fiery
end and didn’t give a shit about the whores. So you made things happen the way
you thought they should happen.”
“You did have a point, didn’t you?”
“The really interesting question, way I see it, is this. In the world of covert
ops, taking out a superbaddy like Nadu would make a lot of people’s careers.
What kind of man does it, and then doesn’t take credit for it?”
“You tell me.”
“Maybe somebody who doesn’t want the controlling officer to be able to claim a
big win.”
“Tell me something else, if you know so much. Who was controlling the
operation?”
“Our director, Derek Collins,” she said. “At the time, he headed up the Middle
East sector.”
“Then if you have any questions about procedures, I suggest you take it up with
him.”
She formed a W with her thumbs and forefingers. “Whatever,” she said, half
sulkily. “Truth is, I had a hard time getting a fix on you.”
“How do you mean?”
“It’s one of the reasons the Jamal Nadu thing was a puzzle. Hard to say what
makes you tick. Hard to square what I seen with what I heard. For damn sure, you
ain’t no choirboy. And there are some pretty brutal stories about the stuff you
got up to in Vietnam—”
“There’s a lot of bullshit out there,” he said, cutting her off. He was
surprised at the anger that flared in his voice.
“Well, the rumors are pretty heavy, is all I’m saying. They make it sound like
you had a hand in some real sick shit that went down there.”
“People make things up.” Janson was trying to sound calm, and was failing. He
did not quite understand why.
She looked at him oddly. “OK, man. I believe you. I mean, you’re the only person
who would know for sure, right?”
Janson stabbed at the fire with a poker, and the pine logs crackled and hissed
fragrantly. The sun had begun to sink over the far mountain peak. “I hope you
won’t take offense if I ask you to remind me how old you are, Miss Kincaid,” he
asked, watching her hard face soften in the glow of the hearth.
“You can call me Jessie,” she said. “And I’m twenty-nine.”
“You could be my daughter.”
“Hey, you’re as young as you feel.”
“That would make me Methuselah.”
“Age is just a number.”
“In your case, but not mine, a prime number.” He stirred red smoking embers with
the poker, watched them burst into yellow flames. His mind drifted back to
Amsterdam. “Here’s a question for you. You ever hear of a company called Unitech
Ltd.”
“Well, sure. It’s one of ours. Supposed to be an independent corporate entity.”
“But used as a front by Consular Operations.”
“It’s about as independent as a dog’s leg,” she said, running a hand through her
short, spiky hair.
“Or a cat’s paw,” Janson said. The dim memories were surfacing: Unitech had
played a minor role over the years in a number of endeavors; sometimes it helped
anchor part of an undercover agent’s legend, providing an ersatz employment
record. Sometimes it transferred funds to parties that were being recruited to
play a small role in a larger operation. “Somebody from Unitech is corresponding
with the executive director of the Liberty Foundation, offering to provide
logistical support for its education programs in Eastern Europe. Why?”
“You got me.”
“Let’s imagine that somebody, some group, wanted the opportunity to get close to
Peter Novak. To learn about his whereabouts.”
“Somebody? You’re saying Consular Operations took him down? My employers?”
“Arranged for it to happen, more precisely. Orchestrated the circumstances at a
remove.”
“But why?” she asked. “Why? Don’t make a lick of sense.”
Few things did. Had Consular Operations really arranged Novak’s death? And why
hadn’t his passing been reported anywhere? It was growing stranger by the day:
people who should have been his close associates seemed completely oblivious of
the cataclysmic event.
“What you been reading all this time?” Jessie said presently, gesturing toward
the various stacks of printouts.
Janson explained.
“You really think there could be something valuable buried in the public
record?” she asked.
“Don’t be fooled by the mystique of ‘intelligence gathering’—half of the stuff
you find in foreign-situation reports filed by agents-in-place they get from
reading the local papers.”
“Tell me about it,” she said. “But you only got two eyes—”
“So says the woman who tried to drill me a third.”
She ignored the barb. “You can’t read that whole stack at once. Give me some.
I’ll go through it. Another set of eyes, right? Can’t hurt.”
They read together until he felt the weight of exhaustion start to press down
upon him: he needed sleep, could hardly focus his eyes on the densely printed
pages. He stood up and stretched. “I’m going to hit the sack,” he said.
“Gets chilly at night—sure you don’t need a hot-water bottle?” she asked. She
held out her hands. Her tone suggested she was joking; her eyes indicated she
might not be.
He raised an eyebrow. “Take more than a hot water bottle to warm these bones,”