There was no sense in concealment, was there? “Well, Patsy, yeah, that was me and my team.”
“Who were they – the bad guys, I mean?”
“Maybe terrorists, maybe bank robbers. Not sure,” Chavez said, stripping off his shirt on the way to the bedroom.
Patsy followed him inside. “The TV said they were all killed.”
“Yep.” He took his slacks off and hung them in the closet. “No choice. They were about to kill a hostage when it went down. So . . . we had to go in and stop that from happening.”
“I’m not sure if I like that.” He looked up at his wife. “I am sure. I don’t like it. Remember that guy when you were in medical school, the leg that got amputated, and you assisted in the surgery? You didn’t like it, did you?”
“No, not at all.” It had been an auto accident, and the leg just too mangled to save.
“That’s life, Patsy. You don’t like all the things you have to do.” With that, Chavez sat down on the bed and tossed his socks at the open-top hamper. Secret Agent Man, he thought. Supposed to have a vodka martini, shaken not stirred, now, but the movies never showed the hero going to bed to get sleep, did they? But who wants to get laid right after killing somebody? That was worth an ironic chuckle, and he lay back on top of the covers. Bond. James Bond. Sure. As soon as he closed his eyes, he saw again the sight picture from the bank, and relived the moment, bringing his MP-10 to bear, lining up the sights on whoever the hell it was – Guttenach was his name, wasn’t it? He realized he hadn’t checked. Seeing the head right there in the ringed sight, and squeezing off the burst as routinely as zipping his pants after taking a leak. Puff puff puff. That fast, that quiet with the suppresser on the gun, and zap, whoever the hell he was, was dead as yesterday’s fish. He and his three friends hadn’t had much of a chance – in fact, they’d had no chance at all.
But the guy they’d murdered earlier hadn’t had a chance, either, Chavez reminded himself. Some poor unlucky bastard who’d happened to be in the bank, making a deposit, or talking to a loan officer, or maybe just getting change for a haircut. Save your sympathy for that one, Ding told himself. And the doctor Model had been ready to kill was now in his home, probably, with his wife and family, probably half-wasted on booze, or maybe a sedative, probably going through a really bad case of the shakes, probably thinking about spending some time with a shrink friend to help get him through the delayed stress. Probably feeling pretty fucking awful. But you had to be alive to feel something, and that beat the shit out of having his wife and kids sitting in the living room of their house outside Bern, crying their eyes out and asking why daddy wasn’t around anymore.
Yeah. He’d taken a life, but he’d redeemed another. With that thought, he revisited the sight-picture, remembering now the sight of the first round hitting the asshole just forward of the ear, knowing then that he was dead, even before rounds #2 and #3 hit, in a circle of less than two inches across, blowing his brains ten feet the other way, and the body going down like a sack of beans. The way the man’s gun had hit the floor, muzzle angled up, and thankfully it hadn’t gone off and hurt anyone, and the head shots hadn’t caused his fingers to spasm closed and pull the trigger from the grave-a real hazard, he’d learned in training. But still it was unsatisfactory. Better to get them alive and pick their brains for what they knew, and why they acted the way they did. That way you could learn stuff you could use the next time-or, just maybe go after someone else, the bastard who gave the orders, and fill his ass with ten-millimeter hollowpoints.
The mission hadn’t been perfect, Chavez had to admit to himself, but, ordered in to save a life, he’d saved that life. And that, he decided, would have to do for now. A moment later he felt the bed move as his wife lay beside him. He reached over for her hand, which she moved immediately to her belly. So, the little Chavez was doing some more laps. That, Ding decided, was worth a kiss, which he rolled over to deliver.
Popov, too, was settled into his bed, having knocked back four stiff vodkas while watching the local television news, followed by an editorial panegyric to the efficiency of the local police. As yet they weren’t giving out the identity of the robbers-that was how the crime was being reported, somewhat to Popov’s disappointment, though on reflection he didn’t know why. He’d established his bona fides for his employer . . . and pocketed a considerable sum of money in the bargain. A few more performances like this one and he could live like a king in Russia, or a prince in many other countries. He could know for himself the comfort he’d so often seen and envied while he was a field intelligence officer with the former KGB, wondering then how the hell his country could ever defeat nations which spent billions on amusement in addition to billions more on military hardware, all of which was better than anything his nation had produced-else why would he have so often been tasked to discovering their technical secrets? That was how he’d worked during the last few years of the Cold War, knowing even then who would win and who would lose.
But defection had never been an option. What was the point in selling out his country for a minor stipend and an ordinary job in the West? Freedom? That was the word the West still pretended to worship. What was the good of being able to wander around at liberty when you didn’t have a proper automobile in which to do it? Or a good hotel in which to sleep when one got there? Or the money to buy the food and drink one needed to enjoy life properly? No, his first trip to the West as an “illegal” field officer without a diplomatic cover had been to London, where he’d spent much of his time counting the expensive cars, and the efficient black taxis one took when too lazy to walk-his important movement had been in the “tube,” which was convenient, anonymous, and cheap. But “cheap” was a virtue for which he had little affection. No, capitalism had the singular virtue of rewarding people who had chosen the correct parents, or had been lucky in business. Rewarding them with luxury, convenience, and comfort undreamed of by the czars themselves. And that was what Popov had instantly craved, and wondered even then how he might get it. A nice expensive car-a Mercedes was the one he’d always desired-and a proper large flat close to good restaurants, and money to travel to places where the sand was warm and the sky blue, the better to attract women to his side, as Henry Ford must have done, he was sure. What was the point of having that sort of power without the will to use it?
Well, Popov told himself, he was closer than ever to realizing it. All he had to do was set up a few more jobs like this one in Bern. If his employer was willing to pay that much money for fools-well, a fool and his money were soon parted; a Western aphorism he found delightfully appropriate. -And Dmitriy Arkadeyevich was no fool. With that satisfied thought, he lifted his remote and turned his TV off. Tomorrow, wake up, breakfast, make his bank deposit, and then take a cab to the airport for the Swissair flight to New York. First class. Of course.
“Well, Al?” Clark asked over a pint of dark British beer. They were sitting in the rear-corner booth.
“Your Chavez is all he was reported to be. Clever of him to let Price take the lead. He doesn’t let ego get in the way. I like that in a young officer. His timing was right. His division of the floor plan was right, and his shots were bang on. He’ll do. So will the team. So much the better that the first time out was an easy one. This Model chappie wasn’t a rocket scientist, as you say.”
“Vicious bastard.”
Stanley nodded. “Quite. The German terrorists frequently were. We should get a nice letter from the BKA about this one, as well.”
“Lessons learned?”
“Dr. Bellow’s was the best. We need more and better translators if we’re to get him involved in negotiations. I’ll get to work on that tomorrow. Century House ought to have people we can use. Oh, yes, that Noonan lad-“