‘No! I’m not a child, Uncle Mitch, and I don’t have those kinds of benevolent impulses. I’m concerned only with where I come from, where I was born. If you won’t use me, I’ll find others who will!’
‘They could be the wrong others, Adrienne.’
‘Then stop me. Hire me!’
‘I’ll have to talk to your parents—’
‘You can’t! He’s retired—they’re retired, and they live up north in Baltim-on-the-Sea. They’d only worry about me, and in their worrying cause problems. Find me translating jobs, or a floating consultant’s position with exporters—certainly you can do that! Good God, Uncle Mitch, you were a small-time instructor at the university and we never said anything!’
‘You didn’t know, my dear—’
‘The hell I didn’t! The whispers around the house when a friend of Uncle Mitch’s was coming and how I had to stay in my room, and then one night when suddenly three men came, all wearing guns on their belts, which I’d never seen—’
‘Those were emergencies. Your father understood.’
‘Then you understand me now, Uncle Mitch. I have to do this!’
‘All right,’ consented MJ Pay ton. ‘But you understand me, young lady. You’ll be put through a concentrated course in Fairfax, Virginia, in a compound that’s not on any map. If you fail, I can’t help you.’
‘Agreed,’ had said Adrienne Khalehla Rashad, smiling. ‘Do you want to bet?’
‘Not with you, you young tigress. Come on, let’s go to lunch. You don’t drink, do you?’
‘Not really.’
‘I do and I will, but I won’t bet you.’
And it was good for Payton’s wallet that he did not bet. Candidate No. 1344 finished the excruciating ten-week course in Fairfax, Virginia, at the head of her class. Women’s liberation be damned, she was better than twenty-six men. But then, her ‘Uncle Mitch’ thought, she had a motive the others did not have: One half of her was Arab.
All that was more than nine years ago. But now on this Friday afternoon nearly ten years later, Mitchell Jarvis Payton was appalled! Field agent Adrienne Rashad, currently on duty in the West Mediterranean Sector, Cairo Post, had just called him from a pay telephone at the Hilton Hotel here in Washington! What in the name of God was she doing here? On whose authority was she removed from her post? All officers attached to Special Projects, especially this officer, had to have their orders cleared through him. It was incredible! And the fact that she would not come out to Langley but, instead, insisted on meeting him at an out-of-the-way restaurant in Arlington did not calm MJ’s nerves. Especially after she said to him, ‘It’s absolutely vital that I don’t run into anyone I know, or who might know me, Uncle Mitch.’ Apart from the ominous tone of her statement, she had not called him Uncle Mitch in years, not since she was in college. His unrelated ‘niece’ was a troubled woman.
Milos Varak got off the plane at Durango, Colorado, and walked across the terminal to the counter of the car rental agency. He produced a false driver’s licence and a correspondingly false credit card, signed the lease agreement, accepted the keys and was directed to the lot where the car awaited him. In his briefcase was a detailed map of lower southwest Colorado listing such things as the wonders of the Mesa Verde National Park as well as descriptions of hotels, motels and restaurants, the majority of which were found in and around such cities as Cortez, Hesperas, Marvel and, farther east, Durango. The least detailed area was a dot called Mesa Verde itself; the designation of ‘town’ did not apply. It was a geographical location more in people’s minds than on the books; a general store, a barber shop, a small outlying private airport and a cafe called Gee-Gee’s constituted its industry. One passed through Mesa Verde, one did not live there. It existed for the convenience of farmers, field hands and those inveterate travellers who invariably got lost by taking the scenic routes to New Mexico and Arizona. The anomaly of the airport was for the benefit of those dozen or so privileged landowners who had built estates for themselves in the back country and simply wanted it. They rarely, if ever, saw the stretch of road with the general store, the barber shop and Gee-Gee’s. Their necessities were flown in from Denver, Las Vegas and Beverly Hills—thus the airport. The exception here was Congressman Evan Kendrick, who had surprisingly run for political office. He had made the mistake of thinking that Mesa Verde could produce votes, which it would have done if the election had been held south of the Rio Grande.
Varak, however, very much wanted to see that stretch of road the locals referred to as Mesa Verde, or just plain Verde, as Emmanuel Weingrass called it. He wanted to see how the men dressed, how they walked, what the stresses of field work had done to their bodies, their muscles, their posture. For the next twenty-four, or at most forty-eight, hours he would have to blend in. Milos had a job to do that in one sense saddened him beyond measuring the pain, but it was something he had to do. If there was a traitor to Inver Brass, within Inver Brass, Varak had to find him… or her.
After an hour and thirty-five minutes of driving, he found the cafe named Gee-Gee’s. He could not go inside dressed as he was, so he parked the car, removed his jacket, and strolled into the general store across the street.
‘Ain’t seen you before,’ said the elderly owner, turning his head as he stacked bags of rice on a shelf. ‘Always nice to see a new face. You headin’ for New Mex? I’ll put you on the right road, no need to buy anythin’. I keep tellin’ people that, but they always feel they got to part with cash when all they want is directions.’
‘You’re most kind, sir,’ said Milos, ‘but I’m afraid I must part with cash—not mine of course, my employer’s. I’m to purchase several bags of rice. It was omitted from the delivery from Denver.’
‘Oh, one of the biggies in the hills. Take what you like, son—for cash, of course. At my age I don’t carry out.’
‘I wouldn’t think of it, sir.’
‘Hey, you’re a foreign fella’, ain’t cha?’
‘Scandinavian,’ replied Varak. ‘I’m just temporary, filling in while the chauffeur is ill.’ Milos picked up three bags of rice and carried them to the counter; the owner followed towards the cash register.
‘Who you work for?’
‘The Kendrick house, but he doesn’t know me—’
‘Hey, isn’t that somethin’ about young Evan? Our own congressman the heero of Oman! I tell ya, makes a man stand tall, like the President says! He come in here a couple a’ times—three, four maybe. Nicest fella you’d want to meet; real down-to-earth, you know what I mean?’
‘I’m afraid I’ve never met him.’
‘Yeah, but if you’re out there at the house, you know ol’ Manny, that’s for sure! A real pistol, ain’t he? I tell ya, that crazy Jewish fella is somethin’ else!’
‘He certainly is.’
That’ll be six dollars and thirty-one cents, son. Skip the penny if you ain’t got it.’
‘I’m sure I have—’ Varak reached into his pocket, ‘Does Mr… Manny come in here often?’
‘Some. Maybe two, three times a month. Drives in with one of them nurses of his, then as soon as she turns her back, he splits over to Gee-Gee’s. He’s some fella. Here’s your change, son.’
‘Thank you.’ Milos picked up the bags of rice and turned towards the door, but was suddenly stopped by the owner’s next words.
‘I figure those girls snitched on him, though, ’cause Evan must be gettin’ a little stricter lookin’ after his ol’ pal, but I guess you know that.’
‘Yes, of course,’ said Varak, looking back at the man and smiling. ‘How did you find out?’
‘Yesterday,’ replied the owner. ‘What with all the fuss out at the house Manny got Jake’s cab to bring him down to Gee-Gee’s. I saw him so I went to the door and shouted to him about how great the news was, y’know. He yelled back something like “my sugar” or something, and went inside. That’s when I saw this other car comin’ real slow down the street with a guy talkin’ on a telephone—you know, one of them car telephones. He parked across from Gee-Gee’s and just stayed there watchin’ the door. Then later he was on that telephone again and a few minutes after that he got out and went into Gonzalez’s place. No one else had gone in, so that’s when I figured he was keepin’ tabs on Manny.’
‘I’ll tell them to be more careful,’ said Milos, still smiling. ‘But just to make sure we’re talking about the same man, or one of them, what did he look like?’