“Mr. Millstein fell in among thieves and brigands, alas. In their apostasy, they used my name in order to give a cover of political animus to what was basically a kidnapping and ransom operation. They represented not the Muslim street or even the groups that are called ‘terrorist’ but the simple universal greed of human corruption, as prevalent in our culture, alas, as in your own. It is tragic but it is inescapable. Wars bring out rogues and rascals, opportunists, the like. It was Mr. Millstein’s bad luck to encounter such. You believe me, of course?”
It was hard not to believe everything Zarzi said, for he said it with such earnest conviction. But Banjax tried mightily to offer some resistance, even if the unease in his stomach was mounting.
“Well, sir, it’s easy to say, of course, and you are very convincing. However, some sort of objective proof would—”
“Proof? Proof? What proof would I have? A note from a teacher? Possibly the statement of a wife? My best friend’s testimony? Sir, you require that which does not exist. Had I it, you now would have it. I have only the humble power of my—oh, and one other thing.”
Banjax leaned forward.
Ticktock ticktock went the thousand watches, each in a hulu gyre, reflecting this way and that against their orbit as they rotated slickly through the light patterns. Banjax felt sweat pop on his brow, a wave of wooziness pass, pass again, and pass a third time.
“Of course I ask your forbearance in linking it to me.”
“Of course,” said Banjax, if barely.
The elegant man reached into his briefcase and pulled out a sheaf of documents.
“This is the original report, not by Afghan officials, but by the Pakistani Directorate for Inter-service Intelligence, into the incident. It is, of course, in Urdu. You will have it translated, I’m sure.”
“Yes.”
“Certain elements of ISI are sympathetic to revolutionary movements in Afghanistan, as you know. Thus, it is important for them to know exactly who did what to whom when. They may even be paying certain funding. It is my hope, with the presidency in my control, to engage them and dissuade them from such activities. But the more immediate point is that their agents found no evidence of either my own or revolutionary groups’—terrorist groups’, you would say—involvement in the tragedy. It cost a great deal of money to deliver this from their hands to yours through mine. It is my gift to the West. It is something not even your Central Intelligence Agency has laid eyes upon yet.”
He handed the papers over to Banjax, who took them greedily.
Ah, he was thinking, a scoop.
He remembered his great run of them during his last shot at Washington and the big leagues. The pleasure was intense. He looked up to make his next brilliant point.
And then suddenly it hit him: all those undulating watches, the thickness of the man’s cologne, his closeness, his earnestness, his warmth, so cloying. Banjax felt woozy, then blurry, then defenseless.
He fainted.
BALTIMORE FBI HQ
WOODLAWN
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND
1145 HOURS
Oh, Christ,” said Nick.
“Bob,” said Susan, “this is not good. You can’t be consorting with the object of a federal manhunt.”
“If he approached you,” Nick continued, “you should have grappled him to the ground, screamed bloody murder, and we’d all be home free now, and I’d break my long-standing rule never to have a martini before noon. Jesus Christ, this is a mess. You may even have broken the law.”
“Nobody knows better than the man who wasn’t there. Are you done?” Bob said. “Okada-san, got any more shit to pour on me? Nick, I’ll bend over and you can whack me a few times or kick me. Oh that’s right, you’ve got a bum hip. Bring in some young guy.”
“This isn’t getting us anywhere,” said Nick. “So tell the story.”
Swagger did, point by point, tracking Cruz’s revelations: white contractors, planted satellite transmitter in SVD, pursuit by satellite surveillance after first ambush, pursuit after evading second trap, radio contact with 2-2 Recon, missile strike on hotel.
“It’s nothing if he doesn’t give himself up now,” Nick said.
“And I’m telling you,” said Bob, “he doesn’t buy into your ability to protect him. After all, there’ve been two attempts on his life so far by a real hard-core professional team.”
Swagger faced his own absurdity: when he was with Cruz, he argued for Nick and Susan. When he was with Nick and Susan, he argued for Cruz. He realized he had no future in Washington culture, because he couldn’t even keep his own sides straight, much less anyone else’s.
“As for me,” said Susan, her face mandarin and remote and official, “I see where this is leading and I don’t like it. I told you this and I don’t get why you’re not listening. The Agency will not stand still for an outside investigation of its operations in Afghanistan, which are undertaken in good faith and under great danger. I’m here to help you stop Cruz, not lead a witch hunt.”
“It ain’t about a witch hunt. There wasn’t no witches, right? But maybe Cruz does have enemies. And maybe they’re our enemies too. I don’t have no dog in this fight, I ain’t here to steal turf from any outfit called by its initials. I’m here for the truth, and I’m going to find it or look for it until you put me in the bag.”
“God, he’s a stubborn man,” said Susan. “In Tokyo, he went and fought a master swordsman who should have sliced him to shreds. No one could talk him out of it. You cannot talk to the man when he’s like this. It’s like arguing with a forest fire!”
“I want to work this angle, and I gave him my word.”
“The truth is, your word means nothing,” said Nick. “You were not authorized to make commitments. You don’t represent the Bureau.”
“My word means nothing to you. It means everything to me, especially to another sniper.”
“You are so fucking stubborn!” screamed Nick. “It’s like beating your head against a gun stock.”
“It’s a sniper thing. You wouldn’t understand.”
“This is the real world, not a Boy Scout jamboree.”
“Listen. Cruz ain’t going to go again,” Bob argued. “I got that from him. That’s his concession. The next public outing is Sunday, Zarzi’s run of talk shows in DC. He ain’t going to try nothing then. He gave me his word. I gave him mine. So get me out to Creech.”
“Creech is off-limits,” said Susan.
“What’s Creech?” asked Nick.
“It’s an Air Force base north of Vegas where they run the drone war,” said Susan. “It’s where our snipers go to play life-and-death video games with terrorists, gunmen, IED teams, high-value targets, and the like. It’s where the real hunting and killing take place.”
“Nick, get me out there with some smart partner agent to cover my rough edges and let me sniff around. Say an American asset was killed in the explosion in that hotel and some outfit is bringing heat on our asses. They’ll let me on, strictly pro forma, give me the tour. They ain’t going to tell me nothing, not up front. But if I’m there and it gets out what’s being looked into, something may shake out of the trees. Then I can find out if in fact they did put a missile into that hotel.”
“Agh,” said Nick to no one.
Then he said, “Susan, I don’t see how I can say no. He’s a hero. They like him upstairs. And he has found Cruz twice and neither of us has even come close with all our resources. And sometimes he’s right.”
“Been known to happen a time or two,” said Bob.
“You are such a bastard,” she said evenly to Bob. “You are taking this exactly where my orders are to prevent you from going.”
“But you know it’s the right thing.”
“I told you. I went over the records very thoroughly. This shooting off of missiles isn’t casual, you know. Everything is recorded, everything is documented, every shot is noted as to operator, intel validity, time frame, and result. It’s not like the Mexican revo
lution, bang bang bang, with everybody shooting everything at once all over the place drunk on tequila.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Bob. “But there may be secrets within secrets. Black ops so black records don’t exist. Skunk works shit, black bag shit, wet work, all that ugly crap that spy outfits been doing for four thousand years. It’s in the Bible, even. I’m no expert but maybe I can find something somehow, some way. Maybe you could too if you tried again.”
“You’re telling me I should start prying in locked drawers in Langley,” she said. “I should spy on the spies. I am a spy.”
Swagger was filled with doubts. Maybe this was all bullshit he’d dreamed up to engage her and from there make the leap to something else. It was how the cunning male-sex mind sometimes worked. Goddamned Asian women, he couldn’t get over them, and that brought up a long-dead, bourbon-soaked ache best not addressed now or ever. He also knew he was still fundamentally exhausted, the confab with Cruz who’d caught him cold was upsetting to say the least, and this whole Washington game was more complex than he’d imagined. He’d been the lone gunman, the tall-grass crawler, and now he was exactly where he didn’t belong, in a soup of confusing loyalties, some of them even within his own mind.
So: when in doubt, press ahead blindly and pray for luck and God’s delight in the reckless.
“You know these people. You go to backyard barbecues with ’em. You could ask around.”
She shook her beautiful head.
“I don’t know anything. I never had this discussion, I don’t know a thing about anything.”
“But you won’t rat me out?”
Her silence meant that no, she wouldn’t rat him out, but it also meant that she hadn’t remembered until that moment what an asshole he truly could be.
BALTIMORE-WASHINGTON
INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
CELL PHONE PARKING LOT
1900 HOURS
THE NEXT DAY
Vegas?” said Mick Bogier.
“Yep. Him and this chick. Pretty gal. Maybe the old coot has some Pez left in the dispenser after all. Off to Vegas for a weekend of whoopie. Been known to happen.”
It was Crackers the Clown who’d dogged Swagger, watching him check in with the young woman, head through security and on to a gate. Crackers had pulled a Baltimore police detective badge and gotten through security without a hassle from TSA and followed him all the way to the gate. Now he was on the cell to Mick and Tony Z.
“Unlikely,” said Mick, “this guy’s too duty-crazed.”
“I hate that kind,” said Crackers. “All work and no fun. What, he wants to be a saint?”
“Let me make a call.”
Even before he put the cell down, Tony handed him the Thuraya phone.
“This better be good news,” MacGyver said. “I’m about to make myself a martini.”
“We followed Swagger to the airport. He’s about to fly to Vegas with some young agent. I don’t know what it’s about.”
MacGyver considered.
“We could get the next flight out,” said Mick. “Then we pick up the signal in Vegas and we follow him there. But I don’t know what Cruz would be doing in Vegas or what Vegas would have to do with Cruz. Cruz is here, we know that.”
“I can find out,” MacGyver finally said. “But that’s going to take a while. No, I’d stay in DC. I’d set up somewhere in the vicinity of the talk show studios this Sunday and get ready to roll if there’s an incident.”
“Sure, but that’s thin. This Sergeant Cruz is really good. I mean, he’s fucking big league all the way. The chance of us nailing him before he nails Zarzi without Swagger bird-dogging him first are somewhere between thin and negative one million. Since he’s riding the action curve and we’re trailing it, we’ll be lucky to get there when the smoke is still in the air. And don’t forget there’s going to be about ten thousand cops in the area, somewhat complicating things.”
“I understand,” said MacGyver. “I don’t know what else to tell you. I’m out of answers.”
“MacGyver, your show’s going to be canceled if you can’t do better than that.”
“Hey, asshole sergeant, if I’m canceled you’re canceled, so you better pray for me. Oh, and I make the smart comments, I get to do the sarcasm, get it? Don’t go all Mick Bogier on me. Cowboys are cheap in this world.”
Bogier enjoyed lighting up the asshole like that. He knew it was expected that he would now apologize and show contrition, but he would not do it. Fuck him and the horse he came in on.
“Okay, here’s what you do,” said MacGyver. “Monitor the Four Seasons and the Afghan embassy. You guys have seen Cruz in action, you know his walk, his moves, you know what he’d have to wear to conceal a weapon. You may pick him up on a scouting mission, a recon, just from the way he moves. Ask around, see if anybody’s suddenly started showing up at those places. Meanwhile, I’ll find out what Swagger is doing in Vegas and when he’s due back. He’s still our best bet. After all, he’s found Cruz twice and nobody else is even in the game.”
U.S. 95 NORTH
BETWEEN VEGAS AND INDIAN SPRINGS, NEVADA
1330 HOURS
THE NEXT DAY
Which was stonier, the desert landscape or Agent Chandler’s remote personality? The desert was desolate, rocky, filled with crusted hills, ugly spiny things that appeared to be vegetable in origin, lit by a merciless sun and drifting off to a horizon that was a forever away. She was extremely attractive, eyes beaming with intelligence, but face held in disciplined dullness and disinterest. She drove. She was the special agent. He was a consultant with the rank of brevet investigator. She called the shots. She commanded, in silence and concentration on the road. He sat there, in his off-the-rack suit, hoping for something a little more cooperative, but finding it not forthcoming. He knew she was a Nick mentee, one of the talented young ones Nick liked to work under him, that she was married to a CIA guy, that she had a reputation for “creativity,” whatever that was, and that she’d been a big player and winner in the Tom Constable dust-up of a few years back. He knew her nickname was “Starling” because she reminded people of a movie star who’d played a memorable FBI agent.
They’d eaten lunch separately and were headed out for a two o’clock with Colonel Christopher Nelson, USAF, CO of the 143rd Expeditionary Air Wing (UAV), which is to say the Air Force CIA headhunter outfit at a desert air base called Creech, whose ugly name foretold the ugliness of the installation.
“Okay,” she finally said. “Talk to me. I’m open for business.”
“Ma’am, I follow your lead. You just tell me what you want to know and I’ll answer straight up.”
“I know you’re a gunfighter, an action guy. I know you dusted some very bad people in your time. I like that, I get that. But this is different. It’s interrogation. It demands suppleness, intellectual agility, concentration, patience, a deeply fraudulent charm. Can someone as direct as you work at indirection?”
“Don’t know about indirection, but I do know about fraud. Ma’am, I am a completely fraudulent individual. Too many people think I’m a hero when I’m a total coward. All the brave men died in the war, only us lucky yellow rats made it out alive.”
“Utter bullshit from a man who took down a pro hitter with a subgun at close range, time of engagement three seconds.”
“More like four. He wasn’t as pro as he thought.”
“I guess not. Okay, I will take the lead. We agree on cover up- front. You are looking for signs of weakness, for twitches that indicate untruthfulness, for signs of prevarication and mendacity. Do you know what they are?”
“Eyes mainly. He’ll look up or away if he’s lying, because he’s reading a script in his head. He’ll swallow a bit hard if he’s lying. His lips will dry. He’s foursquare military, he ain’t used to lying because their system is about no bullshit. If he’s got this big command, he must be an up-and-coming guy in the new robot Air Force. He’ll be nervous because the last thing he wants is to screw up his
career chances. He’ll pause before answering. He knows the best lie is only a few degrees from the truth.”
“You cannot do anything extralegal. You cannot peek, disappear, misrepresent. All the time you have to be thinking and noticing. Are you capable of that?”
“I’ll sure try,” he said.
“Cool,” she said. “You’re not as dumb as you look.”
“I do look dumb, don’t I?”
“My dad was head of the state police in Arizona. You look like any oldish, unpromotable trooper sergeant, tough as hell, good man in a gunfight, steady, and hopelessly obsolete. My poor dad had to get rid of a bunch of those guys, though he loved them all.”
“Never said I wasn’t no dinosaur,” said Bob. “And I thank you for indulging me against your better instincts.”
They reached Indian Springs, not that they really noticed. It was a trailer park, a convenience store/gas station, and a one-room casino in a glade of barely green scrub trees. The town abutted the base, which looked more like a prison complex than an airfield. A motley collection of brown corrugated-metal buildings, it spread across a desert basin, the same color of dry heat as everything else the sun bleached. It lay behind a barbwire fence and the two security gates were like Cold War border crossings. It was large and flat, disappearing over a ridge at least a mile or so out. In the far distance, on one of the short runways, some kind of white aircraft could be seen, something of a cross between a Piper Cub and a kite, and Bob realized that it was either the Predator itself or its killer progeny, the Reaper, which patrolled the skies of Afghanistan, looking for something to kill.
CREECH AFB
COLONEL NELSON’S OFFICE
HQ 143RD AIR EXPEDITIONARY WING (UAV)
INDIAN SPRINGS, NEVADA
1430 HOURS