Hard Fall (20 page)

These are the words Kort has heard in his mind a hundred times over. They are so familiar to him that he isn't sure if this man, this cigarette, this moment, are real or imagined. Perhaps he's still intoxicated by the alcohol or the drugs. There's no telling. The cigarette tastes good—wonderful—and that's when he realizes it's no dream.

“It does not necessarily mean I
will
arrest you for that murder,” the man teases, a perverse grin on his face. The face is hard at the edges. The skin of his left cheek is rough. A bristled moustache on his upper lip juts out like a shelf. He's cut his chin shaving. But it's his eyes that hold Kort. Blue eyes—gentle, humorous, knowing. They are smiling at Kort. “I am not going to arrest you, Mr. Kort. Not necessarily. You can be of value to me. We can be of value to each other. We have much to discuss. You may call me Michael. Sit down please, Mr. Kort. You have a very important decision to make.”

She drove a red BMW with a cellular phone and a compact disk stereo. The luncheon was take-out. Turkey croissant sandwiches with cream cheese and sun-dried tomatoes. Kort drank an espresso; Monique, decaf au lait. They ate on a plaid blanket by the shore of the Potomac with a distant view of National Airport. Joggers, dragging from the heat, passed in front of them.

“I read about it,” she said. He looked over at her, something tugged at his heartstrings, and he flirted with a dozen thoughts—everything from running away with her to making love with her here on the blanket—before managing to shut out such ideas. “We did not take credit for it. I do not understand the
point
if we do not take credit. There was a
reason
behind it, was there not?” She shifted uneasily, tugging at her skirt. “Have we resorted to indiscriminate killing—like the Arab barbarians? Is that the path down which Michael has led us?”

“We don't take credit. That's just the point. That's the real genius of the plan. ‘Let them be accidents,'” he said, directly quoting Michael but not letting her know this. “If they knew it was terrorism, they would focus on us instead of Mosner and EisherWorks. Let the public figure it out for themselves. This kind of thing: There will be endless investigations, everything from the FBI to congressional subcommittees. By now they've already begun. If necessary, some key reporters will receive important documentation from ‘anonymous' sources. With our help, they will flush out the ‘truth' about EisherWorks's duplicity. It will fill the papers for months. Years perhaps. Two major air accidents within a few weeks of each other. And what do we accomplish?” He counted off on his long fingers, “Mosner and the others dead; EisherWorks bankrupted; the unveiling of what amounts to an antienvironmental conspiracy between the largest chemical producers and the U.S. government agencies. Who knows what else? It's beautiful.”

“And this meeting is next?”

“Yes.”

“How is it to be done? You still have not explained this.”

“I told you: I can't explain everything. You must understand that.” He said, sipping from his coffee, “It's too hot for coffee. I should have had an iced drink. This heat is oppressive; no wonder Washington empties in August.” He set the espresso down and took another bite of the sandwich. He wiped cream cheese from his lips.

“Tell me,” she said in a demanding tone.

He snapped his head toward her. “I'll tell you
nothing
. Do you understand? Nothing more than you need to be told. Nothing more than
I decide
you need to be told. There's such a thing as trust, isn't there?”

“Is there?”

“Would I be eating here with you if I did not trust you?” he asked. “Completely exposed. Nowhere, no way to escape.” He waited. “Well?”

She didn't look at him. She spoke to the blanket. “Sometimes I hate you for the way you are.”

He was thinking: That makes two of us.

She folded the wax paper around her sandwich. A small, colorless bird bathed itself at river's edge, the splashing of its wings foaming the polluted water. Again, he felt tempted to point out the pollution to her. Instead he said, “I need you.”

“I hate you.”

“No you don't.”

“Yes. Yes, I hate you.”

“Okay. So that's it then: You hate me.”

“No I don't.”

“You're confused.”

“Yes.”

“Angry.”

“Yes.”

“With me?”

“With everything.” A pause. Then she continued, “The meeting. When is it?”

“You need to contact the Greek. He knows the date. He can tell us.”

“And that is all? That is all I do?”

“For the time being, yes. That's all.”

“And later?” she asked.

He couldn't take any more of this. They could train him to keep his cool in the midst of gunfire, in handling bombs, but no one had prepared him for her. He couldn't do this without her, and she seemed to know that. “You mustn't keep asking me that. I can't tell you everything. It would be foolish to do so. But your time will come. Believe me: Your time will come.” She was squirming. It bothered him. “I
need
you,” he said, still believing this was what she wanted to hear. “I can't do it without you.” Her eyes lit up.

He hid his smile of confidence from her by trying the coffee again.

“I thought you didn't want any more of that,” she said.

“It's not so bad.”

“I'll never understand you,” she said in disappointment.

No you won't, he was thinking, though he didn't say so.

He reached over and drew his finger slowly on her soft, pouty lips. She licked out at it and caught it briefly. “It tastes sweet,” she said quietly.

“It's you that is sweet,” he countered. He felt himself respond to her. It was some kind of chemistry with them. Around and around his finger went, slippery and warm, her tongue darting out after it.

“Let's get out of here,” she said breathlessly, eyes closed.

“Yes,” he agreed. “Let's.”

With her sad brown eyes and broomstick posture, Gloria's demanding expression stopped Daggett cold. She was still angry about his refusing the promotion. It was the first time it had occurred to him that her jet black hair might be covering the truth. He felt tempted to ask her if she dyed it—it was one sure way to silence her before she spoke.

He placed his briefcase down heavily onto his desktop, and with a few nods said hello to a couple of the gang who had beaten him into work, already busy on the phones. CNN ran with the sound down low from a battered set in the corner. It ran twenty-four hours a day. The remaining desks went empty. Some of the guys had stretched the holiday weekend into a week's vacation. Others were on field assignments, a few on opposing shifts.

He said hello to her. She was playing it smug. “We get a new agent today. He'll be in any minute.”

“Glo,” he said, “this is important to me.”

“I don't want to talk about it.” She handed him a fax. “Here, this is for you.”

It was the flight manifest, listing passengers who had flown from Los Angeles to Washington on the plane that the mystery woman, Maryanne Lyttle, had boarded after dropping off the rented minivan. Daggett scanned the list for her name, but it wasn't there. He couldn't allow this to discourage him. An operative would change aliases at every opportunity. They would change looks, driver's licenses, credit cards, everything. It didn't give him the kind of hard evidence Pullman was demanding to see. It left him in the familiar no-man's-land of suspicion without proof. Investigative Purgatory. He wanted to believe that Lyttle—by whatever name—was involved, but he couldn't be certain.

The new man's name was Bradley Levin. He was thirty-two, fiercely handsome, and a good deal taller than Daggett, maybe six-two, two hundred or two-ten. Strong upper body. Long, black curly hair with a shock of premature gray in the front. Gentle dark eyes, but chiseled lines to his face, his cheeks shaded by an insistent five o'clock shadow. Daggett greeted him enthusiastically, but it was an act: Although he needed help badly, the idea of working with a transfer was less than appealing. They got to know each other over more burned coffee. This time in the first-floor cafeteria. Levin had started out at the Denver field office, where he had worked kidnappings. “Miami after that. Drugs,” he explained in a low, warm voice. “We took up some slack for the DEA. Surprise inspections of commercial aircraft.”

“The AirEast bust?” Daggett inquired.

“That was mine,” he admitted reluctantly. He blushed. Daggett was glad for the humility. It was less and less common around WMFO.

“Now Counterterrorism here with you guys. I gotta tell you: driving up here, what a neighborhood! I can see why they treat the garage like a jail for cars.”

“Wait till you work the night shift. You end up carrying your piece with one in the chamber.”

“I believe it.”

“We're in some deep shit here. I need an independent thinker, Brad, not a yes-man. I need someone to bounce ideas off of. Work with. I need someone to do a lot of the shit work and smile through it. Your experience with the commercial airlines will come in handy. But, honestly, this is probably the worst time to come aboard here. We're frantic. We've got a live one on the run. Dangerous, as in bombs. You have less than no time to catch up on all this. You have your reading cut out for you. Tempers are on hair triggers around here, so beware. I'm working on a deadline: I've been given one more week to prove that a murder in Seattle and the crash of flight sixty-four are both connected to Bernard. So beware … office hours are anytime you're not sitting on the can.”

“Like Miami.”

“Good,” Daggett said, relieved. “Then you're used to it.”

“Very.”

“If we're lucky, we slam-dunk this guy. If we're not so lucky … well, there's nothing worse than wandering a burning field littered with body parts, especially knowing it was your job to prevent it from happening. There's pressure, and then there's this kind of pressure.” He paused and lost his concentration. “Anyway, welcome aboard.”

“Thanks.”

“They call me Michigan around here—you don't have to, but everyone else does.” He took hold of the letter jacket.

“I get the idea,” Levin said.

“I did some reading of my own before you got here. Your SAC in Miami wrote good things about you. Says you think first and talk later. You're single. I won't ask.”

“Good, 'cause it's none of your business.”

Daggett paused while the two challenged each other with stares. “It
is
my business. We're open books around here. All of us. Just so you know. Counterterrorism … it
has
to be that way. We've never been penetrated from the outside. Not that we
know
of anyway. You understand?”

“It's worse when you're in Drugs in Miami.”

“I can believe it.”

“You should. I'm not in the habit of lying.”

“Well, that answers the point about your being insolent.”

“As Popeye said to the potato farmer: ‘I yam what I yam.'”

“That's good. I'll try to remember that.” It won a smile. Daggett said, “Pity about your schooling. But if I'm Michigan, then you're Ohio. Is that okay with you?”

“Fine, as long as we both know which is the superior school,” Levin said.

Daggett wasn't going to allow himself to be led into that. It was an argument that could last days. Lifetimes, maybe. Not now anyway. “An A student right through college. That's impressive.”

“My parents pushed.”

“What do they think of the Bureau?”

“Next question.”

“They don't approve,” Daggett said.

“They had me picked for an attorney, like my father. From the age of about six months.”

“So now you're an overachiever. Is that supposed to explain your record? Is that what you're telling me?”

“I'm not telling you anything. You're asking. If you ask, I answer, okay?”

“You'll like it here; you'll fit in. One thing nice about Counterterrorism is you're left alone a lot. It makes for more freedom, but comes at the cost of more reports.”

“What's the squad chief like?”

“Pullman? He's new to it.”

“So I hear.”

“He's okay. The last guy was a bounty hunter. Wanted credit for anything that happened to go right. Can't tell yet what Pullman will be like. Guys change when they get the corner office.”

“I heard you turned down a promotion. Any truth to that?”

Daggett wondered if this was Gloria's doing, or just an office rumor. “I've got my reasons.”

“I thought we were open books around here.”

They locked eyes and Daggett sensed he had made a friend. He asked, “Any friends in the area?”

“You're my first,” Levin said, testing the waters. Daggett nodded. Levin added, “Couple of people I know from Quantico should be around here someplace.”

“You want to discuss assignments?”

“Why not?”

“I don't know whether you've had a chance yet to review the
Der Grund
file—”

“I have.”

“Good. Then you know that in Europe they're considered a radical Green group, that they target the petrochemical/pharmaceutical industries.”

“What about ten twenty-three?”

“
Including
ten twenty-three. It was carrying commercial chemicals in the cargo hold. They made a threat and it was ignored. One thing we know about them: They seem to have some sort of collective conscience, as perverse as that may sound. In
every
case they have issued a threat prior to committing their act of terrorism. They do this to a flaw. And their signature is that they kill using a product, or byproduct, of the company they've targeted. The Semtex derivative that was used to blow up ten twenty-three was manufactured by the same company whose chemicals were in the cargo hold. A German company called EisherWorks Chemicals. Now, come to find out, the stuff on flight sixty-four was manufactured by an EisherWorks subsidiary. That's not good enough evidence for the desk jocks like Pullman, but it is for me.