The Falconer's Tale (30 page)

After five minutes, he wondered how strong Hackbutt
was. The bird in the tree was in constant motion now,
walking back and forth on his branch, spreading his wings
and then furling them, over and over.

Then Piat saw the prince. He came slowly into the wadi,
picking his way down the opposite slope, using cover to
hide him from the bird. He moved like an athlete.

Hackbutt let a little more cord out on the lure and spun
it even more slowly, changing his slow circle to an oval so
that the chunk of meat on the end almost stopped for a
heartbeat at the apex of the oval. And then, as the prince
emerged from behind his cover, Hackbutt reversed his lure,
a move like a fly-cast with a heavy rod, so that the lure
turned over in the air and reversed direction—

The bird leaped into the air and rolled under a branch,
feet already extended for the strike—

Hackbutt pulled the lure like a fisherman retrieving a
cast, so that the lure changed direction again and fell to
the ground almost at his feet—

The bird lunged, turned on a wingtip and struck the
lure, two feet from Hackbutt's leg—

The prince's falconer knelt fluidly, passed his hand under
the bird's feet and seized her jesses and the lure in one
motion and rose with the bird captive on his fist and yet
feeding on the meat. The bird glared around, once, and
then put his head down and started to eat.

The prince, now standing behind his falconer, gave him
a powerful slap on the back. He was smiling. He said something
with authority in Arabic. Piat's Arabic had never been
that good, but the tone was one of gentle malice. Like
You've ruined my day's hunting. But at least you got the bird
back
. Something like that.

Before Piat had climbed down the wadi to congratulate
them, the prince had asked Hackbutt to dinner.

“You sure know some swell places,” Craik said. The coffee
house was in Adams Morgan, trendy but grungy, hints of
iconic hippiedom in the waitress's unbound breasts and
flowered, floor-length skirt. Next door was a defunct African
restaurant, its exterior now decorated with panhandlers.

“Old guys get around.” Peretz had been there ahead of
him, was looking down into a cup with a lot of froth. “I
think my coffee has hydrophobia.”

Alan let himself into a chair and said, “We used to come
up here for Ethiopian food.”

“A lot of Ethiopians went home when their war ended.
That's what it means to be the world's superpower—other
people get killed and we get ethnic restaurants. I think we
have a lot of Iraqi food in our future.”

Craik got himself a double espresso and a muffin that
was big enough to feed a family of four. It was mid-morning;
he'd missed breakfast, what the hell. Back at the table, he
said, “I hope there's a reason why we're meeting here.”

“You don't like my favorite coffee shop? Shame on you.”
Abe tried a little of the froth on a spoon, made a face.
“You look bad. What's up?”

Craik shrugged. “Little business meeting with my boss
this afternoon.” He shook his head. “I need his okay on
this stuff I talked to you about. Putting my nose in.” He
shrugged again. “Fuck him.”

Peretz started to say something and then seemed to
decide it was better to change the subject. “I was right
about Leah.”

Alan looked his question.

Peretz sniffed his fingers. “I have new neighbors.”

“That's nice.”

“They are, in fact. Really nice. A couple, my age. Funny
coincidence, they're liberal, reformed Jews. What a nice
fit.”

“You don't think it's a coincidence.”

“They want to go to Israel. They've never been to Israel,
they say. Wouldn't I like to go with them? Safety in
numbers. We can be liberal and reformed together.” He
pushed the coffee aside and took a small piece of Alan's
muffin. “I sent a reply to Leah's email. I put it off and put
it off. I was scared, scared of what I'd find. It took me
three weeks to get up my courage. Then I had to be half
sloshed. I just said I was glad I'd heard from her and I
loved her.”

“And?”

Peretz's voice got angry. “Comes back an answer. ‘plzplz
cum 2 c me luv luv.' Broke my heart.” He looked away,
blinked, sniffed his fingers. “Then my new neighbors
showed up.” He tightened his mouth and looked off through
the shop's window at the grubby street. “We eat dinner
together sometimes.”

“You think they're a plant?”

“Do cows give milk?”

“Abe, you don't
know
that.”

Peretz snorted. “I told one of my buds from the Bureau;
he checked them out. In fact, they've been to Israel nine
times. They're nice people, but they're lying to me.” He
shifted gears. “Enough about me. Let's talk about what I'm
doing for you.” He opened the small paper napkin that
had come with his coffee. “I've been looking into the
OIA–Force for Freedom–K Street circle jerk. It's practically
neoclassical, it's so symmetrical.” With a felt-tipped pen,
he drew a circle. “You want to hear this?”

“All ears.”

Peretz made a mark on the circle. “Hooper and Gretz.
Lobbying firm. Two OIA people signed on with them. One
of their clients is—” he made another mark—“the
Petroleum Education Council. OIA's McKinnon went there
as a biggie, you remember.” He blacked in an arrowhead
pointing at Hooper and Gretz, then drew another arrowhead
pointing the other way. “Part of lobbying these days
is buying Congress members with what are wink-wink,
nudge-nudge called political contributions.” He made
another mark on the circle. “Congressman Kwalik, Ohio.
Got sixty thou from the Petroleum Education Council. Two
OIA people went to him as staffers, you'll recall.”

“I've seen Kwalik at DIA. He's on the House intelligence
committee, so maybe it's legit.”

“Probably checking to see that everybody has enough
rubber bands. Our elected representatives never sleep.” He
made another mark on the circle. “Force for Freedom is
also a Hooper and Gretz client.” He drew more arrowheads.
He drew another arrowhead pointing at Kwalik. “Force
for Freedom gave Kwalik eighty thousand of its hard-
earned dollars over the last two years.” Peretz looked
at his diagram, improved a couple of arrowheads, put in
dollar signs in several places. “A cynic would say it works
this way: lobbyists work on congressmen to get what
their clients want, and the clients kick in the bucks to
the congressmen to make sure it happens. The congressmen
use their oversight to forward the client's agenda.
The agencies that actually get the job of forwarding the
agenda farm out some of the work to private companies
that then—surprise!—employ the lobbyists and give more
money to the congressmen. And the money goes round
and round.”

“I don't believe it's about money.”

“I don't either. It's about political theory and ideology
and conviction, but it's sweeter if everybody makes money
in the process.” He tapped the paper. “Not to brag, but
when they got the White House and the House and the
Senate, I said this would be the most corrupt administration
since U. S. Grant. Was I wrong?”

“What's your idea of the agenda?”

“Power. US power. More, more, more. And oil, without
which a military force can't operate. F-18s don't fly on
solar.”

“American power isn't necessarily a bad thing, Abe.”

“No nation's power is a bad thing until they get too
much of it. Lord What's-his-name was right: absolute power
corrupts absolutely. And always in the name of the most
admirable goals. Democracy! Homeland security! Justice!”
Peretz sniffed his fingers, smiled. “We're a flawed species,
Al. We have intellect but we don't have the wisdom. We
always blister our fingers because we build our fires too
hot, ever since we discovered that fire makes meat taste
better.” He sighed. “Even us. Even the good guys. Even
the
best
of the good guys.”

Craik sat slumped in his chair. He picked up muffin
crumbs with a wet finger and ate them. “I always feel so
cheered up after I've been with you.”

All the way back to the lodge, Hackbutt refought the luring
of the red-tail in extraordinary detail. Piat had expected
Hackbutt to be excited, but this level of postmortem
combined the operational details and his passion for
falconry into a monologue that was still droning on when
Mike stopped the car in the lodge's drive.

Piat couldn't give enough, nor could Hackbutt get
enough. When Hackbutt slid off the seat to find Irene, Piat
turned to Mike. “Brilliant, man.”

“Sure,” Mike said.

“You're doing a great job, Craik.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Don't mess it up.”

“Sir?”

“Let me give you some advice. There are, what?—eight
captains in naval intel? One of them, maybe two, will get
promoted. The rest will get honorable retirements. You're
on the track to be the one. When you get to this level,
you're good or you wouldn't be here. From here on, it's
political. Take it from me.” He smiled. “Don't waste time
on stuff out at the periphery.”

He was an Air Force two-star general with movie-star
looks and a good smile. He looked a lot younger than he
was, and even then, he was young for his rank. He hadn't
got to be the commanding officer of the Defense Intelligence
Agency by bothering with things on the periphery. “You
understand what I'm saying?”

“Are you telling me to back off, sir?”

“I'm telling you to focus on your job, which you've been
doing really, really well. A hundred and ten percent. ‘Top
officer of a thousand' kind of fitness report.”

Craik had made an appointment with General Raddick
and had laid out what he had found about Perpetual Justice.
The general's answer seemed to be that it was out there
on the periphery, and he should look straight ahead.

“I believe that everything involving task numbers falls
under my responsibility, sir.”

“What you're doing with the Green Book is great. Great!
Concentrate on that.” General Raddick shifted a brass
elephant two inches to his left on his desk. “I'm not going
to ask you how you know what you know, because it's on
my
periphery. But Perpetual Justice is highly classified,
something unauthorized people shouldn't even know
exists. You're a dedicated officer; you stumbled on this;
you've brought it to my attention. Good.” The general had
pale blue eyes that added to his handsomeness but didn't
do anything to suggest warmth. “Now you want to go back
to your own home ballpark.”

“Are you telling me to drop the matter, sir? Even if I
suspect that my office signed on for an illegal operation?”

“I'm giving you some career advice. Focus on getting
two stars and taking my job.” The smile flashed. “Okay?”
Raddick stood. “I'm glad we had this talk. In this job, I
don't see enough of the officers who really run things.
Come to me any time.”

A few seconds later, Craik was out in the corridor.

Piat had gathered Irene and Hackbutt in his room before
they went to have dinner with the prince. He found that
he was nervous, tried to keep his tension out of his voice.
“We need another meeting with him—somewhere else,
and at least a week from now. We've talked about this,
Digger. This is the operational plan. We've made the contact.
Now we need to build a relationship.”

Hackbutt nodded. “Okay.” He was still high on the success
of the day; he looked wonderful in the used dinner jacket
that Piat had bought for him in London. Admiring himself
in the mirror, he said, “I'm ready.”

Piat walked them down the corridor and then across the
lodge's atrium toward the restaurant. Hackbutt paused in
front of another mirror and tweaked his black bow tie.
“What do I talk about?” he whispered.

“Birds,” Piat said with a little too much force.

Irene hissed.

The restaurant had vanilla walls and heavy teak tables
the color of cinnamon, scraps of African tribal décor and
white linen, and an unparalleled view of the valley and
the parkland beyond. A red sunset tinted the room a rich
salmon.

The prince was waiting at a corner table. A young Saudi
man in a business suit stood at the corner of the broad
windows, watching the patio outside, while another stood
at the bar without a drink in front of him. His falconer
stood behind the prince's chair.

The prince rose to his feet

One shot
, Piat thought, again.
It's this or it's over
. He said,
“Show time,” and they walked in.

Piat walked into the bar of Stuttgart's Le Meridien exactly
on time, at least according to the signal he had sent. The
walls were painted a deep red brown, like bloodstains, and
all the furniture was black. It was a disconcerting room.

And Clyde Partlow wasn't in it. Piat wandered through
the empty bar, presided over by a stunning blond, and
ordered a beer. Still no Partlow. Piat finished his beer and
ordered a second one. The window to meet Partlow closed
on his third gulp, and he began to consider the fallback
meeting a day later in a different location. He didn't think
he had a day to waste. In fact, despite the quality of the
bar and the woman behind it, Piat couldn't help running
through all the things that might happen with Hackbutt—
or Irene—while he cooled his heels in Germany.

Partlow came in midway through the third beer. He was
twenty minutes late—millennia in espionage terms, an
unsafe margin. Piat himself should have been long gone,
except that he didn't have anywhere to go.

Partlow sat at the other end of the bar, ordered a beer,
asked the bartender in accurate German if he could smoke.
She shook her head. He drank his beer while reading a
paper and walked out, leaving his black pack of Canadian
cigarettes on the bar.

Piat ordered chips, and while the bartender was distracted,
lifted the cigarettes. Fifteen minutes later, he followed
the directions on the inside flap of the packet to Partlow's
room. The level of tradecraft worried him—Partlow was
seldom so careful about such stuff, and the extra effort
suggested that something was very wrong indeed, especially
in Germany.

The door was open with the bar lock folded against the
jam. Piat pushed in silently. Partlow was sitting facing the
door, looking as well groomed and well-to-do as ever. He
rose when he saw Piat and extended a hand. “I gather
congratulations are in order?” he said as soon as Piat had
the door shut.

“Eight out of ten. What's with all the spy shit?”

“Additional precautions may be called for.” Partlow sat,
waved Piat into a facing chair at a table piled high with
food.

Piat poured coffee from a flask and took a fat-laden croissant
sandwich from the pile. “Better than the food at that
place in Italy.”

“My choice of venue in Italy was a mistake. The food
was the least of it.”

Piat, his mouth full, shrugged and chewed.

Partlow sat back. When Piat took another bite, Partlow
started to drum his fingers on the table.

“You in a hurry?” Piat asked.

“I'm more than a little eager to hear what ‘eight out of
ten' means,” Partlow replied.

Piat nodded and took another bite, savoring the reaction
he was going to get, setting up his arguments in his head.
He popped a mineral water with his thumb, drank half, and
used a napkin on some crumbs. The he smiled.

“I was hungry. Okay, here it is. The target is not
recruitable. We contacted him, he bit, we got a second
meeting on the spot, made social contact, all that jazz. He
didn't like us, didn't like what we had to say or how we
said it. Despite that, using the bird I told you about, we
arranged a follow-on. He's offered the falconer a million
dollars, cash and carry, for the bird.”

Partlow, whose face had slumped at the first news, brightened.
“That's great, Jerry. Well done.”

“The falconer was incredible, if I do say so myself. I'd
like to take all the credit, but a lot of the stuff he did himself.
It's in my contact report.”

Partlow stiffened. “Your what?”

Piat tossed a cheap 56K memory stick on the table.
“Contact report. You know, the kind of thing case officers
file. I know—I'm just an agent. But you needed more than
just a debrief. I wrote the report. It runs forty pages and
it'll give you a blow by blow of the meetings.”

Partlow picked up the memory stick. “Bad security.”

Piat shrugged. “You're welcome. I just saved you five
hours of work. Seriously, Clyde, this is complicated shit,
and I wanted it in writing.”

Partlow nodded. “Try not to do it again. What if you'd
been picked up in German customs?”

“Well, first they'd have had to find it, and then they'd
have had to open it without my crypto-key, and then they'd
have had to gather what it all means. Give me a break,
Clyde, it's done.” Piat picked up a second sandwich, this
one with a lot of Brie. “Do you want to hear this, or not?”

Partlow sighed. “Go on. Why is he not recruitable?”

“He doesn't like the West, Clyde. I could tell you all kinds
of pop-psych crap, but let's just take that as read, okay? He
shows all the signs of a serious convert. I kept expecting
him to tell me that America was the far enemy, or something.
He's a gunner, and he's into some heavy Islamic stuff,
and that's that.”

“Fundamentalist? Wahhabi?”

“I can't put a tag on it, and the leopard doesn't change
his spots overnight—he went hunting on Friday, ate dinner
with us, showed no signs of fasting I could see. But he's in
it—in the political shit. I'd swear to it.”

Partlow shook his head. “That's why we want him, Jerry.
Don't be simple.”

“I'm not simple. I just know what can and cannot be
done. This guy cannot be done. He didn't like Hackbutt, he
didn't like the girl, he doesn't drink, he hated going to school
in the US, and he doesn't have any easy vices or handles.”

“Gay?”

“What's gay? What's gay in Saudi?”

“Point taken.”

“The biggest problem with our approach is that our fundamental
information was flawed. He's into birds—but they're
not his life. In fact, our falconer didn't think much of him.”

“Oh, Jesus. How bad was that?”

“Not bad at all. I'm telling you, the falconer was great.
He went out with the prince the morning after we had
dinner—a really bad evening—and they flew birds together,
and he was great. No, I'm saying a different thing. I don't
have any evidence for this, but if I had to guess, I'd say
the target was seriously into falconry until his conversion
opened a wider world for predatory power. He's not a nice
guy.”

“Terrorists so seldom are.” Partlow offered a thin smile.

“Hmm. Terrorist? Whatever. He's a tough target, and I
don't think he's worth an approach—which, if I read you
and this op right, means no go. Because if he listens politely
and burns us to the king, careers end. Right?”

Partlow turned his head away, avoiding eye contact.
“Something like that. Jerry, I'm sure you're bang on the
money, but I fail to see how this adds up to eight out of
ten. I confess that you've done your part—admirably—but
it appears to me—”

“Not there yet, Clyde. Stick around for the good part. He
has a servant—more like a slave. His personal gofer. Also
his falconer. Sudanese. If I had to guess, I'd say a south
erner, either a convert to Islam or a forced convert.”

Now Partlow leaned forward.

“I thought that would interest you. The sale of the bird—
if it goes through, if you care—gives us opportunity to contact
the servant. The falconer—that's our guy—made excellent
personal contact with this guy. It was really our guy and
this guy who flew the birds; the prince just stands around
and watches with a sneer on his face. In my report, I call
the Sudanese ‘Bob.' Bob's young, he doesn't seem to love
his master, and his master doesn't seem to see any of the
resentment. ‘Bob' went to Monaco and to Mombasa—I think
he travels everywhere with the target. And, Clyde—I think
he'd take the hook as soon as it was offered. Money and a
US passport for some stated time in place and a retrieval.”

Partlow nodded. “Will he have access, though?”

Piat crossed his arms. “I don't know. He stands behind
his master's chair at meetings. What do you think?”

Partlow smiled. “I think you may have just pulled a pearl
out of a cesspool.”

“Me, too. I look forward to the bonus. Listen, Clyde. This
isn't in my report. It's just between us.”

Partlow crossed his legs. “Go ahead.”

“The prince was never recruitable, Clyde. No way. In fact,
without luck and more luck and some brilliant improvisation
by me and my hand-built African network, we'd never
even have got a shot at this guy. He's big league, he doesn't
like Westerners or the West, he has his own contacts—he's
beyond hard, Clyde. He's fucking impossible.” He held
Partlow's eyes. “Who told you this could be done?”

Partlow's look was bland and unreadable. “Need to know,
Jerry.”

“Sure—whatever. Keep it to yourself. But I only see two
possible scenarios, Clyde. Let me lay them out for you.
One—you're so fucking desperate to get a counterterrorism
op that you sent me, because I'm totally expendable, to
contact an impossible target in the vague hope that somehow
I'd make it fly. That'd be annoying and flattering at the
same time, but it's bullshit, because you couldn't take the
blowback if I fucked it away, and because you were going
to have Dave run it—and Dave would've died the real death
just now in Mombasa. Right?”

Partlow's face was as readable as a gravestone.

“Two—somebody else turned you on to this op and you
really had no clue what you were up against. In which
case, something stinks,' cause I think we—or is it you—
were set up to fail.”

Partlow poured himself a plastic cup full of mineral water.
“Both fascinating scenarios. Why didn't we ever send you
to the Ranch as an instructor?”

Piat rolled his eyes. “Because I'd have been drunk and
disorderly every night in the bar, and I'd have tried to make
all the chicks. Oh, wait—that's what all the other instructors
do, too.”

Partlow glanced at his watch. “I assume you have a plan
to carry on?”

Piat waved at the memory stick. “In my report. We shift
focus to ‘Bob.' We sell the target the bird. We use the negotiations
and the sale to make contacts with ‘Bob.' We pull
the trigger and see what we get. Our falconer can probably
work up an extended relationship with ‘Bob,' if only by
email—and we use that for comms if we land him. Worst
case, ‘Bob' burns us to his master—and he's a no-status,
third-country national, and nobody gives a rat's ass. The
ambassador in Saudi mumbles an apology while he's
handing over parts for their F-15s.”

“You realize that now I have to go back and sell a new
target and a new budget.” Partlow rubbed his chin. “But I
like it. It can be done.”

Piat had done it. Partlow was going to buy the
operation—now Piat's operation. He said, “I need to arrange
to move the bird—that's all very, very illegal and you can
fix it with a phone call.”

Partlow looked pained. “More than one phone call.”

“Sure, whatever. Make a dozen. I need the bird moved
to Bahrain. You know what that means—I need legal-looking
paper to show to Hackbutt, and we'll need it to move the
bird—there's got to be some sort of export license, a waiver
of shit like the CITES treaty, permission of the Royal
Ornithological Society—Christ knows what all. You're going
to take care of all that, right, Clyde?”

Partlow nodded.

“Okay, I need to set up another meeting with the prince.
For the sale. Once it goes down, we tell ‘Bob' to call if he
needs help—if the bird gets sick, for instance.”

“And we just wait?”

“If I do it right, he'll call. He wants us—he just doesn't
know we exist yet. I mean it, Clyde. Some guys are born
to be agents. ‘Bob' is one.” He paused, not wanting to oversell,
but needing to make sure that Partlow understood. “I
think he hates the prince, Clyde. I think he'd love to see
him take a fall.”

And Partlow grinned.

Half a bottle of scotch later, Partlow asked, “How much
difficulty will the Brits make about the bird?”

“Lots.” Piat shrugged again. “Hey, I can't sugar-coat it.
The bird is protected, there's about four hundred breeding
pairs out there, and she's a magnificent specimen. So give
the Brits a share of the take. What the hell, they must be
in on it, anyway, if it's all terrorism stuff.” He grinned. “You
didn't run an operation on British soil without asking their
permission, did you?”

Partlow said, “I think you are in danger of telling me
how to do my job.”

Piat thought of all the usual jibes.
Somebody has to do it
came to mind. But he passed. Again. Instead he said, “I
want to do the recruitment on Bob. Myself.”

Partlow raised his eyebrows. “How much will that cost
me?”

Piat grinned. “Lots. But nothing compared to somebody
else fucking it away.”

Partlow almost grinned back. “I'll take it under advisement.
It may be time to take you off this, Jerry. I'm not
made of money.” Partlow straightened his tie. “I'm of a mind
to let you do the recruitment, nonetheless,” he said. “But I
make no promises. As I said, it may be time to retire you.”

“Hey, I just got you a fucking miracle.”

“Eight out of ten, Jerry.”

Jerry threw his head back like a disgusted teenager.
“When will I find out if I can do the recruitment?”

Partlow scribbled a number. “Call. It'll take a while.”

“It can't take very long. We've got to move the sale of
the bird along or he'll lose interest. I'm going to set up that
meeting for the soonest date I can get. If you dick around,
it'll be too late and you'll lose ‘Bob.' And me.”