The Last Spymaster (14 page)

Now the topic changed again. “What the CIA does that nobody else does is talk their way into, or break into, or suborn an employee in some foreign office so they can steal secrets.” Speaking was a young reporter with a photogenic face recently hired by a major network for nearly a million dollars annually. To this group, his pronouncement was hardly news, but he was too ignorant to know that. “Or in a president’s office, if they’re really good.”

The hostess was kind; she played along. “Or eavesdrop on some diplomat’s calls to find out whether he’s lying to the White House. Isn’t that right, Laurence?” Famed for her power salons, she was unrivaled at putting guests at ease, then teasing out revelations. Years ago Litchfield had decided she would have made a damn fine spy.

“All of it’s useful.” Litchfield gave a wry smile, glad for a lighter topic. “George Washington himself submitted a bill for nearly twenty thousand dollars to pay for his army’s spies. Both Alexander the Great and Hannibal relied on espionage, too. The history of espionage is long, if not always illustrious. For instance, President Nixon took national security so seriously he even classified some White House menus.”

As laughter rippled around the table, Litchfield felt his disposable cell phone vibrate. With relief, he excused himself and strode out of the elegant dining room. Once outdoors, he stuck his pipe between his teeth and moved lightly away from the house. In his mid-forties, he had a runner’s wiry body. His tuxedo fit impeccably, but then he’d had it made for him on Savile Row. He stopped beside a box hedge and studied the garden. He had an aquiline nose, a square chin, and eyebrows that cut across his forehead in a black line. Satisfied no one was nearby, he listened to the message on his cell. His deep-set eyes clouded. It was from the DCI.

He dialed. “Bobbye? It sounds bad. What’s happened?”

The DCI’s usual honeyed tones rasped with outrage. “It’s Whippet. Someone’s taken them out.”

“What! The whole unit? Are you certain?”

“Most of the ones here in D.C., yes. Four are still breathing, but only because they were out on assignment. One is Elaine Cunningham. She called in the report. Who in hell has the goddamned balls and is stupid enough to do such a thing?”

Litchfield froze, thinking. “Tice might’ve learned Whippet was assigned to find him.” He swore loudly. “The unit’s address is the same as when Tice headed ops. It was scheduled for a name and location change later this year.”

Bobbye Johnson was not pleased. “Obviously it’s time you shortened the resettlement schedules of our special units.”

But Litchfield’s mind was elsewhere, making plans. Edgy and field-smart, he had been the Associate Deputy Director under Tice—Tice’s number two. When Tice was arrested, he was promoted to the throne of all clandestine activities. Following a legend like Tice, even a tainted legend, was hardly easy. Still, his tenure had been highly successful. Bobbye Johnson’s had, too, but she got little credit for it. As DCI, she was a lightning rod for all that was wrong or perceived wrong with Langley. Washington thrived on gossip, and the latest was that she would be asked to resign. Litchfield was pleased that his name topped the rumor list of those likely to replace her, but this situation with Whippet and Tice could hurt him.

“Don’t concern yourself, Bobbye.” His tone was properly supportive. “You’ve got more than enough responsibilities. I’ll personally find Tice and whoever scrubbed our people—if it wasn’t Tice.”

“You have damn little time before we have to turn the hunt over to the FBI. As for Whippet, since you aren’t here, I’ve been handling things personally.” There was just enough admonition in her tone to remind him she was still very much in charge. “I’ve activated all protocols to protect the unit’s identity. Our dead will be named under their cover identities. Whip-pet house will be cleaned out in less than an hour. I’ve talked to the police, and they’ll cooperate. I’ve got Justice to agree to tell the media that the institute is a think tank populated by independent researchers flown in to analyze stateless violence.”

“We need to send our own people to look for witnesses.”

“I’ve made the assignment. Also, the house’s security cameras should’ve recorded the attack. I’ve ordered video copies for your desk and mine. Shall I tell my assistant to alert your staff you’re coming in?”

“I’m leaving now.”

“Keep me posted,” she ordered.

Litchfield severed the connection and clasped his hands behind his back. Much was at stake, and he must make the right decisions. The assault on Whippet showed not only daring but information and power—the defining elements of a Jay Tice operation. Worried, he stood motionless in the moonlight, inscrutable, an urbane statue in black and white.

Washington, D.C.

Jay Tice did not vary from his casual stroll as Elaine followed him around corners and down blocks. One of the notations in his file echoed in her mind: “He had a reputation for going after anyone who attacked him.” Somehow the bastard had learned about Whippet and butchered them.

As she slowed, letting a trio of middle-aged men feed into the pedestrian traffic between Tice and her, she considered the phantom group that had tried to purge Tice and Palmer Westwood. Then that Whippet had tried to scrub her, and now Tice had decimated Whippet. Jay Tice was not only her target, he was central to everything that had happened.

Vehicle noises increased, and voices filled the air. They had arrived at Dupont Circle. It was a typical April night in an atypical area, even for D.C. Dupont was a crowded hotbed of not only urban culture but counterculture.

Tice wove among the crowds, and she elbowed and pushed after. Skin colors ranged from pale ivory to dark eggplant. Nose rings sparkled. Tattoos flashed. Naked arms gleamed. She was losing Tice.

She ducked and slid sideways and shoved through the moving talking laughing sweating masses, always keeping him in sight. The aromas of Starbucks coffee and Krispy Kreme doughnuts and beer mixed in the humid
air. Tice strode past the wedge-shaped Washington Club and paused at the intersection. She hurried to catch up. For cover, she fell into step with two young men.

“Well, hi,” said the one closest to her.

“Hi back.” She shot him a smile and peeled away.

Tice crossed the street and headed toward Jurys Washington Hotel—a good place to meet someone. She loped after, joining some tourists, and followed Tice’s slouched cap and catlike walk into the spacious stone-framed lobby and through the milling crowd and along a hall, where he slipped in among a cluster of guests. He vanished around the corner with some of them.

She raced to catch up, rounded the corner, too, and stopped. A row of elevators, and a dead end. A half-dozen people were piling into the only open elevator. She sprinted and peered inside. They frowned and stared back. He was not with them.

As her heart palpitated, the door closed, and she spun around, checking the other elevators. All were on higher floors, coming down. How could she have missed him? She dashed back into the corridor, but Tice was nowhere in sight. She rushed into the lobby and dodged through the bar, with its slurred talk and clinking glasses. No Tice. She hurried into the lobby again and through all of the halls and the restaurant and the café, searching everywhere.

Puzzled, furious with herself, she paused, recalling advice from one of his speeches: “Always have a good backup strategy and an even better way out.” If he had purposefully led her to this hotel, he must have spotted her.

She swore a long stream of silent oaths and returned to the elevators. A different one opened, and a couple strolled out. The man was not Tice. She paced, studying the walls. Moldings and panels decorated them. There were no hinges, no doorknobs. Then she saw it—so much a part of the overall design that it was almost invisible—a small molding-framed rectangle. She pressed it. There was a creak, and a low door swung back. The fusty odor of a basement flowed up, accompanied by the whine of elevator gears and pulleys.

Disgusted that she had allowed herself to be fooled, she bent and
stepped onto a webbed steel landing. Closing the door, she trotted down a long flight of steps to the hotel’s engineering room, a large echoing space with a concrete floor and boxy metal housings for utilities. Pipes and cables formed a gaudy overhead net. Fluorescent lights glared. She looked behind every housing, every post, listening so hard her ears ached. Seldom did she lose anyone, but tonight of all nights she had lost this very crucial target.

Fuming, Elaine headed back across the room to a driveway that rose to the street. As the sounds of traffic floated down, she took out her Langley cell phone and dialed the number Laurence Litchfield had given her. It was busy.

She left a message: “I found and lost Tice. Whippet tried to scrub me. Call!”

She climbed the drive. Hotel employees stood on the sidewalk, smoking and talking. Watching for Tice, watching for a tail, haunted that Whippet and perhaps others wanted her terminated, she wound through Dupont’s colorful nightlife. The doors to bars swung open, sending bursts of raucous laughter into the night.

She tried Litchfield again, but there was still no answer. God knew where he was or what he was doing, but eventually he would receive her message. She considered what to do until then.

She had to assume the Whippet killers did not want Langley to find out about the wet job on her. At the same time, someone at Langley might have been conspiring with them. Her town house was a defensible space, a place she knew better than any attacker could, and it was fully protected by a security system. Plus she had more weapons there. She might as well go home.

When she reached her Jag, a parking ticket waited on her windshield. She ripped it out from under the wiper and inspected the car carefully for booby traps and explosive devices. Satisfied, she slammed inside, dropped her cell phone onto the passenger seat so she could answer it immediately, and threw her shoulder bag onto the floor. She ignited the engine and hit her CD player, tuning it to the pounding beat of Soundgarden’s “Let Me Drown.” As the music shook the air, she tore out of the parking space.

She lived in Silver Spring. As she sped the Jag toward Maryland, she watched alertly for tails. Maybe there was a solid clue to Tice’s whereabouts
in the data Mark Silliphant had compiled for her, and Whippet’s need for her was over. But that was still no reason to eliminate her.

She slammed her fist against the steering wheel. She had forgotten to look for Mark’s CD! In her mind, she reconstructed his office, the sad sight of him collapsed dead at his desk. The poor bastard. There had been no CD on his desk, much less one with Jay Tice’s or her name on it.

When she arrived at her neighborhood, she drove around the block three times, then pulled into a parking space. She dropped her cell into her bag, grabbed her Walther, and crawled out. Crouching beside the Jag, she scrutinized the street. Two-story town houses lined it. Children’s toys lay scattered on small front yards, waiting for the next day of play. Somewhere a dog barked playfully.

At last she walked home, turning everything over in her mind. Why would Tice have stayed in the house after the others on his team left? Maybe he was looking for something. But what? On the other hand, by leading her to Jurys, where he could lose her, he had treated her as if she were a simple tail. Maybe he had made her somewhere on the street without connecting her to Whippet. Still, he would perceive any surveillance to be a dangerous loose end at best. So why had he not tried to scrub her?

She turned up her sidewalk. Studying the shadows, she headed into the side yard. All of her windows were dark, as they should be. None showed any sign of being broken into. Neither did the rear of the town house.

She returned to her front step, unlocked the door, and opened it. Instantly she was struck by the musky aroma of a burning cigar. Adrenaline shot to her brain. She slid low into the dark, silently pulling the door closed. The cigar’s orange coal glowed from across her living room, from an ashtray beside her armchair. A silhouette sat in deep shadow in the chair, a pistol pointed at her.

“Don’t turn on the light.” It was a man’s voice, from the chair.

Making no sound, she laid her purse on the carpet. Walther in hand, she crept swiftly behind her sofa and along the wall. Her chest taut with tension, she rose up behind her love seat and leveled her gun. The silhouette’s pistol was still aimed at the small entryway. He had not guessed.

As the smoke of the cigar spiraled, she ordered grimly, “Lay your
weapon on the table. If you don’t, I’ll shoot—and at this short distance, I won’t miss.”

Behind her, she heard the faint sound of a pistol being cocked. But before she could move, the same man’s voice said, “I thought you might be suspicious.”

Her throat went dry. She whirled on her heels.

He cracked open two slats of the venetian blinds. Moonlight slanted through, glinting off another pistol trained on her. Hers still pointed uselessly at the figure in the chair.

Her heart seemed to stop. She could see his face.

“Hello, Elaine,” he told her, his voice warm. “My friends call me Jay.”

When an intelligence officer smells flowers, he looks around for a coffin.

—ROBERT GATES
former director of the CIA