The Prisoner's Wife (11 page)

Bobby nodded. “Not recently. While back.”

Shawn ran his fingers along stone slabs. A nice mortar-free fit. “Defensive?”

“Guess again,” Bobby said. “It's for servants. Head honcho, Earl Whoever-the-fuck-he-was, back in the day, has a bunch of servants. Hates seeing these low-rent folk litter up the pretty garden. Answer? Put 'em underground.” He stopped by a vast and empty hearth. “Up that chimney, you care to look, you see four fireplaces. One on each floor of the house.”

Shawn doubted this. He bent to look upward. The chimney was square, four by four, he guessed. As Bobby claimed, it climbed through the floors of the house, clear and open to the sky.

“No kidding.”

Bobby checked the time and pushed Shawn forward. “Move. We'll miss the window.”

The tunnel narrowed and darkened. For a brief irrational moment, Shawn had visions of kidnap: of following Osmani to some black Moroccan jail. For reassurance, he touched the metal heft of his Makarov. Twelve rounds. If he went, he'd take one or two souls with him.

“Watch this,” Bobby said.

He entered a passcode, threw a switch. Momentarily, the stone passage shone with brilliant light. A metal shield—not, Shawn guessed, installed by the lords of Chastleforth—slid aside. Bobby led the way to a low-ceilinged underground room, its oak beams studded with pothooks. Once, it seemed, the manor's kitchen. Now the room was full of communications gear, some of it, Shawn saw, newly installed. Secret Service, most likely. On the far wall, a CCTV monitor showed the front of the mansion, somewhere above their heads. It currently featured, in high definition, the head of the National Security Council in close conversation with the vice president.

On the far side of the former kitchen sat Hugh Rockford, his army-booted feet resting on a metal desk. He chewed at a toothpick. He looked older than Shawn recalled.

“Late,” said Rockford. He checked the time. “We have nine minutes. Two things, Maguire. Number one, here's the deal. We now have an elimination unit. Reports direct to the VP.” He nodded at the monitor, which still showed, above them, the head of NSC. “Bypasses those guys. Security Council. Condi Rice, so on, so on. Your name came up.”

“Eliminating who, exactly?”

“You know,” said Rockford. “Problem people. Problem people in problem places. Gaza. Lebanon. Iran. Syria. NoKo. AfPak.”

“You got my attention,” Shawn said. He was genuinely interested. “Reports to the White House? Do we have legal cover?”

Rockford nodded. “No sweat. Office of Legal Counsel—pen pushers. VP wants a law, these guys write it.”

“We're talking assassination?”

“Not a term we use.”

“My name came up because?”

“Because,” Rockford said, “you're a top-percentile sniper. With security clearance. Uncommon cross-check.”

“Okay,” said Shawn. “That's number one on your list. What's number two?”

Rockford stared for what seemed a long while. It was, Shawn recalled, part of the man's inquisitorial tool set. Finally, he spoke.

“Give us what you know about Ayub Abbasi. Money, location, ideology, nukes. Sources tell us, what we're hearing, the guy's jihadi. Financing al Qaeda Web sites.”

“In return,” Shawn said, “you will what?”

“Think about reinstating you.”

“While you're thinking,” Shawn said, “I'll think about whether I talk to you.”

Rockford swung his feet off the desk, his color high. He spat the toothpick. His buzz cut bristled. He brought a hand down flat and hard on the metal desk. The noise was impressive.

“Don't fuck with me, son. You're American. Ex-Agency. Damn, you have a duty, give me whatever fucking information I request. You familiar with the word ‘treason?'”

“I've heard it,” Shawn said. “Here's what I know. Ayub Abbasi's a Pakistani citizen. He was close to Nashida Noon, when she ran the country—when she was prime minister. Abbasi came to see me. Offered work.”

“Which was what?”

“Find someone. Abbasi may have had Nashida in the car—I don't know. Never saw her face. The guy pays the rent with import-export business. He travels. Spends cash on clothes. Italian suits. Wants Nashida back into power. Wants her running Pakistan. Wants her to exit the president.”

“Locations? Money?”

“Abbasi had business offices all over. Florida, Atlanta, Kandahar, Fes, Islamabad, Peshawar. I hear some of them closed.”

“Jesus,” Rockford said. With the blunt end of his toothpick he began to clean beneath his fingernails. “This I can get from Google. Talk about the nuclear connection.”

“Is there one?”

On the wall monitor, Shawn saw the vice president turn his expressionless gaze on a CCTV camera. Deep underground, chilled by that saurian stare, Shawn was thankful for the distance between himself and the man who now ran his country.

Rockford checked the time. “You're looking for this Iranian guy. Osmani. Why?”

“Mr. Abbasi asked me to find him.”

“Again, why?”

Shawn said, “Osmani has some documents, some information, Abbasi wants. Let me ask a question, Mr. Rockford. Who is holding Osmani?”

“Only one of us asks questions,” Rockford said. “Right now, it's not you.”

He checked the time, then stood, about to leave.

Shawn said, “What are you doing, Mr. Rockford? I mean, for me?”

Rockford paused. “I'll tell you what I'm doing,” he said. “As of this meeting I'm revoking your clearance. Putting you on a watch list. Suspected terrorist sympathizer.”

“You're
what
?” Shawn blurted. “You know what this means? Every time I take a plane I get some little pissant clerk dicking me around for two hours—”

“You start helping your uncle,” said Rockford, opening a door on the far side of the room, “Uncle starts helping you.”

Shawn stood. Moving fast, he went to the same door. He was stopped by a small British policeman with the pink-cheeked face of a choirboy. This uniformed cherub held a Glock 17. It was not, Shawn knew, a particularly accurate weapon.

Shawn was ill-tempered. “Sonny,” he said, “I made a resolution, I won't take another human life. Not in this incarnation. But I tell you, kid, you even twitch, you're an exception.”

“Believe it,” Bobby told the tiny officer. He nodded at Shawn. “Marines' top shot.”

The diminutive angel lowered his Glock.

“Good thinking,” Shawn said. “Bobby, thanks a bunch. Totally wasting my morning. Getting me on a watch list. Let's go. Walk me back to the chopper.”

Near the mouth of the stone-walled servants' tunnel, Bobby paused. He said, “Shawn, I've known you a long time. You're a patriotic guy. Why are you not worried about Paki nukes? We worked on this, did we not? It was your bag, your group. You tracked A. Q. Khan. Started NukePro. You were the go-to guy.”

“I was,” Shawn said. “For a while. Look how that ended.”

*   *   *

Shawn's Nuclear Proliferation Group was born in New York, in the summer of 2001. It was a time when he found it hard getting out of bed; even harder getting to work in the mornings. His wife had moved to an English village. Martha left Shawn to decide whether or not he'd follow her. In Manhattan, Shawn's mistress, Ellen, was losing interest. When they'd first met—while her billionaire husband was out of town—Ellen magically shed her own clothes while, at the same time, undressing Shawn. She'd have them both naked in moments. That was then. Now, when Shawn wanted her, Ellen spent time in one of her several bathrooms, doing God knows what, while Shawn lay unclothed and horny in her husband's king-sized bed.

As if a wife and mistress weren't enough, Shawn had other concerns: anxieties that kept him awake. Money, debts, and work. Work in particular preyed on him. Though no one had yet spoken the words, Shawn knew he was slipping down the Agency's promotion ladder.

The trouble had started with NukePro. At first, it wasn't a group at all. It was just Shawn—middle-ranking Agency operative—who had a sense that someone, in one of the rogue states, was selling fission technology: selling plans, components, triggers, and certain other items of mass destruction.

After months of work, Shawn came up with documentation suggesting the trouble started in Islamabad and Rawalpindi. Pakistan was developing nuclear weapons and offering blueprints for sale to the highest bidder among the Islamic states. That year, the world came closer to nuclear war.

Shawn brought in his buddy Bobby Walters to work on the proliferation project.

Briefing Bobby, he traced the trouble back to Nashida Noon, in the nineties. “Remember?” Shawn had asked. “For a while she was prime minister.”

“I hear she will be again,” Bobby said. “If she lives.”

“Don't bet the farm,” Shawn said. “Anyway, last time, when she's running Pakistan, Noon sets up a nuclear program—puts A. Q. Khan in charge—”

“Who he?”

Shawn passed over a thin file.

“Read. It's not long. Abdul Qadir Khan. Trained as an engineer. He was working in the Netherlands, stole designs for centrifuges, took them back to Pakistan, started enriching uranium; making warheads. I mean, he made them for Pakistan, plus he had kind of a private scam going—garage business—selling nuclear kit components. Do you believe this?” Shawn asked, showing a color brochure in Urdu and Arabic. “Had these printed in Islamabad.”

Bobby said he didn't read Arabic.

“Brochure for fission weapons. That's what this is. Dr. Khan's garage business. Guy's coining it.”

Bobby, distracted, pointed at a new and cute assistant who was crossing the office. “Did you talk to her yet?”

“How would I?” Shawn asked, looking at the new girl. “She only started this week.”

“Her name,” Bobby said, “I believe she's called Carly. I think that's it. I mean,
Carly
? What kind of a name is that? She went to Wharton. That much I know.”

“Not possible,” Shawn said. “I never saw anyone that attractive came out of Wharton. Come on, work. Concentrate. What's your take on the nuclear thing?”

“That it's a wildly unlikely story,” Bobby said. “I mean, color brochures for nuclear weapons? Hello—but listen, if there's even a twenty percent chance it's true, we give it to the boss. Right? Hugh takes it up to National Security. Out of our hands. Let them decide. I mean, that's what they're paid for, right?”

Hugh Rockford wasn't ready to take anything Shawn gave him to National Security. He wanted more facts, more research. He wanted a group. He liked groups.

“Maguire,” he said, “we'll make it small. Nuclear Proliferation Group. NukePro. Limited remit. You stay working with Bobby. Bring Ashley over from London, if you need her. Talk to her, anyway. I'll get Calvin to organize it.”

“Let me get this clear,” Shawn had said. “I spend months looking at covert nuclear proliferation. Looks like I've found a smuggling ring based in Pakistan. I find out who's selling secrets. I have proof of Inter-Services involvement.”

“What's ISI do?”

“Supports Khan. I know who they're selling technology to—Libya, for one.”

Rockford paid attention. “Libya? How do we know this?”

“We know,” Shawn said, “because I have a contact in Tripoli. An asset. He tells me he saw the bomb blueprints. He saw what they were wrapped in.”

“Surprise me,” said Rockford.

“Laundry bags, okay? Blueprints in bags from a dry-cleaning company in Rawalpindi. Where ISI lives. Libya's not the problem, though. Khan sold the bomb to North Korea—which I believe now has warheads and a missile—plus, he also sold to Iran. That's for starters.”

Rockford made notes, thinking this through.

“So,” Shawn said, “I get to this point—then you tell me I'm reporting to Calvin McCord. Is this by chance the same Calvin McCord, superpatriot—the guy who will, no question, take the credit for every bit of work I did—”

“We're not individuals,” Rockford said. “We're a team—”

“You think Calvin knows that?”

Rockford brought his papers into a neat pile, indicating that the conversation was over. “Sorry to tell you this, Shawn,” he said, “but Calvin's on the up staircase. You're on the other one. Take that aboard. Try to make nice. The guy could help your prospects.”

“Be a cold day in hell,” Shawn said, heading back to the corner office where Bobby Walters was waiting.

*   *   *

When Calvin came into the Proliferation Group, Shawn had to admit that the man had changed. He was no longer the undernourished, somehow furtive creature who'd joined the Agency three years earlier. Now there was a palpable confidence about him. Introduced by Daddy, he moved in high circles. Though his hands still shook, he seemed physically larger; more muscular, substantial. What upset Shawn was seeing that Calvin had somehow snagged Carly, the new assistant, fresh out of business school. She introduced herself, demurely, as “Mr. McCord's assistant.”

Shawn had never had a personal assistant; certainly not one who looked like Carly.

When Calvin had reviewed the evidence Shawn and Bobby presented, he asked what they recommended.

“Pressure,” Bobby said. “White House pressures Pakistan. We call Islamabad, tell the prez call off the army, reinstate Nashida Noon as prime minister, on condition she reins in Khan, closes down the Khan Institute. Nuclear fucking Central.” By now, Bobby had read the files. “We tell the guy, break up ISI, or you're in deep shit. No more kickbacks. No more American aid.”

“For the White House,” Calvin said, “that's way low priority. They have other things on the burner. Don't spread it around. We're going to war with Iraq.”

After this news there was silence for a minute or so. Then Shawn said, “Tell me—why would we do that—I mean, Iraq?—when we all know the threat comes from AfPak? Like, Pakistan, Afghanistan, the border lands.”