The Fifth Profession (35 page)

“They did very well,” Rachel said. “They got me away from Akira.”

“That's something else that troubles me,” Akira said. “They should have killed me before they grabbed you. They had the chance. Instead one man distracted me while the others dragged you away. I didn't have a chance to draw my pistol. I was forced to fight hand to hand.”

“They responded to the confusion of the moment,” Rachel said.

“What
confusion? If the Dumpster truck was part of the plan, Savage and I would have been confused. But not your husband's men. They'd have been ready. To do what was necessary. To kill me.”

“But they didn't,” Savage said. “Which suggests they didn't
want
to kill Akira, hadn't been ordered to.”

“And your husband's so arrogant he'd have insisted that Savage and I be killed. For humiliating the great man's pride,” Akira said. “The tactics were wrong. They should have killed
us
before they abducted
you.”

“Easier. Safer,” Savage said, “instead
Mac
died. God help him. I didn't just happen to duck so the bullet hit him. If the driver wanted to hit me, he could have. He shot
before
I ducked. The target was Mac. Whatever's happening, he couldn't be allowed to talk. And Rachel,
you
were in the way, not part of the plan. You're not supposed to be with us. But you are. So whoever managed to predict where we'd be, decided to solve both problems at once. To take you away from us. To stop Mac from telling what he knew. And in the bargain, to continue confusing Akira and me.”

“But
why?”
Rachel asked.

11

The North Carolina motel room was small and drab. But at least it was clean, and its entrance was in a corridor at the rear of the building, where Rachel and Akira had a good chance of slipping in unnoticed. Late at night, the only takeout restaurant Savage found open served pizza. Sitting on the motel room's floor, they chewed unenthusiastically on a thickly crusted, five-ingredient “supreme,” not hungry but knowing they had to maintain their strength. A six-pack of Coke helped them swallow the overspiced, undercooked dough. Akira, who retained his culture's preference for vegetables, rice, and fish, picked off the sausage on his pizza slices.

“Let's analyze the conversation one more time,” Akira said. “Mac assumed you knew things you don't, so he didn't elaborate, didn't explain. As a consequence, what he said seemed cryptic. Even so, is there anything you feel sure of?”

“Mac did know me,” Savage said.

“Even though he called you ‘Doyle,’ which isn't your name.”

“Or maybe it is,” Savage said. “False memory. How do I know what's true? Whoever operated on my brain might have taught me to forget my
real
name and convinced me that one of my pseudonyms isn't a lie but the name I was born with.”

“Everything's a lie,” Rachel said. Disgusted, she dropped a half-eaten slice of pizza into the box.

Savage studied her, then continued. “What doesn't seem a false memory is that Mac and I in fact were friends. He mentioned that several times. But he
also
said that we were enemies, or
supposed
to be enemies. There were rules, he said. If we wanted to see each other, we had to use codes and meet at safe houses.”

“That's an expression used by intelligence operatives,” Akira said.

“Yes, and Mac thought you and Rachel were what he called my ‘watchdogs,’ assessing me because I was under stress. How would I behave when I tried to make unscheduled contact with him? How would
he
behave? He kept talking about rules and whether he still obeyed them. He seemed afraid that you were testing him.”

“But who did he think we worked for?” Rachel asked.

Savage hesitated. “The CIA.”

“What?”

“He got angry, as if he thought he'd be punished for breaking the rules and talking to me in the alley.”

Akira straightened. “Mac was CIA?”

“I can't be certain. It doesn't make sense for a SEAL to be a civilian intelligence operative.
Navy
intelligence maybe. But not a
Langley
operative. No,” Savage said, “the impression I got was that Mac thought I reported to you, that I worked for the agency.”

“My God,” Rachel said, “is that possible?”

“The last few days have proved that anything's possible. But if you're asking me, ‘Do I remember being an operative?’ the answer is no. Of course, you might suspect I'm lying.”

Akira shook his head. “In Philadelphia, you talked about being so unsure of what was real that you felt afraid to trust Rachel and me. Maybe we weren't what we seemed, you said. Maybe we'd been sent to trick you. We insisted you had to trust us. Because the alternative was paralysis. Now I take my own advice. My friend, as a necessary act of faith, I trust you. I refuse to suspect you're lying.”

“ ‘Abraham believed by virtue of the absurd,’ “ Rachel said.

Akira looked puzzled.

“It's something I said to Savage last night in Philadelphia.” Rachel stood. “An act of faith.”

“So we have to question whether I'm remembering correctly,” Savage said. “In Philadelphia, Dr. Santizo explained that a false memory required the cancellation of a
true
one. Otherwise I wouldn't behave consistently. So maybe I did— do—belong to the CIA, and I'm not aware of it.”

“ ‘Maybe’? ‘Perhaps’? This is getting us nowhere,” Akira said.

Savage rubbed his aching forehead. “Mac told me something else. ‘Was I supposed to fight with you again?’ That's what he said. It didn't make sense. Fight with him again? The implication is I fought with him before. But why—if we were friends? He said when I spoke to him in the bar, he pretended he owed me money because it was the only way he could think of to explain our conversation. ‘Except for punching you out. I could have done that. It fits your cover story,’ he said.”

“Cover story?” Akira frowned.

“Mac used that phrase a lot.”

“Friends supposed to be enemies. Cover story. CIA,” Rachel said. “I'm beginning … When Harold found us in the alley, he suddenly remembered you. He said you disgraced the SEALs. He went so berserk he didn't care about your pistol. He said he'd die a hero if he attacked you. Cover story.”

“I don't understand,” Savage said.

“Theory. Assumptions. If you did work for the CIA, you'd need a cover story to convince the opposition that you weren't still loyal to America. So the agency recruits you. You resign from the SEALs. You become a protector. While guarding your clients— important clients,
influential
clients, wealthy enough to afford your fee—you gather information about them. Because they're
powerful.
Because their secrets have strategic value or are so incriminating that the agency can blackmail your clients into working for them.”

Savage stared at the floor, his forehead persistently throbbing no matter how hard he rubbed it.

“But how to convince your clients that you're a free agent?” Rachel continued. “By disowning your government. Why?”

“Because I was part of the first wave of U.S. soldiers that invaded Grenada,” Savage said. “And what I saw there convinced me the Marxist government on the island—as crazy-as they were—didn't threaten America. The invasion was a public relations ploy, to distract America from the two hundred and thirty U.S. marines that died in Beirut because of a terrorist bomb. Grenada was the president's scheme to increase his popularity ratings. Too many of my comrades died needlessly. I resigned in disgust.”

“And fought with a fellow SEAL who disagreed with you, who thought you'd betrayed your team?” Akira asked. “A fight in public? Two friends become enemies? A convincing cover story.”

Savage raised his head but continued to rub his temples. “Especially if my father committed suicide because his country betrayed him, because the White House needed a scapegoat to explain the Bay of Pigs catastrophe. God damn it.” Savage glared. “That invasion failed because U.S. politicians lost their nerve and changed the Cuban invasion site from a town to a goddamn swamp.”

“But your background's consistent,” Rachel said. “Cuba. Grenada. Two invasions. One seems necessary but isn't successful. The second
isn't
necessary.”

“But
is
successful,” Savage said. “And both invasions are based on—”

“Lies?”

“Disinformation. Graham was fascinated with the concept. Events that never happened but changed the world. Hitler sending German soldiers into Poland, having them dress in Polish uniforms and fire toward the German lines, so the Germans could justify invading. The United States sending a destroyer too close to North Vietnam's Gulf of Tonkin, daring the North Vietnamese to fire, then claiming that the North Vietnamese attacked without provocation, and using that incident to justify increasing America's presence in South Vietnam. Convincing deception. Plausible deniability.”

“False memory,” Akira said. “Entire nations remembering what never happened. But right now
your
false memory is what matters. Let's assume your father—not the man you met in Baltimore but your real father—did kill himself. That makes it believable that you'd resign from the SEALs because the Grenada invasion wasn't necessary and you were furious about the needless deaths of fellow SEALs. You'd seem to be a true free agent, uninvolved with your government,” Akira said.

“False memory. Cover story. Lies. We don't know—we can't be sure of—”

“Anything,” Rachel said. “That pizza … It's making me sick. My head's … I'm too exhausted to think.” She reached for a package Savage had bought at an all-night convenience store. “But one thing I'm sure of. I have to dye my hair. So I'll be auburn again. Instead of blond. And
not
my sister. After that …” She pointed toward the narrow bed.

“One of us will stand guard while the other sleeps on the floor,” Akira said.

“No way,” Rachel said. “Decide who takes the first watch. Whoever's off duty shares the space next to me. I don't want someone with a stiff back trying to protect me. I'll put a pillow between us, so I don't interfere with anyone's peace of mind. We're a family, right? We're comfortable sharing space together. But Akira, when it's Savage's turn, I hope you don't object if in my sleep I squirm around and hug him.”

17

The North Carolina morning was fresh and clear. After assessing the motel's parking lot, Savage left the corridor's rear exit and crossed the street to get take-out breakfasts from McDonald's. Coming back, he bought several newspapers from vending machines on the sidewalk.

Akira locked the door behind him and examined the styrofoarn containers of food that Savage arranged on the bureau beside the bolted-down television set. “Hash browns? Sausage? Scrambled eggs? And English muffins?”

“Plus strawberry jam. I grant it's not quite your usual diet, but it's the best I could find,” Savage said. “Frankly, those hash browns look damned appealing.”

“Speak for yourself.” Akira pried off the lids on steaming containers of liquid. “Coffee?
No tea?”

“Here, my friend.” Savage handed Akira a tea bag and opened a plastic cup of hot water.

“Arigato.”
After sipping the tea and nibbling a hash brown, Akira added, “May my ancestors forgive me. I've been corrupted. This tastes delicious.”

“Starch,” Savage said. “It gives you strength to face the day.”

“You'll need it,” Rachel said.

Akira frowned. “What do you mean?”

Her hair a brilliant auburn but her eyes extremely somber, Rachel sat on the bed, a newspaper spread open next to her, a plastic forkful of egg suspended in front of her mouth. “You're not going to like this.” In despair, she set down the fork.

Savage and Akira crossed the room to stand behind her.

She pointed toward the front page. “Virginia Beach. Four men killed behind the Ship to-Shore tavern, three of them by gunshots, one by a blow to the throat.”

“We assumed,” Savage said. “So many deaths. It's a major story.”

Rachel kept pointing toward the article. “Yes, and Harold identified you as someone called Robert Doyle. He refers to you and Mac as having been friends, as having argued, having fought in public, and having turned into enemies. Back in nineteen eighty-three. Because you disagreed with the U.S. invasion of Grenada. Because you insisted that the deaths of your fellow SEALs had been needless. Harold mentions me—a blonde—and
you,
Akira, a Japanese. Even with my hair darkened, the three of us—an American couple and a Japanese—are bound to attract suspicion.”

Savage tensely glanced at his watch and spun to turn on the television. “It's almost twenty-five after seven. Maybe the morning news has an update.”

He managed to find a Virginia Beach station. The first segment of
Good Morning America
was ending. Joan Lunden smiled at the camera. “And in our next half hour, Tony Bennett will be here, not as a singer but a painter.”

A toothpaste commercial about grinning kids bragging to their parents that they had no cavities seemed interminable.

Savage's shoulders ached. He realized he wasn't breathing.

The local news came on: films of police cars and ambulances, their lights flashing; attendants wheeling sheet-covered corpses from the alley; an announcer grimly explaining what had happened, describing Savage, Rachel, and Akira.

The story took ninety seconds.

“Graphic but short, and nothing we didn't read in the newspaper,” Akira said. With relief, he moved to shut off the television.

“Wait,” Savage said. “Let's see if we're on the national news when the network program comes back on the air.”

“At least they didn't have police-artist sketches based on Harold's descriptions of us,” Rachel said.

“The police will be working on that.” Savage reached for his suitcase. “Let's get our stuff together. After the network news, we need to leave here fast.”

“But what about after that?” Rachel asked. “Even if we get out of here without being noticed, we haven't solved our problems. The police will still be looking for us.”

“Us. Yes, that's the trouble,” Savage said. “Rachel, you're not responsible for any of this. But if you stay with us, if we're caught, you'll be charged as an accomplice. When you leave this building, keep walking. Don't look back. Find a bus station. Get as far away as fast as you can. Start a new life.”