The Ghost War (27 page)
“You two have an optimistic view of human nature,” Shafer said. He stood to go. “Anyway, we have some work to do.”
20
THE GLINT OF EXLEY’S WEDDING BAND CAUGHT HER
by surprise as she drove. She’d pulled it out of storage for today’s job.
by surprise as she drove. She’d pulled it out of storage for today’s job.
After meeting with Tyson, Exley and Shafer had spent the rest of the day going over the list of agency employees who’d known enough about the Drafter to betray him. Of the eighty-two names on the final list, twelve matched at least the broad outlines that Wen had given for the mole’s career history, or had suffered a serious accident or illness five to ten years ago. Unfortunately, none of the twelve men fit in both categories. That would have been too easy, Exley thought.
“The dirty dozen,” Shafer said. Separately, thirteen men now matched the soft criteria that she and Shafer had devised earlier. Five employees were on both lists.
“So now what? Do we talk to them?” Exley said.
“Not yet, I think. Tyson will have his people looking for hard evidence on the twelve who meet the criteria that Wen mentioned. Suspicious travel patterns, hidden accounts, the usual. Let’s be a little less formal. I’m going to poke around Langley, play doctor, see what I can pick up.”
“And me?”
“Why don’t you talk to the wives?”
AND SO THIS MORNING EXLEY
had pulled on her wedding band and prepared to make a tour of suburban Virginia and Maryland. She was aiming first at the five names on both lists. She didn’t know how many wives would be home, but she figured at least a couple. And she knew claiming she was on a house-hunt would get her inside their houses. Amazing how freely bored women would talk to a friendly stranger.
had pulled on her wedding band and prepared to make a tour of suburban Virginia and Maryland. She was aiming first at the five names on both lists. She didn’t know how many wives would be home, but she figured at least a couple. And she knew claiming she was on a house-hunt would get her inside their houses. Amazing how freely bored women would talk to a friendly stranger.
No one had been home at her first stop, in Fairfax. But this time she’d scored, if the Jetta in the driveway was any indication. She parked her green Caravan by the edge of the road and hopped out.
A flagstone path cut through the neatly manicured lawn. Rosebushes added a touch of color to the front of the yellow house. She stepped over a battered Big Wheel and pressed the doorbell. Inside the house she heard a toddler crying.
“Coming.” A woman opened the door a notch and peeked out. She was pretty, late thirties, carrying a baby on her hip. “Mom mom mom!” a boy squalled from upstairs.
“Hi,” she said, friendly but wary, the classic suburban combination, trying to figure out if Exley was a Jehovah’s Witness or an Avon saleswoman or just a neighbor. People moved to Vienna so they wouldn’t have to worry about strangers knocking on their doors.
“Sorry to bother you,” Exley said. “My name’s Joanne.” She was going with an alias, in case the woman mentioned this visit to her husband. “I was looking at the Colonial up the block and I’m hoping to find out about the neighborhood and I saw your car in the driveway.”
The woman looked uncertain. “I thought they’d accepted an offer.”
“They’re still showing it.”
“Mommy, come here!” the invisible boy yelled.
“Well ... if you don’t mind watching me change a diaper, I’ll give you the rundown. My name’s Kellie, by the way.” She extended a hand. She was glad to have some company, Exley thought.
“Nice to meet you.”
“HE’S BEAUTIFUL,” EXLEY
said of the blue-eyed, red-faced little boy holding on to the safety gate that blocked the stairs.
said of the blue-eyed, red-faced little boy holding on to the safety gate that blocked the stairs.
“Isn’t he? Name’s Jonah. But he’s got a temper.” She picked him up. “Come on, J. No more crying. We’ll get you fixed up.”
“They all cry at that age,” Exley said. “I’ve got two of my own. Trust me, they grow out of it.”
In Jonah’s bedroom, Exley watched as Kellie changed the diaper with one hand while soothing the baby with the other. Already, Exley knew that this woman had mastered the chores of parenting in a way Exley never had. She couldn’t explain why she needed ten minutes to change a diaper, but she did. She never doubted that she would take a bullet for her kids. But she had to admit that she hadn’t been cut out for the daily grind of chasing them around, wiping up their snot, making them paper bag lunches for school.
Lots of women loved that part of being moms, or at least said they did. Maybe they were right. Maybe those chores were essential to building a lifelong relationship with kids. But Exley couldn’t lie to herself. She’d been desperate to get back to work after four months of maternity leave.
Now as she watched Kellie wipe off Jonah’s butt and pull on a clean diaper, she wondered: If she had another chance, could she be different? She and Wells? She didn’t know if she could imagine Wells as a father, though of course he was one already. He’d had a son with Heather, his ex-wife, just before he went to Afghanistan to infiltrate al Qaeda. But Wells saw the boy—Evan—only a couple of times a year. Not that he had much say in the matter. Heather, who had sole custody of Evan, was remarried and lived in Montana. She said that Evan had accepted his stepfather as his real dad and she didn’t want to confuse the boy by giving him too much time with Wells.
Maybe having another child would settle Wells, Exley thought. Or maybe not. He had so many days when he didn’t get along with the world, when he reminded Exley of a barely domesticated guard dog, half German shepherd, half wolf. But even at his an griest, Wells was sweet to her kids, sweet to kids in general. And kids loved him for his size and strength. What kind of father would he be with a boy of his own? Somehow Exley knew that she and Wells would have a boy. Though the truth was that the odds were against her getting pregnant at all.
Kellie finished putting on Jonah’s clean white diaper and ran a soothing hand over his face. “Pretty soon you’ll be a big boy and no more diapers.”
“No diapers!” Jonah yelled happily.
Kellie looked sidelong at Exley. “So what do you do, Joanne?”
“Me? I’m a consultant.” The word consultant was vague enough to mean anything, and boring enough that no one cared anyway.
“I used to be a lawyer,” Kellie said. “Then one day I woke up and I was
this.”
this.”
“You’re great at it, though.”
“When the little one gets to preschool, I’m going back to work. Of course, Eddie—that’s my husband—wants one more, but I told him unless he figures out a way to get himself pregnant, that’s not happening. Come on downstairs and let’s have coffee.”
“I wish I could have stayed at home for a while,” Exley lied. “We couldn’t figure out a way to afford it, though. Is your husband a lawyer too?”
“No. He works for the government. But we saved up when I was working and we’re pretty careful. How about yours?”
“My husband? He works for the government too. Not too far from here. Maybe they’re in the same business.”
“Sounds that way.” CIA wives liked to hint that their husbands worked at Langley. Proof that the agency hadn’t completely lost its mystique, Exley supposed.
Kellie pulled up Jonah’s pants. Now that he didn’t have a full diaper, he was pretty well behaved, Exley thought. Cute too. “You sweetie,” she said to him. “What’s your favorite thing to do in the world?”
“Hockey! Play hockey!” Jonah grabbed a miniature hockey stick and swiped the floor. “Play hockey.”
“Eddie’s got him on skates already.”
“He can skate?” Exley’s surprise was genuine.
“Play hockey play hockey—”
“You’d be amazed.” Kellie grabbed the boy’s hand. “Jonah, come on downstairs to the kitchen with us. You can play down there.”
“Can I have juice?”
“Of course, sweetie.”
They walked back to the downstairs, which was festooned with pictures of Kellie and Edmund on their honeymoon in Hawaii, Kellie and Edmund and Jonah at the rink, the kid cute as anything with his helmet and stick and skates... Edmund Cerys wasn’t the mole, Exley thought. Not even an Oscar-winning actor could fake the way he looked at his wife in these pictures. He’d gotten drunk at a Redskins game and picked up a misdemeanor for pissing in the parking lot, but he wasn’t spying for the Chinese or anyone else. Zero for one.
SHE SETTLED INTO THE KITCHEN
and prepared to let Kellie tell her about the neighborhood. Then her cell phone trilled in her purse. Wells.
and prepared to let Kellie tell her about the neighborhood. Then her cell phone trilled in her purse. Wells.
“Hi,” he said. “I have a favor to ask. Can you come up to New York? Today?”
21
EVEN AT 2:50 A.M. ON A WEDNESDAY MORNING,
East Hampton glowed with wealth. Wall Street skyscrapers, Hollywood back lots, Siberian oil fields—wherever the money came from, it ended up here, waves of cash crashing in like the Atlantic Ocean’s low breakers. Under the streetlamps, the town’s long main street shined empty and clean. The mannequins in the Polo store cradled their tennis racquets, poised to play in their $300 nylon windbreakers. To the north, toward the bay, the houses cost a mere seven figures. South, in the golden half-mile strip between the main street and the ocean, the mansions ran $10 million and up.
East Hampton glowed with wealth. Wall Street skyscrapers, Hollywood back lots, Siberian oil fields—wherever the money came from, it ended up here, waves of cash crashing in like the Atlantic Ocean’s low breakers. Under the streetlamps, the town’s long main street shined empty and clean. The mannequins in the Polo store cradled their tennis racquets, poised to play in their $300 nylon windbreakers. To the north, toward the bay, the houses cost a mere seven figures. South, in the golden half-mile strip between the main street and the ocean, the mansions ran $10 million and up.
Wells and Exley were heading south.
Wells cruised at twenty-five miles an hour on his big black bike, its engine running smooth and quiet. Before him, the traffic light at the corner of Main Street and Newtown Lane turned red. He eased to a stop and patted the CB1000’s metal flank. The bike was his, but the license plate wasn’t. He’d liberated it from a Vespa scooter a few hours earlier. He’d also removed all the identifying decals on the bike, making it as anonymous as a motorcycle could be.
Exley stopped beside him at the wheel of a gray Toyota Sienna minivan that Wells had hot-wired from a parking lot at a bar in Southampton ninety minutes before. The minivan’s owner—the “World’s Hottest Single Aunt,” at least according to the sticker on the van’s back bumper—was presumably still getting liquored up inside. By the time she discovered the Sienna was gone, it would have served its purpose. Wells hoped she had insurance.
The light dropped green. Wells eased past the forty-foot-high wooden windmill that marked the end of the town center. A half-mile later, he turned off Route 27 and onto Amity Lane. Besides his standard riding gear of black leather jacket, black helmet, black gloves, and black boots, Wells had on black jeans and a black long-sleeve cotton shirt. He wished he had a pair of black skivvies to complete the package. Tucked in a shoulder holster, he carried a pistol, a Glock this time instead of the Makarov. It was black, naturally, with a silencer threaded to the barrel. He hoped he wouldn’t even have to draw it. His black backpack held two other weapons, the ones he planned to use.
THE AFTERNOON BEFORE,
Wells had for the first time found a way to take advantage of the fame he didn’t want. He walked into the East Hampton village police station, an unassuming brick building on Cedar Street, just behind the center of town.
Wells had for the first time found a way to take advantage of the fame he didn’t want. He walked into the East Hampton village police station, an unassuming brick building on Cedar Street, just behind the center of town.
“Can I help you?” the cop behind the counter said.
“I’d like to speak to the chief.”
“He’s busy. What can I do for you?”
Wells extracted his CIA identification card, the one with his real name, and passed it across the counter.
“Hold on.” The officer disappeared behind a steel door, popping out a minute later to wave Wells in.
The chief was a trim man in his early fifties with tight no-nonsense eyes. Even in East Hampton the cops looked like cops. “Ed Graften,” he said, extending his hand. “It’s an honor, Mr. Wells. Please sit.”
“Please call me John.” Wells was beginning to feel foolish. Did he really expect this man to help him?
“What can I do you for? Don’t suppose you locked your keys in your Ferrari or the brats in the mansion next door are making too much noise. The usual nonsense.”
“Chief—I have a favor to ask. The name Pierre Kowalski ring a bell?”
“Course. His daughter Anna set a record this year for a summer rental. If the papers were right, it was a million and a half bucks for the house.” Wells had seen the same stories. Anna had spent $1.5 million on a seven-bedroom mansion on Two Mile Hollow Road, just off the ocean. Not to buy the place. To rent it. For three months.
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