The Last Spymaster (40 page)

“I knew.” Frank opened the sack and removed a covered plastic container, set it on the counter, and peeled off the lid. Shaped like small human ears, the pasta was symbolic of Puglia but little-known outside Italy.

DeLoreto gazed at it then at Frank. “You’re old to be CIA.”

“As I said, I’m retired.”

“You got some wine there, too, I saw. Salice Salentino.”

Frank took out the bottle of fine red wine plus a bottle of extra-virgin olive oil, tins of anchovies, and two jars of sweet black olives.

“Hey, that’s good,” DeLoreto said. “Everything’s from Puglia.”

Frank nodded. Last he removed a second covered plastic container identical to the first but three times as deep. He pried up the lid and pretended to check inside. He let the lid fall. “This is more orecchiette for some other time. She says you should cook it before it gets old. You want me to make a sauce for you? That’s why I brought the wine and olives and anchovies.”

DeLoreto looked up at the ceiling and smiled. “He cooks, too.” Then the smile vanished, and his dead eyes probed Frank. “You come unarmed so my men don’t have to embarrass you by pointing out you should’ve known better. You show respect by bringing gifts that matter to me. You greet me politely—and in Italian. You let me talk or not, whatever I want. And now you offer to cook. All right, ex-CIA man, what do you want?”

Frank leaned his hip against the counter and crossed his arms so that his left hand was under his right elbow, near the deeper container of orecchiette. He noted the same guard was peering in through the window again.

“There’s a big shipment changing hands somewhere around here today,” Frank told him. “One of the people on the buying end is a terrorist named Faisal al-Hadi. The dealer’s known as Mr. G. He’s been in business awhile. I’d like everything you know about it and him.”

“For some homemade pasta? That only gets you in the door.” DeLoreto’s voice was as hard as Carrara marble. “You seem to know me. So you should know I don’t give out information about my colleagues.”

“I know.” In a swift motion, Frank’s hand shot into the pasta dish and pulled out a small Colt and aimed it at the gun merchant’s heart. “Get over to the freezer.”

DeLoreto looked at the weapon and frowned, unafraid and annoyed.

Frank did not have time to argue. “Move.” Watching the window, he kicked DeLoreto hard toward the walk-in freezer. DeLoreto stumbled and opened his mouth to yell. Frank kicked him again, harder. As DeLoreto fell, Frank ran around and opened the freezer door. He grabbed the gun dealer by the back of his jeans and threw him inside and closed the door. Their exhalations were white clouds in the icy chill.

Cursing loudly, DeLoreto picked himself up, his face thick with anger.

“I also know the first commandment in your business is ‘Fuck thy neighbor,’ ” Frank told him. “Now’s your chance.”

“Fuck
you,
you lousy scheming CIA
animale!
You’ll never get out of here alive!” He raised his fist and shook it.

Frank aimed and squeezed the trigger. The explosive noise reverberated. The bullet shattered DeLoreto’s right knee. The air was so frigid that pieces of flesh and bone sailed through the air almost slowly enough for Frank to watch. DeLoreto screamed and crumpled. His blood froze crimson red on his jeans and on a side of pink beef hanging next to him.

“I can phone in my report from here,” Frank explained calmly. “That means I don’t give a holy shit whether I get out alive. Tell me about Mr. G.”

For the first time, fear showed on DeLoreto’s wrinkled face. He glanced wildly around. “And if I do?”

“I leave. You live. This is your last chance.”

When DeLoreto took time to consider, Frank snapped, “Your other knee’s next. Then your elbows. Then I scrub you.”

“It’s Martin Ghranditti’s deal.” The trafficker talked so fast his words tumbled into one another. “That slime turd Ghranditti’s come out of retirement. That’s your answer. You want that sick fucker
Ghranditti!
” His lower lip quivered. “What are you—?”

Frank had what he needed. He backed out of the freezer and locked it. He ran to the stove, pushed the pot aside, and turned all of the burners to
MEDIUM
. He dropped the
Post
onto the stove and threw the tablecloth on top. Smoke seeped out around the edges. He hurried to the counter and crashed the neck of the unopened bottle of Salice Salentino hard against it. Broken glass sprayed. Grabbing a wineglass from the sink, he poured into it as he ran to the door. Behind him, the fire suddenly crackled.

Taking a deep breath, he put a pleasant smile on his face, set the bottle on the floor, and strolled outdoors. Casually, he checked around, noting two of DeLoreto’s sentries about a hundred yards away. He raised his wineglass and nodded. They nodded back.

As he retraced his route to the front of the house, he planned. He would lose the wineglass in the bushes by the front porch and be at the entry
gate in less than five minutes, just about the time he figured the guard would return to the kitchen window. By then the smoke would be thick, and he would be inside his car, driving away.

On the road, Northern Virginia

The Jaguar hurtled along the highway among rolling hills. In the valleys, veins of fog shimmered. Traffic was moderate, allowing Elaine to push the speed limit. With luck, they would reach the rendezvous with Raina on time.

She watched Jay pick up his cell phone. “Are you trying Ben again?” There had been no answer the first time.

Jay’s jaw tensed. “I am.” He tapped numbers and listened. “This is my second message, Ben. Hope you’re okay. Phone as soon as you can.” Without looking up, he said, “Elaine, I’m going to call someone else for help. Don’t ask questions.” He dialed and put the cell to his ear again. Finally he cursed. “No answer.” He left a message: “You know who this is. There’s been a development. Send people to Ben Kuhnert’s place fast.” He relayed the address. “Tell them to look for a saluki. Her name is Houri. If she trusts them, she’ll lead them to him.” He dropped the cell into his lap.

Elaine watched traffic. “What more can we do?”

“We can only wait.”

The possibility of Ben’s death lay between them like an open grave. They fell into guilty silence. Sunlight streamed inside, and dust motes danced crazily in it.

As Jay scanned the highway and an approaching intersection, he said, “This thing with Ben reminds me of a story Palmer told me a long time ago. It’s about a famous English actor named Leslie Howard. You’ve probably heard of a couple of his movies—
Gone With the Wind
and
The Petrified Forest
.”

“I know the movies.”

He nodded. “Howard was really too old to fight in World War Two, but he volunteered anyway, and the Brits wanted him because he traveled a lot, entertaining troops and doing radio broadcasts. Perfect cover for intelligence
work. So one day in 1943, the British prime minister—Winston Churchill—was sitting in a car at the Lisbon airport. When he rolled down his window to take a plane ticket from an assistant, a Nazi spy spotted him. The Nazi investigated and found out Churchill planned to fly home to London that night. The spy told Berlin, and Berlin ordered the Luftwaffe to take out the plane. What they didn’t know was their spy was wrong—the man was one of Churchill’s doubles. But we knew everything, because we’d cracked their Enigma codes. This is where Leslie Howard comes in. He was in Lisbon, too, scheduled for the same flight. It was just a regular passenger plane, unarmed. The solution seemed simple—make up an excuse and cancel it.

“But the problem was, by then we’d been using so much decrypted intel that the Nazis were beginning to suspect we’d broken Enigma. If they brought another coding machine into use, our river of intel would dry up, and we needed it to win the war fast. So we decided we had to let the plane fly. The crew and the double volunteered—they were necessary for the charade. But Leslie Howard wasn’t. Still, if a big movie star like him went, too, and then the Brits leaked he’d been on a secret mission, the Nazis would have to believe Enigma was secure. Howard said we couldn’t take the chance. He boarded with everyone else, and right on schedule the Nazi night raiders attacked over the Bay of Biscay.” He hesitated, seeming to gather himself. “The plane didn’t have a chance. It went down with no survivors.”

She felt a bolt of horror instantly followed by pride. “He died to keep the secret.”

“Yes. For something bigger than himself. All of them did.” His expression troubled, Jay ran his fingertips along the car’s windowsill. “Was their sacrifice worth it? For the ‘greater good,’ as the cliché goes—probably yes. But if Howard could choose again, would he make the same choice? Or would he think it was enough the others had given their lives? If so, he’d thrown his away. I don’t know. Was Ben’s going into danger to protect us worth it—and would he do it again? Again, I don’t know. Still, considering who Ben is, I doubt he had a choice.”

As the Jaguar soared onward, memories careened through Elaine’s
head, and somehow each ended with Rafe, the sight of him riding away on horseback across the desolate Tora Bora. He, far more than she, had understood how large a gamble it was that backup would arrive in time. But what did that mean? That she was even more responsible for his death—because she should have understood it, too?

Jay’s phone rang. The noise was like a series of small detonations. He snapped up the phone.

“Yes?”

“This is Frank. I found out who Mr. G is.”

Elijah and Palmer picked up, too. Still driving, Elaine listened in to the conference call.

“The arms merchant is Martin Ghranditti,” Frank announced.

“Ghranditti?” Jay repeated, surprised. “Who in hell is that? Should I know him?”

“Not necessarily,” Palmer informed them. “Ghranditti wasn’t good enough to be high-level. Still, he had connections and eventually got wealthy. I investigated him for a couple of situations in Belarus and the Ukraine but never found anything substantial. He was damn slippery, hungry as hell for respectability—and smart. He shielded his holding companies under a mountain of pseudonyms and kept out of the limelight so he could act legitimate. His base was West Berlin, and he was a real swashbuckler there, flashing his money. During the DEADAIM operation, I suspected he was Faisal al-Hadi’s dealer—and what we’ve got now is another al-Hadi deal.”

“Okay, it’s starting to come back to me,” Jay said. “Every time you think one of those gunrunners has quit or died, he turns up somewhere else, still peddling arms.” He paused, thinking. “Frank, you did a hell of a good job. Dig deeper into Ghranditti. We still need to know the where and when of the shipment. What about you, Elijah? You have anything new?”

“Nothing concrete,” Elijah reported.

Palmer asked, “Does anyone know whether there’s a clearinghouse for thefts and robberies of national security–related product?”

“Not my end of the business,” Elijah answered instantly. “But I can find out.”

“No need to.” Jay’s fingers drummed his thigh. “Go to the Department of Homeland Security. They started centralizing the intel before I left Langley. Palmer and Elijah, since you both have pieces of that puzzle, check it out together. Anyone have anything else?”

Everyone was silent.

“Okay,” Jay said. “We’re finished. Stay in touch.”

Langley, Virginia

For a few minutes, Laurence Litchfield was free. Bobbye Johnson had released her stranglehold on him so she could join a secure online conference with the U.S. and Iraqi intelligence chiefs in Baghdad. Frustrated, he hurried back to his office to check for a message from Martin Ghranditti. There was none. Ghranditti’s men should have found Jay Tice and Elaine Cunningham through the old DEADAIM spies by now. Angry, Litchfield dialed the arms trader’s number and left a message, demanding an answer.

Restless and disgusted that he had to wait, he looked at his watch. It was time. He switched on his television then went to CNN—and smiled. Newsman John King was standing outside the ugly concrete facade of the Hoover Building, setting the scene for the forthcoming joint CIA-FBI press conference.

“It’s not official yet,” King was saying, “but we have word from a usually reliable source that Jay Tice escaped from prison early yesterday. . . .”

The FBI auditorium appeared on the TV screen. Litchfield smiled wider. Agency and Bureau spokesmen stood at the podium, properly serious as they took turns reading the press release. Hoping Jay was watching, Litchfield sank into his expensive executive chair, reminding himself that it was the double-crosser’s own. He leaned back, enjoying that—and that the show was going exactly as he had advised the joint intelligence committee. Bobbye Johnson had lost. He had won—again.

When his phone vibrated, he picked it up quickly.
Ghranditti at last.

“Hello, Litchfield.” The voice was hollow, disguised as always. Litchfield was stunned. It was a voice from the past, one he had given
up hope of ever hearing again. “Moses? I can’t believe it. After all these years . . . is it really you?”

“As always, that swift intellect of yours is impressive,” Moses said in his peculiar disembodied tones.

“Where in goddamn hell have you been? There were a few times I could’ve used you.”