Exile Hunter (4 page)

Denniston covered his
eyes in mock shame.

“Sorry, bud, it
totally slipped my mind...”

“Sure it did,”
Linder replied between mouthfuls of tabbouleh.

“Okay, whatever,”
Denniston continued, helping himself to the spare bottle of Perrier
on Linder’s breakfast tray. “The point is, Mormon Joe is the only
rebel Philip Eaton has even considered meeting face-to-face in more
than six months. It’s only after you spent the last two months
posing as Joe Tanner with expats all across Southern Europe that we
finally attracted Eaton’s attention. For some odd reason, the
Mormon Return Movement has piqued his interest.”

“I still don’t get
it,” Linder replied. “Of all the rebel causes, why would Eaton
care about the forced relocation of Mormons from Utah?” Linder
asked. “His ties have always been to the Great Lakes.”

The disguise technician
waved Linder over to a chair she had carried into the bathroom so she
could shampoo, cut and color Linder’s hair. He wolfed down the
remaining tabbouleh, then followed her with Denniston in tow.

“Maybe because the
Great Lakes insurgency has been moribund for over a year,”
Denniston answered a moment later. “And because Eaton’s prime
contact in the Cleveland militias has gone missing. Which means that
Eaton is sitting on a war chest with no troops to spend it. For
somebody committed to overthrowing the Unionists, that can’t be
very satisfying.”

“Maybe so,” Linder
agreed. “But that still doesn’t mean he’ll back Tanner. Eaton
is too smart to let the money burn a hole in his pocket. He’d
rather wait for the right deal to come along.”

“Even if he does, I
think Tanner is still our best bet under the circumstances,”
Denniston asserted. “The MRM carries a compelling story and, if we
can get Eaton to make even a single wire transfer, Headquarters will
be able to trace the money back to the source and grab it.”

“And if Eaton doesn’t
bite?”

“We back off and take
a different approach,” Denniston continued. “We’ve got too much
riding on Tanner and the MRM in other exile sting operations to risk
compromising them with Eaton.”

“Maybe we should
request electronic surveillance to follow the chatter among the exile
networks.”

“Done that,”
Denniston agreed. “We’ve also got audio and video coverage of
Eaton’s living room, dining room, and kitchen if you get that far.
If the listening post picks up any sign you might be at risk there,
we could have a security team dressed in Lebanese
gendarme
uniforms drop in within fifteen seconds.”

“I like that,”
Linder nodded.

“All right, then,”
Denniston addressed the disguise expert, “Let’s go, Chiquita.
Time to turn this man into Joe Tanner.”

“If you call me that
one more time, frat boy, I’ll deck you,” the woman replied
without looking up. “My name is Rosita.”

“Well, excuse me,
senorita. My Spanish, it not so good,” Denniston replied
offhandedly and turned away.

An hour later, the
disguise artist raised a mirror to Linder’s face. He had become
accustomed to this transformation in recent months. His usually dark
brown hair, eyebrows, and beard stubble were now a light brown or
dirty blond; his brown eyes were covered with blue contact lenses;
and his bite and his diction were altered with a dental prosthesis.
He wore a charcoal business suit over a starched white shirt and
regimental tie and, while resembling the stereotypical Latter-day
Saints missionary, also could have easily passed for one of the
legion of Russian or German businessmen who frequented the city’s
commercial districts.

Once Linder and the
technician had compared the details of his transformation to control
photographs and initialed the disguise checklist, Denniston dismissed
her and remained behind for Linder’s final briefing before the
afternoon meeting with Kendall. Under normal circumstances, far more
time would have been allotted for the final pre-op briefing, which
would have been preceded by days of study and rehearsal. By
comparison, the preparation for this operation had been unaccountably
shoddy.

When the session
finished, Denniston rose from the stuffed chair opposite Linder’s
bed as if to leave. But before he could offer any parting words,
Linder strode to the window, looked outside, then turned around to
address his colleague. “Listen, Neil,” he began. “I’ve been
feeling kind of strung out lately and I guess I haven’t recognized
just how far I’ve pushed my luck the last few years. I haven’t
told anyone else, but I have bad dreams most nights now and it’s
been hard to get enough sleep to stay on top of my game. I think my
body is telling me it’s time to back off a bit.”

Linder watched for
Denniston’s reaction and, seeing his face become an expressionless
mask, decided to continue whether the Desk Chief liked it or not.

“I think it may be
time for me to do a tour at Headquarters. But the idea has me a
little worried. Sometimes I get the sense that certain people back
there resent my staying out in the field so long and see me as a
pampered prima donna. I won’t name names, but I have it on good
authority that some of the people I’ve relied on for support may
have turned on me.”

“And how would you
like me to help?” Denniston responded, folding his arms across his
chest and looking askance at Linder.

“I’m not exactly
sure, but maybe you could sound out the powers-that-be about my
coming home short of tour,” Linder ventured.

Denniston listened
quietly before crossing to the window and laying a cold hand on
Linder’s shoulder.

“Believe me, Warren,”
he replied firmly. “I know exactly how you feel. But this is not
the time to throttle back. Our work isn’t done until we have
uprooted the last vestiges of the insurgency at home and flushed out
every last rebel financier hiding overseas.”

Taken aback at such a
doctrinaire response from a fast-and-loose guy like Denniston, Linder
suppressed an urge to laugh.

“Now, don’t get me
wrong, Neil,” he began with a conciliatory smile. “I don’t want
to come across as a shirker, but what you’re saying seems like an
awfully tall order. Eliminate all opposition at home and abroad? That
would take generations. Meanwhile, I need some R & R fast.”

“It’s your choice,
pal,” Denniston answered. “I’ll see what I can do. But, right
now, we could really use your help in rolling up Old Man Eaton. Not
only is he an insurgent financier with enough money stashed away to
keep his pot boiling for years, but the old man is also a recognized
leader within the insurgent movement. It will be a major score to
roll him up and, when we do, you’ll own a piece of it.”

“And how would that
work, exactly?” Linder questioned.

“For one thing,
consider your next promotion in the bag. As it happens, I’ll be
sitting on your promotion panel this year. And if that’s not enough
to push you over the top, the Chief of Operations owes Bob some
favors. So, play ball with us a bit longer and you can have virtually
any slot you want when we’re done.”

Linder returned
Denniston’s expectant gaze with a weary nod. “All right. I’ll
do my part if you do yours. Let’s get on with it,” he said. “

“Good. Now, go as far
as you can with Eaton, but don’t overdo it,” Denniston warned.
“Better to return for another pass than scare him off.”

Without bothering to
respond, Linder stepped to the nightstand, picked up the phone and
called the front desk for a taxi. A moment later, he turned to
Denniston.

“Okay, I’m off. It
may be a few minutes before my ride comes, so please wait ten or
fifteen before going down. I don’t want the desk clerk to connect
us.”

“Sure thing,”
Denniston answered after emptying his bottle of Perrier. “But there
is one more complication. The surveillance team reported this morning
that Roger didn’t come alone, after all. His wife and stepdaughter
are staying with him at the Sofitel. So far, they haven’t been to
Eaton’s apartment, but I thought you ought to know they’re in
town.”

“Patricia Kendall?
Here in Beirut?” Linder asked, his voice rising.

“Apparently they
arrived from the Continent, which is why surveillance didn’t pick
them up earlier. Why does it matter? Do you think she might recognize
you? You two haven’t crossed paths before, have you?” Denniston
searched his colleague’s face closely.

Linder shook his head
and looked away.

“No, it just
complicates things, that’s all. I don’t like it when targets have
their families around during a meeting. You can never be sure where
things will lead with wives and kids.”

“Don’t worry, pal.
They won’t be at the flat. Eaton’s not that stupid,” Denniston
said, approaching Linder so that he was cornered between nightstand
and bed. “But, come to think of it, you were posted to London
around the time that Eaton and the Kendalls arrived, weren’t you?
Are you sure you didn’t cross paths?”

“We overlapped for a
while but I never ran into them,” Linder answered, stepping around
Denniston to straighten his tie in the wall mirror.

“And not before then,
in Cleveland, maybe? Didn’t you grow up in the same part of town as
the Eatons? Over on the East Side, by Shaker Heights and the
University, where all the rich people used to live?” Denniston now
stood directly behind him so that the two men looked at each other in
the mirror.

“Not exactly, Neil,”
Linder retorted. “Our house was in Lyndhurst and the Eaton estate
was in Gates Mills. They’re only about five miles apart, but Gates
Mills was a different world.” Evading the Branch Chief, Linder
checked his watch as if to point out that it was time for him to be
on his way. But Denniston would not be put off.

“Okay, but if you
lived in different worlds, how do you explain this?” he asked,
pulling a folded clump of papers from his pocket and handing it to
Linder. To Linder’s astonishment, the first page was a photocopy of
a newspaper article about the Cotillion Ball and the Cleveland
debutantes presented to society that year, including Patricia Eaton.
The following page included a photocopy of an annotated guest list
showing Linder’s name with a check mark next to it, and a
photograph showing a wide-eyed Warren Linder dancing with a less than
enthusiastic Patricia Eaton.

“Granted, it’s
going back pretty far, but it’s not the kind of thing a guy would
easily forget—not when the party is for someone as rich and
good-looking as Patricia Eaton. What do you say, does this refresh
your memory?”

Denniston took a seat
on the bed and waited in silence while Linder inspected the papers.

Linder’s heart sank.
The newspaper article was in the public domain, but the DSS could
have obtained the guest list only by means of an informant in the
Eaton household. If they had this kind of material, what else might
they have on him?

Linder took a long look
at the photograph before raising his head to offer Denniston a
sheepish grin.

“It wasn’t one of
my happier nights, which is probably why I buried the memory,”
Linder explained truthfully. “As I recall, the only reason I would
have been invited was because Patricia and I had been in ballroom
dance class together in seventh grade. We had just run into each
other at a dance in Boston while away at boarding school and I expect
the party planners needed some extra boys from the right schools to
provide gender balance. They must have reached pretty far down the
list to get to me.”

Denniston nodded and
stuffed the papers back into his jacket pocket before responding.

Linder sensed from this
that Denniston had noticed his embarrassment and believed his story
to be true. If so, Denniston might be willing to deep-six the
documents and thereby prevent some paranoid counterintelligence
analyst from launching an investigation. He shuddered to think of
what could happen if Bob Bednarski had found the documents. But, with
Denniston, a favor always came at a price and, until it was paid, his
old friend would hold the upper hand.

“All right,”
Denniston conceded at last. “I’ll let it go. But you’d better
not be hiding anything else, buddy. If you do anything to screw up
this operation, there will be hell to pay.”

Linder nodded in solemn
agreement while praying that his story would hold.

* * *

Shortly before one
o’clock, Warren Linder exited the cab and straightened his tie
again in the display window of a trendy men’s clothing boutique
near Place Sassine in Christian East Beirut. He was now fully in
character as Joe Tanner, diehard Mormon rebel leader, eagerly
awaiting the opportunity to meet Roger Kendall, offshore banker to
the anti-Unionist insurgency.

According to the cover
legend developed for the operation, Tanner had traveled by freighter
from Vancouver to Korea on an alias Australian passport, then boarded
a flight to Dubai, and then another to Beirut with help from a
friendly Asian intelligence service. He had risked his life to
escape, and would risk it once again on his return in order to win
the financial and operational support of wealthy American emigrés
like Kendall and Eaton.

In Tanner’s mind, the
survival of the persecuted Mormon Church and the very lives of his
coreligionists depended on winning support from Roger Kendall and his
influential father-in-law. More than a million Mormons were now
languishing in resettlement camps in Alaska and the U.S.-occupied
Yukon, having been forcibly removed from Utah and Idaho during the
insurgency when the President-for-Life declared the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints a terrorist organization. The Mormons now
demanded a “right of return” to their ancestral homeland in Utah
and the Mormon Return Movement was created to fulfill it.

Linder remained before
the display window when a well-heeled foreigner in a raw silk suit
passed behind him carrying a shopping bag with the Dunhill logo. The
man was slightly shorter than average height but exuded an air of
confident authority that befit a former Wall Street law partner like
Roger Kendall. Linder waited until Kendall had advanced twenty or
thirty paces, then followed him up Rue Sioufi toward the Place
Sassine.