Spy Who Jumped Off the Screen : A Novel (9781101565766) (26 page)

Chapter Thirty

Two hours before sunset,
Surpass
dropped anchor at the western end of the Bay of Tangier, just within the breakwater. From the avenue d'Espagne along the crescent of waterfront, its dark hull and white decks transfixed passersby, ever more so as the descending sun inflamed the sky, framing the ship against a briefly swirling palette of gold, coral and summer blue. In the northern distance lay Tarifa, the ancient Spanish gateway to Europe, the port of entry from which the word “tariff” derived, and those aboard
Surpass
could spot the red-and-white
FRS Iberia
hovercraft as they plowed the open Med on their opposing transits between Tarifa and Tangier.

From the main deck, Ty surveyed the horizons as the yacht rose and fell in rhythm with the sea. It was a rhythm he knew well from other voyages, first as a child on the Chesapeake, later as a soldier on special ops, and he knew that his body had to get used to it anew each time he set sail. He had adjusted well to this cruise but felt far less sanguine about the success of his mission. He had uncovered no evidence implicating Ian or Philip in any plot to acquire or sell nuclear warheads. Indeed, their behavior was suspicious only if one were predisposed to see it as such. It was true that Ian surrounded himself with a questionable if colorful assortment of business and social acquaintances, but so did many men of great wealth. It proved absolutely nothing. In fact, a compelling argument could be made that no man undertaking the kind of theft and sale the President and his advisers feared that Ian might be involved in would dare squander his concentration on such frivolities at a critical moment.

Philip was another matter. Ty did not like him yet had to ask himself why. The obvious answer was that without Philip Ty would be able to pursue Isabella. Beyond that was the Russian whores' gossip he'd overheard on the pontoon at the Hôtel du Cap. But what if those women had been making up or embellishing stories? He had to allow for that possibility.

Among the exotic cast of characters he had encountered at Pond House and aboard
Surpass,
he found it difficult to distinguish likely suspects from innocent bystanders. Having overheard Celia Foo's complaint about her and her husband's recent exclusion from Ian's inner circle, he felt confident they were uninvolved. He felt just as sure that the Al-Dosari twins were trouble and that if a conspiracy was under way they were bound to be part of it. Their recent hiring of Philip to run one of their funds fit neatly into this theory, but it was still a theory based on instinct and conjecture rather than fact. Of the others he'd met, who could say?

Still, he had a disquieting feeling. In a milieu where practically every event, motive and personality was subject to alternative explanations, something seemed out of order. He sensed this in the same way he could tell at a glance that a scene in a film was or wasn't right. To figure out exactly what was wrong, however, would take much longer. As he reconsidered the events of the last few days, he kept coming back to Raisa Gilmour's conversation before dinner, then to the extraordinary gems that had arrived for Isabella. Ty appreciated Isabella's playful designs, but even she had seemed astonished at being asked to adapt them for such magnificent stones. Could the improbability of that commission be related to the sale of weapons of mass destruction? For the life of him, Ty did not see how and thought it more likely that it was simply another instance of Ian's working in the background to promote his beloved goddaughter. Even so, it bothered him.

If there was any opening to any secret world aboard
Surpass,
he suspected it would be found in Ian's quarters, but he had been expressly excluded from them. Why, on the other hand, should he have been included in a discussion of business in which he had no part? At least on the surface, Ian's behavior seemed perfectly explicable.

His mind was still churning when he was surprised by Ian's voice behind him.

“¿En qué piensas?”
Ian asked.

Ty was careful not to react to the Spanish. “Sorry,” he said.

“What are you thinking?” Ian translated.

“What else
could
anyone think? What a beautiful evening this is.”

“God's paint on God's canvas!” Ian exclaimed. “That's what I call sunsets like this one. Have you been enjoying yourself?”

“Very much so,” Ty replied.

“I'm glad, although I fear I've failed you as a host.”

“Failed me?” Ty asked. “Quite the opposite, I'd say.”

“I would like to have spent more time with you than I've been able to so far. Everyone in the world wants to know Ty Hunter. I have the chance and don't take sufficient advantage of it. Never mind, we'll make up for it in the days to come. In fact, why don't you come up to my deck and we can have a drink now? Unless, of course, you have other plans.”

Ty shook his head. “Not one,” he said. “I'm yours.”

Once inside his study, Ian pointed to a leather Queen Anne chair. “What will you have?” he asked.

“It's too early for a martini. Perhaps a glass of champagne?”

“That
would
do nicely, wouldn't it?” Ian pressed a button.

Crispin's Caribbean voice came over an invisible speaker.
“Yes, Mr. Santal.”

“Two glasses of champagne, please,” Ian told him.

“I hope you don't mind, I Googled you,” Ian said. “Not to pry, but because I was so intrigued to have you aboard. I must tell you that I've never seen so many pages devoted to one person in my life.”

Ty felt a sudden tightness in his chest, a deep internal chill. He said, “They're not all gospel.”

“I'm sure they aren't, but if even half of what they say is true, it's been quite a ride, has it not?”

“For which I'm very grateful,” Ty parried.

“I hadn't realized you'd been discovered whilst you were still in the army.”

“That part's true.” The question at once convinced Ty that he would have no choice but to act his way out of Ian's trap
—
if it
was
a trap rather than an expression of genuine curiosity. As they spoke, Ty kept his eyes fastened on Ian's, endeavoring to determine the probability that he had found Ty out.

“What did you do in the army?”

“Hurried up and waited, isn't that how the old saying goes?”

“What branch were you in?”

Ian Santal was far too sophisticated to raise this question idly. “Intelligence,” Ty replied, making the word seem as banal as he could. He ought to have anticipated this, he thought. The President and George Kenneth and Oliver Molyneux ought to have anticipated it. After all, Ty's life was largely an open book. Hadn't it been naïve to suppose that Santal would not bother to read through it? On the other hand, perhaps they had anticipated exactly this turn of events yet felt sure that Ty could make his own story appear less dramatic than it was. Until the President had approached him at Camp David, he'd had no connection to the army or any branch of the government since his discharge. Anyone who searched for one would search in vain. Intelligence, moreover, was a large branch and by itself indicated little. Few of its members were operatives, and the special operations in which Ty had participated kept only the most secret of records. All he had to do was maintain his calm, admit what was true, and in doing so make it seem that that was all there was.

“Intelligence,” Ian pressed on, “can be a very . . . dangerous place to be. I remember a colleague long ago telling me that the life expectancy of an American second lieutenant in the intelligence corps was fifteen minutes. That was in the days of Vietnam and even then doubtless an exaggeration, but one that nonetheless hinted at a larger truth. That lieutenant, after all, would probably have served as a forward interrogator, wouldn't he? He would have gone out pretty much alone behind enemy lines.”

Calmly, Ty nodded in agreement. “Very likely, he would have.”

“And in Afghanistan? Or in Iraq?”

“The landscapes were different, the principle the same.”

“When you were there?”

“Yes. After all hell broke loose.”

“Fighting the so-called War on Terror, a war on a tactic?”

“For better or worse,” Ty said, “that's been the world post-9/11, hasn't it?”

“Technology drives history,” Ian instructed him. “It's a divine law of nature, not subject to repeal. About certain things and certain trends, at the end of the day one must be a fatalist.”

“I hope you're wrong about that,” Ty said with a carefully measured sense of irony. “The future's a pretty scary one if you aren't.”

“The future is and always has been scary,” Ian mused, “but it has always come to pass. Strength creates resistance that in turn creates strength and so on. The world survives because, before it's too late, people inevitably find an equilibrium point from which they can manage to stand each other off, just as we, as individuals, survive by finding a similar point at which our warring instincts cancel out each other.”

Ty sipped his champagne, his eye momentarily caught by Ian's splendid parquet gaming table. The older man's proclivity for games was all too apparent in the conversation they were having now. “Clearly this is a subject you've been thinking about for a long time,” he conjectured.

“Most of my adult life,” Ian assured him. “I know I am thought of, if I'm thought of at all, as a man of action—in the marketplace, of course. In my own mind, however, I'm more of a philosopher. My actions are based on a rigorous logic that I've struggled hard to develop over the years. That logic tempers what I observe, experience and learn in any other way.

“Enough of this.
You
are the man of the moment. Tell me about Ty Hunter.”

“You seem to know a lot already. Are you sure you want to hear more?”

“Doesn't everyone? Especially from the horse's mouth? For example, do you miss being a soldier?”

“Not at all,” Ty said. “Apart from my accident, I enjoyed it, but not that much. Everything has its day, and I caught a break. I'd be nuts to pine for the past.”

“You caught a big break. If you hadn't been wounded, who knows, you might have joined the family business.”

“Unlikely. I wasn't cut out to be a detective.”

“I meant the CIA.”

“Those are old rumors. I thought they'd been extinguished years ago,” Ty said, “but I guess the Internet has resurrected a lot of such rubbish.”

“Talk about the long half-life of lies,” Ian replied gracefully.

“Of course, I'm not entirely blameless in the matter. I mean, I made no effort to set the record straight when the PR types tried to make me out as larger than life. All that stuff about speaking all those languages, for example—it was absolute crap. Sure, I took courses. And we lived abroad for a while when I was a kid, but I don't have the right kind of mind for that stuff. God knows I wish I did. I wish I hadn't lost whatever I once had. The truth is, maybe I'm a little bit dyslexic. I have enough difficulty remembering my lines when they're in English.”

Ian laughed along. “Never discount the value of appearing larger than life,” he said. “What makes you so certain your dad was just a detective?”

Ty gave a dismissive laugh. “We lived in a small house. I was the only child. It would not have been an easy place to keep that secret.”

“Not to contradict you,” Ian said, “but I once knew a woman who as a school leaver was sent to work at Bletchley Park, where the British decoded the Germans' Enigma machine. She was given the job because the people in charge there knew her and had known her family for generations. Basically, it was secretarial work, but it was being done in one of the most secret places in the world, and her superiors told her then that she was never to speak of it to anyone. Well, the Second World War was over in April 1945, and she died in May 2005, having gone on to marry and raise a fine and very happy family. Do you know when her husband and children first heard about her work at Bletchley? When it was mentioned in her obituary notice in the
Telegraph
!”

“Apparently whoever recruited her chose wisely,” Ty observed.

“Apparently,” Ian repeated, and smiled broadly, as if finally admitting defeat. “Well, you were there. You know your own history far better than anyone else. No doubt you're right about your dad, but the media can't resist a good story, can they? A dollop of espionage goes a long way to luring readers' attention. Never mind, tell me about
your
plans.”

“I don't have many at the moment. Right now I'm taking a breather. I'm not even reading scripts.”

“I assume you're sent a stack of those every day.”

“My agent is. Some have roles for me. Some are meant for my production company. Others are for both. Netty does a great job culling the stacks, but I've just shot four films pretty well consecutively, and I need to clear my head before choosing a fifth. Back when I
was
reading scripts, I didn't come across anything that
—
”

“Raced your motor?”

“That about says it.”

“Comedy or tragedy, though, which way are you inclined for your next project, or are you ambivalent?”

“‘Ambivalent' is precisely the right word. It will all depend on the script. It always does.”

Ian nodded approval. “If I were casting you, I think I would make you an adventure hero, a figure of action but also judgment that the audience might not expect from a man in possession of your looks.”

Ty laughed. “You sound just like my agent. They call those projects ‘tent poles.' The suits on the business side all love them.”

“Why shouldn't they?” Ian asked. “You would be a very credible Indiana Jones—updated, of course.”