The Coil (28 page)

Sir Anthony said, “Sansborough's door believes she may be suffering flashbacks. I'm concerned he may send out agents to find her. Or he might get curious about whether Asher Flores really was shot and look into that. The last thing we need is the CIA sniffing around. There's too much to find. Agreed?”

Inglethorpe said suspiciously, “They could ruin our plan, what little remains.”

“Precisely. At the same time, there's MI6. Simon Childs may have incited their interest. We don't want them in the fray either. I'm sure you see my point.”

“Not really.”

Sir Anthony knew otherwise. “I can handle MI6 myself. You're the logical one to take care of Langley. No, Nick, listen. You've done favors for the director of operations for years. When they needed the cover of a journalist, you provided it, no questions asked. You got their people into Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bosnia…. We need to stop a probe into Sansborough. Stop it cold. The intelligence community can be manipulated, but it has to be done quickly, before their machinery starts rolling. That means now. We need the CIA to back off, to stonewall her if she phones again. She must remain an independent, not interfered with. Will you take care of it?”

At first, Themis shook his head. When he looked up, Cronus saw uncertainty. Most unusual. Cronus frowned, and Themis gazed away. But then Themis sat up straight, and Sir Anthony knew he had figured out a solution.

Themis smiled. “Is that all you want? Jesus, Cronus, that's chicken feed to a boy from Texas. I know the right person for the job. His identity will have to be my secret, of course. Just between him and me, but consider it handled.”

Gatwick Airport, England

Twenty minutes after the luxury jet touched down at Gatwick, Nick Inglethorpe was in a men's room stall, talking on his cell. “You're certain there'll be no blowback?”

“Not when I take anything on, Nick. You know that.”

“I knew you were the one. And no need to mention this to Cronus, right?”

“If that's how you want to play it. Did the old man mention any progress on the Carnivore's files?”

“No. He just keeps botching it.” Inglethorpe had sensed for some time that since his latest acquisition had raised eyebrows in some quarters, his stock was falling with the Coil and with Cronus in particular. Therefore, letting Cronus believe media magnate Nicholas Inglethorpe still had the clout to manipulate the CIA was a smart idea. “But thanks on this one. I owe you.”

“Yes, Nick, you do.” The line went dead.

MI6 Headquarters
London, England

With its commanding position above the Thames River, MI6's headquarters in Vauxhall Cross, South London, looked to Shelby Potter like a bloody birthday cake, not a place for the raw business of foreign intelligence. Potter not only disliked the angles and setbacks, he found the honey-colored concrete and green glass damned offensive.

The only thing good was its location—isolated at the south-bank end of Vauxhall Bridge. Potter had indelible memories of the unmarked London high-rise that had been HQ for decades, where so much was sacrificed and accomplished. In those days, security identified it to the nosy public only as the Ministry of Defence. But then, until just seven years ago, the government had denied MI6's very existence. All of that had changed by 2001, when MI6's chief, Sir David Spedding, died. It was announced in the gossip rags. He might as well have been some bloody airhead socialite.

Scowling and grumbling to himself, Potter parked and marched inside. Word had come down that the queen would soon make him a commander of the Royal Victorian Order. A knighthood for an old spy who had spent his career paying fools to betray their country and then murdering the patriots who tried to stop them. This, after years of being passed over because of his bad mouth, bad team manners, and Janice.

He had a half mind to turn it down. Except he knew it would make Janice proud. A soldier's woman had an easy life compared to a bloody spook's. If he took the thing, he would dine her at the Connaught, where they would drink to their thirty years of out-of-wedlock bliss and reminisce about better times, when the Foreign Office did not have to advertise for spies as if they were looking for baker's assistants.

The one good tradition that endured was the late hours analysts and planners devoted to protecting Britain. He passed lighted offices and cubicles, his hands clasped behind his back, nodding soberly at those who hurried along carrying colored folders, each color indicating a level of security. They were good young people, even if they did look at him as if he were some statue in Hyde Park, not the still very alive and barking operations director in charge of all MI6 covert missions.

In his office, he flicked on the lights, sat at his desk, and leaned back, waiting. The clock read 10:44. One minute later, right on schedule, his phone rang.

He picked it up. “Tony?”

“Hello, old man. Thanks for making time for a chat.” Sir Anthony Brookshire's voice had the same measured, resonant pomposity Potter associated with long nights of drinking and political discussions back when they were both students at Cambridge.

“What do you want, Tony?”

Brookshire managed a chuckle. “Always the cynic. I hear congratulations are in order. A knighthood. Very well deserved.”

“I'll most likely turn it down.”

“I wouldn't do that, old man,” Sir Anthony said. “Janice deserves it, if nothing else. You might even marry the lass after all these decades, eh? Lady Potter. Has a ring, don't you think? So does Sir Shelby.”

Potter swore, suddenly understanding Tony's underhanded role. “Dammit all to bloody hell, Tony, this was your idea. You put on the screws.”

“You're overdue, Shelby. It's common knowledge among those of us with our fingers on the pulse. Unfortunate that the, ah, clandestine nature of your work has held it up. This should've happened a decade ago.”

“Clandestine nature of my work, my maiden aunt.” Potter snorted. “My lifestyle and outlaw personality,
that's
why C and Her holy Majesty would never do the honors.” “C” was code for chief of MI6—the director-general. Potter felt an unusual moment of respect. “Damnation, Tony, you've impressed me. How in hell did you manage it?”

A slight irritation entered Brookshire's tone. “I merely detailed a few of your many contributions over the years.”

Potter smiled to himself. Translation: Tony had made C understand that Potter knew where too many ripe bodies were buried to be ignored again. But then, Tony Brookshire was a consummate politician. No one could remain in service to the queen a lifetime and rise to the rarefied levels he had without being one. The world of British national politics was fangs and claws, blood and bone, but usually covered with such a civil veneer that the rest of the planet considered the British stuffy.

“All right, Tony,” Potter grumbled, “you've softened me up. Now what is it?”

“Simon Childs. Penetration agent. The former MP's second son.”

“Bright young man. Bit of a maverick, which I consider an asset under the right circumstances. Sporadically in trouble. Gives his chief fits. Real potential there,” Potter enumerated. “But you know that, right? Friend of the family?”

Brookshire brushed it off. “Childs has left his assignment and is running rogue with a former CIA agent, Elizabeth Sansborough.”

Potter frowned. “Why haven't I heard?” He made a mental note to talk to Childs's immediate supervisor.

“The boy's been hiding his tracks damn well. We happened to stumble over him on a different matter. At the best, it shows poor judgment. At the worst…”

Potter pondered. “Sansborough? Ah, yes. The Carnivore's daughter. I heard she was put out to pasture years ago.”

“Clearly back in harness, apparently on her own initiative.”

“She's turned professional, like her father?”

“Could be.” Brookshire sighed. “As you may recall, Childs is her cousin. We'd like you to cut him loose and declare him an isolate. We hope he's going to come through this. But if not, we want no reflection back on the government.”

Potter said nothing. It was the “we” that held his attention…
we'd
like…
we
hope…
we want.
Was Brookshire referring to the inner circle of government, or was he talking about Nautilus, the preeminent secret club of world movers and shakers to which Potter knew Brookshire belonged? The Nautilus Group had been behind many of the seismic global political shifts since World War II. Potter knew about such things, of course, although he would never—could never—be part of the group. He had neither the power nor the “team” mentality.

Potter asked bluntly, “How do I know any of this is true?”

“Because I never ask frivolously. Because we've known each other too long, through too much, to be less than honest with each other, especially now that we're in the twilight of our careers. This is for the good of the country, Shelby my friend. I've never asked for anything personal, and I'm not about to start now. Liz Sansborough has nose-dived off the top of Big Ben, and it's looking more certain she's taking our boy with her. We don't want to kill Childs, but we've got to make sure he doesn't hurt us. If it comes to sanctions later, so be it. For now, let's declare him taboo. He's to receive no help. To interfere will endanger his life and, vastly more important, the service.”

“This is the truth?” Which Potter knew was essentially irrelevant. Somewhere far higher up than he, someone in Whitehall needed Simon Childs on the shelf for a time-out. That was, in the end, all that mattered.

“You can verify it yourself now that you know the situation.”

“Oh, I will, Tony,” Potter said. “But I'm sure it will check right enough, and I'll take care of it.”

“Never doubted it, old man.”

“And Tony? I expect I'll take the honor, despite my grumbling. Even marry Janice, if she'll have me at this late date. Come in from the windy cold, as it were, eh?”

“Glad to hear it, Shelby. Glad to hear it. We must all have dinner after the ceremony. The four of us. Be in touch.”

Alone in his office, Potter almost laughed aloud. Tony wasted no time. But on the other hand, Tony would also make sure they had that intimate dinner, and he would be genuinely pleased when Potter took the knighthood. Tony would also weigh in with Janice, promoting marriage. People like Tony always wanted everyone to play the same game, play it the same way—his way.

Potter sighed. Whatever the real reason, Simon Childs would be cut off. The boy would survive, probably be the better for it. Stiffen his backbone and his skills. God knew, it had happened to Potter more than once in the old days. He dialed and leaned into the phone.

CIA Headquarters
Langley, Virginia

Boring to the outside world, the Office of Personnel had become Walter Jaffa's new fiefdom. For five years, he'd headed the Directorate of Administration, once the nervous system of the CIA, until it was eliminated in 1998 and its vast responsibilities carved up and handed out like rare chocolates. At first, Jaffa had fought the reorganization. But he had been allowed to keep his grade and salary, and as one of the Agency's most senior officials, he'd had his choice among Chief Financial Officer, Chief of Security, head of CIA University, and others.

In the end, he had chosen the Office of Personnel; it was not only visible at every level of the CIA, it was critical, from employee recruitment and screening to retirement. It gave lie-detector tests to find sleepers, moles, and those with the potential to be turned, and it oversaw the NOCs—those brave officers in non-official cover, whose lives in the field were on the line every day.

Jaffa took his duties seriously. Every time he walked past the windowless white cubicles of his various special groups, he felt a surge of pride. He liked his religion, and he liked his wife and children. He enjoyed his success, his work, and the Agency.

He entered his office and sat in the comfortable chair behind his paper-laden desk. It was nearly six o'clock, a time when he occasionally had these thoughts. In this frantic age, to end most days with a sense of spiritual fulfillment was unusual. Raised on the windswept prairie of South Dakota, with a hard-drinking father and a work-worn mother, he had put himself through the University of South Dakota, waiting tables in Vermilion and Sioux City and working through the blistering summers on the wheat combines. Physical survival was what mattered in those days, and that meant getting ahead. Now spirituality was the core of his life. His friends were only the most serious Roman Catholics, the most traditional and High Church—fellow members of Opus Dei, “God's Work.”

His phone rang. One of his phones. But not the one that normally rang. Jaffa stared at it—his direct line, used by only the most important people, from the DCI on up. He straightened his back, lifted the receiver, and made his voice firm, authoritative.

“Jaffa,” he said.

“Do you enjoy your job, Walter?”

Jaffa did not recognize the voice—tinny, distant, as if mechanically disguised. The Chief of Personnel did not receive such camouflaged calls. He groped beneath his desk for the button to alert security to activate call-trace electronics.

“Berlin, 1989,” the disguised voice went on. “West Berlin in those years, to be exact. There was a girl—”

Jaffa's finger did not press the button. His hand moved slowly back up to the top of his desk. His forehead broke out in a sweat.

“Her name was Elsa Klugmann,” the tinny voice continued. “Sixteen years old. Pregnant with your child. Her father was high up in the BND—a hard man, not one anybody would want to cross—”

Her father.
Walter could still see the bulldog face, its icy implacability. In those days, West Germany's BND—the Bundesnachrichtendienst, or Federal Intelligence Agency—was finally emerging from political scandal, years after Chancellor Willy Brandt's government was brought down when a Stasi mole was uncovered at his right hand. After that, the BND tightened up, became as merciless as the Stasi itself, although they never stooped to the wholesale bugging, brainwashing, and blackmail to which the Stasi subjected their own citizens in East Germany.

Not, he thought bitterly, that he could attest to it from personal experience.

He had loved Elsa, but it had been a sin to have sex before marriage. When Herr Klugmann learned what Walter Jaffa had “done” to his girl, he ordered her to have an abortion, although Jaffa begged Klugmann to let him marry her.

Herr Klugmann was an atheist. His own father had been not only an atheist but a member of the SS. He was damned if he would let that
verdammter Schweinehund
marry his Elsa. He wanted Jaffa gone. Permanently. So he arrested a Stasi spy and planted papers on him that incriminated Jaffa as a Communist asset. He promised the panicked Stasi operative that he would go free, if he helped destroy Jaffa.

Elsa sent a message, telling Jaffa about it and begging him to rescue her. Jaffa was desperate. At that point, the CIA knew nothing about any of it. Once they did, his career would be over, and he would still not be able to save the child.

Jaffa prayed for hours, using the
cilice
—the spiked thigh band—for self-mortification, until God at last gave him an idea: He had an inheritance—nearly $100,000. Using a connection provided by the legendary spymaster Red Jack O'Keefe, he contacted the best contract assassin—the Carnivore. When he accepted you as a client, you were guaranteed the wet work would be perfectly executed and never traced.

Five days later, Herr Klugmann and his Stasi collaborator died in a tragic car crash on the way to federal court. A freak accident, German police said, caused by mechanical malfunction on a steep hill. The Klugmann family was desolated, although Frau Klugmann recovered enough to remarry within three months. By then, Walter and Elsa were also married, and he had secured a transfer back to the States.

The whispery voice on the phone said, “I doubt Langley will view this as a small matter, not to mention the reactions of the attorney general and the German police. In or out of prison, your survival will be brief. The BND has a long memory—and an even longer arm—when one of its own is assassinated.”

No one succeeded in the CIA, certainly did not rise high, without iron control. None of his fear showed in Jaffa's voice. “Who is this?” he demanded. “I don't know where you got this fantasy, but I guarantee—”