The Falconer's Tale (25 page)

Piat nodded, the taste of bad coffee sour and bitter in his
mouth. “I'll want a meeting the second I'm out of Mombasa.
One way or the other.”

Partlow shut his briefcase with a snap. “Let's do Germany.”

Piat thought about it for a moment. “Yeah. That suits—
it's on my way. Frankfurt?”

Partlow hesitated. “Stuttgart,” he said.

A major American military base. Another “secure facility,”
no doubt. “Give me the particulars.”

Partlow rattled through a meeting spot, a set of recognition
signs, a fallback. Solid tradecraft, the stuff that made
espionage work. All the stuff that Partlow hadn't wanted to
do in Athens. Another red flag. Piat created a mnemonic for
the comm plan “Okay. Stuttgart. I'll signal you when I'm
out.”

Partlow offered his hand. “Good luck, Jerry. I really, really
hope you succeed.”

Piat took his hand and they shook.
“Hakuna matata, bwana,”
he said. “No problems. What do you want me to do if I run
across the congressman?”

Partlow's grip tightened for a moment. “Run like hell,” he
said.

On the way to the airport, Piat stopped at an “illy” sign and
drank two cups of espresso. Because he was in Italy and
because he was more than a little scared, he wrote Mike
Dukas a postcard. Then he drove back to the airport, dropped
his rental car, and flew to Glasgow in time to catch the last
ferry to Mull.

Saturday morning, Piat woke to his alarm and got himself
out the door as quickly as he could. He hadn't run in so long
he was feeling like a slug—a slug who lived on airport food
and slept in hotels. He ran up the long hill from the Mishnish
to the antique pile of the Western Isles Hotel, and then he
ran through the less touristy parts of Tobermory at the top,
where 1950s housing jostled the older cots and cottages, and
then out into the countryside past the Dervaig road. The day
was cold, but the sun, where he could find it, was warm, and
by the time he'd made his loop and started down the long
hill from the traffic circle to the town's waterside main street,
he felt better. He sprinted along the front of the eighteenth-
century buildings, the shops and pubs and restaurants to his
left and the sea to his right, without a thought in his head
beyond the euphoria of movement and exercise.

Even the shower was easy.

While the hotel filled his thermos, Piat called the farm and
got Irene.

“Why don't I take you guys for dinner tomorrow?” he
said.

“Dinner, or some kind of training?” Irene sounded as if
her patience was sorely tried.

“Dinner. Just dinner. Italian, over in Salen.” Piat tried to
convey calm reassurance.

“Eddie says you want him to keep Bella,” she said.
“Sometimes I wonder if you and I are on the same side.”

“This isn't the time to have this conversation, Irene. Yes,
we're on the same side.”

Piat packed his fishing gear in the boot of his new rental
(a spaceship-shaped Renault product too damned wide for
the Mull roads) and drove south toward the hills. He parked
in the valley and started the climb to the loch, immediately
aware of the length of his run and the age of his legs, but
pleased nonetheless to make the top, and its view. He
stopped, as had become a habit, and drank tea from his
thermos. Dykes was standing on the crannog, fishing.
McLean was fishing from the bank, well around the loch,
more a shadow against the bright surface of the water than
the shape of a man.

Piat slugged back the last of his tea and started down the
hill. He noted that the path, a barely visible sheep track when
he had first come to fish, was now well beaten down. He
walked down to the shingle by the crannog and looked for
signs of activity. The only thing he could find was the tarp
covering the pumps—and he'd helped to place it. There was
a small refuse heap—if a pool of mud could merit the name—
and a single PVC pipe that ran down through the grass and
vanished into the water. Not much to see.

Dykes waved. He flourished a small brown trout. Piat rolled
his eyes and began to set up his rod.

McLean hailed him from across the water. “Anything?”

Piat shook his head and shouted back, “Little browns!”

McLean gave him a resigned nod.

At noon, they met behind the crannog for lunch. Dykes
had an American gas stove and he used it to cook the little
brown trout like anchovies or sardines. Piat wasn't sure the
proprietor would approve, but then, he wasn't likely to
approve of the dig, either. The fish were delicious.

McLean fetched a heavy plastic bag from under the tarp.
“Not a waste of time at all,” he said. In the plastic bag was
a Reicher mount with two bone fishhooks, a bead of lapis,
a gold disk and a bronze pin.

“There's more,” said Dykes. “That's the best shit. We got
some arrowheads and some broken stuff.”

Piat had to laugh. It was the irony of the thing. He laughed
and took another bite of fish. “You guys are the best. No,
really. Okay, when I sell this, you guys get a cut. But now
that we actually found something, I guess we ought to document
it for the buyer—a couple of photos. Can you get a
few underwater?”

It was McLean's turn to laugh. “Well, I could,” he said. “I
have the camera. On the other hand, you could just take a
picture of a piece of brown felt. That's what it looks like under
there. We're finding stuff by touch and feel. Most of it is old
twigs and pebbles. God only knows what we're missing.”

“I have one more hole to do,” Dykes said. “Then we're
just taking your money to fish.” He shrugged. “Not that I
mind, but I've got bills to pay and shit to do at home.”

Piat took out two envelopes and handed one to each. “That
ought to cover pay to the end of next week,” he said. Both
men counted the money right there.

“Thanks,” McLean said. He looked out at the crannog. “I
could get a couple of shots if they were posed—if we didn't
actually have the pump on.”

Piat smiled. “The whole thing is posed, Tank. Doesn't matter
if the pictures are posed.” He laughed again. “Last thing I
expected was a genuine artifact. But it'll make the whole
thing easier to sell.”

Dykes poked him with a hard finger. “Come on. You was
hoping.”

Piat smiled. “Okay, I was.” He looked up at the clouds
coming in around the summit of the mountain. “How much
longer do you think you guys'll need?”

Dykes and McLean exchanged a glance. They both
shrugged. “A week?” said Dykes. “Two if we string it out.”

Piat nodded. “Do you mind stringing it out?” he said. He
poured tea from his thermos and handed it around. It started
to rain.

McLean shrugged. “It's your money. Sure, I can stay two
weeks.”

Dykes flourished his envelope. “If I send this here home,
I can probably stay another two weeks. What for, though?
If you don't mind my asking?' Cause we're just about done,
like I said.”

Piat knew that he kept them there for two mutually exclusive
reasons—as a trip wire against investigation, and as
muscle in an emergency. He wasn't entirely logical about it.
He shrugged. “I don't know myself. Insurance. Just in case.
Hey, it's my money, right?” He looked back at them. “Any
problems? Anybody come by?”

McLean sipped some tea. “His lordship came by. Nice
chap—came up on his ATV, watched us fish, came down to
the water's edge. He drove right over the pipe—I had to
replace her. Either he didn't twig to it or he didn't give a
shit. All he wanted to hear about was the fish.”

“I sent him home with one of his own sea trout,” Dykes
said. “Only one I've caught.”

McLean cocked an eye at Dykes. “That's because you're a
hopeless caster.”

“Fuck you,” said Dykes, serving up another pan of fish.

Piat stayed most of the afternoon, casting in the cold rain,
freezing his hands and arms, his nose and ears almost numb,
happy. He didn't keep anything he caught, and he ended his
day with a warm bath in his hotel.

When he got into bed, he realized that he hadn't thought
about Hackbutt, Irene, or Partlow since the morning.

Mombasa was four days away. He fell asleep thinking about
Mombasa, and he dreamed of an empty hotel where someone
was hunting him.

The next morning, Piat made reservations for Mombasa
by computer. He spent Partlow's money. He read websites
on hotels and took the operational plunge of putting his own
party at the same hotel as the target. With all the issues Irene
and Hackbutt had, with all of Partlow's reservations, with
whatever shadow the congressman cast, Piat had to figure
he had one shot.

Mombasa.

Late that afternoon, he drove to the farm and collected
his agents. Irene looked different—neither the shapeless dress
of their first meeting nor the wool skirts of her “rich girl”
persona nor the cargo pants and flannel shirts of her “art”.
Instead, she had fitted jeans and a raw silk shirt with baroque
buttons, set off by a necklace of African trade beads. She
wore it with a jacket from her operational clothes.

Now, she looked to him like an artist.

Hackbutt had on his oldest sweater with a pair of stained
climbing pants and hiking boots. But he didn't look like a
refugee or a bum. The change was subtle but evident, not
just in his own behavior but also in how the hostess greeted
them. Hackbutt, for instance, smiled at her. She smiled back.

Piat wondered if the feeling Hackbutt gave him was
anything like the feeling Bella gave Hackbutt.

“We're going to Mombasa,” Piat said, when they were seated.

Both of them tried to talk at once.

“I have work to do!” Irene said.

“I'm training Bella!” Hackbutt said.

That got an older and meaner look from Irene. But instead
of commenting on Bella, Irene turned to Piat. “You said no
spy games.” She said it loudly enough for the restaurant's
handful of late-season patrons to hear her.

Piat had to restrain himself from turning to look at the
patrons' reaction. He leaned back, feigning indifference. “I
lied. But that's for later. I just wanted to get it out in the
open. You'll leave Thursday.”
Oops
, he thought.
Mistake
.

It was Hackbutt who continued to surprise him. He leaned
forward, almost a conspirator. “Time for that later,” he said.
“It's our night off.”

Piat made himself relax. “You're absolutely right, Digger.
Apologies all around.”

The food was excellent, and so, for once, was the company.
Irene rattled on about her contacts in France. “They take me
seriously,” she said, for perhaps the fifth time. She was drunk
on it—on being taken seriously.

She was into her fourth glass of wine by the time she
began to describe her next installation. “Tools,” she said. “I'm
going to get a
lot
of old tools. I mean, a lot of old tools. Don't
ask me why.” She looked around. “Women and tools.
Something about women and tools.” She sneered. “I
hate
the
idea of being ‘
about
' something. It isn't about women and
tools, it
is
women and tools. Maybe I can get the Bush administration
to give me an NEA grant,” she said. “What do you
think, Jack?”

Piat flicked his eyes around the room. “I think maybe we
should call it a night.”

Irene laughed again, a rich, horsey laugh, tough and happy
and brave and far, far too assertive.

With Hackbutt's aid, he got her into the car. He drove the
long way, to give her a chance to sober up a little, and he
started telling stories because she was in the mood to laugh,
and then Hackbutt told a story from Jakarta that made both
of them look like fools, and she laughed all over again. All
three of them did. Piat looked at Hackbutt in the electric blue
light of the instrument panel and tried to remember if he'd
ever heard the man make a story funny before. Hackbutt
laughed, not a nasal whine but a head-thrown-back full-
throated roar. The car raced along a two-hundred-foot drop
to the sea below, the occupants laughing like teenagers
hearing their first dirty joke.

Piat and Hackbutt each took an arm and helped her to the
door of the farm. Just on the stone sill, she turned and kissed
Hackbutt, a passionate kiss.

“I think I'll save the briefing for tomorrow,” Piat said.

She took all her own weight on her own feet, stood
straighter, chuckled. “I'm not as think as you drunk I am,”
she said.

Piat caught Hackbutt's eye and flicked a glance at Irene.

“I think you are,” he said, and headed for his car. When
he looked back, they were kissing again in the doorway, He
stamped too hard on the accelerator, so that gravel flew from
the wheels despite the weeks of wet weather.

Alan Craik was down in the DIA cafeteria, staring through
a tilted sheet of glass at a big metal tray full of something
that had to be eggplant. It was Italian day—eggplant, pizza,
spaghetti. He had his doubts. The women who cooked and
served were all friendly and willing and probably talented,
but they weren't Italian.

“How's the eggplant?” he said to a black woman in a white
hairnet who was waiting to serve somebody.

“It's good, you like that kinda thing.”

He thought of Rose's eggplant with black olives and tomato
sauce. It wouldn't be like that. It probably wouldn't be like
anything, except maybe boiled greens with hog jowls. He
said he'd take some.

He swayed around chairs, heading for a table where a
woman he knew was sitting, Nice woman, forties, Air Force.
Targeting specialist. He put his tray on the table, established
that she wasn't saving the place for somebody, and sat down.
At the same time he watched half a dozen people join the
cafeteria line, recognized one of them, couldn't place him,
and then did and said out loud, “That congressman again.”

“What congressman?” He liked her voice—husky, like his
wife's.

He bobbed his head toward the line. “That one—the silver-
back in the expensive suit.”

“Kwalik,” she said. “And his entourage.”

“Kwalik?”

“Representative Kwalik. Ohio.”

“How do you know something like that?”

“He's on the intelligence committee. I got sent up there
to brief them because everybody else in my outfit had already
gone and they said it was my turn to blow smoke.”

“What's he doing here? Hard to believe he comes for the
food.”

She laughed. “Have you tried the eggplant?” she said. She
laughed again. “Don't.”

He did anyway. If you didn't think of it as Italian, it wasn't
so bad. He listened to her talk about somebody in her department,
and he ate and watched the congressman go through
the line. Kwalik. He remembered the face from Abe Peretz's
briefing. People from OIA had gone to Kwalik's staff after
OIA was disbanded.

Which brought him back to his question:
What's he doing
here
?