The Last Run (4 page)

“Doesn’t make any fucking sense.” Barnett handed one mug to Caleb. “If they know the drop, why the hell didn’t they nab you when you went to clear it?”

“Not following, sir.”

“Mini uses the lexicon, Caleb. This isn’t the lexicon. Ergo, Mini didn’t load the drop.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Caleb said. “Mini gave up the drop.”

“No, lad, you’re not thinking it through. If Mini gave up the drop, why wouldn’t he have given up the lexicon, too? And if the drop’s been blown, then why didn’t Shirazi’s goon squad just pin you to the ground the moment you came to clear it? Or, better yet, after you’d cleared it? Did you see anyone else around, anyone at all?”

“There was a bicyclist, just before I got to the bridge, but he was gone before I moved in.” Caleb examined the note again, all the more certain that he was looking at two different codes, a primary number key, followed by a rudimentary substitution code, reading:

E N M S A E K H
N H MH A K A SM

Caleb counted up the figures in the first part, fourteen numbers, apparently grouped in twos. “The second part is definitely substitution, but I think this first part is a book code.”

“Could be he’s waiting until you return.” The ash on the end of Barnett’s cigarette dropped onto the back of his hand, narrowly missing his mug of tea. He wiped his hand against his pants, leaning forward to examine the note again. “First time to see if the drop is real. Now that it’s confirmed, they’ll grab you on the next trip. PNG express, if you’re lucky.”

“God.” Caleb felt suddenly ill.

“I think you’re right, I think it’s a book code. Caleb?”

“No one in the network uses a book code, sir.”

“Thing is, if VEVAK
does
have Mini, then he certainly gave them the lexicon.”

“So it’s not VEVAK?”

Barnett straightened up, shrugged. “Guess we won’t know that until we decode the bloody thing. By which, of course, I mean until
you
decode the bloody thing.” He grinned.

“But I don’t know the book.” Caleb shook his head, unsure if his Number One was making a joke or not. “It could be any book. And the substitution code—I mean, there’s no way to even begin to guess the key.”

“Well, the book code at least, if it’s a message for this Station, it’s going to be found in one of those.” Barnett used his cigarette to indicate the two bookcases, filled to bursting with all manner of reference, both technical and cultural. At least three different copies of the Koran, and that many again of the collected Omar Khayyám, anything that any previous resident to the Station had thought of merit, or, at the least, of use. “Can’t be more than one hundred and fifty, maybe two hundred books there, tops. Crack part-the-first, maybe that gives you the key to part-the-second.”

“You can’t be serious,” Caleb said, and immediately regretted it. One look told him that, for all Barnett’s humor, there was nothing about the current situation he found funny.

“Look, Caleb, either this is Shirazi playing silly buggers with us, or it’s someone else who’s discovered that we use the footbridge in Park-e Shahr as a dead drop. In either case, the location is compromised.”

Caleb got to his feet quickly, suddenly possessed of a different fear, one that had nothing to do with his own well-being. “I’ve got to set the warning flag for Mini. Jesus, if he hasn’t been made and they’re watching the drop, he’ll walk right into them.”

“No, sit. Drink your bloody tea.”

“But Mini—”

“I’ll do it. If Shirazi’s crew has eyes on you, there’s a chance I’ll draw less attention. He’s in Elahiyeh?”

“Yes, in the foothills.”

“What’s the flag?”

“There’s a streetlight at the corner of Razm Ara and Estanbol, on the north side.” Caleb searched his pockets, pulled out the piece of yellow chalk. “Two horizontal lines on the east side of the post.”

“No school like the old school.” Barnett took the chalk. “Right, I’ll set the flag, you hit the books. I’d start with the ones in Farsi.”

“That’s what I was thinking.”

“Good. Wish me luck.”

“I should go,” Caleb said uneasily. “Mini’s my agent.”

Barnett grinned, opening the door. “You’re a good lad, Caleb.”

It
was midafternoon before Barnett returned, saying the deed was done and that the rain had finally stopped, and that there’d been no sign of any VEVAK interest whatsoever. He noted the growing towers of books surrounding Caleb, fixed two more cups of tea, and turned his attention back to the reports he’d been preparing for delivery to D-Int earlier that morning. Each worked in silence.

As Barnett was preparing to leave for the day, Caleb found the book. A copy of Hakim Abu’l Qasim Ferdowsi’s epic poem,
Shahnameh
. Even when he had it, he wasn’t sure it was correct. The intervening hours had been filled with so many pieces of nonsense, of what appeared to be the correct match of page and word to meaning, only to fall apart at the last moment. An article where a noun was needed, or a number that went to a page or word that didn’t exist. Twice already Caleb had managed to decode the whole message, only to realize the sentence was utter, utter nonsense.

Which was why, even after reading it through three times, he still wasn’t certain he’d decoded it correctly.

“The grapes are in the water. Falcon.”

Barnett, about to pull on his coat, stopped and stared at him. “What?”

“I’m not sure, sir. I think that’s the message.
‘The grapes are in the water. Falcon.’
Sounds like a keyword code now, but it still doesn’t match the lexicon. And we’re not running anybody under the name Falcon, are we?”

“Not in this theatre. You’re sure you’ve got it right?”

“No,” Caleb said, with utter sincerity. “I’m not.”

“Not really what I wanted to hear.” Barnett had the communications cabinet open now, extended a long leg to hook a nearby chair, pulling it closer. He parked himself in front of the keyboard, began typing quickly. In addition to the signals deck, there was a headset, as well as a companion handset, for the secure audio link, but Caleb had yet to see them used. According to Barnett, he didn’t want to see them used, either, because if one of them was on the headset here in Iran, the odds were it was Paul Crocker at the other end of it in London.

“Give it to me again,” Barnett said. “And the substitution code at the end.”

Caleb relayed the message once more, Barnett typing more slowly this time as he took it down. Task completed, Barnett turned the transmit key, then whacked the “send” button with his palm. The machine hummed for an instant, then went utterly silent. Barnett removed the key, scooted himself back in his chair, closed and locked the cabinet.

“London’s problem now,” he told Caleb Lewis.

CHAPTER THREE

LONDON—VAUXHALL CROSS, OPS ROOM
6 DECEMBER 0910 HOURS (GMT)

Tara Chace rubbed the goose egg
on the back of her head gently, still swollen from her fall on the obstacle course, and with her free hand took a sip of the traditionally god-awful coffee the Ops Room seemed to run on. Across from her at the briefing table, William Teagle, from Mission Planning, and Chris Lankford, her Minder Three, were talking about what a grand holiday Chris was about to have in Iraq. Despite the theatre of operations, Chace wasn’t overly worried for Lankford’s safety; the mission was remarkably mundane, barely worthy of a Minder, in her opinion. As a result she allowed her attention to wander around the room.

Chace adored the Ops Room, with its clean lines and clearly demarcated regions, even this renovated version that was a far cry from the one she’d first come to know nine years earlier. You always knew where you were in the Ops Room; you always knew the state of things. When the world was behaving, as it was apparently doing at the moment, there was a feeling of palpable, controlled efficiency, even self-confidence. Everyone to their duty, everything at its place.

All that would change at the drop of a hat, or, more literally and much more frequently, at the ring of a phone. The word would come, something had happened, was happening, was about to happen, and then the orders would ring out, and the whole of the Ops Room would transform, exploding into motion, and still, everyone to their duty, everything at its place.

Chace thought of the letter she was carrying in her pocket, resting against her heart, and had a moment of hesitation. The Ops Room was one of the few places in the world where she felt she truly belonged, and the thought of leaving it pained her. She hoped she wouldn’t have to.

Architecturally, the space was nothing more than a giant cube, with all workstations oriented to have clear line-of-sight to the wall of linked plasma monitors at the far end that perpetually displayed a map of the world. In the left rear, where she sat with Lankford and Teagle, was the Briefing Table. Left front was the Mission Planning Desk, for the moment empty. Right front was the Main Communications Desk, staffed at the moment by Alexis Ferguson, who’d been in the Ops Room for as long as Chace could remember. Right rear, the Duty Operations Desk, with Ronald Hodgson seated at the raised platform, another old-timer, acting as the shift’s Duty Operations Officer. At the moment that was the entire Ops Room complement—with the addition of two runners, who were ferrying paper between the various desks.

Chace noted that Lankford’s mission had already gone up on the map. A cherry red dot now pulsed on Mosul, a golden halo around all of Iraq. The mission had been designated “Bagboy,” with a callout stating that Minder Three had been allocated.

“MOD estimates some two hundred of the crew-served weapons have gone missing in the last three months,” Teagle was telling Lankford, in answer to some question Chace had missed.

“They’ve done an audit of the base?” Lankford asked. “They’ve actually tipped the place on its side and looked for them?”

“So we’re told. Can’t be found anywhere.”

“Wonder if they checked behind the sofa cushions,” Lankford said to Chace.

“They think they’re being sold?” Chace asked Teagle.

“That’s the fear. The question is who’s doing the buying. Bad headline if British troop is killed with British weapon wielded by Iraqi insurgent.”

“And their own internal investigation turned up nothing?”

Teagle nodded, then added, “This is why they are asking for our assistance.”

“What’s the window?”

“Five days turnaround.”

“You’re going to have loads of fun on this one,” Chace told Lankford, certain that he wouldn’t. The investigation would be tedious, and already she suspected that MOD had requested SIS assistance merely to cover their own ass. Five days for Minder Three to uncover what, presumably, they had been working months to resolve. It was a token investigation, and it was already assumed by the MOD that Lankford would fail.

Lankford smiled across the table at her, confident. He wasn’t yet thirty, with the kind of face that would hold all signs of aging at bay for at least another twenty years, and his sincerity made him seem all the younger and, consequently, made her feel all the older. “I’m going to solve it.”

“You do, you’ll get a nice Christmas bonus.”

“I will, just you wait, Boss.”

Chace grinned, then looked to the multiple clocks positioned on the plasma wall, each giving the time in various zones around the world, and she saw that it was now nearly a quarter past nine. Crocker would have just finished going through the Immediates on his desk, now moving on to the Moderates and then the Routines, the less pressing files and reports that demanded his attention. Unless he hit something that caused outrage or panic, he’d be at his desk for another fifteen minutes or so, before heading to his daily meeting with D-Int and the Deputy Chief.

Chace stretched, feeling her left knee pop with an almost-pleasant pain as her leg extended, then got to her feet. “Don’t be stupid, Chris, all right? It may be a base, but it’s a base in Iraq, and there are a hell of a lot of guns about.”

“No fear,” Lankford said.

“Yes, fear—it’ll keep you alive. Stop by the Pit when you’re finished, all right?”

“Yes’m.”

Chace started for the door, saw that Alexis, still wearing her coms headset, leads gathered in one hand, was in consultation with Ronald Hodgson at Duty Ops, standing on her tiptoes to reach the top of the raised desk. Ron had a signals sheet in his hand, reading it with a bemused expression.

“Nah, it’s a mistake,” he was saying.

“Barnett’s asking for a confirmation,” Alexis told him. “I’ve run it twice, it’s gibberish.”

Ron saw Chace, motioned for her to join them, saying, “Falcon’s in Jakarta, I think. There’s no one running in Iran under that name. Tara, take a look at this.”

He handed down the note for Chace to read.

“Lee Barnett sent it Saturday night, as a routine inquiry,” Alexis said, by way of explanation. “He says the first part is a book code and queried if we knew what it meant. The second part he maintains is a substitution code, but they don’t have the key. He’s asking for instructions how to proceed. I’ve spent the last hour trying to decipher it, but the computer keeps spitting out ‘no known code’ for the lot.”

“Barnett’s Tehran?” Chace asked. “How’d he come by this?”

“He didn’t say.”

Chace read the message again.
The grapes are in the water. Falcon
. “The substitution, it’s a number sequence.”

“Agreed.”

“You’ve contacted Jakarta?”

Ron shook his head. “I was about to send it up to D-Ops, see if he knew what it meant.”

“I’m on my way up there now, I’ll give it to him. Meantime, signal Jakarta, query Falcon’s whereabouts. And Lex—send back to Tehran. Ask for details on the message, how they came by it.”

Alexis nodded, hopped down off the platform, and headed back to her workstation.

“You have any idea what it means?” Ron asked.

“None,” Chace said. “But it certainly doesn’t bode well for the grapes.”

The
door to the inner office was closed. Kate Cooke, Paul Crocker’s long-suffering personal assistant, was seated at her desk in the outer, her fingers flying over her keyboard. She paused midkey-stroke when Chace entered.

“Minder Three?” Kate asked.

“Still briefing. Operation: Bagboy.”

“Bagboy,” Kate repeated. “When’s he due back?”

“Kate, he hasn’t left yet. Should be back Sunday, all goes well.”

“It’s Iraq.”

“He’s on-base the entire time.”

Kate nodded, then resumed her typing. She and Lankford had been on-again, off-again for the last few years, and from the change in her manner, Chace guessed they were on-again once more. Not that Kate would have cared any less about his well-being if they weren’t, but Chace knew that she’d never have dared ask for details otherwise.

For a second, Chace thought about saying something to her about discretion, and that perhaps Kate might want to be more circumspect. But the fact was, Chace knew Kate would never have asked the questions of Crocker or Poole. Even if she disapproved of the relationship—and she wasn’t certain that she did—the fact was, Chace didn’t have a leg to stand on, and Kate knew that better perhaps than most.

Chace moved to refill the mug she’d brought with her from the Ops Room. “Can I see him?”

“He’s on with Seale right now,” Kate said. “Should be done in another minute.”

“What’s the CIA want now?”

Kate managed the rather impressive feat of shrugging without missing a keystroke. Chace tilted her head, trying to listen for Crocker’s voice over the sound of the keys and through his closed door and, not hearing anything, concluded that whatever it was Julian Seale wanted, it wasn’t worth the raising of a voice. She wasn’t particularly fond of the CIA Chief of Station in London, though Crocker seemed to get on with him just fine, certainly maintaining the time-honored “Special Relationship” between the two services. But Chace had found the American to be more political than his predecessors, and she didn’t trust him. She wasn’t naive; she understood that the intelligence service of any country would always be embroiled in the politics of the same. But she felt, strongly, that agencies like SIS and the CIA should walk a fine line, serving what she admitted was often an ill-defined and long-term “national interest” rather than an administration’s politics and polling results of the moment. Seale made her uneasy.

Chace slipped back out from behind Kate’s desk, sipping at her refreshed coffee, which was infinitely better than what she’d sampled earlier in the Ops Room but had the detriment of being decaf. Yet another change since Chace had come to work for the Firm; in the beginning, it had seemed that all intelligence work was fueled by caffeine and nicotine, in roughly equal proportions. Chace had given up smoking while pregnant with Tamsin, then again some two years ago, and thus far had managed with only a few stumbles. Crocker, for his part—at least as far as she knew—had gone without a smoke for over a year, quitting at roughly the same time his coffee had become decaffeinated.

The heart attack, when it came, hadn’t surprised anyone who knew Paul Crocker; the only shock was that it had taken so long to finally happen. And the irony was that, while the job certainly was a contributing factor, it hadn’t been the job, specifically, that had caused it. Crocker, his wife, and their younger daughter had taken a weekend trip to visit his older daughter, who was attending university in York. They’d spent a November Saturday together, retired to their hotel for the night, and, as Crocker told it, an invisible elephant had leapt onto his chest and refused to move.

Technically, Chace thought, D-Ops had actually died. Crocker’s heart had stopped beating, and for seven minutes before the paramedics arrived, he survived on his wife’s breath, on her repeated compressions of his heart. The medics managed to restart a rhythm before rushing him off to the hospital, and by Sunday noon, Paul Crocker had two stents and a new lease on life, one that the doctors told him he was damn lucky to have at all, and if he wanted to preserve it, some lifestyle changes were in order. No more fags, no more red meat, easy on the caffeine, and—this was a laugh to everyone who heard it—less stress.

Between recovery and rehab, Crocker was out of the office for just over nine weeks, through the holidays and into early February, during which time Chace was named Acting Director of Operations, Poole advanced to Head of Section, Minder One, and Lankford to Minder Two. It wasn’t the first time Chace had found herself named Acting Director; on three separate occasions since becoming Minder One, Crocker had been forced out of the office, almost always on official business, and she’d been obliged to step into his place, though never for longer than five days.

This time it was different, and markedly so. The question of whether or not Paul Crocker would actually return to the Firm at all hovered, unasked, throughout the building. There were many who felt he had long since passed his sell-by date, that it was more than time for him to go. His list of allies, both within Vauxhall Cross and over the Thames, in Whitehall, had grown perilously short over the years, while the list of those he’d double-crossed, ignored, abused, or enraged had just as significantly lengthened. In certain quarters, Chace was sure the news of his heart attack had led to celebration.

But if those same people had thought that Tara Chace, as Acting D-Ops, would be easier to manage than her absent predecessor, they had clearly forgotten both her loyalty to Crocker and the fact that everything she knew of the job she’d learned from him. While she was less prone to shouting than Crocker, and perhaps a little more liberal with honey than with vinegar, she was no less fierce in pursuit of the D-Ops mandate. She’d handled the day-to-day bureaucratic chores of running the Operations Directorate with skill born of nearly a decade in SIS, but that had been expected. The real test of a D-Ops, everyone knew, was how they reacted in a crisis. Prior to Crocker’s prolonged absence, there’d never been an opportunity to see Chace in action in that role.

The opportunity came on three separate occasions. At each, Chace responded as decisively, as quickly, and as knowledgeably as Crocker ever had done. Two of the situations she’d been able to diffuse from the Ops Room alone, dashing off signals to the Stations in question, once getting on the phone to threaten a recalcitrant Number One in Hong Kong.

The third had been different, and as potentially lethal to Chace’s career as anything Crocker had ever faced. The son of a leading MP had been kidnapped in the Philippines, along with his girlfriend, and the political pressure within the Government itself to locate and then effect a successful rescue had been both instant and enormous. It was the first time Chace found herself running a legitimate special operation, designated Operation: Tiretrack, and she’d immediately ended up fighting with both the Deputy Chief and C about who to send for the job.