The Virtuosic Spy 01 - Deceptive Cadence (7 page)

Conor’s expression of blank ignorance did not flicker. Shelton took a deep breath and made a conspicuous attempt to gather his patience. He got to his feet again and paced a few times in front of the whiteboard before resuming the lesson.

“Here’s how it works. For the money to come out looking clean, it’s got to get itself into a bank account and slosh around with a lot of money from a legitimate business. That means Thomas has either latched onto an existing business and started mixing the dirty deposits in with the clean ones, or he’s working with a sort of purpose-built company—a shell company that produces nothing, sells nothing, and basically does nothing but sit there as a front for deposits into a bank account. Once the money is in there, Thomas can whip out the laptop and start transferring it around to other accounts.”

Another slap at the whiteboard.

“Now, for your average criminal, the money comes out smelling fresh and new and goes back into the legitimate economy to buy holiday homes and diamond necklaces. But our boys are using it to buy boxes of M-16s and rocket launchers, aren’t they? Thomas just bounces the money around a bit and eventually wires it into the account of Fecky-the- arms-dealer, who’s no doubt got his own shell company all set up and ready.”

Shelton plopped once again into his seat. “So. Right.”

The room fell quiet as Conor absorbed the implications of such an operation. It was point less to mention the sophisticated skills required were incompatible with what he remembered of his brother’s capabilities. At this point, he had to admit his opinions about those capabilities might be naïve or at least out of date. In a fairly short time, he’d gained some surprising skills of his own.

Shelton shifted in his chair and abruptly broke the silence. “I suppose you’ve got questions, no doubt most of them

brainless. Go on, then.”

He shot the officer a jaded look. “Who’s supplying the money in the first place?”

“We don’t know, and for the purpose of our current mission, we don’t much care.”

“You don’t care?” Conor’s eyes widened. “How do you expect you’re going to stop all this if—”

“No, no, no! Jesus!” Shelton pounded a fist against the table. “You’re not focusing on the mission. Once again, as I said at the beginning, as I’ve been saying all bloody day: the mission is not to shut down international terrorism. It’s to shut down this left-behind IRA crowd and stop them from making a living as money managers for international terrorism.”

“Well, then, shut it down, why don’t you?” Conor shouted. “You’ve just told me you know how the whole plan works, and you know my brother is running it. You call me brainless. What more do you need, for Jesus’ sake? Go find him. Get the names of the people who taught him how to do it, and then throw the lot of them in jail. What are you laughing at, you pompous shite?”

The final insult made Shelton laugh harder. When he had collected himself and wiped his eyes, he looked at Conor in derisive pity. “It’s what we hired you for, you silly prat. Go and find him yourself.”

Shelton’s tutorial marked a turning point in Conor’s career at Fort Monckton. As Hamilton Bestor had inferred, he had been merely tolerating the experience, behaving not unlike a sullen but acquiescent teenager forced to endure a family holiday, but once the architecture of his brother’s new vocation was spelled out in all its insidious, finely calibrated detail, something changed.

That night, tossing restlessly in bed, he experienced an unwelcome epiphany. As implausible—ludicrous even—as the scenario might appear, these “Crown servants” were intent on turning him into a passably competent intelligence operative. They were about to send him overseas and actually expected him to wrestle his brother away from a horde of terrorists and the high-rolling fanatics who loved them.

Given the enormity of his situation, he realized his detached manner was childishly counterproductive, and more important, a self-indulgence he couldn’t afford.

“They’re actually going to go through with this. I need to stop feckin’ about and get to work.”

T
HE
G
LOCK
SEMIAUTOMATIC
pistol was in a pouch inside his backpack, stripped down to its component parts. There wasn’t much light in the alley, but he couldn’t wait any longer to assemble it.

Ahead of him, he saw strings of lights hanging in a festive, haphazard pattern that connected the stalls of the village’s night market, but their bright glow only made the surrounding darkness more complete. He heard fragments of animated conversations in English and Hindi as well as other South Asian dialects he couldn’t identify. They were growing louder, which meant he had very little time to get ready.

Quickly moving along the wall, he felt for the small alcove he knew lay somewhere along its length. He found it after a few steps and released a quick breath of relief. Scrambling into a kneeling position inside the confined space, he swung the backpack from his shoulders.

He made a mental note of its location along the wall and conducted a cursory exploration of its dimensions. Pulling the backpack forward, he removed the pouch and shook its contents into his hands. He closed his eyes as his fingers traced over the components and nimbly locked each into place. With the Glock assembled, he tucked it into his waistband and pulled his shirt down over it. Then he stepped back into the alley.

Less than a minute later, Conor was in the center of the market, his eyes sweeping back and forth over the crowd in anticipation of two encounters: one with the agent he’d been instructed to meet there and the other with an individual who had been hired to kill him.

He didn’t know what either of them looked like. Was the assassin a merchant at the market or a customer? Old or young? What was the strategy, and what kind of weapon would be used? What about the agent—was it a man or woman? Was he supposed to make contact first or wait for a signal? The brief had been too vague to be of much use. He was operating on instinct and adrenalin.

Sweat beaded above his brow and coursed down between his shoulder blades. A thick, sticky humidity hung in the atmosphere, and he wondered why he hadn’t noticed it earlier.

He continued to scan the faces and figures as they proceeded through the aisles between the stalls and observed those in his immediate vicinity: a well-dressed, heavyset man whose wife trailed along behind him; three children with ice cream dripping over their hands; a young mother with a baby swaddled against her breast; and a small group of Maryknoll nuns. The voices around him were more distinct now, and as he warily marked the passing throng, he allowed part of his mind to follow some of the conversations, translating snatches of Hindi as they floated forward.

“Finest Kashmiri wool, three hundred knots per square inch . . . ”

“Sweet, made from cardamom and pistachio . . . ”
 

“Gauri’s mother-in-law will not let her . . . ”
 

“Conor, over here . . . ”

“Chai, chai, chai . . . ”

“Two days until salwar is finished . . . ”

His head snapped around in the direction of the voice that had spoken his name, and his hand went to the gun at his waist. In the same instant, he realized it was a mistake. Such a reaction could give him away. To his left, a tall, rugged man with a deeply tanned face was signaling him with a surreptitious movement of his head, but just behind him, the young Indian mother who had passed him earlier was observing the exchange. She could not have identified him until that moment.

Her hand disappeared into the bundle she held gathered against her chest. He still had time to get off a shot, but instead he turned and launched himself back at the alcove, diving for cover. It was too late. The shot hit him before he landed, and an explosion of pain immediately followed.

“Shit, shit, shit!” He sprawled in the doorway with a hand pressed to his side, emphasizing each exclamation with a vicious kick at the wall.

The lights snapped on, and the images of the village night market faded from the screens around him. He was once again surrounded by the sterile, fluorescent glare of the Fort’s simulation facility. With a small hum, the air conditioning powered on, and his mouth twisted in annoyance as a door at the end of the corridor opened, revealing the compact, muscular figure of his weapons training instructor, Joanna Patch.

She strolled forward and squatted down next to him. From the hint of laughter in her light brown eyes, he could tell she was in a playful mood. Ordinarily, he would have jumped at the opportunity to widen this crack in her professional demeanor, but now it increased his irritation.

“It’s no good trying to put a foot through the wall, you know,” she said lightly. “It doesn’t change the fact that you are now lying in a dark alley in Gwalior with a bullet in your side.”
 

“Yeah, I don’t need the detailed narrative, thanks.” Conor shifted painfully against the wall. “The physical evidence of your handiwork is realistic enough. What the hell was that, anyway? Sure, I’d be dead right now if you’d clipped me in the head with it.”

“It’s a small ball made of concentrated felt traveling at sixty-five miles per hour when it hits you.” Joanna gave him a serene smile. “And if I’d wanted to hit you in the head with it, I would have done.”

“You might give me a vest or something for these exercises.” He rubbed a drop of sweat from his nose, still feeling peevish.

“Ah, but you won’t have such luxuries in the field, now, will you?”

“Yeah, and haven’t you been telling me I won’t have a gun in the field, either?”

“I said we wouldn’t be issuing you a gun,” Joanna corrected him. “But you never know when someone might pitch one at you and tell you to start firing, so we think it’s wise to teach you how to use it. Now, let’s have a look. Ooh, yes. Nasty, that. Not much fun getting shot up, is it? Best avoided at all costs.”

Conor pushed her hand away and yanked his shirt down over the spreading bruise on his side. He sat up a little straighter.

“Was she carrying a baby in that bundle of rags or not?

“Is that why you didn’t fire?” Joanna asked. “Because everything else was going splendidly. You assembled the Glock in record time. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone do it faster, working in the dark. We’ve already established that you’ve a quick draw and a deadly aim. You had plenty of time for a preemptive shot, and yet you didn’t take it. Is that why? You thought you might shoot an innocent baby whilst saving your own life?”

She waited for an explanation, but when he didn’t offer one, she sighed and rose to her feet. The mischievous attitude fell away as she gazed down at him with an expression of cool disappointment. “It was just a bundle of rags. No baby. So you sacrificed yourself for nothing, you see. You should have taken the shot. You need to grow a bit more comfortable with moral ambiguity, Conor. Being able to act on the lesser of two evils might save your life someday.”

She left him then and headed back to the control room, but at the sound of the Glock being once more stripped into pieces, she stopped and turned to face him. With deliberate care, and without taking his eyes from her face, he sent each piece sliding across the floor to rest at her feet.

“With all due respect, Joanna, your little aphorisms are a nightmare to me, because the day I grow comfortable weighing a child’s death against my own survival is the day I will no longer know who the hell I am.”

“The service doesn’t give a damn whether you know who you are, only whether you can act the part.” Her face assumed the flat, expressionless gaze of the model bureaucrat. “This simulation is completed, Mr. McBride. Thank you for your attention and participation. You may go now.”

The control room door slid shut. He heard the muffled conversation of technicians as they powered down the facility. He continued sitting there for several minutes, looking pensively at the locked door. Finally, he levered himself off the floor and walked out into the fresh air.

6

S
KIMMING
THROUGH
THE
BRIEFING
BOOK
SPREAD
OUT
ON
his knees, Conor silently reviewed the details of his alias, absorbing it with the help of some internal commentary.

Briefing profile for Con Rafferty.

Brilliant. I’ve spent half me life telling people not to call me Con.

Okay, then. anyway . . . Con Rafferty. unmarried, thirty- two years old. Born in Dundalk, parents dead, two brothers in Dublin, one sister in Minneapolis. Bachelor in Business Studies, trinity college Dublin, graduate degree . . . right, blah, blah.

Present employment with eco-tourism company, Benefi . . . Benef . . . Hell, I can’t even say it, and I’m supposed to work there. Beneficent tours. There we go. Next item. Position of Director, New Product Development. Assignment to India, investigating the feasibility of trekking tours in Kashmir . . . past assignments . . . countries visited, passport number . . . medical history, inoculations, dangerously allergic to peanuts . . .

Allergic to peanuts?

Conor looked up from the briefing book. “Why am I allergic to peanuts?”

“Aren’t you?” Frank asked.

“No.”

“It’s probably a typo. Different aspects of the profiles get recycled, and details occasionally get missed by the proofreaders.”

“Is that so?” Conor closed the book. “I’m lucky you got my blood type right.”

Considering the hazardous nature of the trip he was to begin, he felt in remarkably good spirits. He was back for one last night in the sumptuous surroundings of the suite at the Lanesborough. After spending ten weeks in the chilly, ascetic quarters of Fort Monckton, he had a greater appreciation for its comfortably snug environment. He was also gratified that some kind of productive action was finally on the horizon.

In contrast with his cheerful mood, Frank was in an uncharacteristically sober frame of mind. He ignored the good-natured dig and indicated the second book near Conor’s elbow.

“The second dossier contains all the information we know about your brother’s activities. Much of it is already familiar to you, but if there is any new information, you should read through it tonight and commit it to memory, because I will be taking back both dossiers in the morning.”