Undeceived (16 page)

Chapter 22

May 1983
CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia

“Bennet, you’re turning into a workaholic! Why are you here on a Friday night?”

Elizabeth looked up from her file, annoyed with the interruption. Wickham and Collins were standing in the doorway. Wickham seemed more interested in her chest; Collins was checking out the chart on her wall.

Typical. Ogler and Meddler.

“You know, I might ask the same of you. Why are you two here on a Friday night?”

Wickham grinned. “We’re still here, but we’re knocking off for the weekend. From what the receptionist downstairs said, you’ll be here tomorrow
and
Sunday.”

“I’m busy these days.”

“You’re just not the same fun girl you were before you went abroad.”

“Hmm?” Perhaps if he saw she was uninterested, he’d leave her alone.

He put his hip on the corner of her desk. “What are you working on so hot and heavy?”

“Just finishing up some reports.”

“On Darcy?”

Annoyance tipped over into temper. “Nope. I’m done with Darcy. Now I’m looking for an
actual
mole!”

Bill Collins startled at her sharp tone, tearing his eyes away from the wall chart—a cloud-like diagram with one oval at the center and lines connecting many ovals with code numbers across the paper.

Wickham eased off the desk. “No need to get testy, Bennet. Just wanted to know if you’d like to go out and get a drink with us.”

Elizabeth leaned back in her chair, rubbing fingers across her over-tired eyes. She took a deep breath, observing the man before her with a shrewd eye. Looking at Wickham now, any trace of appeal he ever held was buried beneath the impulsive, financially strapped schmoozer she now knew him to be. And she knew it all, thanks to Darcy—and to Charlotte and the FBI file the two women had compiled on him. Oh yes, she knew all about Oval Number 75-13 on her chart. She got up and drew a green line between Wickham’s oval and one of the banks listed in the margin.

She glanced back and saw Collins still staring at her.

“What, Bill?!”

“Hmm? Oh, it’s nothing, Ms. Bennet,” he stammered. “The director still has you looking for a mole?”

“Not actively,” she admitted. “But I like to be thorough.”

“So you don’t have an actual assignment at the moment?” Wickham asked.

“I have assignments. I’m working on this between assignments.”

“For six months?”

“Yeah. So?”

“Well, Darcy’s tucked away safe and sound in the Caribbean. So, in my opinion, we got rid of the
actual
mole.”

“Where in the Caribbean?” Collins asked.

Elizabeth and Wickham exchanged looks.

Wickham shrugged. “It’s no secret. The director sent his ass to Port of Spain, Trinidad—and good riddance.” He turned back to Elizabeth. “Once upon a time, we were a fine team, Bennet. We should go back into the field and work together again.”

“I’m sure they will send me into the field when there’s something for me to do.” Based on the counterintelligence dossier she was compiling on Wickham, however, she doubted they’d send him anywhere in the future.

Collins piped up. “I agree completely. Ms. Bennet does excellent field work.”

“I don’t know about that,” she said. “I haven’t been part of an op yet that wasn’t a complete disaster.”

“Well, there was Budapest…no, wait. East Ber—”

“Thanks, Bill.”

“I’m…sure the next one will be…good.” His voice faded, but then he plastered on a too-bright smile. “Does she know about the Viceroy?”

“The who?” Elizabeth asked.

“Yeah, Collins, that’s a thought. Lizzy, if you’re really still interested in this mole business, I could use your insight. Collins has some information on a new asset who reportedly has intelligence regarding a double agent.”

Elizabeth considered. Wickham took her silence as encouragement.

“Ironically, the asset wants to meet on Tobago.” Wickham held a hand to his ear. “What’s that you say? The asset’s near Trinidad? And who is the COS on Trinidad?” He looked straight at her with hard eyes. “That’s right. The London Fog.”

Collins snickered.

“Thing is, the director just gave me a new assignment, and Collins is in the middle of a project too. We wondered who we could get to meet up with Viceroy. You interested?”

“Darcy and I didn’t part on the best of terms. I wouldn’t want to meet up with him by accident.”

“Darcy’s in Port of Spain. The asset’s on Tobago. You’ll probably never run into him.”

“He’s not being informed about the new asset?”

Wickham shrugged. “It’s a counterintelligence matter right now. We don’t even know if the new asset will pan out.”

“Oh, it’s a good lead,” Collins said, picking up a file.

“Yeah, all right. I’ll think about it.”
If Wickham handpicks the officer, he can fill the newbie’s head with his Darcy-Is-Poison propaganda. And the Caribbean sounds good. I could use the change of scene.
“No, wait. I’ll do it if the director clears me for the assignment.” She snatched the file out of Collins’s hand. “Give me that! That’s sensitive personal and financial information you’ve got your grubby paws on! You might even know the person.”

“Me? I don’t know anyone like that.”

“You never
really
know anyone, do you?” She slammed the file on the desk.

“So the ovals correspond to people and files?” he asked.

“Yes. Now, go away. Go have a drink and toast my absence.”

“What are the red and blue and green arrows for?”

“It’s just my note-taking system, Bill.”

“Come on, Collins. Let’s let the career girl do her job. I’ll buy you a beer.”

“I prefer gin and tonic.”

“Fine. Gin and tonic for you.” Wickham banged an accented rhythm on the door frame with his fingers as he strutted out. “Night, Busy Lizzy.”

Collins stared between the chart and Wickham’s retreating back.

Elizabeth smirked.
Snooping or bootlicking. What will it be, Bill?

He pursed his lips and then decided. “Okay. Night, Ms. Bennet.”

“See you Monday.” Elizabeth sat back down behind her desk and opened the file Collins had in his hand. At least he hadn’t gotten hold of 78-20.

That file was his.

***

“Hey.” Charlotte picked up a French fry, doused it in ketchup, and then talked around it as she chewed. “Did you know Darcy Sr. was a civilian contractor for the CIA?”

“Nope.”

“Long time ago—’57 to ’62.”

“Interesting. I wonder if that’s where Darcy got the idea to go into intelligence.”

“Sources say, Dad wanted the CIA from the beginning, but Darcy took a shine to the Air Force for a while. Did a tour during Vietnam as a supply pilot.”

“But he didn’t make a career out of it.”

“It wasn’t a great time to be career military. Things were discombobulated.”

“To say the least.”

“Then Saigon fell in ’75. Darcy was employed by the CIA by then.”

“Why did George Darcy stop contracting with the government?”

“He didn’t entirely—Darcy Shipping still has a few government contracts—but the CIA dropped him like a hot potato. After the Bay of Pigs incident.”

Elizabeth stopped mid-bite. “Bay of Pigs?”

“Yep. One of his ships was grounded on Playa Giron, and another turned tail and left after President Kennedy called off air support for the invasion.”

“My father was at Playa Giron, and I told Darcy that once. He never mentioned his father was a civilian supplier.”

“Maybe he didn’t know.”

“Maybe,” she said carefully. “You’d think Darcy Sr. would have steered his son clear of the agency after that.”

“You’d think.”

“If he did know, maybe our Darcy wanted to be his own man. He could have led a pampered, easy life as a shipping magnate, and yet he chose to serve his country instead.”

Charlotte tried to hide a smile. “I sense some softening toward the London Fog since you came back from East Berlin.”

“I guess I have softened a little. I’ve developed some respect for the guy. He’s arrogant at times, condescending at others, but he’s…” A dozen images scrolled through her mind like a slide show: Darcy grinning, his eyes hidden behind sunglasses on Lake Balaton. Darcy kissing her hand when he woke in the hospital. The shock and hurt on his face when she told him about her real mission in Hungary and East Germany.

“For someone trained in observation, I sure was unobservant,” she muttered.

“What are you talking about?”

Elizabeth paused. “While we were in Virginia, Darcy made a move on me.”

Charlotte’s eyes popped open. “Real-ly?”

“Not a move like a casual, let’s-jump-in-the-sack-and-screw move. He wanted…” What had he wanted, exactly? “He thought they were sending him to the USSR. He wanted me to transfer and go with him.”

“And here I thought the man was an island. You turned him down, obviously.”

“With extreme prejudice.”

“And now you wish you hadn’t?”

“Not exactly. I’d always thought of him as the target of an investigation, not a guy to get cozy with. Sure, there was some physical attraction because, let’s face it—”

“He’s hot.”

“Yeah, and I’ve been without for a long time now. A long time.”

“You could look somewhere else.”

“I know, but every time I go out and look at someone else, I see stupid Darcy instead.” She shook her head. “I don’t regret not getting involved with him because it’s complicated, and I don’t need any more complications. But I wish I hadn’t been so harsh. I wonder if it might have worked if circumstances had been different. I wish…”

“You wish what, E?”

“I don’t know. It bothers me that he’s down there in Trinidad, or wherever life may take him in the future, and thinking poorly of me.” She squirmed. “Nothing makes you madder or hurts more than when another person says or does something that violates your self-concept, realigns how you see yourself. Through a thousand little comments and actions, even though he didn’t always intend to, Darcy did that for me. A lot of the time, it pissed me off, but in the end, I have to admit, it forced me to know myself better.”

“A gift—from one of the few people capable of giving it to you.”

“Yes, I suppose you’re right. I thought I had great intuition. That I was smarter than everyone around me. That I was sharp-eyed and perceptive. In truth, I was what I accused Darcy of over and over again: arrogant, prideful. I swallowed the company line about him, and that made me prejudiced. If there’s anything a counterintelligence officer
can’t
be, it’s prejudiced. It’s unwise to only see what I want to see; I have to see what truly is.”

“And what
is,
in regards to your feelings about William Darcy?”

“I feel like a fool—which I really hate—and, God help me, I miss him.”

My handler still wants me keeping tabs on you. He thinks there’s some way to persuade you to join our little team. Especially now that you have been shunted aside by your own agency. Under his direction, I made a plan to lure you—a brilliant plan—but I have a bigger problem on my hands now. They’re on my trail. Building a case, a network of possibilities. It’s only a matter of time before they put together enough information to sink me. I’ve got to disrupt the process and get the ringleader out of here somehow.

Chapter 23

Port of Spain, Trinidad
June 1983

Darcy held up two fingers, and after exchanging some bills with the bartender, he pulled two Stag beer bottles through the metal bars protecting the pub’s gleaming wood and stainless bar. After being in Trinidad through a Carnival, he could see the reason for the “bars on the bars.” Sometimes Carnival got rowdy. A few regulars leaned against sunny yellow walls or perched on bar stools, but he took his two ice-cold bottles to a high top several feet away. A welcome breeze blew through the pub from one open end to the other. He handed one bottle to the young man sitting across from him and pushed his sunglasses up on top of his head. The two men clinked bottles.

“Tell me again why you’re leaving Port of Spain, Darcy.”

He lifted his beer and eyed the younger of his two case officers. There were only two officers here in Trinidad, and the older one was leaving with him tomorrow. “I want out of the city before the rainy season really hits.”

“That’s bullshit, man. What have you got going on?”

“You just keep your eyes and ears open when you’re on the docks this summer.”

“Aw,” the young man grumbled under his breath.

“And I want regular reports on anything you hear from Grenada.”

Henry grinned, teeth gleaming in his handsome, dark face. “You keep the money coming, and I’ll keep the reports coming.”

“Deal.”

“Still don’t know why you’re taking Rita with you to Tobago instead of me. How’s an old lady gonna help you out if you get in a jam?”

“A woman has helped me out of a jam more than once. Besides, what are the chances I’ll have trouble on Tobago?”

“That’s a good point.”

“Besides, I like Rita, and I like her curried chicken.”

“Still, you should stick around. That cute little embassy secretary with the blue bikini has the hots for you.”

“Only because she doesn’t know me too well.”

“You haven’t been out and about since you got here in January. Sworn off women, have you?”

“Yep—at least for the near future.”

Henry shook his head. “That ain’t right. Make you crazy before too long.”

“Women made me crazy in the first place. In fact, I’m saner now than I’ve been for over a year.”

Henry narrowed his eyes and gestured toward Darcy with his beer bottle. “Then it ain’t women that made you crazy, it was
a woman
.”

Darcy only smirked and drained his beer bottle. “I’ll check in each Thursday evening, so stay available between sundown and bedtime. And, more than likely, I’ll be back in Port of Spain before the end of the year. If you need to reach me in between times though, call the number I gave you with a coded message.”

They chatted on and off while they finished the Stags as the sun sank lower in the sky and the breeze kicked up, stirring the thick tropical heat. Darcy set his bottle on the table and pushed to stand up.

“Keep your ear to the ground, my friend.” Darcy reached over and shook his young officer’s hand.

“What’s your hurry?”

“I gotta pack my bag. You take care, Henry.”

“Will do, man. Will do. I’ll see you around.”

***

Darcy moved around his apartment, putting clothes and other items into his duffel. The windows were open, and he could hear the sound of the street life below even over the hum of the fan he’d come to depend on. Life moved slower in the tropics. He was learning to accept that and even enjoy it some. Perhaps Bingley had been right: Darcy had slept more, considered more, waited more, and learned more, both about the station and himself than he had at any other post he’d been assigned. Odd how he hadn’t realized how tired he was until suddenly, after about six weeks in Port of Spain, he wasn’t tired anymore.

And Tobago would move even slower than the capital on Trinidad. Oh, he
could
stay in Port of Spain. Could have an affair with the brunette in the blue bikini, maybe get a look inside the embassy. Maybe get a line on current agency activities. But why?

Why?

There had been many times over the last few months he’d asked some form of that question. Why Trinidad and Tobago? Why did the agency want him away from Langley if he’d been cleared? Why was he really under suspicion in the first place? And perhaps more importantly, why should he care what happened to his career now? Trinidad wasn’t a bad place. He had a couple friends here, good colleagues. His job was easy, so very easy. He could bide his time here in the tropics, maybe finish out his years in the agency and fade away into anonymity. The London Fog—dissipated and burned away in the hot Caribbean sun.

Or he could leave the agency altogether. He’d considered resigning when he was denied the USSR assignment. He entertained the thought of going home to Baltimore and acting the playboy bachelor before settling down with some newfangled, eighties version of a Southern belle. He could take an active role in the business his father left him instead of being an absentee board member voting on company decisions from an ocean away.

If he left the agency now, though, he would leave with a stain on his reputation, a blemish that would last forever. It would be almost impossible to clear his name from outside the agency. With no security clearance and no contacts, he’d lose any advantage he possessed that might help him find the truth. The upper echelon had technically cleared him, but then they shoved him aside like a bad apple with a bruise. If they only knew how easy untraceable treason could be. They treated him, a stellar officer, as if he were an embarrassment, a reminder of screw-ups from the past. In their minds, it was better to just start over with a new agent, a fresh face.

A fresh face like Elizabeth Bennet, perhaps. Wasn’t that what she was to counterintelligence, to the director? An unsuspecting young woman, easily led? He considered that. Well, maybe she was at the beginning. But she’d been out in the field now for over a year, had seen how Europe worked. Hopefully, she’d read the reports on Wickham, and wherever she was now, she was away from his subtle, toxic manipulation.

He wondered where she was now.

Wickham might have misled Elizabeth early on, but Darcy knew she could think for herself. No greenhorn would stay green forever. So she’d learn her lesson like everyone else. And she’d appreciate the guidance Darcy had given her once she experienced how the agency chewed people up and spit them out. His anger banked, sharp and fast, but then faded into a gentle regret.

The truth was—he missed her. Plain and simple. He missed her snarky comments, her sense of adventure, and her open, engaging smile. She was one of the very few people he’d ever met who had the innate ability to live out a cover story yet keep her soul intact. She was like Bingley in that regard and unlike Darcy, who used disguise of every sort to hide from the world and, in so doing, hide from himself.

She was a woman with integrity, anchored to her mission, and persistent in achieving her objectives. He admired her for it. And he wanted her, even now. It was humbling to admit that fact. His chest ached when he thought of her, which was often. He wanted that levelheaded, blunt, brave beauty to buoy his own cynicism. She entered his imagination ten times during the day and invaded his dreams at night. It wasn’t surprising, really, when he considered he’d looked at her face more days than not for over a year.

Not that he couldn’t be without her. He was living without her now, wasn’t he? And had been these seven months. But he knew, whatever Fate brought him on the other side of Trinidad, either in the agency or outside of it, he’d still want her. He was realistic enough to admit she might not want to be part of his complicated, crazy existence, but that didn’t eliminate the hole that yawned wider and wider each month he remained in this paradise alone.

Perhaps he couldn’t show her the real William Darcy, whoever that man was down deep, but he wanted Elizabeth Bennet to see how he truly felt about her. What happened from there, he had no idea, no angle to play. It was uncharted territory for a man in his position, a man who planned everything. He was reminded of the old Hunt-Lenox globe his father had shown him on a trip through the New York Public Library. Off the coast of Asia, a then-unknown land, were written the words, “Here are dragons.” For a man burned by unrequited love, dragons lurked around every bend in the road.

Right now, though, he had more immediate concerns. He’d never been a particularly paranoid man, considering his line of work, but he was convinced there was a betrayer in their midst, a wolf in sheep’s clothing—someone who wanted him away from the center of things. Although there were certainly other possibilities, Wickham seemed the most likely suspect. He’d betrayed Jirina, he’d manipulated Elizabeth, and bamboozled the director. He was probably behind the decision that resulted in Darcy being virtually expelled from Langley. Wickham apparently rid himself of the only officer who knew what he was capable of.

But Darcy wasn’t down for the count yet. He’d bide his time, keep his options open, and when the gears snapped into place, he’d make his move, lay his cards on the table, and play his hand. He chuckled at the trite analogies. He had lived his whole adult life as a stale spy cliché with his cover stories and his silly spy rules. There was nothing smooth or sophisticated about him, not now, not here. Maybe not ever again. He was a man whose career had been buried alive, but by God, he’d claw through the dirt to the surface. Somehow, he’d breathe in the clear air of innocence.

And he was thinking in trite analogies again.

The time in Tobago would be a respite of sorts, but there was still a tiny bit of intelligence work to do. With Henry in Port of Spain, and he and Rita Gardiner on Tobago, they planned to listen to the rumblings from Grenada, which was about the only real intelligence that came out of the region.

A few hours and a plane ride later, he pulled his Jeep into the drive of his rented villa on the northeast shore of Tobago. It was almost the exact opposite point from the airport, an hour’s drive, but he’d done that on purpose. The quiet fishing village on the windward side of the island gave him exactly what he wanted—sailing, fresh catch for dinner, and quiet, brooding space. Rita was close by, and after he let himself in, he saw she had already dropped by to make the house livable, including laying in a stock of Bug-Mat repellent and vaporizers, accompanied by a note: “For your room at night. It’s rainy season, so don’t forget.”

He smiled at the brusque tone and made a mental note to clear the bedroom of mosquitoes before bedtime.