A Gentleman's Game (14 page)

“I should brush up the Italian, then,” Chace said. “You know that Landau will be expecting us to take the job from him.”

“I’m sure of it. But he came anyway, which means he can live with that, as long as the job gets done.”

“Two for the price of one,” Chace mused.

“Think of it as a fire sale,” Crocker said.

14

London—U.S. Embassy, Grosvenor Square
2 September 1818 GMT

“Why was Noah Landau
in to see you?” Cheng asked Crocker.

“I answered that when I made the request on Tuesday,” Crocker said. “The Mossad trapped a phone call between Dr. Faud bin Abdullah al-Shimmari and another—unidentified—party, where Faud discussed plans to visit Yemen sometime this month. Mossad knew we were after Faud, they gave the information to us.”

Cheng rocked the pen between her index and middle fingers faster, making the movement into a blur, scowling at him. Then she stopped and rammed the pen back into the mug on her desk that she used as its holder. The mug, Crocker noted, had the seal of the Central Intelligence Agency stenciled on its side.

“In person?”

“We had other things to discuss.”

“Why didn’t he go to Rayburn?”

“Who says he didn’t? And after Rayburn, he came to me.”

“You’re a fucking liar.”

“I don’t need to take this abuse from you,” Crocker said mildly. “I’ve got a C and a Deputy Chief who are more than eager to do the same thing. They’re better at it, by the way.”

“Give me a chance,” Cheng retorted. “I’m just getting started.”

“Do you have something for me or not, Angela?”

“I have something for you. It’s got a point at the end, and it’s headed straight for your crotch.” Cheng brought her hands up to her head, ran her fingers through her hair, making it fall back in sheets, clearly exasperated. “Your opposite number in the Mossad doesn’t just fly from Tel Aviv to pass over information that could just as easily have come from their resident. Noah Landau doesn’t meet with you simply to drop good news in your lap.”

“He felt the information should be presented in person.”

“He wanted to cut a deal.”

“Does that surprise you?”

Cheng shook her head vigorously enough to again send her hair into the air. “But it makes me wonder what he wants in exchange.”

“That’s none of your business.”

“It is if it affects American interests in the region.”

“How is our taking out Faud going to hurt American interests in the region? I’d think it would help.”

“If that’s all you do.”

Now it was Crocker’s turn to play exasperation. “It’s all I’m planning on doing. Provided, of course, that your people have learned when Dr. Faud bin Abdullah al-Shimmari is going to be in San’a’.”

The stare Cheng fixed him with was cold with her frustration. Then she sighed and opened the folder resting before her on the desk.

“We don’t have anything reliable coming out of Jeddah,” Cheng said. “But we’ve got a couple of people in place in Yemen, and there’s been activity. One of our boys spread some money around and learned that a VIP from Saudi is scheduled to arrive the week of the fifth. We can’t be certain it’s Faud, but given the Mossad intel, it seems likely.”

“That’s this Sunday.”

“I know,” Cheng said pointedly.

“The week of the fifth? Nothing more specific?”

“We’re assuming that Faud’s keeping the details vague as a security precaution. Yemen is hot right now, you know the drill. You’ve got advisers in country, we’ve got advisers in country, the whole place is jumping with the black balaclava set.”

Crocker frowned. “You’d think Faud would be avoiding the place.”

“Why bother?” Cheng said. “He knows we don’t have evidence to charge him with anything, and he knows the Yemeni authorities wouldn’t dare touch him.”

She closed the folder, handed it over to Crocker. “You can read this one yourself, but it stays here. I’ll have a copy sent to you via the JIC.”

“I’ll make sure Simon knows it’s coming,” he said, taking the folder and settling back in the chair. The chairs in Cheng’s office were infinitely nicer than the ones in his own, and he resented how much more comfortable he found them. He flipped the folder open, read the brief assessment inside, determining that it was exactly as Cheng had described. He closed it again, sighed, and pulled himself out of the chair.

“Who’re you sending?”

“Haven’t decided yet.”

“Stop lying to me. Is it going to be Chace?”

“Haven’t decided yet.”

“It should be Chace,” Cheng said. “She’s the best you have.”

•

“Poole,” Weldon told Crocker early the next afternoon.

“I’m sorry, sir?”

“Send Poole to Yemen.”

Crocker clenched his fists, forced them open again, grateful that he was holding them behind his back as he stood in front of the Deputy Chief’s desk. Outside the windows, London was blanketed in gray, a weak rain drifting down.

Weldon returned his attention to the proposal Crocker had brought to his desk, flipping through the three pages detailing what, Crocker hoped, would become Operation: Tanglefoot. He had spent much of the previous night drafting the document, much to the annoyance of his wife, Jenny, who was left alone to entertain his parents. He’d handed the proposal to Kate first thing that morning, and she had promptly typed it up and then submitted it for approval to the requisite department heads. When Weldon flipped to the last sheet, Crocker could see Rayburn’s signature next to his own.

Two of the signature lines remained blank. One for the Deputy Chief, one for C. Without signatures from both, the operation would never happen. Or at least never happen with proper authorization.

It wasn’t beyond Crocker to play out of bounds. He’d mounted operations without approval before, but it was always a risky proposition, and he never did it without a compelling reason, at least to him. But in this instance, there was simply no reason to try and circumvent the chain of command. Conops had come down with the PM’s blessing, and unless things had radically changed in the last three weeks, there was no reason to think that HMG had changed its mind about the fate of Dr. Faud.

Weldon let the sheets drop back atop one another, then tilted back in his chair to look Crocker in the eye.

“Send Poole,” he repeated. “You don’t know how long it will be before Faud shows, and you’ll want your Minder in country by tomorrow, latest. Could be a week whoever it is finds himself left there, twiddling his thumbs. Poole can go with military cover, it circumvents the weapon issue, and it will make it easy for him to stay unnoticed and to deploy. Should make his egress easier as well.”

“I disagree, sir. Military personnel working in Yemen are almost universally being surveilled by one force or another—”

“It shouldn’t matter. They won’t know who he is.”

“They’ll know he’s British, and if he’s spotted around the scene after the assassination—assuming it goes off—it’ll splash back on us.”

Weldon’s mouth twisted. “That’s a valid point.”

“I certainly thought so.”

“There’s no need to get testy, Paul.”

“I don’t appreciate being second-guessed in this fashion, sir. I am the Director of Operations, operational planning is my purview, not yours.”

“And mine is oversight. Something you could stand a little more of, I daresay.”

Crocker continued to stare over Weldon’s head, out the window, watching the rain fall.

“If you send Chace, she’s going alone?”

“As detailed in the proposal, yes, sir.”

“Why no backup?”

“Conops specified concealment of origin. Two Minders are that much more likely to be made.”

It was a lie, but Crocker had no intention of letting Weldon know that he was relying on Landau’s people for backup. The thought of working with the Israelis on an assassination of a Saudi religious figure in Yemen would cause the Deputy Chief to break out in hives.

Weldon grunted, reached for his favorite fountain pen, black lacquered with mother-of-pearl inlay, and slowly unscrewed its cap as he reviewed the proposal a final time. When he reached the last page, he laboriously signed his name, then capped the pen, replaced it, closed the folder, and handed it to Crocker.

“You should take it up to C.”

“Very good, sir,” Crocker said, leaving Weldon to his fears, and the rain at his window.

•

Barclay, like Weldon, kept Crocker waiting, his chin resting on his steepled hands while he read the proposal. He read it slowly, very slowly, as Weldon had, and Crocker was certain Barclay did it to annoy him. When he was finally finished, he lowered his hands and gazed levelly at Crocker.

“Now tell me what you’ve neglected to include in this proposal,” Barclay ordered.

“I don’t follow, sir.”

“Of course you do.” Barclay tapped the pages before him. “I know you, Crocker, I know every one of your little tricks, and all of your back-alley games. You don’t meet with the head of the Metsada in my building at three in the morning and not cut yourself a deal on the side. Now, I want you to tell me what the Israelis wanted in exchange for their information, and I want it now.”

“Landau asked for the meeting as soon as he arrived, sir. As he was leaving for Tel Aviv the next day, I couldn’t exactly ask him to call again later.”

“Don’t lie to me,” Barclay snapped. “Landau left on El-Al flight thirty-seven at seventeen-twenty hours on Tuesday the thirty-first. He could have met with you at any point during the day, and he didn’t. I don’t like it when you’re here in the small hours, I never have. It means you’re in your kitchen, cooking something likely to make me ill to the stomach.”

Crocker fought off a smile at the thought of his C doubled over and vomiting in the executive lavatory.

“Either you tell me about the deal you cut with Landau, or I withhold my signature,” Barclay said.

“If I may remind you, sir, the proposal for Operation: Tanglefoot has been prepared in response to HMG’s issuance of conops, dated Tuesday, seventeen August—”

Barclay slapped both palms down on his desk violently, half-starting out of his chair. “Who the hell do you think you are? You stand there and condescend to me, telling
me
about conops issuance when I’ve been fielding calls from the Prime Minister twice a day for the last month, demanding to know what we’re waiting for, telling me to get on with it?”

“All you have to do is sign off on the proposal and you’ll have his answer,” Crocker said.

Barclay, now on his feet, glared at Crocker in what could only be described as a mixture of amazement and fury.

“Every time I believe I’ve seen the limits of your arrogance, you delight in proving me wrong,” Barclay said. “Yes, Crocker, I know how to make my Prime Minister happy. But I’m not about to offer him hollow comfort, not if it’s liable to come back and bite this Government in the ankle, or somewhere higher.

“You think you can trump me, that I will bow to pressure from above. You’re wrong. I assure you, I will happily weather any dressing-down Downing Street delivers, rather than authorize an operation the scope of which I am unaware.”

The two men glared at each other, until Crocker slid his eyes away, looking past Barclay’s shoulder.

“Very well.” Barclay closed the folder, all but tossing it back at Crocker. “Tanglefoot is denied. Come up with something else.”

“There won’t be another opportunity for months, if not years.”

Barclay, already settled again behind his desk, reached for the stack of papers awaiting his attention to the left of the blotter. Without looking up, he said, “Pity.”

Crocker turned the folder in his hands, thinking. Barclay’s head remained bowed as he began reading the latest needs projections from the East Asian desk.

“That’s all,” Barclay said, still engrossed in his reading. “You’re dismissed.”

Crocker sighed, dropped the proposal down once again in front of Barclay. “Muhriz el-Sayd.”

Barclay took his time, leaning back in his chair. He kept the look of satisfaction on his face in check, but enough of it survived the process to make it plain they both knew who had won the round.

“Go on.”

“He’s EIJ, commands tactical operations,” Crocker said. “The Mossad wants him dead. He’s the man Faud will be meeting in Yemen.”

“Landau wants us to do the job on both men. Is that it?”

Crocker shook his head. “Landau had the itinerary, but not the dates. In exchange for us providing him with the dates of travel, his people would take Faud when they hit el-Sayd.”

“Much to the chagrin of the Americans.”

“I’m sure.”

“So Chace is going as backup to a Mossad hit squad?”

Again Crocker shook his head. “Chace is going to assassinate Faud, that’s all.”

“You expect me to believe that she’ll leave el-Sayd alone?”

“She’ll be ordered to take no action in the pursuit of el-Sayd,” Crocker said, picking his words carefully.

Barclay gave him a look of thinly veiled suspicion. “So you’re just going to forget that the Mossad expected something in return for their information?”

“I made no promises to Landau, sir. If he assumed we had an arrangement in place, that’s his error, not mine, and not the Firm’s.”

“He won’t like it,” Barclay mused. “If he realizes what you’re up to, he’s liable to send in people of his own to go after el-Sayd. That could foul the attempt on Faud.”

“It is a possibility,” Crocker said.

Barclay fingered the proposal, considering, then plucked his pen from its holder and scribbled his signature on the last page.

“You should tell him that Chace
will
be going after el-Sayd,” Barclay said. “He doesn’t need to know that we’ve no intention of pursuing it, and it could keep the Mossad off our backs.”

“That was my plan, sir.”

“Then for once we’re in agreement.” He handed the proposal back to Crocker. “Copies to Downing Street and the FCO by close of play, if you please.”

“Very good, sir.”

“Don’t leave just yet.”

Crocker tucked the folder under his arm, waiting for the rest of it.

“I want a success on this, Paul,” Barclay said softly. “You’ve just been handed an opportunity to prove the worth of your precious Special Section, not just to me but to the Government. This is an assassination, nothing less, and anything less than Faud’s death will result in mission failure. Whatever it takes, Faud doesn’t leave Yemen alive.”

“There are limits to what even Chace can do.”