Clan Corporate (22 page)

“Crazy.” Mike shook his head again. “So you’ve got two tame couriers.”

“For very limited values of tame.”

“So.” Mike licked his dry lips.

The thing in Smith’s rapidly swiveling hand was now making a high-pitched whine. He caught Mike staring at it. “Gyroball exerciser. You should try it, Mike. They’re really good. I’m spending too much time with this damn mouse, if I don’t exercise my wrist seizes up.”

Mike nodded jerkily. What’s going on? Smith was serious-minded, committed, highly professional, and just a bit more paranoid than was good for anyone.

The collar-bomb thing had to be a need-to-know secret. “So why are you telling me all this?”

“Because you’re going to cross over piggyback on one of our mules before the end of the month, and once there you’ll be staying for at least two weeks,”

Smith said, so casually that Mike nearly started coughing.

“Jesus, Eric, don’t you think you could give me some warning when you’re going to spring something like that?” Mike paused. He’d tried to keep a sharp note out of his voice, not entirely successfully. Since Dr. James’s visit he’d known this was coming, sooner or later-but he’d been expecting more time.

“Look, the lexicon and dictionary aren’t done yet, our linguists aren’t through their in-processing, and Matt’s not competent to work on it on his own. If something goes wrong while I’m on the other side and you lose Matt’s cooperation as well, it’ll seriously jeopardize my successor’s ability to pick up the pieces. Anyway, don’t I know too much? Last week I had a GS-12 telling me I’m not allowed to leave the country on vacation, I can’t even go to fricken’ Tijuana, and now you’re talking about a hostile insertion and a theater assignment? I’m a cop, not James Bond!”

“Relax, Mike, it’s all in hand. We’ve cut orders for some army linguists, they’re already cleared. You don’t need to know everything about the contingency planning that’s going into this. More to the point, by the time you go out into the field you’ll be far enough out of the core decision loop that even if the bad guys capture you, you won’t be able to give our strategic goals away.” Smith’s smile was unreassuring.

“That’s supposed to make me feel better?” Mike stared. “Listen, this is all ass-backward. We ought to be trying to arrest more couriers on this side before we even think about going over there. We can secure our own soil without engaging in some kind of insane adventure, surely?”

Smith snorted. “You’re still thinking like a cop. I’d be right with you, except we’ve got a big tactical security problem, son. We’re not dealing with some Trashcanistan where the State Department can make the local kleptocrats shit themselves just by sneezing: we’re in the dark. We have zero assets, SIGINT is useless when the other guy’s infrastructure is pony express …

We’re going to need to get intelligence on the ground, not to mention establishing a network of informers. We don’t even know what local political tensions we can leverage. So we’ve got to put someone in charge on the ground with enough of an overview to know what’s important-and the hat fits you.”

“You’re talking about making me semi-autonomous,” Mike said, then licked his suddenly dry lips. “What is this, back to the OSS?” He was referring to the almost legendary Second World War agency-the predecessor to the CIA-and the cowboy stunts that had led to its postwar shutdown.

“Not entirely.” Smith looked serious. “And yes, you’re right. Normally we wouldn’t let someone like you loose in the field. But you’re on the inside, you’re one of our local language and custom experts, and you can hand Matt over to someone else-”

“But I can’t! Not if we want to preserve his cooperation and keep getting useful stuff out of him. He’s a key witness-”

“He’s not a witness,” Smith said quietly. “You forget he’s an unlawful combatant. He’s just one who’s chosen to cooperate with us, and we’re giving him the kid-glove treatment because of that. For now.”

“He’s enrolled in the Witness Protection Scheme,” Mike persisted. “Meaning he’s on the books, unlike your two mules. There’s no need to treat this like Afghanistan; we can crack the Clan over here by handling it as an enforcement problem.”

“Wrong.” Smith shook his head. “And if you went digging you’d find that Source Greensleeves has vanished from the DEA evidence trail and the WPS. Look, you’re looking at this with your cop head on, not your national security head.

The Clan are a geopolitical nightmare. All our conventional bases are insecure: they’re designed to a doctrine that says security is about keeping bad guys at arm’s length-except now we’re facing a threat that can close the distance undetected. It’s like a human stealth technology. Nor are our traditional allies going to be worth a warm bucket of spit. Firstly, they don’t know what we’re up against, and if they did, they’d be up against their own private insurgencies as well. Secondly, they’re positioned badly-we can’t use ‘em for basing, they can’t use us, the normal rules don’t apply. And then it gets worse. Imagine what Al-Qaida could do to us if they could hire these freaks for transport. Or North Korea?”

“Oh.” Mike hunched his shoulders defensively. The spooks have legitimate fears, he told himself. But how do I know they’re legitimate? How do I know they’re not seeing things? Then: But what do we really know about the Clan?

What makes them tick?

“Some of those sneaky bastards we call allies would stab us in the back as soon as look at us,” said Smith, mistaking Mike’s thoughtful silence for complicity. “This isn’t the Cold War anymore, and we’re not up against godless communism, we’re up against drug smugglers sans frontiers. If you think the Dutch are going to be any use-”

Mike, who had been to Amsterdam on business a couple of times, and had a pretty good idea what the Dutch authorities would think about drug smugglers with a plutonium supply, held his silence. Smith’s venting was just that-effusions born of the frustration of fighting an invisible foe with inadequate intelligence and insufficient reach. More to the point …

They’ve dragged me into their covert ops world, he realized. If I make a fuss, will they let me out again?

“Phase one,” Mike said when Smith ran down. “When does it kick off? What should I be doing?”

Smith scribbled a note on his yellow legal pad. “I’ll e-mail you the details, securely. First briefing is Tuesday, kickoff should be week after next. You’d better keep your overnight bag by your desk, and be prepared to relocate on my word.” His grin widened. “In a couple of days you’re going back to school, like Dr. James said. You’ll be studying Spying 101. It’ll be fun …”

Mike had been home for barely an hour when the phone rang.

Home wasn’t somewhere he saw a lot of these days: since joining the magical mystery tour from spook central, his personal life had been patchy at best.

From working the mostly regular hours of a cop-regular insofar as they varied wildly and he could be called out at odd times of day or night, but at least got shifts off to recover-he’d found himself putting in eighty- to hundred-hour weeks in one or another of the secure offices the Family Trade Organization had established. Helen the cleaner had taken Oscar in for a couple of weeks at one point, and the tomcat still hadn’t forgiven him. That hurt; he and Oscar went back a long way together. Oscar had been with him before he’d been married to his ex-wife. Oscar had watched girlfriends come and go, then mostly had the place to himself since 9/11. But everyone had to make sacrifices during wartime-even elderly tomcats.

Mike had showered and unloaded the dishwasher and stuck a meal in the microwave, and he was working on a tin of pet food for Oscar (who was encouraging him by trying to get tangled up in his ankles) when the doorbell rang. “Shit.” Mike put the can down. Oscar yowled reproachfully as he fumbled the handset of the entryphone. “Yes?”

“Mike?” It was Pete Garfinkle. Pete had moved sideways into Monitoring and Surveillance lately. “Mind if I come up?”

“Sure, be my guest.”

By the time Pete knocked on the apartment door, Oscar was head down in the chow bowl and Mike was well into second thoughts. The microwave oven buzzed for attention just as the door rattled. “Come on in. I was just about to eat-”

“S’okay.” Pete held up a plastic bag. “I figured you wouldn’t turn away a six-pack, and I hit Taco Bell on the way over.” The bag clinked as he planted it on the kitchen table.

Mike grinned. “Grab a chair. Glasses in the top cupboard.”

“Glasses? We don’t need no steenkin’ glasses!”

Mike planted his dinner on a plate, still in the plastic container, and grabbed a fork and two glasses. “Mm. Smells like … chicken.” He pulled a face. “I’ve got a freezer-load of sweet ‘n’ sour chicken balls, can you believe it? The job lot was going cheap at Costco.”

“Lovely.” Pete eyed Mike’s food warily, then twisted the cap off a bottle.

“Sam Adams good enough?”

“It’ll go down nicely.” Mike started on his rice and chicken as Pete poured two bottles into their respective glasses. “What’s with the Taco Bell thing? I thought Nikki liked to cook.”

Pete shrugged sheepishly. “Nikki likes to cook,” he said. “Healthy things.

Y’know? Once in a while a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do, ‘specially if it involves a barbecue and a slab of dead meat. And when it’s not barbecue season, a dose of White Castle, or maybe Taco Bell …”

“I see.” Mike ate junk food out of necessity born of eighty-hour working weeks: Pete ate junk food because he needed a furtive vice and most of the ordinary ones would cost him his job. “What’s she doing?”

“It’s her yoga class tonight.” Pete took a long mouthful of beer. “Figured I’d come by and cheer you up. Chat about a little personal problem I’ve been having.”

Mike looked at him sharply. “Beer first,” he suggested. “Then let’s take a hike.” Pete didn’t do personal problems: he had what by Mike’s envious standards looked like an ideal marriage. He especially didn’t drop around co-workers’ apartments to wail about things, which meant … “Is it that thing we were talking about over lunch the other day?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess it is.” Pete managed to look furtive and scared over his beer glass, which put the wind up Mike even more. “How’s the beer?”

“Beer’s fine.” Mike shunted his dinner aside and stood up. “C’mon, let’s go down the backyard and sit out. There’s a couple of chairs down there.”

Outside, the air hit him like a freshly washed towel, heavy and hot and damp enough to make breathing hard for a moment. Mike waited until Pete cleared the doorway, bag of bottles in hand. “Spill it.”

“Chairs first. You’d better be sitting down for this.”

Mike gestured at the tatty deck chairs on the rear stoop. “How bad is it?”

“Bad enough.” Pete dropped into one of the chairs and handed Mike a bottle.

“Go on, sit down.”

Mike sat. “I don’t think anyone’s listening here.”

“Indoors.” It was a statement, not a question.

“They lock everything down.” Mike popped the lid off the beer. “Can’t blame them for being suspicious of cops-we don’t have that kind of home life.”

“Yeah, well.” Pete glanced up at the roof suspiciously, then shrugged. The rumble of traffic and the scritching of cicadas would make life hard for any eavesdroppers. “I called Tony Vecchio up today.”

Mike sat bolt upright. “Shit, man! Not from work-”

“Relax, I’m not that stupid.” Pete took another swig from his bottle.

Mike peered at him. He was obviously rattled. Maybe even as badly rattled as Mike was, in the wake of his little chat with Smith. Explosive collars. What else is going on? “I’m not going to like this, am I?”

“I needed to ask some questions.” Pete looked uncomfortable. “We’ve gone native, you know? Inside FTO, surrounded by the military and their national security obsession, we’ve stopped trying to do our jobs properly. I don’t know about you, but I swore an oath to uphold the law-remember that? Anyway, I wanted to get some perspective. Tony knew about Matt because he was there when Matt came in, so I figured he’d help.”

“You wanted a priest to hear your confession.”

“Exactly.”

Mike sighed. “Okay, so spill it.”

“Tony stonewalled!” Pete looked angry for a moment. “First he said he didn’t know anything. Then he told me that he’d never heard of Matt, that nobody of that name had come in, there were no WPP admissions this year. Then he told me I’d been suspended on full pay, medical disability in the line of work, for the past ten weeks, and he appreciated how I must feel! I mean, what the fuck?”

“Shit.” Mike tipped the last of his bottle down his throat, then leaned forward. “You want to know what I think.”

“Yes?”

“Close call.” He wiped his forehead. “Listen, what you did was amazingly stupid. If you’d asked me … shit. They’ve farmed us out to the military.

We belong to Defense right now, we don’t exist on personnel’s books-I mean, I’ll bet if you went digging you’d find that we’ve both been listed on medical leave ever since this thing started. And the paperwork on Matt will be a whitewash. He’s a ghost, Pete, like the poor fucks in Gitmo, trapped in Daddy Warbucks’s machine. Have you met Dr. James yet?”

“James? Isn’t he Smith’s boss? The political one?”

“Yeah, him. I take it you haven’t met … James is a Company man, all the way through. Works for the NSC, runs covert ops, the whole lot. That’s who we’re working for. And you know what happens to people who go outside official channels in CIA land? You just don’t do that. I’ve been doing some reading in my copious spare time. You, me, we got sucked in because we were already on the edge of something very big and very classified and very black. Eric told me some, some stuff. About how the military perceive the national security implications of what we’re up against. It made my hair stand on end. I think he’s wrong about some-maybe most-of this, but I couldn’t tell him that to his face. Now, I happen to think we ought to be treating this more like a policing problem, ought to be enforcing the law-but doesn’t that sort of presuppose that we’re dealing with criminals? What I’m hearing is that like Matt, they think we’re dealing with another government, a rogue state, like North Korea or Cuba or something. And right now, they’ve won the argument. I don’t see us getting any backup from Justice, Pete. If you start going behind their backs without evidence, they will stick it to you hard. But if we don’t, who knows what kind of mess they’re going to get us into?”