The Falconer's Tale (15 page)

Partlow looked around him, his head bobbing to acknowledge
the truth he now perceived. “Okay,” he said after a
minute's reflection. “So—how are they doing?”

Piat sat back, wondering if his current state of mental and
physical fitness could stand a cigar, even a small one. “They're
fine. Better than fine. The woman is working so well that I
have to expect there's a control fight coming—she's so cooperative
she'll have to revolt soon. You know?” he said,
making a hand gesture to indicate the way agents had to be.

Partlow nodded. “What does she want?”

Piat shrugged. “Money? Power? Her show to be a success
in the art world? I don't know what she wants because she
doesn't know herself. She needs to be motivated, and I don't
have the handle yet.”

“And the falconer?” he asked.

Piat slid a digital photo across the table—a snapshot he'd
taken after London. It showed Hackbutt in his new guise as
retired U-boat commander—in a heavy turtleneck, a gold
signet ring from Bermondsey Market glinting on his ring finger.

Partlow whistled—and pocketed the photo. He gave Piat
the same smile that he'd had when he greeted him back in
Oban—a real smile of happiness. “Well done, Jerry.”

Piat drank off the rest of his ouzo. “Don't cheer yet. Too
much could fuck up now—as ever. I have a pile of requests,
and the top one is money.”

Partlow nodded. “I have money now.”

Piat let out a sigh of relief. “That's good to hear, Clyde,
because I've been spending my own. Here's the receipts.”
Piat handed over the whole batch—the “contracts” for both
of his charges, the receipts for every dime spent in London.
On another sheet he had his anticipated expenses for the
next phase, all typed out neatly with bland line items, no
dates or names. And some serious padding.

Partlow flipped through the receipts, nodding, then glanced
at the expenses. He stopped at the cost of the hairdresser in
London. “That's quite a lot of money for a haircut,” he said
carefully.

Piat shrugged. “Look at the picture again and tell me I
wasted the money.”

Partlow straightened in his chair. “Point taken.” His finger
was running down the anticipated expenses. “I'm not made
of money, Jerry.”

Piat shrugged. “I'll be right back,” he said, and walked up
to the bar. The Greek woman behind the bar was forty, handsome,
oddly at home in a white evening shirt and a man's
black vest. Piat got two more drinks and a small Dutch cigar.
He over-tipped her. She was apparently unimpressed by his
Greek or his tip, but one corner of her lip unbent just enough
to signal him that he was not totally wasting his time.

When he came back to the table, Partlow had put all the
receipts away and had the expenses in front of him. He had
glasses on his nose. Piat had never seen Partlow with glasses
before and had to fight an atavistic urge to needle Partlow,
but this was a new age and he kept to his intention. The
good agent. He put another scotch by Partlow's hand.

“This is all rather high-end, Jerry.”

“Clyde, I could argue money item by item, okay? And you
could play the good manager. Let's just skip that part. Tell
me about the target, and
then
let's talk money.”

Partlow sat back with his new scotch. His eyes moved
around the roof garden—one last check to see who could
hear them. “We're just not there yet, Jerry.”

Piat fought with a quick flare of anger. He didn't completely
win. “Fine. Play spy games. Let me lay this out as I see it,
Clyde. Either you're going for some two-bit creep, in which
case this whole op is a waste of time and money, or you're
going for a big shot, a serious player, in which case—let's
face it, Clyde, you wouldn't waste your own time on a cheap
trick. Right? So this guy is somebody who matters. Arab.
Falcons. Rich. Right? Do I have to lay this all out? I lived
with those people out East, Clyde. They don't stand around
in airports. They don't go out on the town. In fact, they don't
do
anything
that Americans or Russians or even Chinese
would do. They rent whole hotels. They surround themselves
with layers of flunkies and courtiers. They have their own
planes and their own staffs.”

Partlow was looking around the roof again. “Make your
point.”

Piat leaned forward. “The falconer has to look rich. He has
to mix rich. He has to taste rich. Even then—even if I do
this perfectly, Clyde—getting alongside the target you are so
busy keeping from me is going to take a
fucking miracle
.”

“Keep your voice down.”

“Don't be a prig, Clyde.” Piat stayed forward, his elbows
on the table.

Partlow looked at the Parthenon and then back into Piat's
eyes. “Again, point taken, Jerry. Your surmises are, as usual,
eerily accurate. But that's as far as I can go right now.”

Piat blew out a gust of breath in frustration. “Have you
got venues? A schedule?”

Partlow opened his briefcase and withdrew a day planner.
It was a plain black book, without gold edge or affectation.
Piat flipped through it. Someone—probably Partlow—had
copied dates and places in careful block letters. It spoke
volumes for Partlow's level of commitment to the operation
that he'd gone to the trouble of creating such an artifact.
“He only leaves his home infrequently. You'll find the dates
and times.”

Piat already had found one. “Monaco? You're fucking
kidding me. You want me to try Digger at Monaco?”

Partlow shrugged. “We don't have much choice.”

Piat flipped forward. The Derby in England. A date in
Mombasa—that caught Piat's eye. He couldn't think of a
reason for a member of the ultra-rich to go to Mombasa. A
date in Barcelona, ten months away.

Piat looked up. “Jesus, Clyde, how long do you think this
thing's going to go on?”

Partlow rubbed the corners of his mouth. “Until it's done.”

Piat leaned all the way forward, until he was almost
touching Partlow's nose. He spoke quietly. “What the fuck,
Clyde? What's the goal?”

Partlow leaned away from Piat. He was back to watching
the Parthenon, now silhouetted against darkness. “Need to
know, Jerry.”

Piat leaned back. He sipped his third ouzo and lit his cigar.
The nicotine hit him. “Okay, Clyde,” he said, drawling the
words. “I'm a mushroom.”

Partlow was still looking at the Parthenon. “Don't be like
that, Jerry.”

Piat shrugged. “You want me to prepare two fucking
unstable twits to meet a heavy hitter with no prior dope, no
research. You want me to pull this off with venues that would
challenge a fucking professional to make the contact. The
Derby!” Piat's snort was contemptuous.

“Keep your voice down, Jerry.”

“Think it through, Clyde. What are we going to do, put
him out there with a fucking bird on his wrist and hope this
rich fuck waltzes up and initiates?” Piat took a quick swig
of his ouzo and subsided. He changed his posture, climbed
off his mental high horse, checked his temper. He leaned
forward again. “Clyde, have you ever done a contact on a
big shot?”

Clyde was obviously stung. He put both hands on the table.
“This isn't really about my credentials—”

“No, fuck that,” said Piat. “I'm not challenging your
authority. This is not a control fight. I want you to think
about it, Clyde. Have you ever done a contact op with a
heavy hitter? The kind that comes with a mistress and a
dozen bodyguards and fifty flunkies?”

Partlow considered. He rubbed at the corners of his mouth
again, and then ran his hand back over his hair. “No. I have
not.”

Piat sighed. “Okay. Forget my tone and my three drinks
and all that shit. Just put yourself
there
. Forget the falconer
and his total lack of social graces. Picture it was you. You
against a wall of bodyguards and courtiers, just to get—unnoticed,
of course—next to the target. And then you have what,
three seconds? To turn him on.”

Partlow straightened his tie, a gesture Piat hadn't seen him
make in ten years. Partlow took a drink of his scotch, swirled
the ice in the glass. “I see,” he said. And it was obvious that
he did. He met Piat's eyes. “So do we forget it?”

“Your call, Clyde.”

“Can it be done at all?” Partlow asked.

Piat looked into the cloud of the ouzo. “With luck? A little
daring? Yeah.” He smiled. Piat believed in luck. You made it
with work, you earned it, you courted it. Sometimes, you
even got it.

Partlow took a deep breath and let it out. “I need to think.”

“Sure.”

“Can you do tomorrow?”

He meant a meeting, another meeting. Piat looked at his
watch and then, rather ostentatiously, at his airline ticket.
“Has to be breakfast.”

“Done. I'm sorry, Jerry. Really sorry. I think I misjudged—
something.”

“Don't confuse me by being a good boss, Clyde.”

Partlow gave a cautious smile and offered his hand. They
rattled though the tedious formalities required for the next
day's meeting codes, and Partlow took his briefcase and left.

Piat, who had let two of his vices off the leash for the
evening, decided to tickle the third. He went and sat in the
bar.

Despite a late night, Piat was up early. He ran through the
deserted Plaka, climbed the hill of the Acropolis, fought
the hill and the gas fumes and last night's various sins to the
top, then ran around the theaters and back down to a shower.
By the time he checked Partlow's signals and walked into his
hotel, he felt great.

Partlow looked great, too. He had on a superb suit and a
pair of very expensive shoes. An equally expensive suitcase,
a Burberry tossed over it, stood waiting. His room was immaculate—
in fact, a cursory glance showed Piat that Partlow
hadn't slept here. A few seconds with Partlow suggested that
he hadn't slept anywhere. He looked a little fuzzy around
the edges.

“Here we all are, then,” Piat said.

Partlow indicated a chair and sat himself. The chairs were
carefully arranged, with a table to the side—not between,
just available. “Okay, Jerry. Let's go over this again. Let's
assume for a moment that all of your surmises are correct,
shall we? The target is a rich, powerful Arab, with all those
people around him. His own plane, all those things. Yes?”

“Sure, Clyde.”

“The venues as noted.” Partlow tapped the little day book.

“Sure.”

“Can the falconer do it?”

“Maybe. No, don't get like that, Clyde. Maybe's all you
get. It'll take ferocious planning and
then
it'll take luck.” Piat
wanted to say
Jeez, Clyde, it's all luck
—
where have you been?
But that would have been counterproductive.

“So we'll go forward.” Partlow tapped an expensive
mechanical pencil on the day book, then slid it over the table.
“Yours.”

“Good.” Piat took the day planner.

“I'll give you a briefing on the target before you hit the
first venue.”

Piat shrugged. “Spy games.”

Partlow bore the shrug without reaction. “Need to know.”

Piat said, “Okay. Let me try this on you. Monaco, then
Mombasa. Monaco for a look—check his entourage, check
his situation. Frankly, give our boy an outing to fuck up,
without letting the target see him.”

Partlow put his hand on his chin. “Sounds risky.” He
poured coffee from a thermos for both of them, held out a
bagel which Piat refused in favor of a scone. “I could quote
chapter and verse from the ops manual.”

Piat waved that away. “Yeah, yeah, whatever. Without a
look at the target's lifestyle and his people, I won't have a
clue.”

Partlow took a bite of the bagel, chewed, swallowed. “Let's
work toward that. I'm not saying yes or no, Jerry. I need to
think it through. But yes—scouting was always your métier,
wasn't it? I can see the logic. And Mombasa? Why Mombasa?”

Piat was in mid-scone. He gave a big shrug, swallowed,
and followed the shrug with another. “Woman's intuition?
It's out of the way, and there's not much cover for the rich.
I guess my gut feeling is that the target won't have anywhere
to hide in a town that poor. Even out at the beaches.”

Partlow sipped coffee.

“Can I ask you to get me all you can on those venues,
Clyde? Monaco and Mombasa? Like, why? And where the
guy stays? And who he fucks while he's there?”

“Not that kind of Arab, Jerry.”

“Whatever. Tell me when you're ready to tell me. Okay.
Let's talk money.”

“Jerry, I always have the feeling you're not sure which of
us is the case officer.”

Piat looked at his watch. “Fair enough, Clyde, but I have
to get my bag and get on a plane.”

Partlow opened his brief case and slid a credit card across
the table. “Fifty thousand for future ops expenses. Sign.”

Piat signed. The card was in his true name. A two-edged
sword—every payment on the card would allow Partlow to
watch him, track the op, ticket the expenses. On the other
hand, it was a damned convenient way to keep the money.

“Here's a month's pay for you—forty-five thousand dollars.
Sign.” An envelope, thick with cash.

Piat signed. Piat could make that much money last two or
three years.

“Repayment of personal funds spent on operational
expenses to date. Seven thousand, two hundred and five
dollars and sixteen cents. Cash and hand receipt. Sign.”

Piat signed. This envelope jingled—Partlow had actually
included the sixteen cents.