The Orpheus Deception (18 page)

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Authors: David Stone

BOOK: The Orpheus Deception
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“Years back. After the Horn.”
“Cleaning,
dare I ask?”
“Yes.”
“Anyone I knew?”
“Do you remember Sidney Vansittart?”
“That nasty old bugger! How could I not? He squatted on the Sorting Desk at London Station for simply eons, dealing out chaos and calumny measure for measure. Stringy old bird, rather like a syphilitic pelican. Damp, bulgy little eyes, like poached eggs. Story ran, he was going to the prostitute bars on the Patpong Road in Bangkok, ordering up squeaky little ten-year-olds by the bushel basket. Last I heard, he was taken up by the Thai police for disrespecting a Buddha. Tony Crane was his section head then. Caught holy hell for letting the old pederast out of the country at all. Never saw him again after that. Tony said he’d caught AIDS and died in some Southeast Asian cesspool.”
“Well, he died in a toilet, at any rate.”
Mandy gave him a look.
“Really?”
“Really.”
“You’re still waters, aren’t you, dear boy. Porter always said so.”
“Still and shallow. How awake are you?”
Something in his tone caught her ear. She looked at him for a moment and then pressed the CALL bell. The Thai girl floated over and hovered by their booth in attentive silence, her black eyes wide. Mandy ordered two G&T’s—Bombay Sapphire, please—which appeared a moment later, frosted over, with thin lemon slices and the ice still cracking. She lifted hers and touched the rim of his glass with a silvery
ping.
“To business, then?”
“Please.”
“And I was so hoping to hear all about your sultry Venetian.”
“A genuine interest in another woman’s character is unlike you.”
“Screw her character. I only want to know the really salacious bits. How was she in bed? Was she worth the punctured liver?”
“Yes.”
“Really? Tell me all!”
“I just did.”
Mandy made a face.
“God, I wish someone would take a shiv in the googlies for me.”
“I’ll see what I can arrange.”
“You really intend to discuss this here?”
“Rather here than in the rotunda at Changi.”
Mandy lifted her head, peered around the dim cabin with a theatrical flair, and then leaned in close to Dalton, placing her right hand on his wrist and filling up his personal space with her perfume and the delightful sensual radiance of a mature and seasoned woman. She was, Dalton had always known, a reflexive and eternal flirt, although— he hoped—quite selective.
“All right.” She lowered her voice to a throaty purr. “Last year, in August, we—I mean, Clandestine Ops—had the snake eaters extract three Chinese nationals from the Mexican port of Veracruz. They were on shore leave from a SINOPEC oil-exploration vessel in the Gulf of Mexico, called the
Hao Hai Feng.
They were supposed to be seismic techs verifying a drilling ground, but Crypto City was picking up ultrafast-burst encryptions from the ship that were being relayed to a Chinese satellite we know is tasked for the military.”
“What does the Agency think they were looking at?”
“We’ve got some SigInt and TechInt operating out of Pensacola. Crypto City figured the Chinese were trying to dip into the stream to try to get an outline of what gear we were deploying. And what we were looking at.”
“I would imagine the Chinese got cranky.”
“They don’t know for sure who snatched their lads. They strongly suspect it was us, but, according to the Monitors, they’re also shaking trees in North Korea and Venezuela. Apparently, the field unit deliberately left some indications that the techs had been taken in a commercial espionage op in order to claim-jump on future Chinese oil-field developments.”
“Clues that pointed to No Dong or Boy Chavez?”
“I would assume. Good to have those two quarreling.”
“And now Cather is ready to let these guys go?”
“Yes. I’m told they held the techs at a quarantined site inside Fort Huachuca. All the interrogators were Hispanic. They wore Mexican police uniforms, and the compound was tricked out to look very Third World shabby. So they had no idea they were being held by the U.S., and that amped up the fear factor. They rolled pretty fast, but most of it was stuff we already knew about or suspected. The main idea was to let the Chinese know the Gulf of Mexico was an American lake. Point got made—obliquely—so now it’s time to deal the kids out.”
“Duly chastened.”
“Of course.”
“Why would Singapore care enough about three Chinese techies to trade off Ray Fyke?”
“Singapore is worried sick about China—”
“Who isn’t?”
“Exactly. So the SID would get the techs, along with everything they told us about Chinese surveillance methods. Bandwidth. Encryption methodologies. Targets. Tactical and strategic inferences could be made from what the techs knew and what they were trying to find out.”
“If they’re getting all that data, the SID wouldn’t need the techs.”
“True. We’re setting a condition. The SID has to relay the techs straight back to Peking. Unharmed. Intact.”
“Why?”
“So the Chinese will finally know who took them. And why.”
“They already suspect we took them.”
“Yes. But now they’ll know. Point made
directly.”
“Okay. I see that. And we get the undying gratitude of the SID—”
“For a minute and a half—”
“So we’re coming in to Singapore as declared agents?”
“No. Undeclared. At least until the trade is confirmed. You’d be playing a freelance broker representing a third-party interest.”
“But if the Agency wants gratitude from the SID, they’ll have to declare themselves eventually.”
“They will. When we’ve made it reasonably safe to do so.”
“We’re going in under the Burke and Single legend?”
“Why not? We both know it backward. You and Porter practically invented it, if you recall.”
“Yes. But it’s a financial cover. Investment banking. That hardly puts us in the way of prison officials at Changi.”
Mandy reached into her carry-on and pulled out a large envelope made of pebbled navy blue silk. It carried a red logo and was addressed to a Miss Mandy Pownall, care of Burke and Single, London SW 1. The logo said HSBC: the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation outfit.
“It’s an invitation. To a reception at Raffles. The Home Secretary will be there. The Home Ministry is in charge of prisons.”
“Who is he?”
“Chong Kew Sak.”
“Don’t know him.”
“He’s new. He just came over from another agency.”
She put a slight weight on the word
another.
“Did he? Let me guess which one.”
Mandy reached out and placed her fingertip on Dalton’s upper lip. He felt a rush of memory heat in his lower belly, Cora’s body in the half-light of early dawn streaming in through the balcony window, her lips half open and her breasts rising and falling as she slept. Mandy sensed the force of the emotion but not the proximate cause. She took her finger away.
“Yes,” she said, unsettled. “That one.”
11
Kotor, Montenegro
Branco Gospic was at his carrier-sized teak desk in the old dining hall of his home in Kotor, studying marine charts and punching in numbers on a calculator, when his BlackBerry buzzed at him from the cherrywood credenza behind him, skittering across the gleaming wood like a shiny black cockroach. He stared at it for a while with a look of mild disgust, thinking it might be Stefan Groz calling back yet again to bitch and grizzle and snark about his now-exploded source in Brancati’s office. Gospic looked at the caller ID— UNKNOWN—sighed, picked it up, and waited. It was not his custom to speak until he knew who was calling. The caller identified himself as Gianni from Padova—Kiki’s alias. Gospic checked his watch. It was a little after noon. The call was twelve hours late.
“Boss, how are you?”
“You are late.”
“I know. I got caught in that—”
“Where are you now?”
“In transit. Off the coast. I have some news.”
“Yes.”
“Saskia says good-bye.”
“You gave her my best?”
“Right after I gave her mine. I need your advice, boss.”
“Certainly.”
“It’s about our American friend.”
“I assumed this. You gave him our message?”
“Well, actually, not yet.”
Gospic said nothing, letting the silence run. On most men, this worked very well, but Lujac had a steely core under his playboy persona and was hard to intimidate. Gospic’s control over him was unsteady. This worried Gospic, and he intended to do something about it as soon as Lujac began to disappoint him. Gospic could hear gulls in the background, the churning of heavy waves, a steady wind, and the low mutter of the
Subito
’s engines.
“Aren’t you going to ask me why, boss?”
“I don’t care why. I made myself clear. You disappoint me.”
“It’s complicated. He’s not alone, and he’s on his way to Singapore. Saskia heard you had some kind of thing going on in Singapore, so I figured I better hold off until I talked to you.”
Silence then, and Lujac’s question hanging. Gospic looked out the leaded-glass windows onto the ragged mountains across the fjord of Kotor. The sky was slate gray, and a steady cold rain was falling. Why was the American going to Singapore? Gospic already knew that the Singapore police were holding this drunken sailor, whom they considered the sole survivor of the wreck of the
Mingo Dubai.
He knew where he was being held—in Cluster C—and exactly what was being done to him, because he had a contact in the local police department, who kept him regularly informed. So, the Prisoner of Changi issue was under control.
But now the American was going to Singapore.
Americans went to Singapore every day. It could be nothing more than a coincidence. He could see no possible connection between Dalton and this drunken sailor rotting in Changi prison. But it worried him, anyway.
It also worried him that someone as unstable as Saskia Todorovich had gotten wind of his
interest
in Singapore. He would have to begin a quiet search for the man who was talking; there were only a few possibilities, but he would check them all.
Had Saskia heard anything about Gospic’s plans for the
Mingo Dubai?
Gospic ran his operations as independent cells, but Lujac would already have his suspicions confirmed by this long silence. He would know that his news had left a mark. This was a dangerous breach of operational security, and now Lujac had himself become a threat.
Lujac would have to be handled carefully.
“You allowed this flight to Singapore?”
“I had him at one point, yes. I know. I know. You’re pissed. But listen, boss, the guy’s . . . interesting. He’s making moves. I thought you should know about them. I thought you should have a chance to think it over. Our guy says he had a long talk in Florian’s with an English woman—says she’s a real stunner who had some kind of mojo with Galan—he says she helped Galan nail a mole inside the Carabinieri—our friend got the idea she was connected in some way to the CIA—anyway, she had a long private talk with our American friend—Galan bugged the entire meeting, but our guy wasn’t able to get near the transcript. What he did get was that maybe the American is now back in the club, if you get me. Like all is forgiven? Anyway, the next day he’s on a Thai Airways flight to Singapore. With the English woman.”
“It would have been more simple if he had not been in a position to take a flight to Singapore.”
“Yes. Yes, I get that. But this guy’s not a singleton anymore, boss. If he’s back in the CIA, then maybe we should stay on him and see what he’s up to. Your name was taken in vain, by the by.”
“My name?”
“Yeah. By Brancati and Galan and this Dalton guy. They talked about you, about coming after you directly. Dalton, he’s a hunter. You can see it in his face, the way he moves. He’s got some crocodile in him.”
Gospic winced at the mention of Dalton’s name but let it pass. He realized that he had been talking on this device—this
wireless
device—for far too long, and now Lujac was becoming . . . careless. The phone was heavily encrypted, but one never knew.
“Is Galan sending someone to Kotor?”
“He said no. Said the Carabinieri were not assassins. Dalton says maybe not, but
he
is. We gotta stay on him, boss. See how big a threat he is, maybe peel him off, get up close and personal with him, and then
a dio.”
“What about the Florentine
arista?
The Vasari.”

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