The Virtuosic Spy 01 - Deceptive Cadence (32 page)

Conor’s brow arched in ironic surprise. “You were honest with him from the beginning? Why?”

“I’m not sure I know myself,” Sedgwick said. “He was in pretty bad shape when I met him, Conor. He’d just found out what Durgan and his boys had done to implicate you in that EU grant fraud, and he was drinking pretty heavily. I thought about taking advantage of that, I’m ashamed to admit. I sat with him a few nights, watching him get drunk and staying sober myself, and then one night he spilled his whole story. The next night I got drunk with him and told him mine. We sort of recognized each other at that point—two fuck-ups looking for a chance to do something right, for a change.”

He took a breath and said no more. Silence filled the room, disturbed only by the hypnotic sound of the train’s wheels rhythmically thumping against the seams of the tracks. Conor could tell the agent was anticipating his next question and dreading it. The temptation to ask it was strong. He had spent more than a few idle hours wondering about the personal history of his controlling officer, but with a hint of regret, he passed on the opportunity.

“So, now I know how it got started,” he said. His voice conveyed a dry sense of wonder. “The next question is how does it end?”

Sedgwick’s shoulders slumped, and he regarded Conor with an odd smile of relief and regret. “The details around ‘how’ are still sketchy but the ‘when’ is starting to look firm. Tom meets with these guys three or four times a year, always at the ashram. The middlemen have spent time with Kavita, and they’ve clearly been taking back reports. When we heard you were coming, Walker figured we were getting onto thin ice with MI6 poking around, so he risked a big move. Tom met with them just before you arrived and said he was ready to make a twenty-million-dollar purchase on behalf of Pawan- bhai and that he was hoping to celebrate the next phase of the relationship by hosting Dragonov at the ashram. A month ago, we finally got what we’d been waiting for all these years. He’s agreed to come, and we’ve been getting ready ever since. That week I told you I was in Dubai, I was actually up in Rishikesh with Walker and Costino scoping out a capture strategy.”

“Costino.” Conor’s brow wrinkled in vexed recollection. “Is that your squeaky little intern, Kovalevsky?”

“Oh, right.” Sedgwick gave a soft laugh. “Tony Costino. He’s older than he looks. He does legal analysis and manages the admin, but he spends more time brown-nosing his boss than doing his work. When I got back to Mumbai ten days ago, the two of them had left for meetings in DC to brief the top brass. My assignment now is to get us all in place at Rishikesh and wait for instructions.”

“Uh-huh.” Absently biting his thumbnail, Conor drifted into brooding contemplation. His attention wandered from Sedgwick and fixed instead on the window behind him. Its mirror-like reproduction of both the room and its occupants permitted occasional, indistinct glimpses of the darkened landscape rolling past. The scenes were likely no different from those that had scrolled over the glass for the past ten nights, but his inability to pierce the reflective glare triggered a claustrophobic anxiety.

After so many months and so much effort devoted to misdirection, he had hoped the truth, once dragged forward, would reveal something sordid and ignoble and that he could shame his brother into abandoning it. That’s what he’d been hired to do, wasn’t it? He hadn’t expected anything like this.

In many ways, it was a preposterous scheme, but its objective was neither sordid nor ignoble. To sabotage it would be irresponsible and probably just as dangerous as letting it run its course. Fate had fixed its seal on it, and as he acknowledged its victory, the unfixed dread that had plagued him for weeks sank that much further into his bones.

With a reflexive start, he realized Sedgwick had not stopped talking. Swearing silently, he pulled his mind back to focus on the room’s interior rather than whatever lurked in the impenetrable darkness.

“There’s something else I need to tell you,” Sedgwick was saying, “before we try to get your brother back inside for his chai. You’re not going to like it.”

“Won’t I? ” Conor asked, somewhat lethargically. “Brilliant.”

Sedgwick acknowledged the sarcasm with a shrug. “We thought one of the agencies might get wind of something and turn up; but we didn’t expect them to focus on Tom. I’m contracted as MI6’s primary NOC—a nonofficial cover agent—in Mumbai, so luckily they tapped me to babysit the first agent they sent. He was pretty easy to confuse as long as I kept a bottle of vodka in front of him. Walker and I stuck to the original plan. I told the guy I’d heard Tom was doing business with Dragonov for terrorists in Kashmir, figuring that would be enough for MI6 to bury it, but not long after we got rid of him, we found out they’d recruited you.”

He glanced out the back door at Thomas, who had taken a seat on the wrought iron bench that was bolted to the floor. Elbows on his knees, with a cigarette dangling from one slack hand, he sat watching the rails race away and disappear into the distance.

“The thing is,” Sedgwick went on, “when we first got the word on your MI6 recruitment, it didn’t come from the London office or Fort Monckton. We got it from Tom, who got it from Durgan.”

Conor followed Sedgwick’s gaze, unconsciously mimicking his brother’s posture. He estimated that Thomas was on his third cigarette, and the craving to smoke one himself made his fingers twitch. He dropped his head with a resigned sigh—not shocked, just weary.

“And Durgan must have got it from someone inside MI6.”
 

Sedgwick nodded. “You’re a quick study, as usual. Tom was so panicked about you that he’s never even wondered how Durgan could have known about a covert operative recruitment, which was just as well, but obviously the rest of us were curious. Walker had already decided Durgan was just another middleman in the money-laundering ring, a buffer to keep the real leader behind a curtain. That leader might have a mole inside MI6 who feeds him information, but there’s another possibility we have to consider.”

“And what’s that?” Conor asked dully.

“That the leader is also a high-level informant, protected just like Dragonov is, and that MI6 owed him something.”

Apparently, his capacity for shock was not altogether dead. At Conor’s gasp, Sedgwick bowed his head. “Yeah, I know. Black ops are black in more ways than one. It might be a red herring, but in some ways it makes sense. Walker tells Durgan there’s a new piece of Kotwal’s business in the offing, but then nothing happens. Durgan maybe catches on that he screwed up the meeting and confesses to his boss, and they begin speculating that Kotwal has done an end-run around them, taking his extra business straight to Thomas. The boss bides his time, but when MI6 comes knocking, he trades information for a favor: find out if his man in India is two- timing him. They agree, but keep the whole thing at arm’s length by sending an expendable agent, and before it even gets underway, they have Durgan leak the information to see if it scares Tom enough to prompt a confession.”

Conor had to admit the plot had a certain self-contained elegance. He could see Sedgwick was inclined to believe it but wasn’t as certain he did. “It sounds pretty convoluted. What does Thomas think?”

The agent’s eyes again took on a look of strained discomfort. “We didn’t tell him.”

“You didn’t tell him? Why the hell not?”

Seeing Conor’s indignation, Sedgwick leaned forward. “Listen, from the very beginning of this, he’s never much cared what would happen to him, but he’s petrified about what anyone might do to you. If the strategy was to scare him by bringing you into it, it worked. Tom almost broke with us once he heard about it. We only kept him on board by promising to look after you. He already has a pathological fear of Durgan. If he thought the agency that recruited you is actually mixed up with him . . . well, let’s just say it scares me to think what he might do—what kind of bargains he might try to make.”

“What scares you?” Conor asked with caustic sarcasm. “Just that he’ll somehow banjax this ramshackle shell game you’ve had him running for five years?”

“No, shithead,” Sedgwick spat back angrily. “I’m not worried about the shell game. I’m worried about him, and God knows you make me wonder why, but I’m worried about you, too. Haven’t you seen enough of mafia etiquette by now to know how it works? It’s the same all over the world. The boys in charge don’t let you walk away from them, and they punish traitors. You saw what it looks like in Sewri, and if I hadn’t swapped you out for a water buffalo, you’d have gotten a taste yourself. You think the Irish version is any better? That they’ll go easier on your brother? Or you?”

“Oh my God.” Conor slumped backward until he collided with the back of the sofa. The blood that had rushed to his face in irritation drained away again. “I get it. If you’re right, I can’t bring Thomas back to report to MI6. They’ll debrief us, dish it to Durgan or his boss, and turn us loose for them to find. We’re screwed.”

“Well, don’t give up the ghost so easily.” Sedgwick’s expression softened. “You do have a few friends in the DEA. We may be ramshackle, but we’re better than nothing. Do you at least understand why I don’t want to share all this with your brother right now?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Conor assured him quickly. “We can’t tell him. He’d go off his head—try to trade himself in exchange for me, and we’d probably both still end up on the rack. Again, that’s if you’re right. Anyway, I’ll go along with it. We’ll do it your way.”

“Thank you.” Looking exhausted, Sedgwick let his head drop back against his chair. With his eyes closed, he absently rubbed at the scars on his left arm.

At least, it looked like his eyes were closed. A minute later, his head popped up and he scowled wearily at Conor. “Why are you staring at me like that?”

“Oh, sorry.” Conor’s eyes snapped back into focus. “I wasn’t really—away to the hills for a minute. I was just wondering about Frank and where he stands in all of this. Either way, he must be getting pretty impatient. I’ve been here a couple months, and he’s not learned a bloody thing.”

“No doubt.” Sedgwick’s smile grew wide as he settled back and closed his eyes again. “I’ve been filing reports on our progress tracking your brother through the Khalil organization. If Frank knows the real connection has always been with Kotwal, my letters home must be driving him batshit crazy.”

31

H
E
TOOK
THE
STAIRS
OF
THE
ASHRAM
’
S
DORMITORY
TWO
AT
a time, animated by the conviction that he was late for something but not remembering what. Hurrying to the end of the corridor, he’d just breached the doorway of Kavita’s apartment when he tripped over her.
 

“
Arrey
!”

The Hindi exclamation was second nature to him now. It spilled automatically from Conor’s mouth, along with a few saltier expressions he had known a good while longer. He stumbled to avoid toppling onto the seated figure beneath him.

“Jayz, Kavita, I’m sorry. I didn’t see you there.” “It doesn’t matter.”

She looked up, glowing and serene. She was sitting in the lotus position, wearing loose-fitting white pants and an embroidered white kurta. Her long hair was plaited into a braid that ran straight down the middle of her back. She looked unusually youthful and perfectly relaxed.

“It might have mattered if I’d landed on top of you.” He studied her curiously. “Why are you sitting so close to the door?”

“The place of greatest light. It is right here, in this spot exactly.” She closed her eyes, and with palms facing the floor, cupped hands over an invisible bolus of energy.

“
Accha
.” Conor nodded, respectfully. Of the many things that befuddled him about India, this wasn’t one of them. The pervasive spirituality of its people and their belief that the border between worlds was a billowy, translucent thing at best was not a foreign idea to him.

In the world of Celtic mysticism, the concept was called
caol áit
, “thin places.” His mother knew them and had an enduring hunger to be near them. Throughout his childhood, she had dragged him on innumerable forced marches to holy wells, portal tombs, and monastic ruins. The spell of the numinous was overpowering in the spots she favored, and for a boy who was happier avoiding such experiences that was precisely the problem. It was far less potent than hers was, but his own susceptibility to the vibration of
chuisle Dé
had sometimes rattled him to the marrow of his bones—often enough to engender a wary, arms-length respect for
caol áit
in all its forms, wherever it occurred.

As Kavita caressed the air in front of her, Conor indulged in a bit of reverie, regretting his adolescent obstinacy and wondering what he wouldn’t give now to follow his mother across a dolmen-strewn cow pasture to see her perform a ritual that would look a lot like the one he was watching now.

After a moment, he recalled his original purpose and reluctantly shifted his eyes to the rest of the apartment, searching for evidence of a forgotten obligation.

Sedgwick and Thomas were sitting at one end of the dining room table staring glumly at the blank screen of a laptop. Seeing the data cable trailing from the side of it, Conor finally remembered what he was late for—a meeting to dissect the latest e-mail correspondence from Dragonov’s underlings. They had been expected to make contact by three o’clock that afternoon with the final details for the arms dealer’s visit. Glancing at his watch, he winced. It was almost four o’clock.

“Have they been yelling for me?” he asked Kavita, in a low voice.

“Not as yet,” she replied, without opening her eyes. “There are issues.”

“Issues? What issues?”

“Power cut.” Kavita solemnly pointed a finger at the ceiling. “What to do? No power, no Yahoo.”

Lowering her hands onto her knees, she opened her eyes and regarded Conor with a sigh of satisfaction. “You are looking well,
beta
. You have had a good trek, I think, on the paths by Lakshman Jhula? Fresh air and healthful exertions are there in your face. Rishikesh is being good to you, yes?”