Unmanned (9780385351263) (9 page)

“IntelPro, you mean.”

“They’re one possibility. Tricorn Associates. Overton Security. Those are two more. Plus any sheep-dipped outfit of mercenaries you care to name. Just about any of them might have been hung out to dry if a beacon got misused.”

“So what’s the Agency saying—that he’s gone?”

“What, admit they’ve lost the handle on one of their top-level experts?” Bickell shook his head. “Besides, someone inside is bound to know where he is. Someone always does. You know anything about that fucked-up game they play over there, bushkazi?”

“The one on horseback, yeah.”

“Like polo for barbarians, except instead of a ball they’ve got a dead goat, with both sides trying to keep it. Sometimes the goat gets torn to shreds before either side wins. Well, right now, from what I hear, Castle’s the dead goat in a big game of Agency bushkazi. So good luck if you think you’re going to find him. The way this one’s going, you’ll be more likely to bump into Mullah Omar.”

“I wasn’t exactly expecting to run him down.”

“No, but you might find Mansur. A year ago, when things started to get a little hot for his family, he supposedly used some of his Agency winnings and consular contacts to buy his way out of Dodge. Got a one-way ticket to Europe and a Canadian visa.”

“So he’s in Canada now?”

“Was. Disappeared about a day after the Agency went looking for him. No trace for months, then he supposedly turned up down in Baltimore.”

Jesus
, Cole thought. Was everyone in Baltimore?

“So they found him?”

“Tried to. Or had the Bureau try for them, jurisdictional rules and all that. No luck.”

“Well, if the FBI couldn’t find him—”

“Maybe they weren’t looking very hard.”

“Why, ’cause they hate the Agency? The whole rivalry thing?”

Bickell shook his head. “Cooperation’s better than ever on stuff like this. I’m betting my people made a decision at some point that they didn’t
want
to look very hard. Far better to hear that a cursory check showed no sign of him, so thanks for trying and call off the dogs until
further notice, pretty please. Or maybe they found him but hushed it up. Put him under surveillance. By request, of course. Either way, it’s more cover-up, more stuff no one would talk about. Not when I asked, anyway.”

“Is that why they pushed you out? For asking about Mansur and Magic Dimes?”

“Plus some other shit. Even when Wade was still active there was all kinds of noise around the Agency’s Predator program, so I’d already been asking questions.”

“Noise?”

“Funny stuff nobody could or would explain. Not even Castle, and he was supposed to be running the show.”

“Like what?”

“People coming in and out of our ops center who I’d never seen before. They’d nod at Wade like they were buddies and he’d nod back.”

“Green badgers? Blue badgers?”

“No badgers. And no names, far as I could tell. I’d ask Wade and he’d say something about it being strictly need-to-know, so butt out, but I could tell he didn’t like ’em, either. So I averted my eyes, at least for a while. Then I asked the station chief. He told me to drop it, let Wade handle it. So I let Wade handle it, and Wade disappeared.” He shook his head, gazing out across the lake. “Tell me something, in all your ops did you ever get any unexplained visitors to your chat group?”

“You mean besides you guys?”

“Hell, we were OGA. Duly announced and reporting for duty. Might as well have been displaying an Agency icon every time we posted. No, I mean true interlopers, guys who might ask a question out of nowhere, with a handle you’d never seen before, then slink off into the ether.”

Cole thought about it. Drew a blank.

“Don’t recall any. Nobody beyond the usual crowd, from Al Udeid on down.”

“Nobody with the handle Lancer?”

The name stopped him, literally. He stood still on the path. A bird called out from overhead, and a droplet of melted snow smacked his forehead just as he locked on to a memory.

“Yeah, there was a Lancer. Just once. Or once that I can remember.” Bickell was intense now, staring straight at him. “It was during our recon at Sandar Khosh, the month before the missile strike.”

“Remember what he asked?”

“No. But I remember wondering who the hell it was, just for a second. His handle popped up, he asked one or two questions, then he vanished, just like you said. It happened so fast I didn’t think about it again. Until now.”

“I got him pretty regular. So did everybody in our shop. I asked Wade who the hell he was.”

“And?”

“Told me he was a privileged guest, nothing more. After that I always wondered if he was bird-dogging you guys as well. Your CO never mentioned him?”

“Nothing. Before or after.”

“Curious.”

“You think it’s related to all this stuff?”

“Hell, everything’s related. But how? No idea. Just another part of the noise.”

They walked on, footsteps crunching frosted mud in the shadows along the shoreline before they turned back into sunlight. Bickell looked up at the sky. A small private plane, a Cessna or a Piper, soared across the far side of the lake. They watched for a few seconds before it veered through a notch in the gray hills, leaving behind only the faint drone of its engine as it disappeared over the horizon.

During the pause another possibility occurred to Cole: Maybe this whole conversation was part of a setup, and the whole scene with the tape recorder had been for show. Bickell could be wired, transmitting the conversation to some guy in a van a few hundred yards away. Steve and he would then be intercepted before they could even make it to the end of the dirt road. But to what purpose? He couldn’t think of one, so he kept asking questions.

“This guy Mansur—why Baltimore?”

Bickell shrugged.

“I wondered, too. It’s not like there’s any Little Kabul down there, someplace where he might blend in. Only a handful of Afghans in the city, although one of them
is
a brother of Hamid Karzai, president of
the fucking country. Owns a bunch of restaurants there.” Cole raised an eyebrow, but Bickell waved him off. “It was checked. No connection. Besides, that’s not exactly the low profile they wanted for Mansur. All I can figure is that there must be a sponsor nearby, somebody who helps keep an eye on him.”

“Like IntelPro?”

Bickell narrowed his eyes.

“What makes you keep mentioning them?”

“They’re located down there, aren’t they?”

“Maybe you’re more on the ball than I thought. But the only thing the Bureau dug up locally was the name of a Mexican takeout where Mansur was stuffing burritos for a while. Taco Rojo.”

“The Red Taco?”

“All I got. It’s all the Bureau had, too, if that’s any comfort, and he no longer works there.”

“Why would they ever put him out in public like that?”

“No idea. Unless he was being used as some kind of bait. Which could also explain why the Bureau would back off—to keep from fucking up somebody else’s mousetrap.”

“Then who’s the mouse?”

“Good question. But it tells me that Mansur is findable for anyone with the means, motive, and opportunity.”

They continued walking in silence until they reached the edge of the property. Bickell stopped, stuffed his hands in his pockets, and looked straight at Cole.

“If you do happen to find him, don’t waste your breath asking about Wade Castle. He was using a cryptonym over there. Hector. Like the Greek warrior.”

“The
dead
Greek warrior. I saw the movie.”

“And Castle read the book. But I guess he doesn’t believe in jinxes. Another word of advice. The moment you hit the trail I’m supposed to give the Agency a heads-up. They want a fix on your departure time, a starting point for further tracking. I can fudge it by maybe twenty minutes to give you a head start, but anything more and I’m playing with fire. So don’t stop for lunch, don’t stop for gas, and by all means avoid the toll roads. Too many cameras rolling at the collection booths.”

More little Predators
, Cole thought,
parked and waiting.

“Thanks.”

“Obviously I won’t tell them I mentioned Mansur, much less Hector. But if you head down to Baltimore, watch yourself. Just because the Bureau says they never found him doesn’t mean they don’t know where he is. For all I know they’ve staked him out with another goddamn beacon in his pocket, trolling him in the water to see who comes sneaking up from behind. Turn up on their radar and you’ll be seen as a potential member of the competition, and you don’t want the Agency
or
the Bureau thinking of you that way.”

“Now if I just knew one other thing.”

“What’s that?”

“Whether you’re really trying to help me, or baiting a trap.”

Bickell smiled. “Welcome to my world, Captain Cole. The way things work in this business, I could sincerely be intending to do you a favor while really doing the opposite, and neither of us would be the wiser.”

“Great.”

“You get used to it, believe it or not. If you’re good at it.”

“And how do you get good at it?”

“By keeping your own counsel, trusting only yourself. A cliché, yes, but only because it’s good advice. The moment somebody tells you he’s on your side, you better start looking for reasons he’d want to do you in.”

“Sounds like a recipe for ending up alone.”

“Guilty as charged.” Bickell spread his arms to encompass the empty lawn. “My wife moved out seven years ago.” He walked a few more feet in silence, a crust of ice crunching beneath his feet. “Back when I bought this place I figured someday all I’d be doing is hunting, fishing, tooling around on the water. But look at that boat of mine—falling apart, stem to stern. I haven’t taken it out since August. Still, the life has its rewards. You’ll see.”

“I’ll keep that in mind when they take me in for questioning.”

Bickell chuckled, but Cole didn’t join in. Bickell turned back toward the house, signaling that he was ready to bring this to a close. Cole had one more question.

“So what’s your theory on Castle, then? You lived and breathed this stuff right there with him. Where do you think he’s gone?”

Bickell stopped. He stroked his chin and looked hard at Cole, as if mulling whether to say anything more.

“Knowing him, and knowing how many players eventually dipped their fingers into this pie at one time or another, I’d say he’s here.”

“Back in the States?”

Bickell nodded grimly.

“Why?”

“Because this isn’t about what happened over there anymore. It’s about what’s happening here. Right now. And he’s determined to be part of it.”

“For which side?”

“His own.”

“Is that the same as the Agency’s?”

“You tell me. No one in Langley will. Why the hell else would I be talking to you?” He looked down at his watch. “I’d say it’s time you got moving. And seeing as how the clock just started, you’d be best advised to walk straight around the house. Stay as far to the right of the drive as you can so you won’t trip the sensor. The alarm will show up on the recording, and the next sound I want them to hear is me coming back through the front door, twenty minutes from now.”

“Much obliged to you.”

“Hey. I never said shit. That’s your version to anyone who asks. And the clock is ticking, Captain Cole.”

Cole nodded and left at double time. By the time he reached the front yard he was sprinting.

COLE SLID ONTO
the passenger seat, out of breath.

“Well?” Steve asked.

“We need to get moving.”

“What did he say?”

“It can wait. We need to go
now
, and stay off the toll roads.”

“Never should’ve let you read that fortune cookie. You have any idea how long that’ll take?”

“Bickell’s advice. He was expecting me, okay? He had a whole taping system. The Agency set it up for him yesterday on the off chance I’d show up.”

“Holy shit.
Yesterday
?”

“Said he’s giving me a twenty-minute head start, then he’s phoning in to report my departure.”

“Fuck!” Steve cranked the engine and threw it into gear, spraying gravel from the shoulder. “Why didn’t you just say so?”

“Go easy,” Cole said. “Last thing we need is to get pulled over by some local cop.”

“But he’s phoning this in? To the CIA?”

“That’s what he said.”

“Sorry, I’ll risk the ticket, at least till we’re back to civilization.”

Steve floored it up the dirt road, raising a dust cloud you could’ve seen for miles. Cole checked the map.

“How much gas we got?” Cole asked.

“Enough for a couple hundred miles.”

“Enough to reach Logan, then. And the bus station for me.”

“Was he any help?”

“He thinks this all started with homing beacons, for targeting Predator strikes. Castle paid some guy named Mansur to place them, then got outbid by black hats or privateers, which led to a bunch of fuckups. Like Sandar Khosh, probably. Now everybody’s looking for Castle and Mansur.”

“Castle’s
missing
?”

“Bickell’s heard he’s back in the States. Thinks he’s caught in the middle of some Agency power struggle.”

“But he’s still official? Still employed?”

“Maybe. Just not at any level he knows of.”

“What about this guy Mansur?”

“You’ll like his last known whereabouts. Baltimore.”

“You’re shittin’ me.”

“Bickell seems to think there’s an IntelPro connection, although he never actually said so.”

Steve furrowed his brow.

“Doubtful, from what they’ve been telling me.” He shook his head. “But they could be lying. Or Bickell could be full of it. Maybe neither of them knows what the fuck they’re talking about. What a mess.”

“Why else would Mansur be in Baltimore?”

“Family, maybe? Or a Washington connection, somebody who wants to keep him stashed forty miles down the road. Close, but not too close. Where in Baltimore?”

“Some taco shop. The FBI went looking for him at the Agency’s request. No luck, but Bickell thinks they weren’t trying too hard, and maybe that’s the way the Agency wanted it. Or that they found him but agreed to keep it under wraps.”