“Jenny.” His voice was hardly above a whisper. “I won’t go if you don’t want me to.” She knew what he meant. Afghanistan.
“Shh.” She put her arm over his broad back, rubbing the scar tissue left over from his run-in with the police in Times Square. “Does it still hurt?”
“It’s fine.”
Would you tell me if it did? she wondered. Not a chance.
About thirty yards away a fat man in a gray suit sat reading the Post. He waved to them and pushed himself up, grunting like a loaded semi heading up a mountain pass. He was at least three hundred pounds, a coronary waiting to happen. He pulled a white handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his head.
“George Tyson. You must be the famous John Wells.” He put the handkerchief away and extended his hand. Wells let it dangle.
“Right. You don’t like being called famous, Mr. Wells. And you don’t like counterintelligence.” Tyson’s accent was humid and southern.
“Any reason I should?”
“I want to tell you that Vinny Duto didn’t ask my opinion of you. Back in the day, I mean. He had strong ideas about you. Still does.”
“And if he had asked? What would you have said?”
“A fair question, Mr. Wells. But try to remember how you looked to us back then. With your Quran and your disappearing act. Accept my apologies, then, and shake an old man’s hand.”
Wells reached out for Tyson’s big paw — and found himself gripping a joy buzzer. He grunted, more from surprise than pain, as the electricity rattled his palm. Tyson smirked. Wells vaguely remembered hearing about his practical jokes, his way of keeping alive the CIA’s traditions from the 1950s, before the agency turned into a bureaucratic monster.
“Cute, Mr. Tyson.”
“So now you’re wondering if I’m a fool, or merely pretending,” Tyson said. “Hard to say, I reckon. Maybe both.”
“Actually I was wondering how many punches I would need to break your jaw.”
“I’d rather we didn’t find out. It’s interesting, though, the way you responded to an unanswerable question with one that has a definite answer.”
“Double as a shrink in your spare time?”
“I’ll bet you don’t like them either, Mr. Wells.” Tyson turned to Exley. “And you must be Jennifer Exley. Where’s Ellis?”
“Waiting in the car, like you asked,” Wells said. To Exley: “Whatever you do, don’t shake his hand.”
“I’d never mistreat a lady.”
They walked on, heading toward the Capitol. Then Tyson turned back toward the Monument, craning his neck like a curious tourist. “Mr. Wells? Would you say there’s anyone on us at the moment?”
“I’d say no. Why? You have some genius tracker following us? Somebody who can smell bear scat at fifty paces?”
“As a matter of fact, I don’t. As far as I’m concerned, the fewer people who know about this meeting, the better.”
“So we’re on the Mall? I see why you’re a master of counterintel.”
“Come now, Mr. Wells. You know there’s nothing better than a nice open space where we can see anybody who wants to see us. I’m not concerned about these joggers.”
“Yeah, you don’t strike me as the type to care much about exercise.”
“John,” Exley said. She turned to Tyson. “Ignore him, George. He’s been acting out recently.”
“So I hear.”
“So
“Mr. Wells. I heard only from Ellis. He’s concerned about you.”
“Is that why you’re here? An intervention? To convince me to behave?”
“Mr. Wells. Believe it or not, I’ve got a few other problems.” Tyson’s syrupy accent faded notably. He stuffed the joy buzzer into his pocket and leaned in close to Wells, putting his hands on Wells’s shoulders. “I said that Mr. Shafer is concerned about you. Not that I am. Others across the river may think that you’re some kind of superspy.
“No, I don‘t—”
“Please let me finish. Me, I’m not a fan of the great-man theory of history. The Confederacy had all the best generals and we still lost the war. I think you got lucky in Times Square. We all got lucky. You are here tonight because Mr. Shafer wants you to be. Not me. Are we clear?”
Wells’s face tensed and he stood rigid under Tyson’s heavy hands. He stepped back, shook Tyson’s hands off his shoulders. For a moment Exley thought Wells might actually hit Tyson. Then Wells’s face softened.
“We’re clear. Thank you.” He stuck out his hand, and after a moment Tyson put out his own. They shook for a long time before Wells finally let go.
“Thank me?”
“Somebody needed to say it. Thank you for not treating me like I’m something special. Or some wounded animal. Even if I am.”
BASEBALL PRACTICE HAD ENDED HOURS earlier, but fluorescent lights still shined over the field at Cardozo High School, just up Thirteenth from Exley’s apartment. In fact the lights never went dark, possibly because of Washington’s legendary municipal incompetence, possibly to make the stands by the field less inviting for midnight trysts. Now Exley, Shafer, and Tyson sat in the stands, waiting for Wells. They’d driven around Washington for fifteen minutes, confirming that no one was following them, before Wells dropped them off and promised to find parking.
Wells trotted up, holding a plastic bag and handing out paper bags.
“Beer?” Tyson peered into the bag distastefully.
“For our cover,” Wells said. “Picked them up at that package store on U Street.”
“For our cover?” Exley couldn’t help but laugh. Wells’s mood had certainly improved, with the promise of a mission and his dressing-down from Tyson, she thought. Even if he hadn’t said a word she would have known. He was watching the world in a way that he hadn’t in months.
Wells popped open his beer and took a swig. Tyson looked at him. “What kind of Muslim are you, anyway, John?”
“Don’t spend much time at the mosque these days,” Wells said.
“I might feel the same if my co-religionists spent their days thinking of new and exciting ways to kill me.” Tyson poked the can out of the bag. “Budweiser?”
“Budweiser, George. Put hair on your chest.”
“Is she going to drink one too, then?” Tyson looked at Exley. “I’ve never had a Budweiser in my life. It’s Yankee beer.”
“Budweiser’s from St. Louis,” Exley said.
“All beer is Yankee beer,” Tyson said. “Real Southerners drink whiskey.”
“George, why can I picture you overseeing a plantation, whip in hand?”
“That’s your overactive imagination. Now, this is turning into a real fun evening, but I’d like to tell you why we’re here.” Over the next half-hour, Tyson filled them in on the Phantom’s mission, and its failure.
“And we had no hint of trouble before our guy, the Drafter, asked for the extraction?” Exley said when Tyson was finished.
“No. We saw him eight months ago in Pakistan, offered to get him out then. He refused. They’d just promoted him. Which is another reason I think it was from our side. Kim Jong Il doesn’t have enough good scientists to turn on them for no reason.”
“And counterintelligence investigations always leave a trail,” Shafer said. “No matter how hard you try, you can’t watch the suspect without him knowing.”
“He sees someone’s been poking in his office,” Tyson said. “Or we dangle something and he wonders why all of a sudden he’s got new access. Moles have this spooky sense of when we’re watching.”
