The Second Saladin

He took a swallow of water, and another; it was gone. He’d finished it in one shot. He could feel horrified eyes on him; had he made some gross gulping noise? Had a tradition been shattered, his career ruined? It turned on such small things, after all: not on who your dad was or where you went to school, but how much water you drank and whether your socks were right and did you know when to laugh and what to laugh at?

He rubbed his nose, where a blemish throbbed.

“Miles?”

“Ah!”

Not listening.

“Your status?” Sam looked at him with great kindness and expectation.

“Well” — his voice a pitch too high; he brought it down — “well, Sam and gentlemen” — the wrong note, didn’t mean to seem obsequious; the trick here was presence — “it’s currently a holding situation. Dr. Danzig is to some degree cooperating with us by staying put, and we’ve got that house sealed up.”

“Miles, what kind of liaison are you working with the FBI?”

“Extremely low-level. One of their supervisors offered me a blank check but I thanked him and backed off. I didn’t see any point in involving them any more than necessary. They wanted to ship over bodies, but you never know who is reporting to whom.”

“What about Secret Service?”

“I consulted with them on setting up my perimeters; they were quite helpful. But they didn’t offer people and I didn’t ask for people. We’ve got our own men in the house and grounds; in addition, we’ve got vehicular patrols orbiting the house, as well as an emergency CP in a house down the block. It’s very tight. They almost arrested me.”

“They did arrest me,” said a well-known acquaintance of Joseph Danzig’s, to much laughter.

Miles began to hope that —

“And what’s Danzig’s status?”

“Ah. He’s under great strain. It’s a very difficult time for him, and for us. He’s bearing up, although not without his little outbursts.”

“How are your people doing?”

“I’ve no problems to report. They seem to be doing well. They’re professionals; they know what’s expected.”

“Anything else, Miles?” asked Sam.

“That’s it. Nothing more to say.”

“Well, unless there’s any discussion—”

“Isn’t Chardy on this one?”

“Yes,” said Miles.

“Now, Paul was a fieldman. Talk about pros. One of the real cowboys.” The voice was warm with nostalgia, with dewy memories for what some of the men in this room must have thought of still as the Good Old Days.

And fuck him. Fuck him to hell. Out of nowhere, out of a sweet weakness for a dreadful past, had Chardy’s ugly name come up and onto the table. Miles looked quickly to the far end of the room but could not identify the speaker. They all looked the same anyway: gray, pleasant, bland men in suits, vaguely aloof, prim smiles, calm eyes.

“Danzig likes him, I’ve heard,” somebody else said curiously.

“He seems to have conceived an affection for Chardy. The strain, I suppose,” said Miles. “I don’t think it’s —”

“Didn’t Chardy do some time in a Soviet prison? Miles, do you think it wise, considering—”

But Melman cut in swiftly:

“David, we’re all aware of Paul’s flamboyant — and checkered — past. It was my decision to bring him into this, because he was linked to Ulu Beg. In all frankness, one of our first thoughts was that he would be the Kurd’s target; we wanted to make him more visible, in that case. It didn’t work out. Now he’s important because—”

“I know he’s important. Is he reliable?” The voice was ugly.

“It’s a risk I think we should be willing to run. We are monitoring him carefully.”

“I say any man who beat up Cy Brasher deserves a medal,” somebody new said, again to a great chorus of laughter.

“I’m not shedding any tears for Cy Brasher, Sam, but that’s exactly the kind of wild-eyed, out-of-control behavior that this Agency can no longer afford. That’s why I ask if he’s reliable. And that’s why—”

“So far, Paul has done his work diligently,” said Sam.

“Except for Boston,” said David, whoever David was. “If I read those reports right, if he’d stayed on station, the whole mess—”

“Or again, it might have been worse. And if he had panicked, and not thought to move that suicidal woman’s body away from the scene, a minor catastrophe might have exploded into a major scandal. Paul cuts both ways. He can help you in a way nobody else can, and he can hurt you to just the same extent. So you’ve got to keep him on a very short chain. Miles wouldn’t have the job he’s got if I weren’t satisfied he’s a good man with a chain. Miles, what have you got him doing now? Is he still at the house?”

Sam certainly had mastered the techniques of blandness. This was the question that would destroy Miles right now, before all these division heads, and it had been asked in the softest, the most reasonable tone Miles had ever heard. Sam sounded again like a cardinal.

“Well, he’s—” Miles began, wondering where he would end, at the same time enchanted, fascinated, by the catastrophe of the moment. But exactly as his mind purged clean of words, some factotum — Miles hadn’t ever seen him enter — leaned and placed before him a message, which Miles proceeded to read in a confident voice as though he’d known it all along, despite the fact that he was as amazed as any of them to discover that late last night Chardy had been playing basketball with some inner-city kids on a lit playground in Anacostia and some rough words had been exchanged and poor Paul had been beaten rather severely.

“He’s in Saint Teresa’s, in Southeast.”

He smiled at Sam.

“Is there any more water?”

47

Now they had him in a far city and a secret place. He had been tended and cleaned and cared for. He had expected a trial to begin soon and knew that he was guilty. It didn’t matter the crime, he’d committed so many. Jail held no terror — he’d been there and knew he’d flourish if his health held — but he missed his dry heat and his beer and his girls and his food. He missed the Madonna even, old ugly cow. At least he’d escaped the Huerras. It would be nice to head back to Mexico City when this was all over and cut the old man’s throat. He’d flop like a fish when he bled. But Ramirez knew he’d never get close enough. Still, in this cool, dull American room it was a pleasant thought to fill his head until the trial. He wondered if they’d give him a lawyer; they’d already given him a doctor to fix his three gunshot wounds and his broken nose. He never knew it worked like this. He thought maybe they’d broken a law too, but he also realized that in this world, if you were strong and bold and well equipped, there were no laws.

But there was no trial. And the Americans were not interested in his crimes. They didn’t care for the drug- smuggling, the illegal-running, the whoremongering. They cared for only one thing: pictures.

“Pictures? You bring me all this way to look at pictures? Pretty strange.”

“We have.” His interrogator spoke Spanish. Tape recorders whirred, the lights were bright, some kind of apparatus had been strapped around his chest and arm, and tense men huddled about his bed. Whatever he knew must be pretty important.