The Second Saladin

poisoned things since the very beginning; and then finally to the business of Trewitt, which he meant to pop on him by surprise to break him down with; and then to call Sam, make a fresh start. And therefore spare himself any further rites of terror such as the one he’d undergone at the Ops meeting yesterday.

He knocked.

“Yeah?”

It was Chardy.

“Paul, it’s Miles,” he called, and sailed in. “Paul, I—”

When Miles came at last to reorient himself, he was astounded to discover that through some Alice in Wonderland trickery or illogic, he had become the patient. He had a terrible, a profound sense of a fundamental change in the fabric of his reality, as if in stepping through the door he’d exchanged one universe for another, fallen down the rabbit hole.

Several men stood around him, and were not friendly, among them Paul Chardy, dressed, sporting no trophies of a beating. If anything, Chardy had done some beating recently, for the knuckles of his right hand wore a blazing white gauze strip.

“Paul, what the—”

“Just relax, Miles.”

“Paul, this—”

“Miles, be quiet.” Chardy’s teacher voice, Chardy’s teacher look, authoritative, unarguable. What Chardy was this? A Chardy in command? What the hell gave Chardy the right?

But Miles shut up. He’d been deposited firmly into a straight-back chair, trussed not by bonds but by the weighty presence, the will, of others. Who were they? What kind of hospital was this, anyway?

“Miles,” Chardy said, “we start with one question. One important question.”

“He’s not wired yet,” somebody said.

“It doesn’t matter,” said Chardy.

“Hey, Paul, this—”

“Shh now, Miles. Shhh. Trust me.”

Chardy solicitous? What kind of new Chardy was this?

For yes, this was a new Chardy. Had he found his religion, or lost it? He’d never seen a calmer Chardy, a less hostile Chardy. Where had Chardy’s chip gone, the one that weighed a ton that he carried around on his shoulder? Where was that ex-jock’s snarl, that willingness to punch out, fuck the consequences? It was as though he’d had a face-lift or a brain-lift or something.

“Look,” Chardy began, almost pleasantly, “one little question. Help us, okay? We know you were monitoring me; we know you had guys on me; we know that guy in Boston who was recording Johanna was reporting to you. So you saw the wiretap transcripts. Right?”

Lanahan looked sullenly at Chardy.

“Sure you did, Miles. You wouldn’t have missed a chance like that. Now here’s the big question. A call came to me. From Illinois, from Resurrection. From a nun. You may remember helping her find me. Anyway, she read me a telegram. Okay?”

“Okay, Paul.”

“Did you see it?”

A moment of triumph. Lanahan could not help the little smirk.

“Yes,” he finally said.

“I knew you would. Didn’t I say so, Leo? Miles is very, very smart. Here’s the tough one. Let’s take it another step, and we need the truth on this, Miles. I’ll have them blast you full of sodium p if I have to.”

Somebody looped a strap across Lanahan’s chest and drew it tight. Another man leaned over him, pushed his sleeve up, and bound onto his arm an elastic band.

“Hey, you have to have my permission to polygraph me,” he said.

“Now, now, Mr. Lanahan, let’s just be patient. He’s all set. Let me get a control reading here. Is your name Miles Lanahan?”

“Miles?”

Lanahan was silent.

“Come on, Miles, play the game. Answer the man.”

Miles looked at the ceiling, at the men in the room, so many of them.

“Who are these guys, Paul? Just what the hell—”

“I’m Leo Bennis of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Mr. Lanahan. These people are on my staff. They’re all professionals, and they all have high-level security clearances. All right?”

But Lanahan shot a look of horror at Chardy.

“Feds! Jesus Christ, you went to the feds. Oh, Paul, I’m so disappointed in you. Oh, Jesus, Paul, Sam is going to screw you, he’s going to — oh, Paul, that’s just the worst—”

“They’ve been on this thing for a little while, Miles. And they listened You guys wouldn’t. Nobody else would. So I had to go play with them. It’s their ball. Come on, Miles, let’s get going. Give the man your name so we can get the game started.”

“Paul, you—”

“Miles, this wouldn’t be going on if we didn’t think it absolutely fucking had to. Had to. Come on, Miles. Come on.”

Miles looked around again. It was said that Chardy had been worked with blowtorches before he finally cracked. But that had been different, a kind of war. He’d had time to get ready; he’d been trained. Miles looked around the room, then back to Chardy, whose glare leaned in to him. He broke away from it, looked elsewhere. But there was no mercy for him anywhere in this room.

“My name is Miles Lanahan.”

“Where do you reside?”

Miles gave the address.

“What’s your mother’s name?”

Miles answered.

“Okay,” the technician said. “It would be better if he wasn’t so excited, but I guess that can’t be helped. I’ve run them on jumpier guys. Go ahead, Chardy.”

“Okay, Miles. What did you make of the telegram?”

Miles took a deep breath. Here was a test he was going to pass.

“You’re running Trewitt. In Mexico. Trewitt’s alive.”

“See, Leo, I told you he had a nose for this stuff. He’s sharp; he can do an awful lot with very little dope. Okay, Miles. Here’s the last big one. Who did you tell?”

“Paul, these guys are just using you. They don’t give a shit; they’re just conning you. They love to scramble the Agency. Paul, you’re going to get in so much trouble. Paul, this isn’t—”

“Shoot him up, Leo. Miles, I have to know. It’s very important.”

“Don’t stick me, goddammit. Keep that thing away.”

He looked around the room, finding it surprisingly big. He saw that once upon a time it had been an operating room: high ceiling, bright yellow walls ribbed with pipes. Now it was — what? HQ for some weird fed operation, Judas Chardy up there rubbing asses with G-men.

Sam’s words came to him, delivered only days ago, clear and penetrating: He will make you choose. He will tempt you, test you. He’s clever, smart. You’ve never seen the man he really is.

“Miles, let’s go. It’s confession time. Who’d you tell?”

“Nobody.”

“What kind of reading you get?”

“Respiration’s flat. No jump. Unless he’s stoned on downers or a real pro at riding these things, which he might be.”

“I was never on one of these things in my life,” Lanahan said irritably, offended at the notion.

“Why, Miles? Why didn’t you tell Sam? It was a big scoop. It was your ticket to the top.”

“Because I couldn’t read it. I played it over two hundred ways and I still couldn’t read it. I wanted to develop it, or hold it in reserve, and pull it out when it really counted, or when it took me someplace.”