“My God. What the hell happened to you?”
“I just got mugged.”
“Oh.” He frowned at length, then tried a different expression, clearly uncertain how to respond. His eyes seemed glazed. “What did they get?”
“A few shillings.”
“That’s all?”
“I’d given all the rest to you. I think they expected more.”
“No doubt.”
The beers arrived; Sam touched the necks in a tentative toast. His ball cap was off, and Jon was surprised how little hair he had. “Well. I mean, I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right.”
“Didn’t do much good, then, did it, losing the tails?”
Jon took a long drink, draining a third of the bottle. “Were you followed?”
“Yeah. Not terribly subtle, are they? Hired hands, no doubt.”
“A Renault?”
“There were two, actually. A Renault and a Fiat.”
“Haven’t a clue.”
“You just said, ‘Hired hands, no doubt.’ For whom?”
“Well, I mean, I couldn’t say. In my work, I hear things sometimes, you know. That’s all. At the hotel, you hear things.”
“Okay. So what do you hear?”
“Well.” He fidgeted with his beer bottle. “That there are these gangs out there. Like armed brigades. They say there are training camps for them out in the Rift Valley now. Land that’s been purchased supposedly by private investors. Some areas you can’t travel to anymore. Just not considered safe. Those are the stories anyway.”
“Who’s hiring them?”
He drank again, wanting to change the subject, Jon could see. “Don’t know. Someone who’s bought up a lot of property. That’s speculation. You ought to take care of those cuts, mate. And anyway, I’ve got a driver coming to pick me up in about ten minutes. Better get going. It was interesting to see you again.”
He stood and shook Jon’s hand. Then his face creased as if he were recalling something unpleasant. “Can you charge the beers to your room, mate?”
“Sure.”
“Good. Your bag’s in the men’s room. Take care.”
“Likewise.”
Sam Sullivan turned and walked out. Once again, he didn’t look back.
IN HIS ROOM, Jon Mallory washed the cuts on his face and elbow. The bruise on his right cheek was already swollen from broken capillaries. In the next several days, it would probably change to purple and black. He wouldn’t look pretty, but it wasn’t a serious injury. It was a good thing he hadn’t tried to fight back.
Jon latched the door. He emptied two airline bottles of Jim Beam over a cup of ice and poured in Diet Coke. He was anxious now, and ready for whatever came next.
He pulled the envelope from the front of his pants, opened it, and examined the contents, this time more thoroughly.
SEVENTEEN
LIKE MANY SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE, Russell Ott had structured his life in ways that prevented unnecessary intrusions in his day-to-day routines. This enabled him to stay focused on the highly specialized work that he did, to fulfill the lucrative contracts that his satellite surveillance business had secured. Routines served a useful function, but routines were also vulnerabilities and they provided advantages for attentive adversaries.
Charles Mallory understood this. And he knew other, more specific things about Russell Ott now, as well. He had spent two days in the Bay Area working surveillance. Following him. Learning his habits. Running database searches on him through his company. He knew Russell Ott’s habits, his strengths and weaknesses, his quirks.
It was ironic, Charlie had found, that many people who were experts at surveillance structured their own lives in ways that made them easy to find. Ott was one of them.
He had been born Radek Otradovec in the former Czechoslovakia, but he grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia, where his parents changed his name before he entered grade school. His mother was originally from Yemen, his father from Prague. His limp came from a badly broken leg that had ended his football career in the eleventh grade. For a while, Ott had served as a government intelligence agent, but he’d never been a good fit with the culture of Washington. What distinguished him were his contacts with rogue foreign operators, including alleged terrorists and arms merchants in the Middle East, including the Hassan Network.
He was an unmarried man, obsessive, and secretive. In the Bay Area, where he had lived for the past two years, Ott stopped twice a week at the Wayside Grille and Donut Shoppe in Sunnyvale, a breakfast/lunch diner that made fresh-baked doughnuts every morning. It was less than two blocks from a software business known as G- Tech, which provided a front for Ott’s company. Every Monday and Wednesday, for some reason, he came in between 7:30 and 8 in the morning, waited in line, chatted inconsequentially with the manager, and ordered a half dozen doughnuts.
Today was Monday.
CHARLIE WAS SITTING in a booth against the window at 7:49 when Russell Ott pulled his BMW X-3 into the lot. Charlie wore a seven-day growth of beard, old jeans, a dark T-shirt, an Army jacket, and a beat-up hat he had found in a thrift shop. He’d been walking a little differently since arriving in the Bay Area, favoring his left leg. The satellite surveillance operations, which were based just blocks away, probably would not find him here. Not until after the fact. That’s what he was counting on. He had rehearsed this meeting in his head for several days, imagining various scenarios and outcomes. Normally, Charlie slept only five or six hours a night, but he had slept less than four for each of the last two nights.
Before arriving in California—which had among the toughest gun laws in the United States—Charlie had stopped in Arizona, purchased a 9mm Taurus PT 92 for $375 at a gun shop. Arizona, which bordered California, had among the laxest gun laws in the United States.
There were six other customers in the restaurant as Ott parked his SUV across from the entrance. An older couple in a booth against the wall, each reading a section of the newspaper. A man in a booth by himself, facing the front windows, diligently eating a breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon, and pancakes. A woman facing the wall, texting, a cup of coffee and a three-quarter-eaten doughnut in front of her. And two professional women in a booth who had finished their breakfasts and were turned away from each other, both talking on cell phones. A scruffy- looking teenage couple came in just before Ott.
Charlie watched Russell Ott: a big, slightly lumbering man in his mid-forties who conveyed a clumsy self- assurance. Large, pock-marked face; swarthy complexion; small, alert eyes; receding hair; severe expression; flat almost non-existent lips. He wore an expensive dark overcoat.
The manager glanced over as Ott entered, and Charlie felt it again: an anxious flutter, an unfamiliar feeling. He heard the pitch of Paul Bahdru’s voice in his head, a sound he would never hear again.
Russell Ott pulled out his cell phone as he waited, checking for messages. He took a quick scan of the restaurant, and his eyes stopped for a moment on Charles Mallory.
Charlie had bought a copy of the
