give me any idea what Mrs. Munson was working on? The security implications of her murder are my responsibility, and without knowing what she may have been involved with it will be difficult to assess the impact on you or other personnel here.”
The ambassador pursed his lips and consulted the surface of his desk. When he finally answered Cally’s question, he picked his words with obvious caution.
“She was developing sources in the Muslim insurgencies in this region. Southern Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines primarily. She had been at it for nearly a year.”
“Your wife was running agents who were infiltrating terrorist groups?”
“That’s right,” the ambassador nodded. “Yes.”
“So this may have been a political assassination,” Cally said. “The assassination of an undercover American intelligence officer by Muslim terrorists.”
The ambassador sighed heavily and consulted the top of his desk again.
Marc was taking everything in as fast as he could, but he was having a real problem keeping up. He wouldn’t have been any more perplexed if the ambassador and Cally had suddenly begun speaking in tongues. He had a very hard time imagining the woman he knew as Elizabeth Munson being a CIA agent, let alone one of their deepest cover intelligence officers. He had always thought of Mrs. Munson as the stereotype of a trophy wife. Other than her looks, she didn’t seem to have all that much going for her.
Employees of the CIA assigned to American embassies came in three flavors. First, there were the official declared employees, Agency people who were identified to the host government and who worked openly in the embassy under their real names and job titles. Second, there were the official cover employees, Agency people who were posted to the embassy in various diplomatic positions. They were all accredited diplomats and all worked diligently at their day jobs, but that was not their primary functions. One of the more interesting games played around every embassy, and Lord knew there were an awful lot of interesting games played around embassies, was called ‘Spot the Spook’. Some of their colleagues knew who the official cover people were and didn’t say. Others said and didn’t know. But no one both knew and said, so the game went on.
Then there was the third flavor, the real legends, the abominable snowmen, the Loch Ness monsters, the extraterrestrials among us. Those were the NOCs, the acronym for non-official cover employees of the Agency. Generally NOCs were Americans who held ordinary jobs seemingly unconnected with the government. NOCs operated in total secrecy and did whatever they did without the benefit of any embassy support at all. If things went south, that meant they had no diplomatic immunity. That was what made their cover non-official. The identity of the NOCs was one of the government’s most closely held secrets. The NOCs were the real spies.
No one Marc knew had ever actually met a NOC, at least not anyone they knew for certain to be a NOC, and he certainly hadn’t. At least not that he was aware of. Up until now that NOCs even existed was something he had just taken on faith, another one of those urban fables like the giant rats that were supposed to be living in the New York sewers. Well, Marc thought to himself, perhaps that was an unfortunate way to look at NOCs.
But now Art Munson, the American ambassador to the Republic of Singapore, was sitting right there in front of him calmly explaining that his murdered wife, Elizabeth Munson, had been a NOC and that she ran a string of undercover agents infiltrating Muslim terrorist groups in Asia. Marc would have found it easier to believe that Elizabeth Munson had arrived in a spaceship from Sirius and parked it in the embassy garage.
“Here’s the way we’re going to handle this,” the ambassador continued. “The case belongs to the FBI since it’s a terrorist act against an American abroad so I want Tony DeSouza to run this investigation. You both hear me?”
Marc and Cally nodded almost in unison.
“Marc, your number one job from this moment forward is to watch Tony’s back. Make sure nobody end-runs him. Nobody. Not some Washington grandstanders from the Bureau, not some tourists from State, and certainly not those weenies from the Agency. Not anybody. Got it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Cally, your job is to deal with the local cops.”
“Right, sir,” Cally said.
“You need to make sure their investigation doesn’t get anywhere near the embassy. We can’t have them suspecting that Liz was anything other than what she appeared to be, the wife of an American ambassador. You and Tony cooperate them to death. Tell them how big and strong and handsome they are. Give ‘em a blow job. Do whatever you have to do. But at all costs, keep the bastards away from Elizabeth’s connection with the Agency. I’m not going to have a bunch of yokels stumbling around my embassy fucking things up.”
“They’re going to want to interview you, sir,” Cally said. “That would be standard procedure in any investigation.”
“Yeah, fine. Whatever.”
“When would it be convenient-”
“You work it out,” the ambassador said. “Might as well get it over with as soon as we can. Get the Singapore cops in here and out again and then that will be that.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll take care of it.”
“Actually, now that I think about it…” The ambassador paused and consulted the ceiling, pursing his lips, looking like a man who was carefully mulling something over. “Here’s what you ought to do. You and Tony agree on a suspect and put together some evidence. Then feed it to the locals bit by bit. That ought to keep them off our ass while we’re sorting this thing out.”
Was the American ambassador seriously instructing the State Department’s Regional Security Officer to mislead the Singapore police about the murder of his wife by keeping from them her connection with the CIA? Then, just for good measure, telling Cally to find a suspect to frame for the murder and serve him up to the locals?
“Mr. Ambassador,” Marc jumped in quickly, “don’t you think-”
“I’ve already done my thinking, Marc. Now I’m doing my job. You and Cally do yours and Tony will do his. Then when we find the fuckers who did this, we’ll take care of the problem our own way.”
Marc shifted in his chair and shot a quick sideways glance at Cally. If anyone in Singapore ever heard about this conversation, it would be a nightmare. Forget Singapore. God, the real fucking nightmare would be for the international press to get hold of it. Jesus Christ, he could see the headline on the front page of the
“Sir, I was wondering-” Cally started to say, but the ambassador waved her into silence.
“That’s enough for now,” he said. “You two get out of here and get to work. You’ve got a lot to do.”
FIFTEEN
Tay was in the bathroom brushing his teeth when he heard a muffled buzzing sound from his bedroom. He shook off the brush, wiped his mouth with a towel, and walked out to see what it was.
He picked up the alarm clock and sighed when he saw that it wasn’t even eight-thirty yet, but the ringer was off. Not the alarm clock then, so what the hell was that noise? Tay hadn’t had any coffee yet and he was thinking like a man under water. Eventually, in an act of sheer will, he traced the sound to a pocket in the trousers he had thrown over a chair the night before.
It was his cell phone. He had forgotten to turn the damned thing off again.
The number in the display was one Tay didn’t recognize and he thought about just ignoring it, but his curiosity got the better of him as it always did and he answered anyway.
“Is this Inspector Samuel Tay?”
A woman’s voice, one he didn’t recognize.
“Yes?”
“This is Cally Parks, Inspector. I’m with the Bureau of Diplomatic Security of the United States Department of
