He was shaking his head like this really sucked. “That son of a bitch. He sends me all the way over here and never tells me about this other asshole.”
“Well, that’s shocking,” I said.
He scratched his stubby butchcut. “See if I got this straight. You and Golden already know about this accomplice?”
“Right… here in the embassy… under our very noses. We don’t know exactly who yet, but we have a few leads. But hell, don’t worry about it. In a few days, you’ll learn all about it at our press conference.”
FBI and CIA people really, really hate it when outsiders discover their moles and turncoats. Guys like Jackler get early retirement. He asked, “So there’s another friggin’ traitor here in the embassy?”
“It would seem that way,” I assured him, trying to look regretful, while Katrina tried to mimic my expression.
He pondered his desktop, his jaws bunching and unbunching, and said, “Listen, you find anything, I mean anything, you let me know right away, okay?”
“Sure.” I asked, “And you’ll return the favor, right?”
“Uh, yeah, sure, of course,” he said, “whatever we get, you get.”
Of course we would. Anyway, I replied, “Jesus, you are a good sport. And Eddie said you were a royal bastard. He said I should just tell him when I found the accomplice. But I don’t… I mean, sure, I might be Morrison’s attorney, but we’re all on the same team, aren’t we?”
“Yeah, yeah, same team,” Jackler replied. His hands were fidgeting. He apparently couldn’t wait till we got our tushes out of his office so he could rush out and strap down some of these embassy nerds on the rack.
“Well, listen,” I said, “time to get back to work. I mean, the sooner I find this accomplice, the sooner we get our deal.”
“Yeah, right,” he said, standing up and literally shooing us out.
Katrina kept mum till Torianski dropped us off back at the hotel, although the second our elevator door closed, she said, “Am I missing something here?”
“You mean that thing with Jackler?”
“Don’t give me that innocent shit. Silly of me, but I like to know what I’m getting into.”
“Quite simply, we’re sowing dissension in the enemy’s ranks.”
“And this is a smart thing to do?”
“Very smart. So far these guys have had it all their way. They’ve been working for months on this case, and they’re going to keep us in the dark as long as possible, right?”
“So it would seem.”
“But the thing with government agencies is, they’re relentlessly competitive, competing for budget dollars, for better reputations, for-hell I don’t know. But Eddie’s got this gigantic task force made up of agencies that privately distrust one another, so we sow a few seeds of discord and Eddie’s job gets a little harder.”
“If the taxpayers only knew.”
“And another thing. That ambassador-if I ever met a guy who meant every word, it’s him. So Jackler and his goons turn up the heat on his embassy people, and pretty soon they’re at each other’s throats.”
“How’s that a good idea?”
“It might not be. It’ll be fun to watch, though.”
We went to my room, where she walked to the refrigerator and pulled out two beers, tossed me one, and popped the other.
“Miller time,” she said, then examined the label. “Well, Moscva Piva time.” She sipped and studied me in her strange way. “This is why I became a lawyer. I’m having a great time.”
“You think this is fun?”
“Fun? I said I’m having a great time.”
I sipped from my can, too, and it tasted awful, like dirty water. I also thought I detected a faint trace of urine. Of course, I’d never drunk urine, so surely I was mistaken.
I said, “What’s behind this metamorphosis thing?”
“I’m an adaptable person. New city, new look.”
She sipped again, and the thought struck me that few sights are more seductive than a woman in buttoned- down business attire swilling beer from a can. Women of contrasts can be a very powerful turn-on. Of course, a naked woman chugging suds can be fairly seductive, too-assuming it’s the right kind of beer.
But then, Katrina and I were business associates. We consummate professionals don’t look at each other in naughty ways. The trick, in case you’re wondering, is to compartmentalize-clean thoughts go into a frontal lobe compartment; naughty thoughts get squeezed into the back.
In fact, I was preoccupied at that moment with weighty concerns about nuclear proliferation and global warming. “Come on,” I asked. “What’s with the makeover?”
She leaned against the wardrobe that served for a closet in this fleabag. “I took this job because I thought it would be a lark.”
“A lark?”
“Spies, espionage, the military angle-that’s heady stuff… very intriguing.”
“Okay.”
“I’ve moved past the intrigued stage.”
“Which puts you where?”
“This is a very important case. You realize that, don’t you?”
“That’s what everybody keeps saying.”
“And I keep asking myself, what if Morrison didn’t do it?”
“Yes, but probably he did. Inconvenient, I know, but that’s how it looks.”
She shrugged. “But what if he didn’t? Wouldn’t that be mind-blowing?”
“If turtles could fly, there’d be turtle crap all over your car roof. But we’re losing the thread on your transformation.”
“I’m getting to it.”
“Slowly,” I couldn’t help noting.
“I’ve entered a paradigm shift.”
“A new kind of karma?” I suggested.
“Up yours.” She sipped her beer. “The way I dress works for me. Walk into the Fourteenth Street precinct after midnight dressed like a legal tightass and see where it gets you.”
“Harmful for business, huh?”
“People from the street don’t see thousand-dollar suits in a friendly way. Some of the best-dressed street lawyers are the hungriest.”
“Uh-huh.”
“But yours is a more tight-assed world. I didn’t care for a while. Actually, I got a kick out of the reactions. I’m now committed, though. I don’t want to be a detraction for our client.”
“Well, I’m happy with your new look. It wears well on you.”
“Happy my ass. You’re relieved.”
“A matter of semantics. Could I have another beer? Maybe the second one starts to taste better.”
She put down her beer and studied me. “What if he is innocent?”
“Innocent or too hard to convict?”
“Innocent.”
“You’re getting too theoretical. I’ll settle for making it too hard to convict him.”
She polished off her can, crumpled it, then tossed it in the wastepaper basket. “I’m going to take a nap. Feel free to watch that dirty movie again. Just keep the sound down.”
I was sputtering something as the door closed.
The moment she left I called Imelda back in Washington. I updated her on our progress, which was a brief report, obviously, then asked, “How’s it going on your end?”
“Makin’ headway,” she replied in her typically cryptic manner. Had she been the more verbal type, she would no doubt have said that all the boxes were unpacked already and she was busily digging through the files.
I asked, “Anything interesting turn up yet?”
