had a team sweep a house Luquin owned in Rio de Janeiro. They found, among other things, a telephone number that rang in a house in the Polanco district in Mexico City. When I had another team go to the house in Polanco, they found it empty. Hastily empty. The man who had been leasing the place for the past two months was named Adnan Abdul-Haq. More phone numbers. One of these numbers rang at a house in Beirut, a house that belongs to Hezbollah.
“Further checking revealed that Luquin had been in Beirut twice in the past six months. Also, remember the accounts through which Cavatino was going to scatter your ten million?”
“One was in Beirut.”
Burden nodded. “Yeah, it's a popular money-laundering destination. But in this case none of the money went there. Not initially, though eventually that's where it all ended up.”
“Jesus. So what was going on?”
Burden stared at Titus and then sat back. “We may never know.”
“If you could've questioned- ”Titus stopped. That was Burden's point, wasn't it?
Burden smiled a little and shrugged.
“And Abdul-Haq? ”he said. “We don't have a clue who that guy is. His name hasn't turned up in any intelligence database that we have access to. The man will most likely remain a mystery to us. At what cost? We may never know that, either. Or we may find out the hard way: too late.”
Burden finished the wine in his glass and looked around. His eyes seemed to flicker at something of interest over Titus's shoulder, and then it was gone. The man didn't allow himself much room to live life as it came to him. He was always watchful of his own behavior, afraid, it seemed, of an involuntary betrayal of something within him.
“I can understand the… necessity for the list, ”Titus said, lowering his voice, leaning in toward Burden, “but I don't understand why, with so much to learn from Luquin, he wouldn't be more valuable to you alive than dead. Or any of the names on the list, for that matter.”
“Intelligence is… unstable, ”Burden said. “It has a halflife that's measured in instants. It has value only if the subject of the intelligence doesn't know we have it. The moment he knows, or his connections know, that you have it, its value dissipates like smoke. It becomes worthless.”
“Because everything changes, ”Titus said.
“That's right. If we picked up Luquin, everyone who ever had anything to do with him would burn their bridges. Anything that used to be connected to him-contacts, procedures, routes, systems, processes, safe houses… everything-would be compromised and immediately changed. Everyone would start conducting their business differently, and we'd have to start from scratch trying to find out who, when, where, how, why.
“But if he dies, ”Burden went on, “odds are that the information we have is still good. His death doesn't taint the security of their connections, everyone keeps using the same methods and procedures, though maybe with a little extra care, since they can't be sure who it was who got to him.”
“But removing him causes a void, ”Titus went on, beginning to see the logic, filling in the information to his own question. “It breaks up whatever operations he was driving, maybe kills them for good, and takes a major player out of the mix.”
Burden nodded. “It's one way of doing things. Right now, for us, it works. We're still playing catch-up as we revamp our intelligence programs. We need some breathing room. Checking names off that list buys us time.”
The waiter came and asked if they wanted another bottle of wine. Titus looked at Burden, who shook his head. The waiter retreated.
“How are you doing with it, then? ”Burden asked after a few moments of silence. “In terms of the sum of your life.”
Titus found it a curious question and was surprised that Burden would even want to know.
“To tell you the truth, ”he said, “there's no getting over it. No getting away from it, either.”
Burden nodded as if he knew what Titus was talking about, but he said nothing.
“It's having to keep quiet about it, ”Titus added, “pretending it never happened. Somehow that makes it harder to live with. Almost unbearable sometimes.”
“Keeping silent and pretending it never happened are two different things, ”Burden said. “You can't pretend it didn't happen. That'll drive you crazy. This thing is part of who you are now, and there's nothing you can do about it.
“Listen, what happened to you came out of nowhere, unbidden and unwanted, like disease or heartbreak… like all misfortune. Nobody on this earth would've traded places with you.”
He regarded Titus across the dim light of the table.
“As for the silence, I'm not going to lie to you. It's going to change your life. Doesn't mean it's got to change it for the worse, it's just going to be different. You'll learn how to live with it.”
“Then that's the end of it? ”Titus asked. He just wanted the damn thing to have an ending, a place where it stopped. He wanted to hear Burden say, finally, officially: It's over.
Burden studied him before answering. “Why was Luquin putting money into a Hezbollah account? ”he asked. “If he was doing some service for them, helping them establish a base in Mexico within striking distance of the U.S.-which is something we're definitely watching for-then why wasn't it the other way around? Why weren't they paying him? Or were they doing a service for him? And what in the hell could that have been? And, whatever it might have been, did it end with Luquin's death? Or was he only one of many elements in a larger scheme, just as you were?”
There was a dribble of wine left in Burden's glass, and he drained it into his mouth. Carefully he put the glass on the tablecloth, smoothing a wrinkle with its wafer-thin base. He looked at Titus.
“For you and Rita, yes, it's over. You need to let it go, make peace with it.”
“What about you? ”Titus asked.
Burden seemed to consider something and then rejected it.
“History never knew about it, ”he said, “and silence keeps its own counsel.”
