director had deferred to Gertz’s handling of the Moscow case, he had also asked him to come back to Washington promptly for a visit to talk things over, one on one. The personal touch.
That afternoon, before he left for LAX to catch the red-eye to Washington, Gertz stopped by Marx’s cubicle. He looked gray, worn out by a day of treading water.
“Let’s take a walk,” he said. “Get an ice-cream cone.”
“Sure, but I don’t eat ice cream.”
She went to the ladies’ room and put a little more masking cream under her weary eyes and joined him at the elevator.
Studio City looked particularly seedy that afternoon. There was a low sticky heat, not the usual dry desert feel of the Valley but something more like the humid Atlantic Coast. Gertz took off his tie and threw his blazer over his shoulder. The cars were whizzing by on Ventura Avenue, providing the only bit of breeze on the hot day.
“Were you really as confident as you sounded in there?” asked Marx.
“No,” he answered. “I needed to buy some time…for you. So you can investigate this, quietly.”
“Do you believe that line to the staff about how the Moscow killing was a mafia hit?”
He looked at her blankly. His eyes were so hard to read.
“Maybe it’s true. I don’t know what to believe. That’s why I have you. You’re going to figure it out and tell me.”
“So this is my problem now?”
“And mine. But you’re the person who’s going to figure it out.” He put his arm around her shoulder. She pulled away, but gently.
“I thought Alan Frankel went to Moscow to meet with a Pakistani diplomat,” she said. “This wasn’t about Chechens.”
That shot hit its mark. Gertz took a step back, as if to regain his balance.
“How on earth do you know that? I didn’t say anything about what he was working on.”
“I went to the files. That’s what you told me to do. So I did it. I checked all our Pakistani cases. Alan Frankel was running one of them. He was meeting someone from one of the big political families.”
Gertz narrowed his eyes for a moment, then his face went back into neutral.
“You’re sharp,” he said. “That’s why I wanted you for this job. Yes, he was working on Pakistan. So are some other people. We are moving mountains there, or trying to. But be careful. There are things involved here that nobody-no- body -knows about back at the Death Star.”
She was puzzled.
“Who knows about it, if Headquarters doesn’t? I don’t get that.”
“It was approved by the man we work for, the president of the United States.”
She stood on the sidewalk of Ventura Boulevard while the cars revved their engines a few yards away.
“Is that why there’s no record of Pakistan disbursements in the file? And no finding or mission directive?”
Gertz’s eyes flashed again, then he laughed.
“What a little snoop you are. Well, knock it off. If there’s something I think you need to know, I’ll tell you.”
“How do you plan these missions, Jeff? How do you know what doors to knock on?”
Gertz shook his head. This time he wasn’t smiling.
“You are asking too many questions. This is out of your lane. Don’t outsmart yourself.”
They walked on for another fifty yards in silence, until they neared a traffic light. Gertz had said his piece, and Marx waited for the tension to pass. She needed as much information as he was willing to give her. She was operating outside the wire.
“Did you read my cable from Dubai?” she asked.
“I skimmed it. I gather that Akbar passed his polygraph.”
Marx nodded. “It wasn’t just that. He could have finessed the poly. It was more the feel of the guy. The more we talked, the less likely it seemed to me that he was working with the bad guys. He’s a chump, a scared rich boy who went to study in America. I was barking up the wrong tree.”
“So how was Egan blown, if it wasn’t Akbar?”
“I don’t know. I worry that we have a bigger problem, but I don’t know what it is.”
“Well, I hope you figure it out before another of our people gets waxed.”
“So you don’t believe that fairy tale about the mafia in Moscow.”
“Hey, lighten up. For general consumption, I believe it. Between us, I am agnostic.”
She stopped walking and studied him. His face was hard, with that bristle of goatee giving him a look that, for a moment, reminded her of a poster of D. H. Lawrence. What was real, in all his tough talk and secretiveness?
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure. Good luck.”
“What are we doing in Pakistan? Help me out. I mean, what was Egan trying to set up when he got kidnapped? I don’t think Hamid Akbar had a clue. But what is it?”
“Sorry, but you are pushing me where I cannot be pushed.”
His face had gone to stone.
“Was it intelligence-gathering, or Special Activities? I found a receipt in Egan’s operational file for gold bars that he took from the depository for one of his earlier operations. It was over fifty pounds, nearly a million dollars. What was that for? We don’t pay any agent that much.”
He took her wrist and held it, not a gentle touch, but a hard squeeze.
“These are questions I can’t answer, and you shouldn’t ask. We do things that are very secret, and this is one of them. Don’t ask me again, because you’ll get the same answer.”
“I’m trying to do my job.
“You’re pushing too hard. You’ll rupture a disk. Like I said, lighten up.”
A Baskin-Robbins was just ahead: pink, gaudy, an incongruous relic.
“You want an ice-cream cone?”
“Ugh.” She shook her head. “You can get me something else, though, if you’re in a generous mood.”
“What is it? I’m always in a generous mood with you.”
“A ticket to London. I want to meet Egan’s boss, the guy who runs the hedge fund. I want to understand how they do business, how many people there knew about Egan’s travels. The bad guys must have pumped poor Howard about where he worked. They know more than I do.”
“Thomas Perkins.” He spoke softly, enunciating each syllable. There was on his face an odd look of suspended animation. He had been caught off guard.
“Right, Perkins. Alphabet Capital. You told him that I might be coming to visit. Well, I want to do it, as soon as I can.”
“This is a complicated relationship. There’s a lot of baggage, not all if it ours. Maybe it’s better to leave this one to me.”
“Hey, Jeff, if I can’t do this, I might as well leave the whole thing to you. What’s the point? Maybe you should have someone else do your investigation.”
She was threatening him, subtly. He had little choice but to accede. She was his best hope for keeping the lid on.
“You have to be careful. Do not go turning over rocks when you don’t know what’s underneath. Remember, madam: You are a snake handler, not a snake charmer.”
“Don’t worry.” She put her arm through his, a feminine version of his arm around the shoulder. “I’m always careful.”
18
