mistaken for a modern museum. Hardly the dark fortress that Charlie, in the Hyundai’s passenger seat, had been expecting. At the wheel of the rental Corbitt was whistling the tune of “We’re Off to See the Wizard.”
Although it was two in the afternoon, Charlie would have believed it was early evening, a consequence of the enervating trip from Martinique more than the overcast sky. A nagging sensation that he’d overlooked a clue to Bream’s plans had kept him from sleeping.
As he extricated himself from the subcompact car, his eyes smarted from fatigue, and his reflection in the window shocked him: In the gray flannel business suit and dark overcoat the consulate had procured for him, he resembled his father in old photos.
He and Corbitt proceeded through a colossal arching entryway to the skylit lobby. Feelings of inadequacy buffeted Charlie, making the bitter wind an afterthought.
Leaving him with Eskridge and a young analyst at the door of a secure conference room, Corbitt said, not entirely in jest, “They only sent me along to make sure you didn’t stop at a racetrack.”
“But I have a hunch I’m missing something,” Charlie said after detailing the events of the past few days. “What if India is a decoy? What if the real target is somewhere else, maybe even somewhere in the United States?”
Across the conference table, a giant surfboard rendered in aquamarine glass, Eskridge shared a look with the analyst, Harding Doxstader, a twentysomething version of his boss. Their look made Charlie think of parents who’ve just been informed by their child about the monsters in his closet.
“We’ve picked up a good deal of chatter that a Punjabi separatist group was in the market for an ADM,” Eskridge assured Charlie. “If not for you, though, we wouldn’t have any idea about Vasant Panchami, or even that the bomb was heading to India.”
“What if Bream just wants you to think he tried to kill me and my father?” Charlie asked. “That way, our India revelation would carry more weight.”
Eskridge shrugged. “If Bream had meant to use India as a decoy, eliminating you would have eliminated his means of decoying us.”
Nodding, Doxstader scribbled a note on what appeared to be a sheet of white light hovering above the table.
“The thing is, he probably would have taken into account that my father could land a plane,” Charlie said. “Also, if he really wanted to kill us, why not just shoot us beforehand on the beach?”
Doxstader said, “Sir, if I’m not mistaken, you said that, at that time, your father was suffering from extreme disorientation symptomatic of Alzheimer’s disease.” He checked his notes. “ ‘A four,’ you said.”
“Right, at the time, he couldn’t have flown a kite. But Bream knew that my father had episodes of lucidity. And my father wasn’t our only option. If Alice hadn’t called, someone at one of the control towers in the area might have given us instructions over the radio.”
Eskridge appeared to ponder this, pulling the knot of his tie to the point where it would take some effort to undo. “Mr. Clark, do you have any factual basis for your speculation that the target might be in the United States?”
“For one thing, I don’t see Bream being on the level about his employers. The Injuns, he called them. Every bit of information he volunteered was tailored to a clever cover-it was only at the very end that I saw his redneck act for what it was.”
“So he’s more intelligent than he let on.” Eskridge inspected his fingernails. “There’s a fellow here at the agency. Summa cum laude from MIT, top of his class at the Farm, National Clandestine Service fast track. He had some home trouble. Now he works in Food Service.”
“Probably just playing to his cover again,” Eskridge said.
“What if it were one of the bits of truth mixed in to give foundation to the lies?”
“You’d be surprised what you can find in Mumbai,” said Doxstader. “There are now two hundred and forty- four McDonald’s in India.”
Eskridge remained intent on a thumbnail. “Alternately, if you’ve just sold a nuclear weapon to folks who have no compunction about using one, you don’t want to stick around. You want to get bloody well back on your plane. Later, you celebrate, sure. At a good ribs joint, if that’s your thing. Or a sushi bar. I don’t see how it pertains.”
With a sudden sense that he was closing in on the clue that had been eluding him, Charlie rushed his words. “Right after that, I asked him how the collateral would affect his appetite. I was hoping to bring his ego into play. He asked if my knowing he was kept up nights by thoughts of the victims made him less of a villain in my eyes. Then he said that he’d made the decision to go ahead anyway because it’s the wake-up call
Eskridge shook his head. “It’s more likely that, as you said earlier, he wants the mansion. Ultimately, the bad guys all want the mansion. The good guys too.”
Charlie pulled his seat closer to the table. “But if we walk back the cat-”
Eskridge turned to Doxstader to explain. “Old counterintelligence expression.”
The junior man nodded, as if impressed. Charlie suspected they were mocking him, but he forged on. “He made so many disparaging remarks about the ‘Culinary Institute of America’ and other ‘so-called’ intelligence agencies. If the best and brightest were on this case, he said, he wouldn’t have had such an easy time of it. Maybe he was one of you once. It sure seemed like he’d had the same training as my father. Maybe the intelligence community didn’t accept him, or, in his mind, judged him unfairly. And now he wants to prove he was right.”
Eskridge almost sneered. “The way horseplayers do?”
“The thrill of being right drives a lot of people to do stupid things.”
Doxstader looked up. “You know, the G-20 starts this weekend.”
“The G-20?” Charlie said.
“The Group of Twenty. Argentina, Brazil, China-”
Eskridge cut in. “And seventeen other countries, including ours, who send deputies to chat about economic issues. The reason you don’t know about it, Charlie, is the same reason terrorists wouldn’t be interested: no sex appeal. I couldn’t even tell you where they’re holding the G-20.”
“Mobile, Alabama.” Doxstader set down his stylus for the first time. “Gem of a city, precisely the sort of secondary target al-Qaeda’s been focusing on.”
He waited for a response from Eskridge, who focused on a cuff link.
Doxstader wasn’t deterred. “Sir, a number of the top French officials are attending the G-20, including the president-something having to do with Mobile’s French heritage. Also Mobile has close to a hundred miles of coast without anything near the level of security in a Miami or a Long Beach.”
“And wouldn’t the element of surprise be a selling point?” Charlie asked.
Doxstader nodded emphatically. Eskridge cleared his throat in an obvious effort to suppress his young colleague. “You probably don’t need to know this, but we have another source corroborating the India story,” Eskridge said. “A former intelligence operative, one of Alice Rutherford’s captors, tried to sell information to our people in Geneva. He said that Ms. Rutherford was to be traded for an ADM by the United Liberation Front of the Punjab. A couple of weeks ago, the very same United Liberation Front of the Punjab had sent men to Martinique to try to buy the ADM.”
“But suppose they didn’t buy it,” Charlie said.
“They didn’t.” Eskridge grumbled. “Not until yesterday.”
The implicit blame stung Charlie. “Why would Bream be foolish enough to let some hired thug in on his plans? Even I would have known to make up a cover story for Alice’s rendition.”
“This thug was a professional spy, or at least he had been,” Eskridge said. “He assumed he’d been false- flagged by Bream. Then he did some digging.”
“And found the fool’s gold Bream had left for him?” Charlie said. “Why would Bream have hired an untrustworthy ex-spy in the first place?”
Eskridge turned to Doxstader. “Share the company secret to catching bad guys.”
Doxstader nodded. “They always make mistakes.”
