[Quinn 03] - Shadow of Betrayal

“That’s a bullshit answer.”

“After Ireland, all right?”

Quinn stared out into the night. “The assassin,” he said.

“Yes,” Peter said. “Once we ID’d him we realized he was on an LP watch list. We didn’t know if he worked for them for sure, but we knew it was a possibility.”

“What happened? He break when you questioned him?”

“He didn’t break.”

“Losing your touch?”

“He didn’t break because someone got to him before he gave anything up.”

“Someone got to him?” Quinn couldn’t believe it.

“He wasn’t under our control. We handed him over to the DDNI as soon as the plane landed. One of my men worked up the ID kit on the plane. Fingerprints, hair and saliva samples, photos. But by the time we were able to figure out who he was, he was already dead. The Agency stuck him in a supposedly secure safe house, but he didn’t even last that first night. A suicide pill slipped to him by one of the agents in the facility. The agent left before anyone knew what happened and hasn’t been seen since. The DDNI was furious, but there was nothing he could do. When I confronted him with what I’d found out, he was reluctant at first, but I think he realized he had to close ranks and use only his most trusted assets. Apparently I was one of those.”

“Help me out, Peter,” Quinn said. “The DDNI was getting information from someone in the LP, and the LP was also trying to kill his messenger and yours? How does that make sense?”

A pause.

“The contact was anonymous. He used some back channels to reach DDNI Jackson directly. Based on who you say Primus is, he could have just walked into the Deputy Director’s office and left a package on his desk.”

“Is that how it was done?”

“No. Emails, and a letter to Jackson’s home. Primus provided information on some small things at first. A planned kidnapping of a Russian official’s daughter by the Chechens in Odessa. DDNI Jackson passed that information on to his counterpart in Moscow. The kidnappers were caught, and the plan was exposed. And you remember what happened to Anton Likharev?”

“The arms dealer?” Quinn said. “Sure.”

Likharev, known in many places as the Merchant of Death, was a former Soviet officer turned gunrunner. Only he was distributing weapons on a scale no one had ever done before. He’d been captured in Southeast Asia, then deported back to the States to go on trial. A trial, as far as Quinn knew, that still hadn’t happened.

“Primus told the DDNI about a meeting Likharev was attending in Bangkok. Jackson gave it to the station chief at the embassy, and the next day Thai police had Likharev in custody.”

“Wait a minute,” Quinn said. “How long has he been passing on this kind of stuff? That was almost a year and a half ago.”

“It started just before that.”

“So when did the Deputy Director find out that Primus was LP?”

“Only two months ago.”

“And he didn’t break off contact immediately?” Quinn said.

“The information Primus passed on had all been good. Very reliable.”

“So fucking what?” Quinn said. “These are the same people who have been trying to dictate the way the country is run, to hell with what the rest of us think. At least that’s what you’ve told me. Didn’t any of you think maybe he was trying to get you to do the LP’s dirty work for them? Maybe they benefited from having Likharev out of the picture. Maybe everything Primus passed along helped their situation. Maybe he was using the Deputy Director. For God’s sake, Peter, didn’t anyone think of that?”

“Calm down,” Peter said, his own tone becoming angry. “First, I didn’t find out about it until just a week ago. Second, I had the same reaction as you. I confronted the DDNI with the ID of the assassin. I told him I thought the LP might be trying to stop Primus from passing along information. That’s when he told me Primus was LP. Jackson told me everything then. He said Primus had become disillusioned with the movement. But he also knew he couldn’t just get out. That’s not the way the LP works. So instead he started passing information he came across. Doing what he could to balance his personal scales, I guess.”

“When I met with him, he sounded like he was still very much part of the organization.”

“But he did tell you he was working on his own. You told me that.”

“It all sounds like bullshit to me.”

“Jackson didn’t believe him at first, either,” Peter said. “But Primus gained his trust with more good information.”

“Why did he tell Jackson at all?”

Peter took a breath. “He told Jackson pretty much the same thing he told you. That a group had approached the LP with a potential project, but that the LP had declined. But the project troubled him enough to keep tabs on it. Primus realized that something needed to be done, but that LP wasn’t going to make a move. He had already established a relationship with the DDNI, so decided to give him the info. But to convince the DDNI that what he was going to pass on was credible, he knew he had to come clean about who he worked for. He also knew the risk of exposure to his own people would increase, so he took steps to cover his tracks.”

If Ireland and what had happened at LACMA that afternoon were any indication, he hadn’t done a very good job.