‘I don’t know what you mean.’ At this distance we couldn’t miss each other. He kept heading toward the top of the stairs, I kept moving toward where stairs met mezzanine.
‘You’re the bridge between Special Projects and our biggest mistakes. You being that bridge, well, I could let you and your child live.’
‘Mistakes… ’ I fell silent. ‘Nine Suns. Nine Suns was started by Special Projects.’
‘Yes, years ago. May I explain?’
‘Why? So I’ll pretend to listen and you’ll get a chance to shoot me?’
‘No. Because you have a role to play, Sam, if you dare.’
I was silent.
He cleared his throat. ‘The CIA had a long history of dealing with questionable sources. People who were criminals. Often they were heads of state. You develop a high tolerance for holding your nose. But we thought – I thought, it was my idea – what if criminals, carefully selected, could be put to use by the CIA. They know about dark corners of the world. They could help us insert people into situations where we never could have access. They could give us information and people we could never find on our own.’
‘And why?’
‘We would protect them and their interests. Really, no different than propping up a brutal but pro-Western government in the old days. So we researched them, people in positions of power in criminal rings from around the world, and we brought nine of them here. Here, to this house. The language schools are an old Special Projects front.’ He laughed. ‘You know how the CIA is, once they buy property they never want to sell it. They’re always afraid some secret has been left behind, hidden in the woodwork.’
‘They came willingly?’
‘Not exactly. Kidnapped them. But treated them with dignity once they were here, in the lovely Catskills. I explained to them the… opportunity. They embraced it. What we couldn’t have foreseen was – they bonded. As a group. I didn’t anticipate they would think if they didn’t cooperate, they would lose a competitive advantage. They understood each other. They respected each other and since all nine were scattered about the world, they weren’t, well, natural enemies. These were men and women on the edge of the powerful rings, ambitious and looking for a way to the top.’
‘Like Zviman out there.’
‘Yes. I recruited his father, he stepped in after his dad died. They went from being whoremasters – who are a very useful source of information – to smugglers to a supreme extor tionist and spymaster.’ He flexed a smile, almost of pride. ‘I chose well with my recruits. The Suns, they took what I taught them about tradecraft and stealing secrets and they, well, formed a gang beyond a gang. A meta-gang. To grow their own power and profit. With an eye, I think, on becoming the most powerful criminal syndicate in the world. They stopped doing exactly what the CIA asked for. It was harder for me to shield them. I retired. They broke away; but kept their own alliance.’
‘Nine Suns.’
‘There were leftovers, of course. People I recruited who were criminals but not parts of rings. Individuals working alone for Special Projects.’
‘Such as the limo driver. The sisters. The people that Leonie hid for you.’
‘Yes. Odd, that the psychos were more loyal than the sane criminals for me. But the psychos prefer the attention and support.’
‘Your group inside the CIA gave birth to the most powerful and ambitious criminal ring in history,’ I said. ‘One that just tried to commit a mass assassination against our government.’
‘You don’t want to see those words in a news report,’ Braun said. ‘It would have been devastating. CIA in bed with renegade Russian Mafiosi and Japanese Yakuza and Israeli racketeers.’ He flexed a smile; he held up the red notebook. ‘There’s a picture of me, in here, with two of the Suns. Two of the ringleaders. I can’t have that. I can’t have what they’ve done tied to the CIA. I can’t be disloyal to the Company that way.’ He pointed down to the foyer. ‘Right here’s where they got their name. There was a tapestry, hanging in the library here, a Chinese tapestry that showed the legend of the Nine Suns. I think an agent had been given it as a gift from someone we’d smuggled out of mainland China. One of the criminals noticed there were nine suns, and nine of them. They picked the name, almost as a joke, while they sipped cocktails and I explained how the CIA could protect them if they helped us. I got them to use the Latin form because I thought it would sound like a religious order. I was worried someone in the Company would hear of them and see the tapestry. The Company uses this facility, still, now and then.’
‘So. You came back to Special Projects after Nine Suns tried their assassination plot to clean up the mess.’
‘I can’t destroy them. But I can keep the Company’s role in creating them from being exposed. That’s all I can do. Oh, I’ll kill Zviman, and any other Nine Suns bastard I find because it tells the others to remain silent. I don’t mind waging a private war, that’s what Special Projects is going to have to do now. That’s why I wanted you.’
‘Me.’ Maybe now I’d know why he told me all this instead of just shooting at me.
‘I tried to cover all my bases.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Criminals to give me information. Corporations to give me information. Just as I found criminals who were too ambitious for their own rings, I found… certain people, successful people, who were idealistic and had money to burn and were willing to… back another idea of mine. A way to fight back against the Suns.’ He flicked another smile.
I felt the world drop out from under me. ‘The Round Table. You started them, too.’
‘They didn’t gel quite as fast as Nine Suns did, but they provided a lot of good information. But these were either people who had inherited vast sums, or made vast sums at young ages. They didn’t relish taking orders from me. They don’t like or trust bureaucracy. So. They split off. There wasn’t anything we could do to stop them. They weren’t going to be an embarrassment the way Nine Suns would be. But still. We created two sides and then we left them to fight it out.’
‘Because they began to encroach on each other.’
‘After 9/11, no one cared what Nine Suns was doing. Punkass criminals with delusions of grandeur? Please. But now. They’re a serious threat; they’ve realized that an undermined social order, a chaos, is where they can consolidate power and profit. Look at the areas of the world that are ruled by criminals: parts of Latin America, Moldova, parts of Africa, and those are the testing grounds for Nine Suns’ vision of the world. Which is why I want to talk to you. I can offer you amnesty, Sam. That’s why I told Zviman to bring you here. I’d worked out a deal with him. Mila for you. He wouldn’t kill you if I brought him Mila.’
I shot him. I was tired of him and his excuses. The bullet hit him in the shoulder, in the gun arm, and he staggered and screamed and clutched at the wall. His gun clattered down the stairs.
What did Mila say? The unpredictable is what killls you. Well, that cut both ways. I was done with Braun.
‘You… goddamn it, let me finish! Come back and work here. You can tear them both down. Nine Suns and Round Table.’
‘Project A and Project B. I’m not interested in being the consultant who fixes your mistakes.’
‘You… do you think they’ll let you out of prison? You killed the guy Special Projects wanted. You attacked a CIA team and nearly exposed them. I’m your only choice, Sam. I’m the only way to keep your freedom and have your son.’
Braun sagged on the wall.
‘I am done,’ I said.
‘Your brother. In Afghanistan. Wasn’t a bunch of Taliban hash smugglers that killed him. It was a Nine Suns job. Initiation… ’
His gasp echoed in the foyer. ‘Now you’re just desperate. Desperate.’ I shook my head. ‘I’m not getting played by a loser like you.’
‘Your brother’s execution wasn’t what it seemed.’ He laughed. ‘Do you think it’s just coincidence that Lucy betrayed you? They aimed her at you. They’ve watched you ever since you went into the CIA. They’ve wanted to bring you to them. Both sides.’ He stuck fingers along his bloodied shoulder. ‘Christ. I need a doctor.’
‘Did you know, as a CIA officer, that my son was being held here?’
His mouth moved.
