He looks barely competent to handle a candy store.”
“I’d love a few hours in a good candy store,” said Karr.
“He’s the head of operations in Russia, Charlie Dean,” said Lia. She had a self-satisfied smirk on her face. “Looks like you put your foot in it, huh?”
“Ah, give the guy a break,” Karr told her. “He’s probably jet-lagged all to hell. You slept on the Antonov.”
“How do you know?”
“You always sleep on it.”
Dean felt as if he’d hitched a ride with a couple of college kids heading back to the dorms. He told himself he probably wasn’t quite old enough to be their father. He also told himself he’d made a mistake agreeing to help Hadash.
“This isn’t like the desert thing you were involved in,” Karr told him over his shoulder. “This is just a quick look at some metal.”
“What do you know about the desert?” Dean asked.
“Charlie, I know everything about you. I can tell you how much money you owed when the banks foreclosed on your gas stations. I can even tell you which companies were working together to put you out of business.” Karr looked back and smiled. He seemed to believe that looking where he was driving was optional; he looked at Dean as he continued to speak, though the van must have been doing at least fifty miles an hour. “You helped nail a bunch of scumbag terrorists in the Middle East. Which proves you’re resourceful.”
It also proved that he was a sucker — Dean had signed on to the job because he’d bought a sob story from a woman who claimed her parents had been killed by the terrorists and she was looking for revenge. In fact, the hit had been set up by French and American intelligence services — probably, he now realized, including the NSA.
“It also proves he’s a mercenary,” said Lia.
“Nah. The gas stations were in hock and he needed the money,” said Karr. “Right, Charlie?”
Dean shrugged. It had been more than that.
“See, the thing you don’t know about Charlie Dean,” Karr told Lia, “is that he’s an honorable guy. When one of his part-timers needed an operation, he put him on the full-time payroll and paid his health insurance. Of course, the guy never really came to work at all, because he was too sick by then.”
“What a sport,” said Lia.
“And then the case blew the crap out of his insurance rating, so he ended up having to pay even more. That’s one of the reasons he went under. Right, Charlie?”
“No.”
Truthfully, it hadn’t added much to the general downward spiral of his business, which had in fact managed to eat through most of the two million he’d gotten for the Middle East assignment. The stock market took care of the rest.
“I’m just not a very good businessman, I guess,” Dean said.
“What are you good at?” Lia asked.
“Come on, Princess, stop riding the guy,” said Karr. “She’s just busting your chops because she has a crush on you.”
“Fuck off.”
“See if I’m lying,” laughed Karr.
Part of him liked Karr. He was a big, garrulous kid, the kind Dean would have hung out with as a young man. But he was a
And frankly, it rankled a bit that someone so young would be in charge of anything important. Dean wasn’t sure he would have let Tommy run one of his gas stations.
Well, maybe.
“I sold my business,” Dean said. “It wasn’t foreclosed.”
“Not a problem,” said Karr.
“So you know who I am — who are you?”
“I wouldn’t tell him jack,” said Lia.
“Why not?” said Karr.
Lia didn’t answer.
“Relax, Princess. Dean’s straight up or he wouldn’t be here. Right, Charlie?”
“Yeah.”
“I came to Desk Three from the men in black, security team. Actually, I have an engineering degree, but I haven’t used it in, I don’t know, a million years.”
“He designed toilet seats,” snickered Lia.
Karr ignored her. “They told me they wanted me for the degree, but I think it was because I’m bigger than the average bear.”
Karr laughed.
“You’re pretty young to have an engineering degree,” said Dean. “Isn’t that a master’s?”
“Very good, Charlie. I got into RPI when I was fifteen. What sucked, though, was that I missed the high school baseball team. I’d screwed up my knee anyway.”
“So what are you, twenty-five?”
“Charlie’s writing a fucking book,” said Lia.
“Twenty-three. How ’bout yourself?”
“Twice that,” answered Lia. “Just about.”
Dean, suddenly feeling defensive about his age, let the error stand. “So what are we doing?” he asked.
“I’m kinda getting to that,” said Karr. He took off his baseball cap and ran his fingers through his thick hair. Not only did he consider looking where he was going optional, but he wasn’t doctrinaire about having his hands on the wheel, either. “Basically, we have this problem. We lost an airplane the other day, and we’re not entirely sure why.”
“Maybe it broke,” said Dean.
“It wouldn’t have just broken,” said Lia.
“Maybe it broke,” said Karr, putting his cap back on and returning his hands to the wheel. “Anyway, what we have to do, number one, is make sure it was fried to a crisp on the way down. That’s mission one — look for one major crispy critter in the tundra. Mission number two — maybe — is see if there’s any clue about who or what shot it down.”
“Why maybe?” asked Dean.
“Well, because if the plane really was burned to a crisp, there shouldn’t be any clues left, you follow?”
“Your fancy gizmos can’t figure it all out for you?” said Dean.
“Meow,” said Lia.
“You a Luddite, Charlie?” asked Karr.
“I’m not a Luddite.”
“Technology,” said Lia in a sententious voice, “is a force multiplier, not a replacement for human intervention.”
She began to laugh uncontrollably.
“She’s making fun of the boss,” explained Karr.
“Who do you really work for?” asked Charlie. “The CIA?”
Lia’s laugh deepened.
“I figure you’re the Special Collection Service, CIA working for the NSA,” said Dean.
“Wow, he knows his history,” Karr told Lia.
“I know Division D,” said Dean. Division D was the CIA group charged with assassinations. He had worked with two members of it back in Vietnam and immediately afterward, though only as a “trainer” in sniping techniques. If the truth be told, the men he worked with knew at least as much as he did. Dean was a bit hazy on the connection between the Special Collection Service and Division D, but he believed that the Special Collection Service was an arm of Division D. Or vice versa.
