Steve Martini - Trader of secrets

“Me?” said Sarah.

“No. The hockey player here. He’s the one being graded,” said Ellison.

“When she opened the door, the chain was off,” said Hirst.

“Right. That door is steel, and it’s imbedded in a steel frame,” said Ellison. “The bolts fastening the safety chain are three inches long. They are threaded all the way through the steel frame and into the masonry wall. Same with the hinges. The chain itself is titanium, three-eighths-inch links. Somebody tries to kick that door open, they’re going to break their foot. The same with their shoulder. Of course, none of that works if you open the door without the chain on. That’s what it’s for. What else?” said Ellison.

“The credentials,” said Hirst.

“What about them?”

“She didn’t look at them, and even if she did, it wouldn’t have mattered,” said Adin.

“How do you know she didn’t look at them?”

“Because she was looking at me.”

“OK, we won’t dwell on that one,” said Ellison. “What should she have done?”

“Assuming she had confirmation of our visit from the duty desk, she should have opened the door with the chain on, taken the credentials through the opening, and made sure that the name on the credentials squared with the name from the duty desk.”

“And if not?” said Ellison.

“Slam the door on our fingers and call the duty desk,” said Adin.

“Maybe we should start over so I can practice,” said Sarah. “You can go outside the door. I can put the chain on, and you hand me whatever you want through the crack.” She stared at Adin.

“I don’t think I want to do that. Not with that look in your eye.” He smiled.

“And the dog,” said Ellison. “For the time being, until your father and his friends get back, do yourself a favor and don’t lock him up. Especially if someone you don’t know comes to visit.”

“Got it,” said Sarah.

“Good. Then we’ll give Adin a tour of the unit, let him see the layout, ask any questions. Perhaps we’ll let the Doberman growl at his groin and we’ll go,” said Ellison.

Liquida cleared French customs at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris and stopped to purchase a few quick items, four separate French SIM cards for his unlocked cell phone and a small pocket French/English dictionary. He grabbed a cab and told the driver to take him to the Hotel Saint-Jacques on the rue des Ecoles.

In the backseat of the cab, Liquida slipped one of the SIM cards into his phone and then checked the dictionary. He had the driver get the telephone number for the hotel’s front desk from taxi dispatch. Liquida then called the number and asked to speak with Monsieur B. Merchand. It was an alias Bruno had used before; the B for Bruno, with the surname “Merchant” translated into the language of the country he was residing in at the moment.

A few seconds later he heard the familiar voice on the other end: “Hello!”

“WOD here.”

“Ah, good to hear from you. I got your message. Where are you?”

Liquida was both relieved and disturbed to learn that Bruno had retrieved his message from the Thai messaging system before it had been removed. He wondered if anyone else had. He quickly conferred with the driver, then back to the phone and Bruno: “We are about twenty minutes out.” Liquida checked his watch. “We should be there by eleven. I assume you have the documents?”

“I do,” said Bruno.

The Spanish passport Liquida had been using since his flight from the States was burning a hole in his pocket. He wanted to get rid of it as soon as possible. French immigration would show airport entry of the Spanish businessman at Charles de Gaulle. Of course, Liquida was not so foolish as to list his residence in Paris as the Saint-Jacques on his entry immigration card. Instead he wrote down “The Ritz,” one of the few Paris hotels he could recall off the top of his head. Now Liquida would use the Spanish passport to send the FBI on a wild-goose chase.

“Is there a cafe where we can meet before I check in? Perhaps you can bring the documents?” asked Liquida.

Bruno got the message. Liquida was on the run, as usual. “There is a coffee shop directly across the street. La Petite Perigourdine. You can’t miss it.” They exchanged SIM card phone numbers in case Liquida got lost.

“I will see you in twenty minutes.” Liquida hung up.

The two men sat at a quiet table at the back of the cafe, Liquida’s rolling luggage next to him as he examined the three new passports Bruno delivered to him. The photograph on each was the same, a stock shot Bruno maintained just for this purpose.

“Good.” Liquida checked the entry and exit stamps, looked at the dog-eared pages, a few of which were suitably stained. All three of the passports were well worn. He noticed that one of them, the Italian passport, bore an entry stamp for the Charles de Gaulle Airport dated that day. “Very good. What about departure? Will it clear the French immigration computer?”

“There is no need to worry,” said Bruno. “You will not be going out through immigration. We have arranged private transport, a Gulfstream from a secluded runway near Marseilles. The plane belongs to the client. It’s long range. From there to Morocco for refueling and on to Mexico. Only one stop.”

To Liquida this was sounding better and better. “When do we leave?”

“When the job is done here.”

Liquida sipped an espresso from the small cup as Bruno gave him the details on the two NASA defectors. “There is only one problem,” said Bruno. “We cannot move forward until we get the missing data from the Iranian. His name is Raji Fareed.”

“You would think he would want to cooperate,” said Liquida. “Can’t you appeal to his patriotism?”

“We tried that. It seems that his family fled when the shah was toppled back in the seventies. He went to the States as a young boy. We’re not sure what’s going on. Perhaps he doesn’t like the current regime. If so, he’s not saying. He says he has the software, but he doesn’t want to deliver it. He wants to go back to the States.”

“That’s not going to happen,” said Liquida.

“No. We thought perhaps he just wanted to renegotiate the deal. We tried that. It didn’t work. At this point, it’s neither here nor there. Bottom line is, we have to get the information and we have to do it quickly.”

“What about the other one? Maybe he can help,” said Liquida.

“You mean Leffort? No. There is bad blood between the two of them. Fareed seems to think that Leffort is getting a better deal. More money. It seems Leffort antagonized him before they even arrived.”

“Is he?”

“Is he what?” said Bruno.

“Getting a better deal,” said Liquida.

“I don’t know. I don’t care. Leffort is highly educated, very smart, lets you know it all the time. A real asshole, if you know what I mean. I suspect he has been playing mind games with the Iranian for some time. Telling him one thing, doing another. Keeping secrets, as well as most of the advance payments from what I gather. It’s been going on since before they left the States. By the time they arrived here, the two of them were barely talking. If it were up to me, I would have you cut both their fucking throats. Unfortunately, according to the client, we need to get the information from the Iranian, and Leffort is necessary to the project,” said Bruno.

“Which is?”

“Making money.” Bruno looked at him as if the Mexican had just walked on sacred ground. “I don’t ask. I don’t care as long as they pay me. And these clients pay very well. There is a bonus for all of us if we deliver the data and the necessary personnel to Mexico by the due date.”