Nelson Demille: Radiant Angel

“You can relieve yourself anytime you want.”

She didn’t reply.

A word about Tess Faraday. Did I say she was tall, slim, and attractive? She also swims and plays paddleball, whatever that is. She’s fairly sharp, and intermittently enthusiastic, and I guess she’s idealistic, which is why she left her Wall Street law firm to apply for the FBI where the money is not as good.

But money is probably not an issue with Ms. Faraday. She mentioned to me that she was born and raised in Lattingtown, an upscale community on the North Shore of Long Island, also known as the Gold Coast. And by her accent and mannerisms I can deduce that she came from some money and good social standing. People like that who want to serve their country usually go to the State Department or into intelligence work, not the FBI. But I give her credit for what she’s doing and I wish her luck.

Also, needless to say, Tess Faraday and John Corey have little in common, though we get along during these days and hours of forced intimacy.

One thing we do have in common is that we’re both married. His name is Grant, and he’s some kind of international finance guy, and he travels a lot for his work. I’ve never met Grant, and I probably never will, but he likes to text and call his wife a lot. I deduce, by Tess’ end of the conversation, that Grant is the jealous type, and Tess seems a bit impatient with him. At least when I’m in earshot of the conversation.

Tess inquired, “If Petrov goes mobile, do we stay with him, or do we hand him over to another team?”

“Depends.”

“On what?”

“No, I mean you should wear Depends.”

One of us thought that was funny.

But to answer Tess’ question, if Vasily went mobile, most probably my team would stay with him. He wasn’t supposed to travel farther than a twenty-five-mile radius from Columbus Circle without State Department permission, and according to my briefing he hadn’t applied for a weekend travel permit. The Russians rarely did, and when they did they would apply on a Friday afternoon so that no one at State had time to approve or disapprove their travel plans. And off they’d go, in their cars or by train or bus to someplace outside their allowed radius. Usually the women were just going shopping at some discount mall in Jersey, and the men were screwing around in Atlantic City. But sometimes the SVR or the Military Intelligence guys — the GRU — were meeting people, or looking at things like nuclear reactors that they shouldn’t be looking at. That’s why we follow them, though we almost never bust them. The FBI, of which the DSG is a part, is famous — or infamous — for watching people and collecting evidence for years. Cops act on evidence. The FBI waits until the suspect dies of old age.

I said to Tess, “Let me know now if you can’t stay past four. I’ll call for a replacement.”

She replied, “I’m yours.”

“Wonderful.”

“But if we get off at four, I have an extra ticket.”

I considered my reply, then said, perhaps unwisely, “I take it Mr. Faraday is out of town.”

“He is.”

“Why have we not heard from Grant this morning?”

“I told him I was on a discreet — and quiet — surveillance.”

“You’re learning.”

“I don’t need to learn what I already know.”

“Right.” Escape and evasion. Perhaps Grant had reason to be jealous. You think?

Regarding the nature of our surveillance of Colonel Vasily Petrov, this was actually a non-discreet surveillance — what we call a bumper lock — meaning we were going to be up Vasily’s ass all day. They always spotted a bumper lock surveillance, and sometimes they acknowledged the DSG agents with a hard stare — or if they were pricks they gave you the Italian salute.

Vasily was particularly unfriendly, probably because he was an intel officer, a big wheel in the Motherland, and he found it galling to be on the receiving end of a surveillance. Well, fuck him. Everybody’s got a job to do.

Vasily sometimes plays games with the surveillance team, and he’s actually given us the slip twice in the last four months. He’s never given me the slip, but some other DSG teams lost him. And there’s hell to pay when you lose the SVR Resident. And that wasn’t going to happen on my watch. I don’t lose anyone. Well, I lost my wife once in Bloomingdale’s. I can’t figure out the logic of a woman’s shopping habits. They don’t think like us.

“So do you want to go to the game?”

Mrs. Faraday had already started the game. But okay, two colleagues going to a baseball game after work is innocent enough. Even when they’re married and their spouses are out of town. Right? I said, “I’ll take a rain check.”

“Okay.” She asked me, “You going to eat that cookie?”

I broke it in half and gave her the bigger half.

Surveillances can be boring, which is why some people try to make them not boring. Two guys together talk about women, and two women together probably talk about guys. A guy and a woman together either have nothing to talk about, or the long hours lead to whatever.

In the last six months, Tess Faraday has been assigned to me about a dozen times, which, with one hundred fifty DSG agents in New York, defies the odds. As the team leader, I could reassign her to another vehicle or to leg surveillance. But I haven’t. Why? Because I think she’s asking to work with me, and being a very sensitive man I don’t want to hurt her feelings. And why does she want to work with me? Because she wants to learn from a master. Or something else is going on.

And by the way, I haven’t mentioned Tess Faraday to Kate. Kate is not the jealous type, and there’s nothing to be jealous about. Also, like Kate, I keep my work problems and associations to myself. Kate doesn’t talk about Tom Walsh, and I don’t talk about Tess Faraday. Marital ignorance is bliss. Dumb is happy.

Meanwhile, Vasily has been inside the Mission for over an hour, but his Mercedes is still outside, so he’s going someplace. Probably back to the Bronx. He sometimes runs in Central Park, which is a pain in the ass. Everyone on the team wears running shoes, of course, and I think we’re all in good shape, but Vasily is in excellent shape. Older FBI agents have told me that the Soviet KGB guys were mostly lardasses who smoked and drank too much. But the only kind of bars and clubs these guys from the new Russia were into were granola bars and health clubs. Their boss, bare-chested Putin, sort of set the new standard.

Vasily, being who he is, also has a girlfriend in town, a Russian lady named Svetlana who sings at a few of the Russian nightclubs in Brighton Beach. I caught a glimpse of her once and she looks like she has good lungs.

I did a radio check with my team and everyone was awake.

A soft breeze fluttered the white, blue, and red Russian flag in front of the Mission. I remember when the Soviet Hammer and Sickle flew there. I kind of miss the Cold War. But I think it’s back.

My team today consists of four leg agents and four vehicles — my Chevy Blazer, a Ford Explorer, and two Dodge minivans. We usually have one agent in each vehicle, but today we had two. Why? Because the Russians are tricky, and sometimes they travel in groups and scatter like cockroaches, so recently we’ve been beefing up the surveillance teams. So today I had two DSG agents in the other three vehicles, all former NYPD. I had the only trainee, an FBI wannabe who probably thinks the DSG job sucks. Sometimes I think the same thing.

In the parlance of the FBI, the Diplomatic Surveillance Group is called a quiet end, which really means a dead end.

But I’m okay with this. No office, no adult supervision, and no bullshit. Just follow that asshole.

A quiet end. But in this business, there is no such thing.