Keith Thomson - Twice a Spy

She said she didn’t recall Bream by name, only that the copilot who flew her to Newark three weeks ago had been handsome in a roguish way. “Not in the good way, like you,” she added quickly.

Their catch-up otherwise was of the bullet-point variety, a function not only of his preoccupation but of a rush on her end-a battery of NSA debriefers awaited her. Hanging up, Charlie couldn’t believe he’d neglected to mention that he’d found the treasure of San Isidro.

Eager to check on his father, he shot out of the secure conference room and into the hallway, hurrying down to the infirmary. Drummond had been under anesthesia for the better part of three hours, during which cardiac catheterization had enabled the surgeons to determine that the extent of the damage to his heart was minimal. As also was the case with the CIA’s Hilary Hadley, Drummond had made it out of the medical equivalent of the woods.

Corbitt jogged out of an adjacent office, pulling even with Charlie. “Eager to see your dad?” the base chief asked.

“Yes. And to see if he knows where Bream took the bomb.”

“It’s only a matter of time until we find that son of a bitch.” Reaching the elevator landing, Corbitt gazed into the gilded-frame mirror as if already seeing himself with the medal he would receive.

Charlie hit the down button. “I wish I were even half as sure.”

“Look, our commo folks sent an encrypted cable-flash precedence-to the director, the chief of the Europe division, plus all the honchos in India, Pakistan, and pretty much everywhere else boats go. The U.S. Coast Guard and Homeland Security have cast the satellite and radar version of a tight net over the water between Saint Lucia and the coast of India. And as we speak, the agency’s unleashing NEST teams.”

“ What teams?”

“Oh … uh … Nuclear Emergency Search … something?”

“Team?”

“Right. They have dedicated 707s decked out with radiation sniffers, the works. They’ve already taken off, on their way to swarm the Caribbean. It’s only a matter of time until we get the news that they’ve disabled Bream’s boat.”

“What if the radiation is masked?” Charlie didn’t want to give away the fact that the supposedly enriched part of the uranium was essentially pabulum, lest the operation’s secret be cabled flash precedence pretty much everywhere boats went.

“We still have a squadron of UAVs plus a few tricks that you don’t need to know about, but put it this way: Given the intel you provided us, we’ll know about every object larger than a baseball that comes within five hundred miles of India. Either our people or our liaison counterparts will board any ship they can’t swear by, and a good percentage of those that they can.”

“Great, unless the bomb’s not really headed to India.”

“What would make you think that?”

“Half of everything Bream said was a lie.” The groans and sputters of the cables within the elevator shaft seemed to echo Charlie’s thought process.

“There’s no reason to think he was lying about India, and every reason to think you snagged grade-A intel,” Corbitt said. “You’re probably just tired.”

Tired? If only. Fifteen straight hours of sleep and Charlie might be upgraded to tired. “I just feel like we’re overlooking something.”

A chime announced the arrival of the elevator. Brass-plated doors slid open. Corbitt led the way into a car whose Victorian decor predated electric elevators. “I’m telling you, you’ve got nothing to worry about. It probably just needs to set in is all. Take a long bath and crack a cold bottle of beer. You’ve won, bud. The stuff on that Korean Singles site has completely exonerated you-you’re a hundred percent free.”

The doors closed with a hydraulic hiss. Charlie, who had never experienced claustrophobia before, felt as if the mahogany panels were about to close in on him.

Clapping a hand on Charlie’s good shoulder, Corbitt said, “And it gets even better. Stanley and that Lanier woman are locked up someplace really dark, key thrown away, the works. And every U.S. agency this side of the Department of Agriculture is teaming to roll up the rest of the Cavalry-I saw onboard UAV footage of Ali Abdullah in his pajamas being tossed into a French paddy wagon. We also collared a couple of other guys you might know, Ben Mallory and John Pitman?”

Pitman had tried to kill Charlie on at least three occasions in New York. Mallory, another Cavalry man, just twice. “Where are they now?”

“Put it this way: They’d better like vermin.”

The U.S. Embassy in Barbados had flown in so many physicians and so much medical equipment for Drummond and Hadley that the consulate infirmary now looked like the ICU at Mass General. And everywhere there wasn’t a medical professional, there was a marine guard. Charlie figured that he and Drummond were safer here than anywhere they’d been in months, or anywhere they might ever go.

Charlie entered Drummond’s room-a curtained-off section of the infirmary, really. Drummond sat up in bed with obvious pain. His generally wan appearance wasn’t helped by the pale green light from the stack of machines or the intravenous tubes blooming from his arms.

“Good morning,” he said.

It was a little past three A.M.

“How are you feeling, Dad?”

“Fine. Why does everyone keep asking me that?”

Charlie put him at a 4. He decided to try anyway. “Does anything seem strange to you about the Bream business?”

Drummond regarded one of the green curtains. “Pirate, right?”

“In a sense.” Charlie hadn’t expected much more. “Plays first base, as I recall.”

“That’s Sid Bream.” A Pittsburgh Pirate. Twenty years ago.

Weighted by frustration, Charlie took a seat at the edge of the bed, careful not to knock loose Drummond’s IVs.

Drummond sat a bit straighter and smiled, restoring some color to his cheeks. “Right, Bream was the name of our pilot too,” he said.

Charlie felt a trickle of optimism. “That’s the one I meant.”

Drummond paused to reflect. “Who was he, really?”

“That’s probably the first question I should have asked.” Charlie put it to Corbitt, chatting with a nurse outside the makeshift doorway.

Stepping into the room, the base chief shrugged. “Maybe you’ll find out in the debrief.”

“What debrief?”

“With Caldwell Eskridge, chief of the Europe division.”

“When does he get here?”

Corbitt looked at Charlie as if he’d asked for the moon. “When do you fly to Langley, Virginia, you mean?” Corbitt said. “As soon as possible.”

“Barring major medical advances in the next hour,” said Charlie, “my father probably won’t be able to get on a plane.” Or out of bed.

“It’s actually McLean, Virginia,” Drummond said. “An interesting piece of information: Langley’s not a city or town. It’s just part of McLean, as Park Slope is part of Brooklyn. You need to go there, Charles.”

“Do I?” Charlie wondered if his father’s danger detector had been disabled. He turned to Corbitt. “Why can’t Eskridge fly here?”

“The mountain doesn’t come to Mohammed.” Sensing Charlie’s anxiety, the base chief added, “I’ll be accompanying you.”

Which did little to ease Charlie’s anxiety. “Great,” he said.

Drummond reached forward, clasped Charlie’s arm, and drew him close. Although his father’s skin was tepid, Charlie felt an infusion of warmth.

“Go to McLean, Charles.” Drummond’s focus appeared to sharpen. Or was it a trick of the fluorescents?

“But until about twenty minutes ago, the agency had us on their To-Kill list.”

“You can handle it. I’m willing to bet on that.”