Greg Rucka - The last run

"Is it Alzheimer's?"

"The doctor says senile dementia, but I suppose that's the same thing, isn't it?"

"Just you and your husband taking care of him?"

"The children help, of course, but yes. We couldn't bear to put him in a care home. I suppose we'll have to, soon, but not yet. Not until after the holidays."

"I shan't be long," Chace said. "It's just a couple of quick questions."

"This is about when he was with the Foreign Office, you said on the phone."

"That's right."

"May I ask you, miss, was he a spy?"

Chace looked at her curiously. "I'm sorry?"

"It's just that Killian says he thinks his father was a spy, only he never talked about it to him when he was growing up, you see, and now he can't really talk about anything at all. But Da says things, very odd things, places he's been that Killian never knew about. We'd started to wonder if there wasn't some truth to it, that perhaps it weren't all his mind going. So a spy perhaps, something like that."

Chace laughed softly, shaking her head. "No, my understanding is that your father-in-law was a special courier for the FCO, Mrs. Newsom. There was certainly a lot of travel involved, but nothing terribly glamorous or exciting."

"And that's what you need to ask him about?"

"We have some questions about a job he did, yes. Nothing that need worry you or your husband, I assure you."

Dorothy Newsom nodded, clearly not satisfied. "Well, you can go on up, I suppose. I was making myself breakfast. I'll be in the kitchen when you're finished, if you'd like a cuppa."

"Thank you, that's very kind," Chace said, and she headed upstairs to meet what was left of Jeremy Newsom, former Tehran Station Number Two, 1977-79. It had been just past noon the previous day when the Ops Room had received responses to their separate queries. The first to come in had been from Thomas Bay, in Jakarta. It was a brief signal reporting that Falcon was present in theatre, and asking if there was a reason for the inquiry. The second had come from Barnett.

"The message was received via dead drop, all signals proper and confirmed," Lex had relayed to Chace. "The Number Two, Caleb Lewis, cleared it Saturday morning, found the message. The drop is currently assigned to an agent they're running, code name Mini. But it's not his code, and as Mini is hands-off right now, they can't confirm if he's been blown or not."

"Currently?" Chace asked.

"Direct quote," Lex answered, checking her copy of the signal.

Chace chewed on her lower lip, staring at the map on the wall. The callout for Operation: Bagboy was still positioned over Mosul, now with a notation reading, "Pending." Once Lankford was on the ground in Iraq, the label would change, declaring the op as "Running."

"Where'd we stash Ricks after he got back from Iran?" Chace asked, and when Lex shrugged, turned to Ron at the Duty Ops Desk. "Anybody know?"

"Think he's on leave." Ron picked up one of his many telephones. "I'll check with Personnel."

"Please." Chace made her way across the room, to Mission Planning and its companion Research Desk, taking a seat at one of the three terminals stationed there. Access from the Desk was limited, only to files graded Restricted or lower, but that was adequate for her current task. The system was painfully slow, the computers already several years out-of-date and creeping towards obsolescence despite the Systems Group's best efforts, and before she could actually begin her search, Ron called out to her.

"Confirmed. Terry Ricks is on leave, due for return to duty first January. I've got a leave address and contact number."

"Where'd he go?"

"Someplace up north, in the Ribble Valley. Clitheroe-"

"Right, Lancashire, I know the place," Chace said. Tom Wallace's mother, Valerie, lived some fifteen kilometers east from Clitheroe, in Barnoldswick. "Could you set me a call with him, please, Ron? Soonest?"

"As it is either that or resume struggling with my crosswords, I shall do the former."

Chace went back to the computer, started working through the message. She ignored the substitution code, working instead with the keywords from the book code as she came across them. She received two results for "grapes," the most recent from 1989, when the word had been used as code for automatic rifles during an operation in Cairo. "Water" kicked back nearly two thousand instances in the last ten years alone, and Chace realized it was useless, as whoever had inputted the information into the database had felt compelled to identify the use of "water" to mean any reference to any body of water in any operational theatre, ranging from the seven seas all the way down to a small lake in northern Cameroon. "Falcon" garnered five results, the oldest twenty years ago, in each instance used as a code name for a contact or agent, none of them in Iran.

"I've got Terry Ricks for you," Ron called from his desk, and Chace swiveled around to pick up the phone as the call was transferred over to her.

"Terry? Tara Chace."

"Hello, lovely. Calling to see if I'm lonely in Lancashire?"

"Everyone's lonely in Lancashire, Terry. Got two queries for you."

"Anything for Minder One."

"First one, does the name 'Falcon' mean anything to you?"

"Not at all. Should it, love?"

"That'll depend on the answer to the second question. It's about one of the cars you were using in Iran."

The levity vanished from Ricks' voice. "Which one?"

"Mini," Chace said. "He had his own parking space, yes?"

"All the cars did."

"Mini's space, was it yours, or was it inherited?"

"Ah, I see what you're asking. Inherited. The, ah, garage, as it were, has been using it since before Mossadegh's ouster."

"That pretty, is it?"

"It's like they say about real estate. Location, location, location."

"I understand."

"My little Mini having engine trouble?"

"Trying to determine that right now. Thanks for the help."

Chace hung up, logged out of the terminal, and sat, collecting her thoughts. Then she rose and headed out of the Ops Room, asking Ron to inform D-Ops that she'd be down in Archives should war be declared. She rode the elevator down to the first subbasement, stuck her head into the Pit, the cramped office that all three Minders shared. Lankford's desk was empty, but Nicky Poole was seated at his, elbows propped on the desk, head in his hands, apparently concentrating on the file open before him.

"You SAS types," Chace said, "can fall asleep anywhere."

Poole's head jerked up. "It's all those long nights I've been spending alone. Hardly getting a wink of sleep."

"C'mon, I've got something tedious and boring for you to do."

Poole closed the file, locking it away in his desk, before moving to join her. They started down the maze of identically decorated hallways, passing door after unmarked door, designed to preserve security between departments.

"You say boring," Poole said, "but I'll have you know, I am a discerning judge of tedium."

"We're going down to Archives."

Poole promptly pivoted on his toe, reversing direction one hundred and eighty degrees, heading back to the Pit, and Chace laughed and caught hold of him by his shirt.

"But I've been good!" Poole complained.

"That's probably why you're having so many lonely nights."

"Why are we being punished with Archives?"

"Need to go through the old records for Tehran."

"Aren't they in the computer?"

"The computer doesn't have anything older than twenty years or so. The rest are still on paper."

"We'll need written permission for the files."

"Only if they're graded above Restricted," Chace said, then added, "I turned in my resignation this morning."

"Very funny."

"Dead serious."

Poole stopped. "Tara."

"Hmm?"