Greg Rucka - The last run

Either whoever Shirazi had put on him was very, very good, or there was no one on him at all.

Of the two possible conclusions, only the first made sense. What had they called it at the School, the system the CIA claimed they had created? The Moscow Rules? Number One, Assume Nothing; but it was Number Four that Caleb kept thinking of as he started towards the embassy: Don't Look Back, You Are Never Completely Alone.

Fair enough, then, but shouldn't he have seen something by now? MacIntyre was on duty at the door into the Security wing when Caleb arrived, greeted him with a noncommittal, "Good afternoon, sir." Caleb asked how he was feeling.

"Sore," MacIntyre replied, and Caleb didn't think the man meant physically.

In the office, Barnett was at paperwork, the coms cabinet closed. Caleb greeted him, dropped the newspapers on his desk, took his seat.

"Anything?"

"Nothing," Barnett said. "Not a crumb."

"I'd have thought they'd have said something by now. Made some announcement."

"As would I. Given the state she was in, I can't imagine she'd be able to hold out for long."

Caleb looked at him, Barnett head-down to his work. It wasn't something he had wanted to think about, what VEVAK might do to Chace to get her to talk, and he felt a jagged, sudden anger at his Number One for making such a mention so casually. Misplaced anger, he admitted, turning his attention to the papers. He gave them the better part of an hour, reading each one carefully, and there were the expected stories about Hossein's murder and the ongoing search for his killer, including a long quote from the Supreme Leader himself about the outrage, the injustice, of the crime. But nothing else, nothing substantive, and even the details in the Tehran Times, which by all logic should have had the most accurate information, were vague.

He closed the papers, slid them off his desk and into his trashcan. His head hurt, the same headache that had nagged him since the crash, and Caleb put his face in his hands, closed his eyes, gingerly rubbed at his bruised temple with a fingertip.

Maybe, just maybe, he was right, Caleb thought. Maybe the reason that he had seen no signs that he was under surveillance was because there were no signs to be found. But why? Why would Youness Shirazi, having positively identified him as SIS in Iran, leave him room to run? Was he baiting another trap, the way Caleb now understood he had done with Falcon? To what end?

It made no sense, none at all, unless Shirazi wanted SIS to have room to run.

Caleb lowered his hands, opened his eyes, entirely uncomfortable with his conclusion. "Sir?"

"Caleb?" Barnett answered.

"What if Falcon never intended to defect?"

"Think that's given, at this point."

"No, that's not what I mean. If he was the wrong defector. If Falcon was just bait, to get us to put everything right, to put the operation in motion."

"You mean Minder One was meant to take someone else at the last minute? London would've told us, even if not in the first instance, once it all went tits, they'd have said."

"I don't think they knew," Caleb said. "I think it was Shirazi."

Barnett's cigarette, stuck in the corner of his mouth, jerked towards the ceiling as the man grinned. "You think Youness Shirazi set Falcon up to run, planning to take his place at the last minute?"

"Yes."

The grin got bigger, became a laugh.

"I think that knock to your head did more hurt than we thought," Barnett told him.

Caleb frowned, embarrassed, then nodded. That must be it, he thought, I'm just not thinking straight. Then the telephone by his elbow rang, jarring him, and Caleb fumbled the handset to his ear. The embassy switchboard, there was a call for him, asking for him by name.

"This is Lewis," he said.

"Caleb," Tara Chace said. "I need you to get a message to London."

Crocker found Seale waiting in the usual place, by the statue of Achilles that had been cast from captured cannons won by Wellington from the French. The day was dreary, cold and damp, not quite committed to rain, and the CIA Station Chief stood in his overcoat and gloves, a watch cap on his head. He tracked Crocker's approach, moving to meet him, and together the two men began walking deeper into the park.

They stayed in silence, each of them paying careful attention to their surroundings, more out of habit than necessity. Once upon a time, a walk in the park had been a very safe way to share information, and then had come the age of laser directional ears and parabolic microphones and Internet firewalls and secure phone lines, and it was thought that such rendezvous were passe. But, as with so many things, the wheel had turned, and face-to-face meetings had come, once again, to be recognized for their value. Information shared in person between two men, after all, could not be intercepted, even if there was a risk it would be overheard.

"No news?" Seale asked after a minute.

"Nothing." It was a question asked out of politeness, rather than curiosity, Crocker thought. Seale damn well knew that there'd been nothing out of Tehran since the previous evening.

"You guys formulated your response yet?"

Crocker shook his head. "C's still at Downing Street. According to Rayburn, there's an argument in the Cabinet as to what the response should be."

"I'd think a flat denial."

"The problem with that is there's no way to know what Chace has given them. If they have a confession, and they air it after the Government issues a denial, it'll make us look even worse."

Seale grunted in agreement, fell silent, and they continued walking, listening to nothing but the traffic running past in the distance, the crunch of their shoes on the gravel. After another minute, Crocker realized that Seale wasn't going to ask, and so he reached into his overcoat and withdrew a sheaf of papers, clipped at the corner and folded lengthwise, and handed them over without a word. They walked for almost another fifty yards as Seale went through them, sheet by sheet, then again, before slowing to stop. Crocker continued another couple feet, steeling himself, then turned back to face him. Seale looked genuinely stunned.

"Tell me this is wrong."

"I can't," Crocker said.

"Jesus Christ, Paul, this has to be wrong!"

"It's not."

"This is everything she had access to?"

Crocker shook his head. "That's the preliminary list. D-Int is still compiling a master document, but I wanted to get that into your hands as soon as possible. She had nine years as a Minder, five as Head of Section. There's no telling how much operational data she's retained."

"Jesus Christ," Seale repeated.

Crocker said nothing. That Chace would be interrogated, was being interrogated even as they spoke, was assumed, just as it was assumed that, eventually, she'd break. It wasn't held as a reflection of the woman she was, or the spy, and it wasn't viewed as a failing; it was simply true. Everyone, eventually, broke, and she would, too. When that happened, she'd begin talking, and when that happened, there was every reason to believe she wouldn't stop until there was nothing left. She would give them everything she had, or, more correctly, they would take everything she had.

Which meant that steps needed to be made now to protect what could be lost. Hence the list, a frighteningly long list of names and operations and networks and contacts and protocols and secrets, so many secrets, most of them belonging to SIS, but not all. Some of them were marked "US-UK EYES ONLY," information shared with or learned from the CIA. That was what Seale held now, the itemization of how Tara Chace could hurt them.