Greg Rucka: The last run

The opportunity came on three separate occasions. At each, Chace responded as decisively, as quickly, and as knowledgeably as Crocker ever had done. Two of the situations she'd been able to diffuse from the Ops Room alone, dashing off signals to the Stations in question, once getting on the phone to threaten a recalcitrant Number One in Hong Kong.

The third had been different, and as potentially lethal to Chace's career as anything Crocker had ever faced. The son of a leading MP had been kidnapped in the Philippines, along with his girlfriend, and the political pressure within the Government itself to locate and then effect a successful rescue had been both instant and enormous. It was the first time Chace found herself running a legitimate special operation, designated Operation: Tiretrack, and she'd immediately ended up fighting with both the Deputy Chief and C about who to send for the job.

Gordon-Palmer demanded she send both Minders. Chace refused, allocating Poole for the job, and maintaining that Lankford had to be held in reserve in case another Special Op arose elsewhere. Less than twenty-four hours after Poole hit the ground in Manila, London received the ransom demand, and with it, the ticking clock. Forty-eight hours or the boy would start coming home in pieces, wrapped in what was left of the girlfriend.

For two days, Chace had walked Vauxhall Cross, aware of the whispers, of a looming sense of doom. C pressed again for Lankford to be deployed, and Chace again refused. She was called to Whitehall, to the office of Sir Walter Seccombe, the Permanent Undersecretary to the Foreign Office, certainly the most powerful person in Government she'd ever been made to answer to. He demanded to know the disposition of Tiretrack. He interrogated her at length about each and every decision she'd made, then asked why she wasn't doing more. He informed her that, without question, HMG could not concede to the kidnappers' demands. He then warned her about the acute embarrassment to HMG if the operation failed. He pointed out that the MP in question was of the Opposition, and that a successful operation would have as profound political repercussions as a failure. He sent her back to Vauxhall Cross with the clear knowledge that, should SIS blow this, it would be her head sent to the MP in question.

With just under two hours left on the deadline, at four in the morning London time, Poole contacted Chace via the Ops Room. She hadn't been home since the crisis began, and had even resorted to sending Kate to her home in Camden to look after Tamsin the previous night, when no one else could be found for the task. In the three days since the kidnapping, she'd managed, perhaps, three hours of sleep, and had been forced to send a runner out to buy her clean clothes, just to keep from smelling like the inside of a gym sock. She'd been called a bitch twice to her face, and behind her back so many times she'd lost count.

Poole had a lead on a possible location where the two were being held. Could he get support for a rescue attempt? Lankford, preferably, or at least some CIA assistance?

No, she told him. There isn't time.

You're going to get me killed, Poole said.

At which point Chace told him, in front of God and the Ops Room, to draw arms from the Station and get on with the fucking job, and that if he had wanted things easy, he should have stayed in the fucking SAS.

Two hours and six minutes later, Poole contacted the Ops Room again. He had the boy. He had the girlfriend. Might he come home now, please?

Yes, Chace said. You can come home now, Nicky. Nicely done.

And she could swear she heard the smile over the crackle of the satellite phone, as he said, "Thank you, ma'am."

She'd informed C, the Deputy Chief, and the FCO of the successful completion of the mission. She'd told the Ops Room staff they'd done a damn fine job. Then she'd gone home, hugged her daughter, and managed a full six hours of sleep before returning to the office.

Crocker came back to work a week and a half later. Lankford became Minder Three again, Poole Minder Two, and Chace returned to the Pit as Minder One, with a sense of relief only matched by her sense of regret. "Minder One to see you," Kate said as the door to the inner office cracked open.

"Is there coffee?"

"You know, even decaf has caffeine in-"

"Shut up." Crocker's head appeared past the doorframe. He glared at Kate, then at Chace. "You can come in if you bring coffee."

Chace took the mug Kate handed her, stepped into Crocker's office to find him standing behind his desk, sorting the folders heaped there. She handed over the coffee, which he set aside without tasting. He continued playing solitaire with the files, so Chace turned and closed the door, then took a seat opposite the desk.

"Make it quick," Crocker said, still searching the paperwork. "I'm already late for the daily with Daniel and Simon."

"Ops Room wanted me to give you this." Chace handed over the copy of Barnett's signal. "There's no Falcon running in the Iran theatre. They can't crack the second sequence, but it looks like a number string."

"Thomas Bay's got a Falcon in Jakarta." Crocker glanced at the paper without taking it, went back to sorting, stopped, and pulled the signal out of Chace's hand. "What the hell does this mean?"

"That was Barnett's question, though phrased more politely. I've already got Lex onto Tehran for more details, and Ron's put a signal in to Bay."

Crocker grunted, thrust the sheet back. "Well in hand, then. Anything else?"

Chace hesitated. "It can wait."

"Is it quick?"

"Depends, really."

He stopped, fixed her with a stare. Crocker had three inches and a dozen years on her, black hair and mean, brown eyes that had seemed to grow meaner since the heart attack. Always lean to the point of thin, he'd lost weight, too. The combined effect now made him look, more than ever, like a malevolent scarecrow dressed in a dark three-piece suit. "What is it?"

"No, we can talk later."

She saw his eyes dart past her, to the door, registering that she'd closed it. Crocker took his chair. "Tell me."

"You heard about what happened at the School?"

"You took a fall."

"Yes."

"I talked with Chester when the scores came in. All of you did exceptionally well, as expected. The fall is nothing, Tara. It happens, could've happened to Nicky or Chris."

Chace shook her head slightly. She'd told herself the same thing. Then she'd told herself that wasn't the point. She set the copy of the signal down on his desk; then, after a moment to commit herself, took the letter she was carrying from her pocket and handed it across to Crocker. She watched his jaw work while he read, imagined the ferocity of his desire for a cigarette. At the moment, she wanted one, too.

"The Ops Room?" Crocker asked.

"I think I'd do well in Mission Planning."

He set the letter on the desk in front of him. "This is because of the fall."

"No."

"Because if it is, I'll tell you again, it happens to everyone. Chester says it was raining. He says you were ahead of Nicky when it happened, you were leading."

"It's not the fall, Boss. I'm nine years in. It's enough, it's time for me to go."

"I did nine years."

"You did eight," Chace corrected. "Four as Minder One, and I'm coming up on my sixth, now. And that's not the point. Tamsin's five, Boss, and I've lost count the number of times she's called the nanny 'Mommy' instead of me. She's starting school, she deserves to know that I'll be there when she gets home. Even if I weren't getting old, even if I weren't slowing down, I long ago outlived my operational usefulness to the Firm."

"If this is about self-esteem-"

"Don't be daft. Nine years in the field, Paul. For Christ's sake, if there's an intelligence agency anywhere in the world that doesn't know who I am at this point, it's because they're not bloody trying."