Christopher Reich - Rules of Betrayal

This opposite side of the road was less crowded. He kneeled to tie his shoe, then realized he was wearing moccasins that didn’t have laces. Giving himself to the illusion, he pretended, but when he looked to either side of him, he saw only knees and shoes and men with potbellies, all too close for comfort. Rising, he continued on toward the end of the block.

At a cell-phone store, he stopped to study the items on display, hoping to use the window to spot one of Danni’s tails. But the sun was too bright, and he couldn’t see anything except glare. He started off once more, and after ten steps reached the end of the block. Standing next to the traffic signal, he studied the faces of the people walking past. Nothing. No one looked familiar.

“And so? Who are they?”

Startled, Jonathan spun to find Danni behind him. “How’d you…?” he asked. “When did you… ah, forget it.”

“It was too easy, right?” she went on. “They were sticking out like sore thumbs.”

Jonathan took a last look down the street. “Trick question, right? No one was following me.”

Danni’s eyes narrowed. “Not one?”

Jonathan averted his gaze, more embarrassed than he cared to admit. “Sorry.”

“All right, then-I’ll show you.” Danni pointed to a blond woman in the doorway of a music store. A moment passed, and a woman walked up next to her. Something about them was vaguely familiar. The women casually took off their jackets, one let her hair loose from a ponytail, and Jonathan recognized them as the teenagers in the T-shirt shop. Next Danni indicated a trim man in a warm-up jacket and racing cap. The man removed the racing cap and turned the warm-up jacket inside out. Jonathan found himself staring at the frenetic businessman.

“I even pointed them out before you started,” said Danni. “I couldn’t help you more than that.”

“But they changed clothing.”

“Common practice. My girls put on jackets and threw their hair into ponytails. If you look closer, you’ll see that they did not change their pants or their shoes.”

Jonathan noted that one wore yellow shorts and Nike tennis shoes and the other white Capri pants and matching flats. He hadn’t paid attention to their attire. Just their faces.

“Your job is to spot the consistent item. Don’t look at faces. Faces change. Look at shoes or at belts or at anything you find distinctive.”

“And the fourth?”

“I was the fourth. I was right behind you the entire time.”

“Impossible.”

“Inside of three meters, every step of the way. And I didn’t even change clothes.”

“But-”

Danni checked her watch. “Go again.”

Frank Connor heard the kitchen door slam and a pair of vigorous feet charge up the stairs. The bedroom door opened, and Congressman Joseph Tecumseh Grant bounded into the room. He was wearing athletic shorts and a sweatshirt and he carried a basketball under one arm. Like half the other members of Congress, he was a late-in-life pledge to the fraternity of Phi Slamma Jamma. He saw Connor and drew up.

“Frank… What the-?”

“Why did you lie to me, Joe?”

Grant put down his basketball, then closed the door to the bedroom. The modest row house on the 300 block of C Street Northeast sat within sight of the Capitol and was home away from home for Grant and three other congressmen.

“I’m afraid I have to object to your presence in my home. Just what the heck gives you the right?”

“Sit down and shut up.”

“I know all about you and your crew of ‘operators.’ Trained killers is what they are. Nothing but thugs and assassins.”

“That’s enough, Joe.”

“Are you trying to intimidate me?” Grant advanced toward Connor, his finger raised in righteous indignation. “If you are, it won’t work.”

“I don’t do intimidation, Joe. Otherwise, you’d be lying in an alley somewhere between here and the gym with that basketball shoved up your ass. I do results.”

“You got your results yesterday. I answered all your questions to the fullest of my ability. If you don’t mind, I’d like you to leave now.”

Connor didn’t move a muscle. He sat in Grant’s swivel chair, as imperturbable as Buddha. “It’s like this, Joe. I know you lied to me. I would have lied myself if I were in your shoes. The problem is that I don’t have time to cut through a load of air force BS. This thing with the cruise missile-it’s happening now. We both know that no one would ever admit to having lost a nuclear weapon unless I personally delivered the device myself to the Pentagon and plopped it on the desk of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” protested Grant. “We have never lost a missile. I told you the whole truth and nothing but. Scout’s-”

“Honor,” said Connor, in unison. “I’ve heard that tune before.” Frowning, he removed a manila envelope from his jacket and flipped it onto the coffee table. “Open it.”

Grant stepped forward and picked up the envelope, his eyes widening as he read the name of the world-famous journalist to whom it was addressed. The envelope was not sealed, and its contents slid easily into his hand. He looked at the photographs first, his expression passing from bewilderment to anger to shame. Connor had seen it all before. Then Grant read the transcripts of the cell-phone intercepts and his expression collapsed entirely. He gazed up at Connor, then, seized with a notion, threw the papers down and began pulling books off the shelves, dumping them on the floor. Connor had seen this, too.

“Where is it, you sonofabitch? Where’d you hide it?”

“Don’t bother,” said Connor. “You won’t find the camera. We don’t leave stuff like that around.”

Grant stopped. “Was it her?” he said. “Is she one of yours, too?”

“As I said yesterday, Joe. I’m not that clever. She really is a fourteen-year-old student at Sidwell Friends School.”

Grant dropped to a knee and replaced the papers and photographs in the envelope. “Is this the only copy?”

Connor shook his head. “Of course not.”

“Why?”

“Leverage. I won’t lie and say I didn’t enjoy putting you holier-than-thou blowhards in your place. But really it’s more about efficiency. I need to be able to do my job without you interfering.”

A terrible idea came to Grant, and his face darkened further. “You don’t do this to everyone?”

“God, no,” said Connor. “We don’t have the resources. Besides, everyone isn’t the chairman of the House subcommittee that oversees my activities. Ways and Means has nothing to worry about. Neither does the Banking Committee.”

Grant paced the perimeter of his room, every so often looking at Connor and shaking his head. “Jesus Christ, Frank, you put your finger in it this time.”

“I’m just collecting information, Joe. I think this one is in your court.”

“It was twenty-five years ago.”

“Last I heard, uranium had a half-life a wee bit longer than that.”

“Frank, I just can’t…”

“I’m waiting.”

Grant sat down, as if he had an unbearable weight on his shoulders. “You know what a mirror mission is?” he said finally.

“That’s not my bailiwick.”

“Back in the day when Russia was still the big bad bear, we used to send out our aircraft on long-range runs mirroring the flight profiles we would follow in the event of a nuclear exchange. That’s when it happened. One of our B-52s suffered a catastrophic engine failure and went down, carrying two nuclear-tipped ALCMs. Since the plane’s flight was top-secret, we couldn’t mount a full-fledged retrieval operation. There was also the embarrassment factor. We weren’t going to admit to losing anything until we got them back. It stacked up as a disaster on ten different levels.”