Jim DeFelice - Threat Level Black

“Colonel Howe. How’s the coffee?”

“Andy Fisher. What are you up to?”

“Looking for you,” said the FBI agent, sliding into the booth.

“Excuse me, sir,” said the waitress coming over. “You can’t smoke in here.”

“Don’t those laws annoy you?” asked Fisher.

The waitress was unmoved. Fisher asked for a cup of coffee but made no sign of extinguishing the cigarette.

“You’re looking for me?” Howe asked.

“All morning,” said Fisher.

“What for?”

The waitress reappeared with two coffee cups: one filled with coffee, and one with water to extinguish the cigarette.

“I heard you took a trip overseas,” said Fisher as the waitress walked away.

“I can’t talk about that,” said Howe.

“Sure you can. My clearance is higher than yours.”

You don’t know how true that is, thought Howe.

“Obviously, I already know about Korea,” said Fisher.

Howe didn’t answer.

“Look, Colonel, I can get the paperwork and the official orders to make you spill the beans if I have to, but what’s the sense?” asked Fisher. “Making me spend the whole day chasing down my boss, the military liaison, the NSC people-you know how many cups of coffee that’s going to take?”

“Let’s go for a ride,” Howe suggested. “We can’t talk here.”

It was the sort of deal Fisher appreciated: straightforward tit-for-tat, no strings. Howe would tell him everything he knew without making him go through the bureaucratic rigmarole to get proper authorization. In exchange, Fisher would use his wiles to find out who had pulled his clearance.

“It’s not that I don’t trust the people I’m asking already,” Howe told him. “I just want to make sure.”

“Oh, I get it,” said Fisher, who was now curious himself to find out who was screwing Howe and why.

As it turned out, though, Howe’s description of what had happened in Korea and Japan gave Fisher no more insight than what Kowalski had told him.

“Had to be somebody very, very important,” said Fisher. “Close to the top. Somebody the military would know.”

“A general or somebody?”

“At least.” Fisher’s list of missing North Korean leaders was extensive and started with Kim Jong Il himself.

“Thing that bugs me is why they didn’t kill you when they had the chance,” said Fisher. “He just knocked you out.”

Howe shrugged. “I made him get rid of his gun.”

“Probably had another one. Or he should have. Sets this up so carefully-probably covered a dozen bases with people-then doesn’t kill you? You sure there isn’t a deposit in a bank account somewhere I ought to know about?”

“Fuck you,” said Howe.

“What did he hit you with?”

“I didn’t see.”

“What’s the doctor say?”

“Something hard.”

“Big or small?”

“Hard.”

“Maybe it was a gun that couldn’t fire,” suggested Fisher. “It jammed or something. Maybe it was your lucky day.”

“I guess.”

Howe was the touchy type; the bank account question still bugged him. Most likely he thought his honor besmirched. Tough to live like that around here, thought Fisher, though it wasn’t useful to point out.

“You don’t believe in luck, Colonel?” Fisher asked.

“Not hardly.”

“Luck is greatly undervalued in America. Except by people who play the lottery.” Fisher took a puff of his cigarette. “I would lay money that they’re looking for you now.”

“Why?”

“Because you can identify who it was who got away.”

“I can’t,” said Howe. “I’ve already looked at all sorts of pictures. The debriefers had me do that at the embassy.”

“Yeah, but the bad guy doesn’t know that. You being followed?”

Howe twisted his head to look. “Am I?”

“I don’t think so. Let me off up there.” He pointed to a convenience store just ahead.

“What about your car?”

“Ah, it’s a Bureau car, don’t worry about it,” said Fisher. “You’re not going back to the diner, are you?”

“I’ll take you back if you want.”

“Actually, I don’t,” said Fisher.

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

Howe stopped the car. Fisher dug into his pocket and pulled out a business card. “Day or night, you call me,” he said, tapping his satellite phone. “This sucker always rings.”

“You’re going to keep your end of the bargain, right?”

“I will. One more favor,” added Fisher.

“What?”

“You see my boss, don’t give him the number. Okay? I’m pretty sure the paperwork on it got lost before it made his desk.”

Disaster had followed disaster. Providence had saved Faud from being arrested like the others, but the news of the raid on the warehouse in Staten Island shocked him. For surely the all-knowing God could have prevented such a catastrophe.

Blasphemy. It was a grave sin even to think that.

Faud knew sin. He knew sin very well. He was trying to redeem himself, purify his soul as it must be purified.

Was this God’s way of testing him? Or was Faud’s way to paradise being blocked by a devil?

Surely it was the latter. Faud heard it in the boasts on the TV in the corner of the store, the policemen bragging that they had stopped a “nefarious plot.”

Nefarious. What precisely did that word mean?

“Terrible,” said the woman behind the counter. Her skin was dark; she came from Pakistan. But he knew where she stood before she continued. “It shames us all. And makes it more difficult.”

“Yes,” Faud told her. He handed over a dollar for the newspaper. The system of passing messages was complicated: One paper would have a key or a clue referring to another. In this case he needed the Times to know which classified in the other to follow.

“What do you do?” demanded a voice behind him.

Faud froze. He was the only other person in the store, so it was clear he was being addressed.

Had they caught him too?

He turned slowly to face the person who had spoken. He saw with some relief that it was only the middle-aged black man who ran the store.

“What do you do?” asked the man again.

“I’m a student.”

“I meant, what do you do about these terrible things?” said the man, shaking his head.

Faud nodded and started to leave.

“Wait!” said the woman at the counter.

Faud turned to her. Something in her eye showed him he had given himself away.

Fear had betrayed him. He was unworthy; his cowardice was shameful in the sight of angels.

“You forgot your change,” she said.

He forced a smile, went back for the money. Hopefully this would end soon.

Blitz rushed into his office, head tilted forward, walking so fast that he nearly bowled Mozelle over. As if the difficulties in Korea weren’t enough, the Israelis had just launched a massive raid against Palestinian terror groups, rounding up more than a hundred leaders of Hamas. Under other circumstances Blitz might have applauded the move, but it came at a particularly bad time: The U.S. secretary of state was due in the region next week for the latest round of peace talks, and now there were sure to be reprisals and more unrest. Blitz’s staff was already working on a paper listing potential fallout.

“Colonel Howe needs to talk to you,” said Mozelle as she backed up to let him pass.

“God, I forgot all about him. Did John call about the CIA review?”

“He was going to e-mail you.”

Blitz dropped into his chair behind his desk, grumbling to himself. He wasn’t sure exactly what to tell Howe, but he couldn’t let the poor guy hang out there, either.