Nelson Demille - The Lion's Game

Jack Koenig said, "There is a high likelihood that he's already gone. In fact, he probably took the first Mideast carrier out of JFK before the bodies were cold. Washington believes that, and therefore made the decision that we would keep this within the law enforcement community until the public could be fully apprised of the nature of the Trans-Continental tragedy."

Kate spoke up and said, "I agree with Captain Wydrzynski. There was no reason to hide these facts other than to cover our own… whatever."

Captain Stein also agreed and said, "I think Washington panicked and made the wrong decision. We went along with it, and now we're trying to find a guy who has a two-day head start."

Koenig tried to spin this a little and said, "Well, Khalil's photo is out to the media now. But the point is moot if Khalil flew out quickly." Koenig looked at some papers in front of him and said, "There were four flights leaving JFK that he could have made before the Port Authority police were alerted." He rattled off the names of four Mideastern carriers and their departure times. He added, "And of course there were also other overseas flights as well as some domestic and Caribbean flights that wouldn't have required a passport to board, where any kind of photo ID would have been sufficient."

Koenig concluded with, "Of course, we had people on the other end- Los Angeles and the Caribbean and so forth, waiting for the aircraft. But no one fitting his description deplaned."

We all mulled that over. I saw Kate looking at me, which I guess meant she wanted me to stick my neck out. I'm only here on a contract anyway, so I said, "I think Khalil is in New York. If he's not in New York, then he's someplace else in this country."

Captain Stein asked me, "Why do you think that?"

"Because he's not finished."

"Okay," Stein asked, "what is it that he needs to finish?"

"I have no idea."

"Well," said Stein, "he made a hell of a good start."

"And that's all it is," I replied. "There's more to come."

Captain Stein, like me, sometimes lapses into station house speech and commented, "I fucking well hope not."

I was about to reply, but Mr. CIA spoke for the first time and asked me, "Why are you so certain that Asad Khalil is still in this country?"

I looked at Mr. Harris, who was staring at me. I considered several replies, all of them starting and ending with "Fuck you," but then I decided to give Mr. Harris the benefit of the doubt and treat him with courtesy. I said, "Well, sir, I just have this gut feeling, based on Asad Khalil's personality type, that he is the sort of man who doesn't quit while he's ahead. He only quits when he's finished, and he's not finished. How do I know that, you ask? Well, I was thinking that a guy like this could have continued to cause damage to American interests abroad, and get away with it like he has for years. But instead, he decided to come here, to America, and cause more damage. So, did he just stop by for an hour or so? Was this a Seagull Mission?"

I looked around at the uninitiated, and explained, "That's where a guy flies in, shits on everybody, then flies out."

A few people chuckled, and I continued, "No, this was not a Seagull Mission. It was a… well, a Dracula mission."

I seemed to have everyone's attention, so I continued. "Count Dracula could have sucked blood in Transylvania for three hundred years and kept getting away with it. But, no, he wants to sail to England. Right? But why? To suck the blood of the ship's crew? No. There was something in England that the Count wanted. Right? Well, what did he want? He wanted this babe-the one he saw in Jonathan Barker's photo. Right? What was her name? Anyway, he has the hots for the babe, and the babe is in England. You follow? Likewise, Khalil didn't come here to kill everybody on that plane or everybody in the Conquistador Club. Those people were just appetizers, a little blood sucking before he got to the main meal. All we have to do is to identify and locate the babe-or Khalil's equivalent-and we've got him. You follow?"

There was this long silence in the room, and some people, who'd been staring at me, turned away. I thought that maybe Koenig or Stein was going to put me on medical leave or something. Kate was staring down at her pad.

Finally, Edward Harris, gentleman that he was, said to me, "Thank you, Mr. Corey. That was an interesting analysis. Analogy. Whatever."

A few people chuckled.

I said, "I have a ten-dollar bet with Ted Nash that I'm right. You wanna bet?"

Harris looked like he wanted to leave, but he was a good sport and said, "Sure. Make it twenty."

"You're on. Give Mr. Koenig a twenty."

Harris hesitated, then pulled a twenty out of his wallet and slid it to Koenig, who pocketed it.

I passed a twenty down the table.

Interagency meetings can really be boring, but not when I'm there. I mean, I hate bureaucrats who are so colorless and careful that you couldn't even remember them an hour after the meeting. Aside from that, I wanted each and every person in that room to remember that we were there on the assumption that Khalil might still be in the country. As soon as they started to believe he was gone, they'd get lazy and sloppy, and let the overseas guys do the work. Sometimes you've got to be a little weird to make the point. I'm good at weird.

In fact, Koenig, who was not a fool, said, "Thank you, Mr. Corey, for that persuasive argument. I think there's a fifty-fifty chance you're right."

Kate was looking up from her pad now and said, "Actually, I think Mr. Corey is right." She glanced at me,, and our eyes met for half a second.

If we'd slept together, my face would have turned red, but no one in that room-all of them trained face readers-could detect an ounce of post-coital complicity. Boy, I really made the right move last night. Really. Right?

Captain Stein broke the silence and said to Edward Harris, "Is there anything you'd like to share with us?"

Harris shook his head and said, "I was recently assigned to this case, and I haven't yet been briefed. You all know more than I do."

Everyone had the exact same simultaneous thought, which was "Bullshit." But no one said anything.

Harris did say to me, however, "The lady's name was Mina."

"Right. It was on the tip of my tongue."

So, we all chatted for another ten or fifteen minutes, then Koenig glanced at his watch and said, "Last but not least, we'll hear from Alan."

Special Agent Alan Parker stood. He's kind of short for his age, unless maybe he really is thirteen. Alan said, "Let me be very frank-"

Everyone groaned.

Alan seemed confused, then got it and chuckled. He began again, "Let me… well, first of all, the people in Washington, who wanted to manage the flow of information-"

Captain Stein interrupted and said, "Speak English."

"What? Oh… okay… the people who wanted to keep a lid on this-"

"Who is that?" Stein demanded.

"Who? Well… some people in the administration."

"Like who?"

"I don't know. Really. But I guess the National Security Council. Not the FBI."

Captain Stein, who knows about these things, pointed out, "The Director of the FBI is a member of the National Security Council, Alan."

"Really? Anyway, whoever these people are have decided that it's time to begin full disclosure. Not all at once, but within the next seventy-two hours. Like a third of what we know each day, for the next three days."

Captain Stein, who has a sarcastic streak, inquired, "Like nouns today, verbs tomorrow, and everything else on Wednesday?"

Alan forced a chuckle and said, "No, but I have a three-part news release, and I'll pass out the first part to everyone today."

Stein said, "We want it all within the next ten minutes. Continue."

Alan said, "Please understand that I don't make the news, and I don't decide which facts are made public. I just do what I'm told. But I am the clearinghouse for news items, so I'd appreciate it if people didn't give interviews or hold press conferences without first checking with my office." He further advised us, "It's very important that the media and the public are kept informed, but it's more important that they only know what we want them to know."