Читать книгу The Red Cell - André Le Gallo - Страница 9

“I’ve got news on your buddy Yosemani,” Marshall said, sitting in his son’s sparsely furnished apartment. Steve sat across from him, his six-foot-one frame folded easily in a leather recliner, a bottle of beer in his hand. Before his father’s medical diagnosis, they would return to his place in Old Town after their weekly tennis game. Now, they continued the practice without the tennis.

“According to a NSA intercept, he’s getting ready to travel to Brussels,” Marshall said.

“And the CIA station there has found out he has a son studying at your old alma mater, as a matter of fact. So I am planning a swoop and scoop.”

Steve recognized the term as an in trade euphemism for a kidnapping, sometimes done with the approval and cooperation of the host country’s intelligence service, and sometimes not. Since Belgium was a member of NATO, he assumed Belgian knowledge and support.

“Do you have a team? And a team leader? I assume you’ll stay here.”

“Yes, I have my hands full with the cyber op.”

While two commentators on the muted TV reviewed the recent performance of the Washington Redskins’ new quarterback, Marshall said, “During the Cold War, Vienna was the espionage capital of the world. Now, it’s Brussels. There are more diplomats and foreign officials per capita in Brussels than anywhere else.” He took a sip from a glass of water on the coffee table.

“And more spies,” he continued. “That and a lackadaisical internal security service make Belgium ideal. I assume it’s also why Yosemani likes to do business there. The Belgians are too busy with their internal politics to bother with foreign terrorists—as long as they don’t kill Belgians.”

“What I don’t get is why the CIA is not running this operation. Why outsource it to you?” Steve asked. “After the big hiring surge that followed 9/11, I know the agency isn’t short of personnel or money.” Steve knew his White House office had just requested the Office of Management and Budget add another ten-million dollars for new CIA operations, much of it outsourced to private companies like his father’s.

“You know why,” Marshall replied. “Most of the new hires cut their teeth in Afghanistan or Iraq. And when they came back, they had to be retrained. Because what they were doing in a war zone is not what they’re going to be doing in the rest of the world. When I returned from Laos in the sixties, I had some retooling to do. Advising and training guerrillas isn’t quite the same as recruiting and running agents.”

Steve had seen photos from his father’s first CIA tour in Laos—Hmong fighters posing with M1 rifles almost as tall as they were, parachute drops from unmarked airplanes, and Marshall in jump boots, fatigues, a beret, and a sidearm. But that was before he was born. It wasn’t part of his world, although more stories were seeping out, now that his father had retired.

“The agency is not clearing this operation with the Belgians, because they would turn it down,” Marshall said. “The former head of Belgian security, DuChemin, never liked to take sides. He once even tried to get me kicked out of the country, when one of my officers pitched the Iraqi ambassador just before the first Gulf War. From what I hear about his successor, he’d probably find a way to leak the information to Yosemani, if we tried to coordinate the operation with him. Who needs enemies with NATO allies like that?”

“So that’s why the agency is going to use your company rather than blue-badgers, for plausible deniability? If you get caught, the U.S. government will claim it never heard of you. Right?”

“Getting caught is not part of my plan. With the European Union’s open borders, we can easily get Yosemani to Germany and fly him out from one of our military bases.”

“An extraordinary rendition? Is the agency going to brief the White House? How about Congress?” Steve was starting to realize he already knew too much. His father was usually very discreet, even with him, so he assumed his father had a purpose. .

Steve disappeared for a moment and returned with a bowl of peanuts and a beer, which he put in front of his father.

“That is no longer my worry—one of the reasons I retired.”

“By the way,” Steve asked, “If you are not going to Brussels, who is your team leader?”

Marshall paused for an instant, before the sound of the front door unlocking made them both look up. “That is what I want to talk to you about. I need a team leader. It will take about two weeks. I’m sure the White House can spare you.”

Before either could say anything else, the sound of high heels clicking on the tile foyer told them it was Kella.

“Steve? Are you home? My trip to Cairo is off. Let’s go somewhere.”

She stepped into the living room, sitting down and taking her shoes off. “Oh, hello Marshall. I didn’t know you were here.”

Steve looked at Kella, as he did anytime she would stride into a room. He had been with her for two years, having met her at a diplomatic reception in Paris. Then as now, her tall frame, copper skin, and long curly black hair made an eye-catching vision. Although born in Timbuktu to a family of desert nomads, her lineage included a New England ship’s captain shipwrecked on the coast of Mauritania and sold into slavery and several French Foreign Legion soldiers who had gone native. Her parents were killed in a Tuareg rebellion and, when her stepfather was assigned to the American Embassy in Paris, she attended the prestigious ENA—the Ecole National d’Administration. The DGSE, the French intelligence service, then recruited her on the recommendation of her step-grandfather, who was the DGSE’s director.

Steve knew her air of self-confidence was well-founded. Her looks and her several languages—Arabic, French, and English, as well as her native Tamasheq— had been key ingredients in the success of two clandestine operations. And the mini Glock she removed from an ankle holster and placed on the coffee table, authorized by the Military Intelligence Department, gave her world-class ranking as an adversary.

Turning to Steve, she said, “What about that trip to Paris we have been putting off? We really should visit my grand-père. We haven’t seen him since his surgery.”

Suddenly a small gray kitten darted across the room, batting a cork in front of him like a crazed hockey player.

“Pascal! Pascal!” Kella said, reaching for the kitten and picking him up. “Marshall, have you met Pascal? Isn’t he cute? I named him after a French philosopher.” Turning to Steve, she added, “What are we going to do with Pascal when we go to Paris?”

Without waiting for an answer, Kella continued, looking at Marshall. “Steve told me the other day an old friend from MI6 had called you. That’s amazing! Do you have friends in all the agencies? I thought intelligence officers were supposed to keep their identities secret from each other. In fact, I thought you worked against each other. “

“Nigel Barnes and I were in Tehran during the Ayatollah’s revolution. I helped him, and he helped me. He had been in Iran for many years, spoke Farsi, and was a Persian expert. He’s retired, but we’re still in touch. He has a house in Southern France, like a lot of Brits. They still haven’t gotten over once owning and then losing most of France.”

“And what about that French guy who had us to dinner one time in Paris. Was he intelligence also?” Steve asked, smiling.

“That was my good friend, Jean-Claude Clair, head of the French counter-terrorism squad,” Marshall said.

“You’re still in touch with that Belgian colonel, right?” Steve added.

“You mean Colonel Vanness. Yes, a good guy and a good intelligence officer. We had some successes.”

“I’m so glad you’ll take Pascal,” Kella said, single-mindedly.

Marshall raised both hands and, shaking his head, said, “Oh no. I don’t get along with philosophers, especially French philosophers. But, if the two of you want an all-expenses-paid trip to Europe, let me make you an offer you can’t refuse.”

Kella accompanied Marshall to the door and returned to find Steve sitting on the sofa, his hands entwined behind his head. “An offer we can’t refuse? That’s ridiculous! You were awfully quiet. Don’t tell me you want to do this.”

He leaned forward, popped a couple of peanuts into his mouth, and said, “Well, it’s not like last time, going into denied territory and running for our lives. Belgium is a member of NATO.”

Kella could see he was trying to tread carefully, which made her suspicious. “You know as well as I do these short, low risk operations never turn out as planned. Besides, the White House is not going to let you go on such short notice.”

She picked up the cat again and sat down beside Steve. “Let’s forget about Belgium and go to Paris. We’ll see my grand-père and have some fun.”

“I know this is a prestigious position I have, and it was an honor for the president to offer it to me. But it’s a desk job, and you know what I think about bureaucracy and paperwork.”

He moved closer to Kella and put his arm around her shoulders. “Here is what I’m thinking,” he said, moving closer. “As long as we’re going to be in Paris, where you have seen and done everything there is to be seen, let’s do something different, something special.”

Kella, leaned back against his chest, took the cat off her lap, and turned toward him. “What?”

“Well, after we’re done with the general, which should take no longer than a week, we could go to Paris and get married.”

Kella’s eyes widened. She made a purring sound, leaned closer against Steve, and slipped his hand inside her blouse.