Читать книгу The Aegis Conspiracy: A Novel - Galen Winter - Страница 12

Chapter 7

After he left the Four Points Sheraton Den’s thoughts moved from Gigi to Damascus to Mick McCarthy and then to Jake Jacobson. Now he knew what happened to Mick. Jake Jacobson put him in a dangerous situation and when the fight started, he deserted him. That was the act of a coward, an act completely foreign to Den’s character. A man who would leave a comrade in danger was detestable.

Den wondered why the son of a bitch was not exposed. Why wasn’t he kicked out of the Agency? Jake showed his true colors in Damascus, but he was still in Clandestine Operations. As he drove to his apartment, Den remembered Ferdie’s warnings: Teddy Smith relies on him. Jake Jacobson is powerful. The man is dangerous.

Jake was now assigned to Teddy’s Projects Branch. No one was assigned to that Branch without the most careful of background checks. Teddy was aware of Den’s birth name, his favorite brand of single malt Scotch and even his preference for bulkhead aisle seats in airplanes. Surely, he must have known what Jacobson did in Damascus. Was it a case of someone telling Teddy to bring Jake into the Projects Branch?

Or could Teddy be Jake’s benefactor? Teddy said Mick was killed while working with another agent. Why didn’t Teddy tell him that agent was Jake Jacobson?

There was no point in trying to make Jacobson pay for what he did by going through official channels. When the Syria Station chief came to Langley, he must have talked with somebody who had enough clout to be able to scrub the record clean and move Jake into the Projects Branch. Someone up there liked the little bastard. Den had no doubts. Jacobson’s friends would continue to protect him.

Den promised himself Jake Jacobson was not going to get away with abandoning Mick. He wasn’t going to get away with forcing Gigi out of the Agency.

Later that morning, Gigi Grant was notified of reassignment to a station of such modest significance that those who went there were considered by their fellow agents to have received early retirement. As Jacobson had presumed, Gigi Grant immediately resigned from the Central Intelligence Agency. She went to Tucson and reactivated her membership in the Arizona Bar Association.

Jake Jacobson learned important lessons from his disastrous bribery attempt in Damascus. He had long known it was all right to denigrate people below him in the chain of command. It was also entirely proper to quietly attack the competence and credibility of those who shared his same level in the organization chart. Since they were his competition for positions up the corporate ladder, Jake believed their reputations had to be destroyed.

Prior to Damascus, Jake had been almost completely insensitive to the concept of deferring to the people above him in the chain of command. They were the men he wanted to replace, so he had adopted the practice of attacking them. It was his way to show what he truly believed was his own intellectual superiority. He would look for real or imagined defects in his immediate superiors. He would bring them to light, often. He made no effort to disguise his signs of disrespect. The signs were not missed by the targets of his attacks.

After Damascus, Jake learned the value of a friend with clout. He learned it was a terrible mistake to treat superiors with anything but sycophantic respect. The boss’s ability to think may be on a par with that of a garden slug, but keep your mouth shut. Praise him. In times of adversity, he can help you. Putnam could have helped Jake, but he didn’t. Why should he? Why should Putnam or anyone else help a man who so obviously held him in contempt?

Jake knew he had been unreasonably lucky in Syria. Henry Putnam was a spineless idiot. If he had any guts at all, Jake would have been peremptorily fired. It took Teddy Smith, a perfect stranger, to convince Putnam to protect him. Putnam could have prepared his own report. He could have provided him with cover, but he didn’t. Teddy was the one who saved his ass. The lesson was clear. It was essential for a man to have friends “up the line”.

In Langley, Jake carefully cultivated Teddy. He agreed with whatever Teddy said. He complimented him whenever he could find an opportunity. He studied the ways Teddy acceded to Cullen Brewster, the Deputy Director. He tried, unsuccessfully, to be as adept and subtle as Teddy in dealing with his superiors.

Of course, Teddy recognized Jake’s false subservience. It didn’t bother him. He had an accurate assessment of Jake Jacobson. Teddy knew Jake would turn on him if it ever became advantageous for him to do so. Given the same motivation, Teddy would turn on Jake just as quickly. The word “loyalty” could not be found in either Jake or Teddy’s dictionary. As long as Jake bent every effort to please him, Teddy would be happy, but he was careful not to trust him.

Jake’s CIA associates of equal rank didn’t like him. They knew him as a sarcastic and arrogant back-stabber. Whenever one of them used the phrase “that little prick” or “that asshole” everyone knew he was referring to Jake Jacobson. As long as Jake had the support of Teddy, if made no difference what his fellow planners in the Projects Branch called him. He didn’t give a damn what they thought of him.

At four o’clock in the afternoon, Jake left his office in the CIA complex at Langley. The office regularly closed at five o’clock. Jake often left early. It was an action that did not go unnoticed by his associates. He enjoyed his little game of “conspicuous early exit”.

Leaving at four gave him the advantage of missing some of the late afternoon traffic, but Jake did it for another reason. It was a quiet and pointed reminder to everyone in the Section that he was a man of special privilege. He could violate the rules without fear of reprimand.

A half hour after leaving Langley, Jake arrived at The Bellavista, an apartment building in nearby McLean. The Bellavista’s management catered to career government employees in the upper quadrants of pay grades. Jake hadn’t yet reached that income level, but The Bellavista address was a status symbol and Jake Jacobson was abundantly sensitive to status symbols.

There was another reason for Jake’s selection of The Bellavista. It was less than a quarter mile from the apartment of Teddy Smith. The selection of The Bellavista was part of Jake’s plan to develop a friendly and personal relationship with Teddy. Living close to him helped create that relationship. Jake would sometimes jog with Teddy and afterwards, on weekends, they would occasionally breakfast together.

Arriving at The Bellavista, Jake pressed the button on his garage door opener and the security gate to the building’s underground parking area slid open. He parked his Audi in the place assigned to him and took the elevator to the third floor. As he walked down the corridor, his sense of satisfaction was complete. He was protected by Teddy Smith, feared by his associates and envied by his inferiors. Vain and arrogant, Jake Jacobson was pleased with his life.

He pulled a ring of keys from his pocket and inserted one of them into the lock of his apartment door. As soon as the door swung open, someone came from behind him and struck him between the shoulder blades with such force that Jake’s dark glasses flew from his face and he was propelled inside the room and onto the floor.

As Jacobson got to his knees, he was kicked in the ribs. He fell against the hallway table, sending the vase and flower arrangement crashing to the parquet floor. In pain and gulping air, Jake struggled to his feet. He was grabbed by his coat lapel and jerked upright. A fist was driven into his stomach and, as he doubled forward, he was hit on the side of his face. His jaw was broken.

More punches brought blood from his mouth and nose. A downward blow broke his collarbone and, barely conscious, Jacobson collapsed, falling to the floor where he assumed a protective fetal position. He was kicked again. Finally, he lay unconscious.

Den turned to leave the apartment and spoke for the first time. “There, you miserable son of a bitch. You’re lucky I didn’t kill you.”

Den left Jake Jacobson’s apartment. He took the elevator to the underground parking floor and retrieved his suitcase from where it rested behind one of the cement pillars. Then he stood in the shadows next to the security gate. Within minutes a resident opened the gate as he drove his automobile into the parking area. Before it closed, Clark walked out of the building and continued up the ramp to the street. He waited on the sidewalk until he could hail a passing taxi.

At Reagan National Airport, Den boarded a commercial jet and left Washington. When he arrived at Miami International, he showed a false passport to the clerk at the Aerolineas Argentina counter. She took it from him, looked at the picture and then glanced up at him. The passport picture looked as much like Den as most passport picture look like their owners.

The clerk returned his passport, checked his bag and handed him his flight documents. Then she smiled the same rehearsed smile that automatically appeared whenever she handed a boarding pass to a traveler. Like every well trained Aerolineas Argentina ticket counter clerk, she added the required comment: “I hope you will enjoy your visit to Argentina, Mr. Peabody.”

Den took the ticket, returned an equally meaningless smile and thought: “At least she didn’t say ‘Have a nice day’.” Den didn’t have time for the rote and phony cordialities so common in the English language. When someone asks: “How are you?” he really doesn’t give a tinker’s dam how you are. Den admired the people who answer such empty inquiries with words like “terrible”.

As he waited to board his flight to Buenos Aires, Den reviewed his beating of Jake Jacobson. It had not been a cold and calculated deliberate punishment. It was an expression of anger at the way Jake destroyed Gigi’s career and at the way he put Mick in danger and ran when the shooting began.

What Jake did could not be changed. At least he had let Jake know he knew of his cowardice and his betrayal. At least he had vented his anger and given Jake some sort of repayment for his actions.

Jacobson awoke in a hospital. His jaw was wired shut. His arm and shoulder were in a cast. His ribs were taped. He ached, but it wasn’t only the stabbing torment of his injuries that caused his agonies. Jacobson knew the man who had beaten him was Den Clark.

“Teddy warned me Clark was asking questions,” Jake said to himself. “He must have found out what happened in Damascus. If he doesn’t know, he must have guessed.” Jake tried to forget his pain and analyze his problem. “Yes,” he concluded, “Clark knows and he wants me to know he knows. That’s why he made no attempt to hide his face.”

Jacobson turned his head toward the window and, catching his breath because of the sharp pain the movement caused, he continued his thoughts. “If Clark had firm proof,” he reasoned, “I think he’d try to have me tossed out of the Agency. No, Clark either guessed or else someone told him what happened, but I don’t think he can prove a thing. Otherwise, he would have tried to get me fired. Well, he made the mistake of his lifetime. I’ll get back at him. He’ll pay for this.”

Jacobson lay in the hospital bed and planned the shape of his revenge. “I could whisper in Teddy’s ear,” he thought. Jake knew he could count on Teddy. “Teddy could easily arrange to send the son of a bitch to a permanent posting in the Sahara or to Nome. He could get him reduced to the status of a supply clerk or, better yet, kicked out of the CIA.”

Jacobson quickly rejected those alternatives. He knew Clark wouldn’t go quietly. “If he got canned, he would certainly tell everyone why he beat me up.” Jacobson didn’t want that reason to become public knowledge. Moreover, getting Clark thrown out of the Agency wasn’t nearly enough. Jacobson wanted more, much more. There was only one way he could satisfy himself.

“I will kill him,” he said aloud through his wired jaw and clenched teeth. He nodded his head and slowly repeated, “I will kill you, Den Clark. I’ll get my chance and then I will kill you.”