The Killing Ploy

Chapter 3

Pablo felt his face turn warm.

“Certain things didn’t smell kosher. Mainly your claim you couldn’t get to her in time.”

“It wasn’t a claim, Stuart. It was the truth. I spent days answering investigators' questions. Including being polygraphed.”

“Come on, you can outwit the lie detector. You know that.”

“No one found any problems with my replies.”

“Oh, I know about the report, but by another name, a whitewash by George’s pals . That’s how the surveillance team referred to those conducting the inquiry. They doubted you were at the bottom of the steps leading up to that S-Bahn platform. They suspected you were already on that platform and had time to fire but didn’t. They suspected shock seeing your lover go down trumped courage. You were, after all, a crack shot once. They wanted to know what the hell really happened. They got their way with the seventh floor, who ordered a second investigation, this one full-fledged.”

Pablo tried to think of something to say, but Stuart had caught him off guard. “George never said anything about that,” he finally said, trying to sound unconcerned.

“Why should he? The result of the second investigation spelled bad news for him. And you. A different forensic team worked the scene the second time around. They went all out, taking photos, using stop watches you see only at Olympic meets, and took pages of testimony. They interviewed the waiter who served that terrorist at that restaurant near Savigny Platz. The bus driver who picked him up afterwards on Kant Strasse. The server at that espresso bar outside Zoologischer Station who saw him enter that building. They even had the police block off Zoo Station so investigators could reconstruct Katarina's dying minutes on that platform.”

“That’s enough for crying out loud.”

“It’s enough when I say so, not when you say so. Know what they calibrated? They calculated you had a full eight seconds to pull the trigger.”

“That’s garbage, Stuart. All you have is one set of experts contradicting another set.”

“And that’s the problem, this battle of the experts. Before Berlin we knew you, Pablo. We never doubted your ability. Since Berlin, we’re no longer certain. You’ve become Mr. Unknown. When you’re in the foxhole, you have to know you can depend on the soldier next to you. No ifs, ands, or buts allowed.”

Pablo had had enough of Stuart. “You forget, George is paterfamilias.”

“That he is, our guiding light. But if I ran things, you’d be out in no time. Others feel the same. We don’t think you can cut it anymore. But George has suffered a loss like you. He believes in second chances and has gone out on a limb to get you back. He believes you’ve recovered. He says you’re a go, if you want in. If you do transfer, you’ll owe him big time, so don’t screw up again. Lots may ride on this, if you liaise with the FBI. Reputations, funding, even lives.

“Segue to a call George just got. Carlos Dean died on the operating table. For your own good, think back to when you walked into our Bern embassy and volunteered. Become again that man.”

He motioned to the document on the card table that had earlier absorbed him. “That's a backgrounder on RCB including a Department of Defense surprise audit of it and the security issues raised. Bradford was quite the traveling man, as you’ll discover. When you’re finished, see me.” He shifted to leave, but glanced back. “Midnight, Pablo, that’s when we must know, if you’re in or out.” Without another word he turned and walked out, loudly pulling shut the door. He’d made clear his dislike.

CHAPTER 5FINAL THOUGHTS

“I told him midnight, George, but I still don’t like it. If he accepts and things fall apart, the mullahs will have another reason to want you out.”

“And if he accepts and is a success, they'll find another reason to get me out. What’s that, Pablo’s ops file?”

“His complete file.”

“You downloaded all that from archives? You really are uneasy about him.” George frowned at Stuart at the office’s corner window that overlooked the parking lot far below. “We’re over tasked and undermanned. We use who’s good. Fan them out over Europe, if necessary. See what they might pick up about those murders. Maybe a memo will knock sense into you.”

Stuart glanced across. “He’s gotten queasy, George.”

“Listen, he was good once. I’m sure he still is." George dusted off a framed photo of his sister. When he had finished, he placed it off to his right and stretched across for the stack of cables beside his packet of cigarettes.

“George, if he’s a go, he might cause one big mess.”

George divided the intel cable traffic into two piles, urgent and not urgent. Now where was that Mont Blanc pen? he wondered. “You practically begged to run him as C. O. and recommended him for our Eyes-and-Ears Program. Now you’re having second thoughts?” He checked under a pile of satellite photos. No pen there. He’d never forgive himself, if he lost his sister’s birthday present.

“I was his enthusiastic case officer before Berlin. I now realize he's like the rest of his family. They fold under too much stress. Wunderkind hotelier father died from alcoholism when his hotel went south. His wife became a recluse and died from malnutrition. His brother's in prison because of some crazy tax evasion scheme."

There his pen was, under those spreadsheets of terrorist threats. George glared at Stuart. “He won’t go heavy. No bombing. No killing. Just sniffing around like he did running that Guate City hotel. He did everything by the book, our book. He got great footage of drug dealing generals. Enough to blackmail, if they ever want to harm Americans. Pablo saved lives; he may also on this. It’s just intelligence gathering, that's all. He picks up anything, we'll take over for a closer look.”

“He's little more than a raw recruit. He may be big time—”

“Christ, enough of this! End of discussion. Before you leave, tell Thelma to cable our Guatemala City station chief to be sure the hotel's been primed.”

George gazed at the framed photograph of his sister. Silently, he re-consecrated his oath. No matter the sacrifice, he would not let the memory of her down. With her dark eyes brooding back, he lit up and turned toward the first urgent cable. He had some time ago made up his mind about Pablo. Stuart's opinion no longer mattered.

For George Hart later that evening, his second object of devotion, he jokingly claimed to his wife, but really his first, according to those who had known him longer…his Eyes-and-Ears Program, as he sat alone in his office, reading his cables.

He glanced at his wristwatch. 6:55. A few more hours before he called Pablo. The silence of the nearly deserted office tower depressed him. How he missed his sister. Since her murder, even now, several years after the embassy explosion he seemed easily agitated.

He poured some Jack Daniels into a shot glass. He could surely savor a little, he reassured himself, but only a little. He’d overheard gossip he was alcoholic. That was absurd. He simply needed an occasional taste to endure the loneliness. With teary eyes on his sister’s photograph, he took a sip, then several more before putting the shot glass back into his drawer. He needed to stay focused. His sister would have wanted him that way.

Stuart Bishop sweated out the time till George called Pablo, seated glumly at his desk in his Agency-sponsored hotel suite near Embassy Row in Washington. For hours that Tuesday evening, he’d searched for anything redemptive, forgotten since he’d last studied Pablo's dossier, to give him confidence the young man could pull through in a crisis.

He did find one forgotten instance of bravery, waylaying a gunman. But that had happened before family deaths and the hotel’s bankruptcy, before Katarina’s murder. Pablo had suffered too much to work any assignment, however remotely dangerous. With that thought he closed the file, punched in a code to the wall safe, and tossed the dossier inside with the resignation of a fatalist.

11:45. Fifteen minutes till George telephoned. Stuart knew he couldn’t object too strongly to George about Pablo. The stronger he’d object, the more stubbornly George would become. George identified unhealthily with Pablo in the deaths they’d suffered and had invested too much of himself in making him succeed. Acknowledging his protégé might fail would show George had misjudged. No, Stuart decided, he could do nothing unless things got dicey. Then George might listen. But maybe by then, it’d be too late.

Near midnight.

Pablo de Silva, sitting on his bed, vaguely watched CNN on a TV that rested on the dresser ahead. Five years ago, he reflected, after the hotel’s bankruptcy, ignoring job offers, in a flush of patriotism over the war on terrorism, he’d gone to Bern and offered himself to the Americans at their embassy.

A flickering TV image caught his attention. A news bulletin. A hotel in Guatemala City had exploded. Its canopied entrance, the glass-roofed atrium beyond, the beams buttressing its ballroom, everything imploded in a roaring crash of wood, glass, and metal that sent trails of black smoke billowing night ward.

Pablo watched, stunned, as a reporter’s voice came to him in snatches…“a strange smell noticed,” “exploded without warning,” “panic.” How odd, he thought, that firemen and TV journalists had arrived so quickly.

The encrypted cell phone in the bed’s headboard rang. He ignored it, his thoughts on the explosion. Everything now made sense. George’s watchers at the hotel had communicated his boredom with his work. They had faked his kidnapping to extract him. And, after hopefully alerting employees and guests, they had ordered their hotel destroyed as evidence of a CIA front. Jesus, were they clever.

The shrill ringing continued.

Should he refuse and return to Guatemala with that drug cartel looking for him? Or walk away from the Agency with little money saved? Langley would never vouch for him, if he left. Without a reference, any prospective employer might think he had served prison time.

George Hart had fast tracked him to get hired and trained. George had given him a second chance after Berlin. Recommended that Swiss lawyer to represent his brother. After all the ruin around him—his father’s bankruptcy, his mother’s suicide, his brother’s imprisonment—he had to admit he liked being appreciated. Yet as he reached for the phone, he knew loyalty had limits. A debt didn’t extend into perpetuity.

CHAPTER 6EDEN ON THE PACIFIC

A flight from Berlin to San Diego can feel like it lasts ages. Going through JFK International in New York City permits a traveler to stretch, while transiting to another carrier. After that the last part of the ordeal starts, ending four time zones later at Lindbergh International Airport.

Among those getting off an airline at the end of one journey that Wednesday afternoon was Ernst Gunther with his battered briefcase in hand. In the last few weeks he had grown increasingly nervous the authorities might have him under surveillance for industrial espionage. So he strolled briskly, hoping to exit the airport, filled with law enforcement personnel, as soon as possible. But nearing the baggage claim section, he let out a gasp of shock. The area was mobbed; leaving quickly now seemed impossible. He excused his way through the crush to the front of the carousel and anxiously switched his attache case from one hand to the other as he waited for sight of his suitcase on the moving belt when—

“Oops, sorry, love.”

A woman with a London Swings decal on her handbag had jostled him hard or rather his briefcase, he saw as he glanced, horrified, at the floor where his work iPhone from his case that had sprung open lay.

“Dear, dear, dear, what have we done?”

The whitest human he had ever seen, her paleness accented by her red volunteer security blazer, approached. Behind her by a display case, a co-worker with a bristly moustache took notice.

Galvanized by survival instinct, Gunther started to bend down. “Here, I can get that.”

“No problem,” and she quickly stooped to get the item. “We’re here to help.”

“Everything okay, Mrs. Woods?”

Gunther glanced behind. The Red Coat by the display case appeared to be her supervisor. Despite air conditioning, he felt his back go wet with sweat.

Mrs. Woods nodded, then held up the device, and her grandmotherly sweetness turned to puzzlement. “I've never seen one like this before.”

Surveillance camera placements, perimeter security weak points, guard shifts, the number of guard dogs, so much unencrypted information was stored in it. “It's a new model Apple cell phone,” Gunther said.

“Things change so darn fast these days. Well, whatever. Do you have any identification on you, sir?” she asked.