The Falconer’s Tale. Gordon Kent

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ

      “Hundred thou?” Piat guessed.

      “Christ Jesus!” muttered Partlow, in Anglican agony.

      “Let me promise Hackbutt a new bird.”

      Partlow hesitated, his hand on his chin. Piat drove over his caution.

      “You want this guy? Promise him a bird. It’ll help, both as a control tool and as a bargaining counter. And it can stand in lieu of payment, I’ll bet. Promise him a bird at the end and he’ll be happy. Besides, we’ll need a McGuffin for the Arab.”

      “I’ve never said the potential target was an Arab.”

      “You never said your wife was the daughter of an Anglican minister, either.”

      “Sometimes I find you just a little scary, Jerry.”

      He saw the challenges and the roadblocks ahead and he had to swallow a laugh.

      “You can work for me, Jerry?”

      “Yep.” Piat looked around the room. “Got anything here to drink? Yeah, Clyde. As long as I get to write the contract and as long as you let me consult on operational issues, I can work for you. Just this once, old times’ sake, all that jazz.”

      “Scotch in the bedroom. Laphroaig and a local—try it. You just added two hundred thousand to my operational budget.”

      “Air travel. Probably six trips—three for training, three for real. Three contact attempts—he’ll fuck up the first one, so I’ll plan it for him to fuck up—third one just to have a fallback.” Piat was feeling a little high. The scotch settled him.

      “You still don’t know what the op is. Aren’t you curious?”

      Piat spread his hands. “No. Yes. Listen—first I lay out my terms. Then you accept them and we sign something. Then you brief me. Right?” He shrugged and waved his glass. “Or you reject them and I walk away.”

      Partlow made a moue of distaste. “Not much chance of that, is there, Jerry? Which you bloody well know.”

      Piat raised his glass to Partlow and drained it. “I think I’m being damned good about the whole thing, old boy.”

      Partlow leaned forward. “That’s what worries me.”

      Piat laughed. One scotch had hit him and his adrenaline high like a hammer. “You know what, Clyde?”

      Partlow looked a little pained.

      “I think I want to do it. One more time.”

      Partlow went into the bedroom and poured them both more scotch, and then they raised their glasses and drank.

      And then they signed some papers and made a plan to communicate. They discussed Piat’s cover and Partlow’s role and the nature of the target—“no names yet, Jerry, we’re not there yet”—and Piat, despite three glasses of scotch, had no difficulty dictating notes on targeting possible meeting venues.

      Partlow handed over ten thousand dollars, mostly in pounds. “All I have. I want hand receipts on that. Deduct your travel here. I’ll meet you in a week and we’ll see where we are on cover and money.”

      Piat had a faraway look in his eyes. “Don’t come near Scotland again, Clyde.”

      “Where?” Partlow was in the room’s tiny front hall, ready to walk out the door, dapper in light tweeds, and somehow, obviously American. “Jerry—I’ll decide the meeting location, okay? Try and remember that I’m your case officer, and not the other way around.”

      Piat shrugged. “Whatever. Just not Scotland. London, Antwerp, Dublin. Athens would be nice—I could get some stuff from home.”

      Partlow nodded. “Athens it is. I have business there.”

      They shook hands. Partlow’s jawline moved, but whatever he had to say, the moment passed, and he was out the door.

      Piat lay on the bed and started his shopping list.

       5

      Piat woke next morning in Oban with a hangover and a mix of foreboding and guilt. The operation was all very well when discussed from the safety of an expensive hotel room, but in the chilly gray air of a Scottish morning all he could think about was Hackbutt—and Irene. Partlow had been cagey about what exactly had cued him to fire Dave.

      Hackbutt had changed from the old days in Southeast, but Piat still felt he knew where his mind would go. Betrayal. Personal betrayal of trust by his old friend Jack. From Hackbutt’s perspective, good ol’ Jack had walked off and abandoned him to the tender mercies of Dave.

      Piat considered it from a number of angles while he drank grapefruit juice in the hotel’s restaurant. He added to the list in his head—props. Envelopes. Tickets.

      On the ferry to Mull he read more about crannogs to keep his mind off his worries.

      This wasn’t going to be pretty.

      The dog greeted him with silent appraisal, its eyes following him from the car to the door while Piat’s stomach did back-flips in anticipation of Hackbutt’s welcome. He temporized by extending a hand again, letting the dog sniff; and he was about to try petting it again when he heard footsteps and the door opened.

      “Look who the dog dragged in,” Irene said as she opened the door. Her face had all the expression of a runway model’s. The sexual performance was not on offer. Piat guessed she was angry. Over his sudden disappearance, or for her husband’s sake? Or was it Dave and whatever he’d botched? Piat had too few cues to do anything but guess wildly, but since he had to guess, he suspected that Hackbutt had told her everything and she had hated it. Not a good start.

      He narrowly avoided the trap of asking for Hackbutt. That way lay Dave’s disastrous attempt—excluding Irene.

      Piat met her eyes. “I want to try again,” he said.

      Irene’s face didn’t move. “Can I offer you anything, Jack? Tea?”

      Piat nodded—not too eagerly, he hoped. “Tea would be great.”

      Irene was wearing another shapeless bag. The slight sheen of the material and the coarse beadwork suggested that it was an expensive shapeless bag. She was barefoot, and as she walked off to the kitchen, he saw that she had small feet arched like a ballerina’s. Her back remained straight, her shoulders square. Nothing sexual was being shown, and he was grateful.

      She put water on. The door to the room she called her “studio” was closed; the photographs were still up in the same places; there was no sign that she was “working” or doing whatever people who thought they were artists did.

      “Hackbutt’s up on the hillside. He’s flying his young birds.” She paused, reached into a jar and pulled out a handful of loose tea. “Herbal, or do you run on caffeine?”

      Nice СКАЧАТЬ