Top Hook. Gordon Kent

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СКАЧАТЬ get on the line to the head of Internal, he’s a buddy of yours, tell him we’re not taking No for an answer, either he reinstates the Siciliano investigation or he’s dead. Dead, d-e-a-d, as in one too many failures! Do it!”

      Siciliano, she thought. That’s the name of Alan Craik’s wife. What the hell? Sally had been there when the rift between Shreed and Craik had opened, something about an event in Africa years ago. Was Shreed still angry, was that what all this was about? Was he trying some petty revenge on Alan Craik through the man’s wife?

      “Goddamit, just do it!” she heard Shreed shout.

      The man’s ballistic. But why?

      NCIS HQ, Washington.

      Mike Dukas was sitting at a borrowed desk in an office already being used by somebody else. The desk wasn’t really a desk, only an old typing table from the days of IBM Selectrics, and the chair was a mismatched typing chair that already hurt his back.

      “You Dukas?” a voice said. He looked across the room. A black male agent was holding up a telephone.

      “Yeah.”

      “Phone call.” He held out the telephone. “Make it quick, will you? I live on that thing.”

      Dukas took the call standing by the guy’s desk. “Dukas.”

      “Dukas, it’s Menzes. CIA Internal Investigations.”

      “Yeah, yeah, I remember.”

      “The deal’s off.”

      “Hey—”

      “We had a go, then we had no-go. From the top: no deal, definitely pursue, by the book. Your lawyer lady wants to go public, that’s her prerogative; it won’t change a thing.”

      Dukas was thinking hard. He couldn’t see what had changed the dynamics, but he was a realist; if Menzes said the deal was dead, it was dead. “You kicking it to us?” he said.

      “Exactly. ‘By the book,’ that’s what I was told, and the book says it’s the Navy’s to pursue.”

      “We oughta talk.”

      “Nothing’ll change, man. This isn’t my doing. But, yeah, there may be things to talk about. This case—”

      “What?”

      “I don’t want to talk on an open phone.”

      “Jesus, Menzes, this is gonna hit the woman hard.”

      “It hit me hard; I don’t like to be second-guessed.” Menzes was angry. He was a standup guy, a hardnose, and somebody above him had jerked his chain.

      “We’re talking everything here? No change of orders? She goes to Big Turd, West Virginia? No Houston?”

      “Back to square one. Only it’s NCIS’s baby now.”

      “Yeah, but we wouldn’t—” Dukas gave up; there was no point in going over it again. But he wanted to talk to Menzes, so he arranged to meet him next day at someplace called the Old Commonwealth Tavern, aka “the Agency Annex.” When Dukas hung up, the black agent said, “Oh, thank you,” in a prissy voice. “I thought I was going to have to charge rent.”

      Dukas wasn’t sure he could tell Rose. He walked along the corridor, looking into offices until he found an empty one, and he went in and used the phone there. First he called Peretz and told him the bad news, and Peretz said they had to have a council of war, the sooner the better. Dukas said he’d think about it, and he called Emma Pasternak, but she was out somewhere.

      Then he called Rose.

      She was happy. It was in her voice, that husky female sound that made his knees shaky. Before he could say anything, she burbled, “Guess who’s in town! He’s taking me to dinner!”

      “Al?”

      “No, asshole, Al’s on the boat! Harry!”

      Harry. O’Neill. Another of the friends who circled the wagons for her when she was in trouble. Of course. Could he get O’Neill to tell her? No, of course not. “Hey, Rose—”

      “Harry wants to see you, Mike. I told him my problem is over, that’s why he’s in DC, was to help me, but he wants to see all you guys, anyway.”

      “It isn’t over.”

      “I know, there’s the investigation part, but—”

      “The deal’s off, babe. The Agency backed out.” He heard her breathing as she put it together. “We’re back where we were on Monday,” he said. “I’m sorry as hell.”

      “You mean—everything?” Everything meant only one thing—the astronaut program.

      “Everything,” he said. “I tried to call your lawyer, she’s out. I talked to Abe—”

      “GODDAMIT TO HELL!” she shouted. “They fucking can’t!”

      “Abe thinks we should have a skull session. It’s not a bad idea, especially with Harry here; he understands this stuff. What d’you say?”

      “Oh, Mike. Oh, shit!”

      “Yeah. But we can’t just sit still for it, babe. We gotta move.”

      “Whatever.” The happiness had gone out of her voice.

      “I’ll get Emma,” he said. I shouldn’t have said “Emma,” he thought. He hoped Rose wouldn’t notice.

      Dukas went back to his borrowed typing table. Last night, he had thought he might really wind this up and be back in The Hague in a few days. Now, he knew, he was in for the long haul.

      E-mail, Rose to Alan.

      it isn’t over after all. Mike just told me. deal fell through. Oh shit, i love you so much and i miss you so much and i want to kill somebody for this. I keep saying why me why me but it doesn’t do any good. I’m so sorry i’ve dragged you down with me but dont despair we’ll come through we always have. I love you and that’s a lot. But goddamit i keep saying to myself who is doing this to us who who who?

       8

      Rose’s motel.

      Harry O’Neill was putting beer bottles into plastic tubs of ice. He was a big, handsome black man who came from money and behaved with the confidence of a Harvard education and a family of big-time lawyers. He had been a CIA case officer, now had his own security company, and he had flown in from Dubai to help her.

      “We’re going to get you out of this,” he said, as СКАЧАТЬ