Top Hook. Gordon Kent

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СКАЧАТЬ on, Rose! It isn’t the end of the world!”

      She started to snap at him but caught herself. Harry really knew about the end of the world: he had lost an eye to torture two years before in Africa. She gave him an apologetic grin, accepted a sweaty bottle.

      He winked at her, as if to say: See? You can fall in the shit and come up holding a diamond. He was wearing a linen blazer and an electric-blue T-shirt that Rose suspected was real silk, and he was handsome and breezy and rich-looking.

      “Sorry,” she said. Her smile was half-hearted.

      Then Abe Peretz arrived, and Dukas and Emma Pasternak came in right behind him. After a lot of shouted introductions and greetings, people shoved chairs around and grabbed beer and sat down, all but Dukas, who took up the space between the beds and announced loudly, “I’m taking charge of this meeting.” Emma started to protest but he waved her down. “I’m the NCIS investigator and it’s a Navy case, so I’m in charge.” He pointed a finger, the thumb cocked like a hammer, at Emma. “You’re here by my permission.”

      “She’s my client, and she remains my client wherever we are! She says nothing unless I okay it. She—”

      Dukas put his hands on the arms of her chair and leaned his face down very close to hers and said in a tone like a dog’s growl, “Shut up or get out.”

      Before either of them could do something terrible, Rose grabbed Emma’s arm and said, “Emma, please! Mike’s my friend!”

      Emma glanced at her, then locked eyes with Dukas again. Something passed between them. At last, she mumbled, “But no taping. Nothing she says can be used in court. Okay?”

      Dukas grinned, patted her arm. He straightened. “So here’s what I want to do tonight. I want to chew on it and come up with a way to attack. I mean, we’re all clear that Rose is being smeared and her husband’s getting screwed by association, are we all agreed on that? Okay, so what we want to find is how and why. Rose, I want everything you have on Peacemaker, because this whole thing seems to start there. The word is you gave Peacemaker secrets to—well, we don’t know who to. You got reports, printouts—disks—?”

      Emma started to say, “What’s Peacemaker?” but Rose jumped in ahead of her. “Mike, Peacemaker was more than two years ago! I haven’t got anything!”

      “Sure, you have. People always keep stuff. It’s in a box in a closet or the cellar—bullshit awards they gave you, photos from the Christmas party—”

      “Oh, that sort of shit.”

      “Yeah, and I want it. All.”

      Angered again by her own lack of control, Rose growled, “It’s all on its way to Houston, remember? I don’t have a cellar or a closet!”

      Harry O’Neill uncrossed his long legs and said, “Computer.” He looked at Dukas. “What d’you think?”

      “I never used my home computer for Peacemaker,” Rose cried. “Everything was classified.”

      Dukas bored in. “You never brought anything home and worked it on your computer? Tell me another, Alphonse!”

      Emma half-rose from her chair. “I object—!”

      “You stay out of it!”

      “This is typical cop bullshit; you’re tricking her into making statements to incriminate her.”

      Dukas stared at her. He stuck his lower jaw out, his tongue running over his upper teeth. “Do you want me to take her into an interrogation room with a tape recorder and a witness? Would that be better? Goddamit, we’re here to help her!”

      Again, Rose put her hand on Emma’s arm. “I’ll answer, Emma.”

      “I don’t want you to!”

      “Well, deal with it.” Rose looked up at Mike. “What was the question? Did I put Peacemaker stuff on my home computer? No, I didn’t. I’m a good little naval officer, Mike; I follow the rules.”

      “Rosie, we got a former Director of National Intelligence who put stuff on his home computer. Everybody does it! I want your computer.”

      “It’s on the way to Houston! And it’s clean. Clean.”

      “Okay.” He talked it as he wrote. “Find—truck—en route—Houston—”

      The telephone rang.

      “Oh, shit—” She sprang up, reaching for it, knocking over her beer. “Goddamit—!” O’Neill and Peretz were both there, mopping at the carpet, and she stepped over them. “Hello!” She sounded enraged, and she hoped, therefore, that it wasn’t Alan.

      And it wasn’t. It was a woman.

      “You don’t know me,” the female voice said. Rose’s first thought was that it was some sort of telemarketer, an idea that was gone as fast as it came; telemarketers didn’t do motel rooms. Did they?

      “Who is this?”

      “I want to help you.”

      The voice was soft, as if she didn’t want somebody on her end to overhear. A little tense. Guarded. Around Rose, the room had fallen silent, and the men were watching her.

      “Who is this, please?”

      “George Shreed is behind what’s being done to you.”

      Rose heard the click as the woman hung up. Even so, she spoke into the phone again. And got nothing.

      When she turned back to the room, they were all looking at her.

      “A woman I don’t know said that George Shreed is behind what’s happening.”

      Abe Peretz exploded. “Sonofabitch—!”

      Emma was saying, “Who’s George Shreed?” to Dukas, and O’Neill was frowning at Rose in a way that meant he knew exactly who Shreed was, and what was the connection? Suddenly the room was electric where before it had been sullen.

      Rose sat down. “I don’t get it. Why would somebody—?”

      “Agency,” Harry said. “She’d have to be Agency to know anything about Shreed. Or she’s an old girlfriend with a grudge. Which isn’t his style.”

      “Yes, yes, but—” Peretz was so excited that he was waving one hand like a kid trying to be called on in class. “It’s exactly what I was going to say! Shreed was deep, deep in Peacemaker.”

      “Wait!” Emma was on her feet. She had a real bellow when she needed it. “What the hell are you all talking about?”

      So, while O’Neill and Peretz murmured together, Rose and Dukas sketched it in for Emma Pasternak: Peretz, who had started a routine, two-week Naval Reserve stint at Peacemaker two years before, had got suspicious of the sort of data he was seeing and had begun nosing around, tracking things back to Shreed СКАЧАТЬ