She hesitated. “By killing people?”
“Of course not. I didn’t come here to kill anybody.”
“What about in Chevy Chase?”
“That wasn’t me.”
“You just said—”
“I was there. I was shot. But I didn’t kill Babbitt.”
“What about Dupont Circle?”
“Not me. Again, I was present, but I didn’t kill Max Ohlhauser or the transit cops.”
“What about Washington Highlands?”
It was a long time before the reply came. “Those guys I did kill.”
“And the Easy Market shoot-out?”
The man in the hoodie and the sunglasses exhaled. “I assume you saw the footage, so I assume you know I had to do it.”
“I didn’t see any footage. Just bodies.”
Six shrugged. “Yeah, I killed those guys. Believe me, they had it coming.”
“So… you say you aren’t here to kill anyone. Yet by my count eleven people are dead in four incidents, and though you admit to being present at all four incidents you are copping to just five of the killings. In my business that calls you something of an unreliable witness.”
He shrugged. “I only killed the bad ones. That’s kind of my thing.”
“Who killed the rest, if not you?”
“People following the orders of Denny Carmichael.”
She let that statement hang in the air while they drove for a moment, then asked, “Why does the CIA want you dead?”
“The CIA doesn’t want me dead. Carmichael wants me dead. I don’t know the real reason. I thought I did, but now that I’m here, I’m more confused than ever.”
“What is his stated reason?”
“Some operation that happened six years ago. Something that went off without a hitch.”
“But if it went off without a hitch, why does Carmichael want you—”
Six interrupted suddenly, as if something had just come to him. “Do you have contacts in Israeli intelligence?”
Catherine nodded. “Yes. Of course. Well-placed ones, as a matter of fact.”
With excitement in his voice, he said, “Six years ago, a Mossad penetration agent in al Qaeda in Iraq traveled to Trieste, Italy. He was compromised and burned to the opposition but didn’t know it. An al Qaeda assassin showed up to kill him. Before he could act, an operative arrived and rescued the Mossad agent.”
King just said, “I’ve never heard of this incident.”
“Doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.”
“How do you know all this?”
“I was the operative. I termed the al Qaeda gunman and—”
“You did what?”
“Terminated him.”
“Oh. Go on.”
“And I got the Mossad agent to safety. Everything went off the way it was supposed to, but six years later I find out Carmichael is using this old operation as justification to term me.” Court stopped the car in the middle of the little tree-lined road and turned to her. “If you can go to the Israelis and confirm any part of this event in Trieste, make it public, then Denny will have no alternative but to rescind the shoot on sight.”
“Shoot on sight? That sounds like something from a bad movie.” Slowly she looked up at him. This time he didn’t order her to turn away.
He looked crestfallen suddenly. “You think I’m making this entire thing up, don’t you?”
“People lie. Even the legitimate ones enhance their stories sometimes. In my work I see it every day.”
Six rubbed his eyes under his sunglasses. She could see fatigue and frustration on his face, even if his eyes were obscured by the dark lenses.
She softened a little. “I believe you are who you say you are. But some men… some women, live and die for their country, and never receive any recognition. They come to me with an exaggeration, an embellishment, something to boost what they’ve accomplished.”
The man behind the wheel all but recoiled. “Seriously, lady, do you really think I want recognition? Do you think any of the boys in SAD are looking for shine time? If I had my way no one on earth would ever know I existed. What I’m doing here, with you, this isn’t about me. This is about finding the truth so I can expose Carmichael’s hunt as an illegal operation. I just want to come home without all this hanging over me.”
Catherine looked hard at the man in front of her. She thought he might have been in his early thirties, but she could not be sure. He was of average height and she caught sight of wisps of brown sticking out of the hoodie. His skin was relatively fair; he had some stubble on his face, but it looked like he’d shaved in the past twenty-four hours.
He was normal. Regular. Utterly nondescript. She wondered if she’d be able to pick this man out of a lineup an hour from now.
That was, of course, if he planned on letting her go at all.
Quickly she said, “You want me to contact someone in Israel?”
“No. I want you to go to Israel. Talk to people you know, but also talk to someone I know.”
“And who is that?”
Six drove out of the cemetery and into the thickening afternoon traffic. “I don’t have a name. He used to be a commando, but now he is working as some kind of a coordinator for their paramilitary units. He helped me get here to the States. He might be able to help you.”
“I’ll need more information than that if I am going to track him down.”
Six thought it over. “He was in the hospital recently.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because I shot him.”
Catherine leaned back in her seat, rested her head against the door window. “And he’s helping you?”
“We made up.”
“Right. What else do you know about him?”
They spent a few more minutes, he giving her information about the Mossad officer who helped him escape Europe and get into the USA, and she doing her best to remember everything he said while simultaneously trying to regain her composure and understand her situation. After a while she forgot this had begun with a kidnapping. Six seemed to be no threat to her. Instead he presented himself as a man who felt like the world was against him, but nevertheless refused to turn and run away. Whether or not his assertions were true, she still had no idea, but she did not doubt for a minute that Six believed everything he was saying.
Finally he said, “I guess I just have one question for you before I say good-bye. Is there anything else you can tell me about your conversation with Carmichael? Anything else he might have said that stands out?”
Catherine thought a moment. “Maybe so. Were you, by chance, born in Jacksonville, Florida?” She saw no reaction on the man’s face, though she looked hard for one.
“Why do you ask?”
“It seemed to me that Carmichael wanted me to put that in the article. I don’t know what it means, but he said the man they were after was from Jacksonville.”
“Why didn’t you use it?”
“You say you are being played by forces bigger than you.” She sighed. “Sometimes I feel the same way. I don’t particularly like it, either.”
Six drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “I don’t know what that means. I was born in Dayton, Ohio.” He looked to her. “Please don’t print that.”
Catherine said, “Other than the fact that you kidnapped me, and the circumstances around that, there isn’t much here that I can print. I can’t talk about this Israeli connection without catching a lot of heat, and all I’ll get from the Agency will be denials.”
As they pulled up to a red light, Six surprised her by smiling. “You don’t need to report it. Not till you have the proof you need. Carmichael has convinced everybody at Langley I need to die for a mistake I never made. You find out what happened in Trieste, you will see I am telling the truth. Then you’ll have your story.”