“I got careless with a razor.” A razor that happened to be in the hands of a Korean soldier at the time, Tanner didn’t add. “Nicked myself.”
“And this one?” Camille touched under his right armpit.
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Try me.”
“I fell on some broken glass.”
“Mmm. You should be more careful.”
After a while, she whispered, “Briggs, I have to leave in the morning.”
“What? I thought it wasn’t until the day after.”
“So did I. Something from work came up. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I didn’t want it spoiling our evening.”
Tanner smiled. “Never argue with a woman’s wisdom.”
“Pardon?”
“Something my dad once told me.”
“A wise man, your father.”
Her tone was light, but Tanner knew she was thinking the same thing as he: Whatever they had now would probably end tomorrow. He wasn’t sure which feeling dominated his heart: sadness or relief. He was torn, and he hated it.
“I hate this,” Camille murmured.
“Me, too.”
“I don’t know how to…” A tear ran from Camille’s eye and fell on his chest. “What do we do, Briggs?”
Tanner wrapped his arms around her. “In the morning we’ll have breakfast, I’ll take you to the airport, we’ll promise to meet again, and then we’ll say good-bye.”
She looked up at him. “Just that easy?”
“No, not easy. Not easy at all.”
Camille kissed him, then lifted her leg over the chair and straddled him. She pulled the blanket around them and smiled. “Well, we still have time.”
She shed her robe and moved against him until they were both ready, then rose up and lowered herself onto him. She stayed that way, unmoving except for a gentle circling of her hips. They made love slowly, almost lazily, until she climaxed. She made no sound save a small gasp, then curled up against his chest.
They dozed and talked until the first tinge of sunlight appeared on the horizon.
“Almost dawn,” Tanner murmured.
“Take me back to bed, Briggs.”
A few hours later, after she finished dressing, Tanner took her luggage to the lobby, called for a taxi, and sat down to wait
After sunrise they’d shared breakfast on the balcony. Camille’s mood was cheery and playful, but it was forced as she dawdled about the room, combing her hair, packing and repacking, avoiding the clock. When Tanner finally told her they had to leave, she simply nodded and asked him to take her bag downstairs.
Suddenly the lobby doors burst open and in strode a genuine cowboy, complete with snakeskin boots, a silver and turquoise belt buckle, bolo tie, and a ten-gallon Stetson. Tottering his wake was a single bellman, his arms piled with luggage.
The cowboy stood about five eight and tipped the scales at a solid 220 pounds. His close-cropped beard and mustache were light brown.
The check-in process for the cowboy was swift, and within minutes he and his bellman were headed for the elevators. As he passed Tanner, Ian “Bear” Cahil tipped his hat at him, gave him a “Pardner,” then disappeared into the elevator.
The cavalry has arrived, Tanner thought with a smile. What was it Dutcher had said? Light cover for status? Briggs suspected Bear had chosen his own. It would do the job, though; the Pecos Bill act would be what people remembered; out of costume, Cahil would be almost invisible.
A moment later the elevator opened and Camille stepped out.
“Ready?” Tanner asked.
“Yes.”
An hour later, they were standing at the plane’s boarding gate. The attendant announced the last call for her flight. She cast an irritated glance at the jet way.
“Damn it.” She pressed a finger beneath her eye, trying to keep it from brimming. “This is silly. After all, this was just a vacation romance, wasn’t it?”
He took her in his arms. “No.”
She looked into his eyes. “No, I guess not.” She kissed him, then pushed herself away and picked up her carry-on. “I should go. I’ll miss my plane.”
“Good-bye, Camille.”
“Good-bye, Briggs.” She placed a tentative hand on his chest, then turned and walked onto the jet way.
Tanner asked the cabbie to drive for a while, not caring where, then returned to the Royal Palms. He walked up to Cahil’s room and knocked.
“Hold yer horses!” Tanner heard.
The door opened. “Sheriff,” Briggs drawled and walked in.
“You like it? I’m kind of enjoying it. They love cowboys here.”
“So I’ve heard.”
Cahil frowned at him. “You okay?”
“Yeah.”
“She make her flight?”
Tanner nodded.
“You want to talk about it?”
“No.”
Cahil ordered coffee and sandwiches from room service, and they spent the afternoon fleshing out their game plan. First they would check the locker at Sannomiya Station, which Tanner felt could be important for two reasons: One, instead of having secreted it somewhere, Umako was carrying the key when he died; and two, he hadn’t told the CIA about it.
Next they would check DORSAL’s series of dead-letter drops. Following that, assuming they got no response from the drops, would be to get clearance from the CIA to restart Ohira’s network, beginning with the one and only agent the CIA knew about, an engineer at Takagi Maritime. All this would take some finesse. Ohira’s contacts had probably heard of his murder, and a sudden reactivation might send them running.
“What about equipment?” asked Tanner.
“We should have it by tomorrow. When do you want to check the locker?”
“Tonight.”
Cahil nodded and downed the last of his coffee. “Then get the hell out of here and let me sleep. My body’s still on Washington time.”
11
One of the by-products of the end of the Cold War and the U.S.S.R.’s subsequent demise was a spirit of renewed cooperation between the U.S. and Russian intelligence communities. As the struggling commonwealth’s primary source of subsidy, the U.S. had demanded and received many concessions, one of which involved Russia’s former links to state-sponsored terrorism. In the years following the breakup, the KGB’s successor, the Foreign Intelligence Service, had aided the CIA’s war on terrorism by serving as an information clearinghouse. To facilitate this conduit the DCI and his deputies were linked to their Russian counterparts via encrypted phones.
The phone’s distinct double buzz caught DDO George Coates by surprise. He opened the drawer and lifted the receiver. He heard several clicks, then a muted tone burst, which told him the encryption and recording units were functioning.
“George Coates.”
“Hello, George.”
“Pyotor, this is a surprise.” Pyotor Kolokov, his opposite number in the FTS, used the “bat phone” sparingly.
“A pleasant one, I trust.”
“Of course. How is Karina?”
“She is well. Thank you for asking. George, I am sending you something in the diplomatic pouch. It concerns a former friend of ours, someone you’ve expressed an interest in.”
Coates had a guess what this meant. Most often, information passed by the FIS regarded the CIA’s hit parade, an informal list of assorted bad guys they were tracking. The upper ranks of the DO’s current hit parade were filled almost exclusively by Islamic terrorists the KGB had once nurtured.
“How much interest?” asked Coates.
“For you, some. But for your sister, quite a lot, I think.”