At the bar the boys with the crash helmets studied the list of pizza sauces.
'Get the hell out of here.'
'He was in our hand. We snatched. We lost him. Isn't that shit luck?'
'Go and sleep with your woman.'
'I drink, I don't weep. The man was dead on the floor with the crap and the cigarettes and the spit and his blood. Tardelli came down, he wept, he doesn't drink. He asked me-'
'Get some water down you, some aspirin, get to your bed.'
'He's isolated, he's got the stink of failure. He has nothing, nothing to hope for. He begged…'
The boys with the crash helmets had seen nothing on the list of sauces that they wanted. They pushed their way out of the door, into the street.
'What did he beg?'
'Offer him something to hold to. I said it was not my gift to give. His mind is blocked, too much work, too tired, he cannot see the obvious, not followed the line of the family, as we have. He wanted me to share with him the detail of your agent.'
'Bullshit.'
'Your agent of small importance. He wanted the crumbs off your table. "All I want is someone to hold my arm and walk with me." But that's the usual sort of shit talk in Palermo when a man is isolated, that's not the talk to impress an American hero.'
'I don't share.'
'With Italians? Of course not. I tell you, Axel, what I saw. I saw a body on the floor, I saw the blood, I saw the fucking crowd of people. I saw her, I saw Codename Helen, I saw her body and her blood. I drink, I don't weep. Enjoy your meal.'
The fists released Axel's hand that held the fork. The table rocked as 'Vanni levered himself to his feet. Axel watched him go.. . He did not see her on the floor of the bar, but she was clear in his mind, and she was hanging from the nails on the back of the door of the hut at the estancia airstrip… He pushed the plate away from him. He lit a cigarette and he dropped the match on the plate, into the pizza sauce.
The tail learned the name of the woman who owned the house, and late into the night the tail watched the light burn in the upper room.
'What are my options, Ray? What do I chew on?'
The voice boomed back, metallic, from the speaker. Dwight Smythe leaned over the Country Chief's desk and twisted the volume dial. The Country Chief was scribbling headlines.
'Could you wait out, Herb? Could you let me have a minute?'
'Have two – I fancy it's better we get this right, now.'
It had been a bad bloody Monday for Ray. He had been called, two hours' notice, to New Scotland Yard for late morning coffee with biscuits and a hard-going session. He had sat with Dwight, he had been faced by the commander (S06) and the assistant commissioner (SO) and the detective superintendent who was a cat with cream, and there'd been a young guy there who'd not spoken. He'd had a heavy time and they'd done their work on Mario Ruggerio (worse than the worst) and they'd a profile on Charlotte Parsons (Codename Helen). He'd broken, he'd said he needed to talk to Headquarters, and back at the embassy he'd sat on his hands waiting for Herb to show up in his office from the beltway drag into Washington. It had to be Herb he spoke to because it was Herb who had authorized the operation.
'Got it together… I'm not happy, Herb. I feel I'm pushing in over Bill's space.'
'Forget Bill, he'll do as he's damn well told. I get the feeling this isn't a time for standing on ceremony. Hell, I've fourteen situations going in Colombia, I've eight in Peru. I've situations running in
Bangkok, Moscow, Jamaica. I'm not getting an ulcer for one situation in Sicily. I want the options.'
Again Ray paused. What they hated, the big men in Washington who'd made it to the floor with the pile carpets and the drinks cabinets and access to God, was getting bounced for a decision early on a Monday morning. It was a time when his own career could go down the drain, and his hopes of ever getting his feet on that carpet and his hands on the cabinet keys, but he reckoned there wasn't room for evasion. He plunged.
'At high-grade level, the British have Angst. They say, and I quote, "It is intolerable that a young woman should have been pressurized by the DEA, entrapped, and then persuaded to travel to Sicily as the central part of an American-sponsored anti-mafia operation," end quote. That's, my opinion, not the core of their hand-wringing. What's right up their nose, quote, "All DEA activities inside the UK are governed by procedures of liaison and we were not informed, prior to your inveigling Miss Parsons, of your intention to recruit her," end quote. And most important, they have the shits on this one. They see her dead, they see the paparazzi crawling over her, they see an almighty inquest on what an untrained innocent was doing there in a role central to an investigation, they see the blame hammering on their door…'
'I asked, what are the options?'
'Two, Herb. You can tell them to go jump, tell them they are small guys running small shows and suggest they stick to softball in the park.'
'We do good business with the Brits. My second option?'
'You can withdraw your sanction, Herb, close it down, you can pull her out. You can wind it up.'
'Ray, we've known each other a long time, too goddam long. I am not interested in the sensitivities of Bill Hammond. The plan isn't Bill's anyway. The plan belongs to that guy Axel Moen, and I do not care whether I massage his ego or whether I kick him.
Which side of the fence are you falling? I want it straight.'
He glanced up at the loudspeaker on the wall, beside the Green Ice operation photograph. Herb, front row, smiling, was always the bastard who turned up late and took the credit, and hacked off early to avoid the blame. Dwight Smythe, opposite him, made the quick gesture, a finger across the throat. He spoke into the microphone, he felt dirty.
'What I want to say, Herb, 1 don't give a fuck for the susceptibilities of the British.
They'll complain for a week, and after a week they'll be good as gold and looking for a candy hand-out. Myself, I'd ignore them.'
'I hear you. Right, thanks, I'll call Bill Hammond and tell.'
'Sorry, Herb, I'm not through. This kid is on a limb, this kid has no covert training.
She's been given the glamour treatment. She should never have been asked to go. I can take newspaper flak, I can handle an inquiry if she ends up dead. But I don't think I'd want that at my door. It's a precious thing, my self-respect. But, of course, Herb, if it goes sour, then it's on your desk that it lands because you authorized it.'
He thought he had rolled a hand-grenade across a pile carpet and the grenade might just bounce against the imitation antique of a drinks cabinet and it might just come to rest against a desk on a high floor of Headquarters. He winked, grim, at Dwight Smythe.
The voice boomed, 'Kill it.'
'I think that's a good decision, Herb.'
There was rain falling on the garden of the square that the embassy faced onto. The square was a goddam morgue, and the daffodils were flattened by the rainfall, and the crocus blooms were crushed. Dwight Smythe drove, and held his peace. Ray reflected.
He had bled his conscience over the telephone link. Maybe he was too old and too tired, too fucked-up, for the job. Maybe he had gone too soft for the work. If the work mattered, sure as Christ it mattered, then maybe it was worth hauling any kid, any innocent, off the street, then maybe pressure was justified, if the work mattered. ..
Axel Moen had been in his office, Axel Moen had treated Dwight Smythe like he was just the hired hand, Axel Moen hadn't gone hiding behind conscience, Axel Moen was a cold bastard, Axel Moen would believe the work mattered… They crossed central London, and Dwight Smythe parked outside the main doors of New Scotland Yard and threw the keys in an arc to a constable… Maybe he should feel comfortable because his back was protected, and Herb's back was safe, and the men waiting for them upstairs in the building could feel good because their backs were covered, and maybe he'd be offered a drink because all the big guys were protected and safe and covered, and in this fucking awful world that was what mattered. If it had been for the kid, the innocent, if it had been for protecting and saving and covering the kid, then he could have felt good, but it wasn't… They came out of the elevator and stamped along the corridor behind the constable escorting them. It was a bad bloody Monday.