“I bet you were.”
“Yep.”
He looked at his breadstick, and she realized he was lamenting that a jaunt with a whore had cost him his love of flying helicopters.
“Hey, I’m pretty good on a motorcycle,” she said. “Pocket rockets. I look pretty hot on them too.”
“Sweet,” he said. “I bet you do.”
“Do you ride?”
“No,” he said. “A close friend died on one and I swore… well, I just don’t ride.”
“No, it’s okay,” she said. “I get it.”
She bit off another piece of her breadstick, mashed it with her teeth, and swallowed.
“You want to go somewhere… I don’t know… secure?” she asked. “You know. So we can really talk.”
“That’s the best idea I heard all day,” he said. “I’ll get our dinners to go.”
In the secure room where she had first gotten to know him, she felt more relaxed. She watched heat rise from Styrofoam carryout boxes he had removed from a microwave oven. She plunged a plastic fork into her salmon steak.
“I have some questions about Ghaffari,” she said.
“Shoot,” he said.
“For a woman who was a party animal while husband hunting, she’s turned into a homebody. I’ve watched her for three days, and all she does is go to work and come home. Maybe stops to buy stuff like groceries and gas, but that’s it.”
“Sorry,” he said. “You’ll have to catch me up.”
“Oh, yeah. Gerry let me put her under passive surveillance. Emails, cell calls, Internet. She’s been streaming a lot of movies recently, sitting at home. And she’s been getting emails from her fiancé where he photographs himself with a sign counting down the days until their wedding.”
“Cute,” he said.
“Yeah, and I asked a few guys from the agency if that was cause for alarm. They didn’t think so.”
She washed down buttered green beans with diet cola from a plastic cup.
“Don’t you think it’s odd that she’s not out shopping for dresses, shoes, or stuff for her new life?” she asked. “Shouldn’t a woman getting ready for a wedding in six months be making some fuss?”
“Depends on the woman, I guess.”
“I know her motives are destructive, but I would still expect her to have some sort of celebratory activity. Buying trophies of having bagged her husband, gloating, or something. Sequestering herself at home seems wrong. It’s like she’s hiding, waiting for a bomb to go off.”
“I’m no analyst,” he said, “but it makes sense.”
“Yeah, I just wanted to talk it out.”
“No, I get it. You seem awfully lonely.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“I mean on this assignment. You’re all alone as its only resource.”
“Yeah, Gerry didn’t expect me to find much, but I’ve been kind of on a mission to find something since I came up blank on the Leviathan.”
“Where’d you leave off on the Leviathan?” he asked.
“Three days ago when I drove down here,” she said. “I heard they lost it but found it again. There’s a French submarine involved now, right?”
“Kind of. Technically French built, although it’s a joint construction effort with a Spanish company. It’s a pre-commission unit that’s going to be the Razak when it gets to Malaysian hands, and that’s what we’re calling it. But it’s a French submarine on a NATO-type of exercise operationally as far as we’re concerned.”
“Which means what?”
“Which means it’s following the orders of our commanders,” he said. “The Commander of the Atlantic Fleet has control, although I understand your friend Director Rickets is considered an integral advisor.”
“Not surprising,” she said. “He is a sharp guy and a mover and shaker.”
“We have reason to believe that the Razak is trailing the Leviathan now,” he said.
“Which is being towed by the Zafar towards New York,” she said. “So why do we still just have reason to believe? We were that far three days ago.”
“The Razak picked up a few transient noises from the Zafar that could have been from a submarine in tow, but it’s unconfirmed.”
She admired the way he ripped through a Porterhouse steak with a plastic knife as she took another bite of her salmon.
“Isn’t this the sort of thing you confirm with a deep sea camera after you’ve crippled the Zafar and sent its towed cargo to the bottom?” she asked.
“When the Israelis came clean on everything,” he said, “such as admitting that they have no idea who’s running their submarine and telling us about its weapons load, they pleaded for us to bring the submarine back in one piece.”
“I see. It prevents wasting a submarine, causing Israel to look weak, and upsetting the Germans who subsidize the program. I guess it makes sense.”
“Not to mention the possibility of returning corpses home,” he said. “At least one thing looks clear. Your analysis that this wasn’t an inside job may stand up.”
“It would be nice to know that I was right,” she said.
“Yep. Hey, when this Leviathan thing is over, I should have more time. Do you like to hike?”
“Yes, actually. It looks like we’ve found something besides national intelligence that we both do.”
“Sweet. Let’s say ten days from now we hit a walking trail in a nature preserve about an hour from here.”
“Sounds great, Roger” she said. “But why ten days?”
“Because I’ll need some time to write up a report on the Leviathan. I want to leave some slop.”
“Slop on what? I didn’t know the end point was decided yet.”
“Oh, yeah. I forgot. You don’t know yet. There’s a plan to take the Leviathan back. Would you like to hear about it?”
She sipped from her plastic cup.
“I’m all ears.”
Jake watched Renard give the briefing in the Mercer’s operations room. His old friend revealed his age by preferring colored pencils to tactical monitors. The Frenchman’s silvery hair bounced as he moved in front of nautical charts and trace paper taped over the aft Subtics monitor.
Henri, Antoine Remy, and three younger mercenaries crouched and stood around the display with Jake.
“The USS Georgia is waiting in Norfolk, here,” Renard said, pointing at a chart showing the Atlantic Ocean from Halifax to Bermuda to the coastal regions of the United States. “It’s awaiting the delivery of special cargo and is the limiting factor on the timing of the operation.”
“I think that the confirmation of an Israeli submarine behind that tanker is the limiting factor,” Jake said.
“We’ve heard transients that had enough bearing separation from the tanker to suggest that they came from a vessel being towed. Phantoms don’t make clanking sounds of doors being latched.”
The omen from his brother weighed on his mind.
“Fine. Sorry. Keep going,” he said.
“What is the Georgia waiting for?” Henri asked.
“The cutting instrument and the Israeli system experts.”
“By system experts, do you mean special forces killing experts?” Jake asked.
“No,” Renard said. “I mean system experts. Four men who know various parts of the Leviathan will be present aboard the Georgia. One will join the Navy SEALs in the insertion into the Leviathan. The SEALs will take care of the killing.”