“Forget that.” He knew where Bauer was, but he wouldn’t tell Copley. He was also glad Rose was safe, though he’d never had any desire to try out her non-military skills. He leaned forward and said, “None of it is mine. If somebody is thumbing my people, I want to know why. I want to know bad!”
Copley picked up a bottle-green file folder from his desk. “Want a job? A real job… not that beegee crap you’re doing now. Battalion going in for the rebs in Uganda. Second in command? Maybe captain, if the sponsors agree?”
Lessing waved the file away. “No, and I don’t want to join an Eskimo regiment in the Arctic or boss a legion of hula-dancers in Hawaii!”
“Or be a bouncer in an S-‘n’-M gay bar in Los Angeles?” Copley snorted up laughter the way an elephant sucks water through its trunk. “God, man, I don’t know a damned thing! People do talk. Come on, y’all surely got time for one drink at least.”
“No, really. Let me ask you this: what do you know about my last job? Who bought that spesh-op?”
Copley scratched an ear so freckled that it resembled a dried apricot. “Heard that Gomez got croaked, too, out in India. Heard that you might’ve been the croaker and him the croakee.”
“No way. I was… somewhere else. I can prove it.”
“Shit, who’s asking? But that means that whatever he knew is worms. I talked to Arturo Da Silva in Lebanon a couple weeks back. You know him? Friend of Gomez?”
“Yeah. Your point?”
“He said Gomez was bragging about something he’d set up. A lot of money, helicopters, guns, meres. Was that you?” “Could be. Who paid?”
Copley raised both shoulders in an expressive, Gallic shrug. He had become so French that he could make a living letting tourists take his picture over in the Montmartre.
“I’ve got to know.”
“Can’t help you. Honest to God.”
“Bullshit. You’ve never been honest to God.” Lessing changed the subject. “What do you hear about my boss, Herman Mulder? About Indoco?”
Again that flat, closed stare. What drug was Copley taking that made his eyes look like lead marbles?
“Nice old guy. Works hard. Stays out in India when he could be sitting on his ass in a hot tub in Palm Springs, surrounded by Banger chickies and snufflin’ up white lightning. He’s one of Indoco’s directors, and he’s on the board of half a dozen other corporations to boot. Rich and important, but loves India too much to come home.”
Copley could have read all that on the front page of Indoco’s company newspaper. Lessing snarled, “More!”
Copley ran a thumb along the edge of the green folder. “That’s about it. Look, Alan, let me send you on that Ugandan job. Seriously.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s a good deal. Not much danger and lots of perks.” “Crap.”
“Okay, then. I like you. I’d rather shanghai you than see you thumbed. Hollister thinks you tried to unzip him, and now him and his buddies are going to do you first.”
“I won’t turn my back in the shower, all right? Now, one last chorus: who paid for our spesh-op? Who’s thumbing my squad?”
Copley twisted uncomfortably, groped for his drink, and turned the glass around and around in freckle-blotched fingers. “That particular job is like an artillery range: big signs all over saying ‘Keep Off Or Get Your Head Popped.’ No shitty, little emperor or jumped-up military dictator waving his two-inch dink this time.”
“If it’s big, there are only four choices.” He held out his fingers one at a time. “American, Russian, Israeli, or Chinese. Plus friends, relatives, and allies of any of the above.”
Copley looked still more unhappy. “Or a faction inside one or more of the same.” He waggled both hands, palms down, in front of him. “All done, Alan; ’nough said. I’d only be guessing. Try Da Silva.”
“What for? He’ll give me even less.” Lessing held up his four fingers. “My four choices. If you know, Terry, for God’s sake just say which.”
Copley looked down at the backs of his own hands, the color of raw meat. Then he extended the index finger of his left hand. Just one finger.
American, then. Or some group within the United States, possibly government, possibly not. It tied in with what Hoeykens had said, and it looked bad. But it still didn’t tell him much: several American agencies and factions had enough men, arms, and money to start their own countries. Why would they need a squad of mostly foreign meres to pull off Marvelous Gap? Too many internal watchdogs? The press? Political shenanigans? Some crazy Pentagon or CIA plot to take over the government? Copley’s answer only led to more questions! It also did not explain what the Israelis wanted with Lessing, nor who had burglarized Indoco.
Lessing got to his feet as nonchalantly as he knew how, said his farewells, and left.
The street smelled of gasoline. Traffic was a tangle at this hour, and the crush of pedestrians was almost claustrophobic. Dust rose from the drills of a pavement repair crew fifty meters away. He took careful note: that would be good cover for stitch-guns, silencers, or even a shotgun blast! He set off in the opposite direction, toward the Boulevard Victor Hugo, to look for a taxi.
He had absolutely no idea what to do next.
Somebody was following him: a motion, a flash of color glimpsed out of the comer of an eye. He entered a tobacconist’s shop, bought a pack of cigarettes he would never smoke, and managed a look around.
No one.
He emerged and hailed a cab. It was busy and went on by, two delicate young men smiling out the rear window at him. Nothing to do but walk on.
He sensed pursuit again. It was just a breath upon his spine, but this sixth sense was one he had mastered well. If he hadn’t, his bones would have been bleaching among the rocks out in Angola or Syria long ago.
A big, brick archway opened into the blank wall of an older building. He ducked inside and peered back. A girl, a Banger, wobbled along the curbing behind him on heels so high as to be stilts. She looked sixteen; her sharp, wise, little features were caked with make-up; a long, magenta-dyed braid bounced against bony shoulder blades; and her tiny breasts were covered with two squares of sparkle-tape the size of bandaids. Heavy junk jewelry clanked and jingled at her throat, in her hair, and all along her right arm.
She didn’t resemble any kikibird he’d ever known.
He looked closer. She carried neither percussion instrument nor pocket radio tuned to the howling rhythms of the Banger stations. Her translucent-silver, plastic miniskirt was visibly dusty, however: she had been standing near Copley’s building and the street repair crew for some time. She could have been waiting for Lessing to come out.
He’d give odds that she was the tail.
He moved further into the archway and stopped, loosening his pistol in its shoulder holster. Too bad he didn’t have a silencer for it. The girl would have to come to him here, and any friends must enter the passage behind her. He would be in shadow; they would be temporarily blinded and also silhouetted against the light from the street.
The girl pretended to sec him for the First time. She wiggled her hips crudely and suggestively, and said something in French. She was obviously a regular hooker, whatever she was involved in now.
Lessing could see no one near enough to rush in or shoot from the street. Behind him the archway opened into an arcade, an enclosed central court several stories high, roofed over with a multi-panelled skylight. A score of boutiques and touristy, little shops beckoned all around the ground floor. They would provide excellent cover and escape routes if necessary.
The Banger girl pointed to the hand he now held near his jacket lapel. She smiled and shook her head so that her braid flew out, jangling with silver chains and charms. Again she spoke in French.