«So tell me, Jeremy, just what happened out there in Athens?»
Keating knew that the answers he gave over this luncheon would determine whether he lived or died.
«I got a vision of a different world, Jason,» he answered honestly. «I’m through with killing. I want out.»
Lyle’s eyes flashed, whether at Keating’s use of his first name or his intended resignation or his mention of a vision, it was impossible to tell.
«It’s not that simple, you know,» he said.
«I know.» And Keating did. Lyle had to satisfy himself that this highly trained agent had not been turned around by the Russians. Or, worse still, by the fledgling World Government.
«Why?» Lyle asked mildly. «Why do you want to quit?»
Keating closed his eyes for a moment, trying to decide on the words he must use. Each syllable must be chosen with scrupulous care. His life hung in the balance.
But in that momentary darkness, alone with only his own inner vision, Keating saw the man he had been, the life he had led. The years as an ordinary Foreign Service officer, a very minor cog in the giant bureaucratic machinery of the Department of State, moving from one embassy to another every two years. He saw Joanna, young and loving and alive, laughing with him on the bank of the Seine, dancing with him on the roof garden of the hotel that steaming-hot Fourth of July in Delhi, smiling at him through her exhaustion as she lay in the hospital bed with their newborn son at her breast.
And he saw her being torn apart by the raging mob attacking the embassy at Tunis. While Qaddafi’s soldiers stood aside and watched, grinning. Saw his infant son screaming his life away as typhus swept the besieged embassy. Saw himself giving his own life, his body and mind and soul—gladly—to avenge their deaths. The training, where his anger and hatred had been honed to a cutting edge. The missions to track and kill the kind of men whom he blamed for the murder of his wife and child. Missions that always began in Lyle’s office, in the calm, climate-controlled sanctuary of the section chief, and his measured reptilian smile.
Keating opened his eyes. «You let them take me, that first mission, didn’t you?»
The admission was clear on Lyle’s surprised face. «What are you talking about?»
«My first mission for you, the job in Jakarta. You allowed them to find me, didn’t you? You tipped them off. Those interrogation sessions, that slimy little colonel of theirs with his razor—he was the final edge on my training, wasn’t he?»
«That’s crazy,» Lyle snapped. «We shot our way in there and saved your butt, didn’t we?»
Keating nodded. «At the proper moment.»
«That was years ago.»
But I still carry the scars, Keating replied silently. They still burn.
Lyle fluttered a hand in the air, as if waving away the past. Leaning forward across the table slightly, he said in a lowered voice, «I need to know, Jeremy. What happened to you in Athens? Why do you suddenly want to quit?»
Keating did not close his eyes again. He had seen enough of the past, and the shame of it seethed inside him. «Let’s just say that I experienced a religious conversion.»
«A what?»
«I’ve been reborn.» Keating smiled, realizing the aptness of it. «I have renounced my old life.»
For the first time in the years Keating had known the man, Lyle made no attempt to mask his feelings.
«Born again? Fat chance! I’ve heard a lot of strange stories in my time, but this one—»
«Is the truth.»
«Just tell me what happened to you in Athens,» Lyle insisted. «I’ve got to know. It’s important to both of us.»
«So that you can decide whether to terminate me?»
«We don’t do that,» Lyle snapped.
«No, of course not. But I just might happen to have a car accident, or take an overdose of something.»
Lyle glowered at him. «You hold a lot of very sensitive information inside your skull, Jeremy. We have to protect you.»
«And yourself. It wouldn’t look good on your record to have a trained assassin going over to the other side.»
The section chief actually smiled with relief, and Keating could see that Lyle was grateful that the subject had finally been brought out into the open.
«Have you, Jeremy?» he asked in a whisper. «Gone over?»
«Which side would I go to? The Russians? But we’re working under the table with them these days, aren’t we? Neither the Russians nor the Americans want the World Government running things. We’re both trying to bring the World Government down before it gets a firm control over us.»
«The World Government,» Lyle said slowly, testingly.
Keating shook his head. «If I admit to that, I’m a dead man, and we both know it. I’m not that foolish, Jason.»
Lyle said nothing, but looked unconvinced.
«There’s the Third World,» Keating went on. «They love the World Government, with its one-nation, one-vote system. They’re using the World Government to bleed the rich nations white; you told me that yourself. But then, the rich nations are almost all white to begin with, aren’t they?»
«This is no time for jokes!»
«A sense of humor helps, Jason. Believe me. But you can’t picture me working for a bunch of blacks and browns and yellows, can you? That’s so completely against your inner convictions that you can’t imagine a fellow WASP going over to the Third World.»
«Perhaps I can imagine it, at that,» Lyle said, with dawning apprehension lighting his eyes. «Your assignment was to terminate Rungawa.»
«Ah, yes,» Keating said. «Kabete Rungawa. The Black Saint of the Third World. The spiritual leader of the poor nations.»
Lyle almost spat. «That old bastard is as spiritual as …»
«As Gandhi,» Keating said, sudden steel in his voice. «And as powerful politically. That’s why you want him terminated.»
Lyle stared at Keating for long, silent moments before saying, «Rungawa. He turned you around! Jesus Christ, you fell for that black bastard’s mealy-mouthed propaganda line.»
«Yes, I did,» said Keating. «Not in the way you’re thinking, though. Rungawa is quite a person. He made me see that murdering him would be a horrible mistake. He opened my eyes.»
«You admit it?»
«Why not? It’s already in the debriefing reports, isn’t it?»
The glitter in Lyle’s cold blue eyes told Keating that it was.
«But here’s something that isn’t in the reports, Jason. Something so utterly fantastic that you won’t believe it.»
The section chief leaned forward in anticipation. Hearing secrets was his trade.
«Kabete Rungawa is an extraterrestrial.»
«What?»
«He looks human, but he’s actually from another world.»
Lyle’s mouth hung open for a second, then clicked shut. «Are you joking, Jeremy, or what?» he asked angrily.
«That’s what he told me,» Keating said.
«And you believed him?»
Keating felt a smile cross his lips as he recalled that cold, rainy night in front of the Parthenon. His mission had been to terminate Rungawa, and he had finally tracked the Black Saint to the Acropolis.
«He was very convincing,» Keating said softly. «Very convincing.»
Lyle looked down at his untouched lunch, then back into Keating’s eyes. «Jeremy, either you’re lying through your teeth or you’ve gone around the bend.»
«It’s the truth, Jason.»
«You want me to believe that you think it’s the truth.»
«Would I tell such a crazy story if it weren’t the truth?»
The section chief seemed to suddenly realize that he held a knife and fork in his hands. He attacked the Virginia ham vigorously as he said, «Yes, I think you might. A completely wild story might make us believe that you’ve flipped out, might convince us that you ought to be retired.»