Mike reached towards the water again. He swallowed, his throat sore. "You should know: if you want to run HUMINT assets, you can't treat them like machines. They have to trust you-they absolutely have to trust you. So I gave her the unvarnished truth. If I'd spun her a line of bullshit, do you really think she'd have believed me? She knows me well enough to know when I'm lying."
Smith nodded. "Go on."
"Her situation is shitty enough that-hell, her mom said she's on the run-she's short on options. If I'd told her we'd welcome her with open arms she'd have smelled a rat, but this way she's going to carry on thinking about it, and then eventually start sniffing the bait. At which point, we can afford to play her straight, and she's starling with low expectations. Offer her a deal-she cooperates with us fully, we look after her-and you'll get her on board willingly. You'll also get leverage over her mother, who is still in place and in a position to tell us what the leadership is up to. But I think the most important thing is, you'll have a willing world-walker who will do what wc want, and-I figure this is important-try to be helpful. I can't quantify that, but I figure there's probably stuff wc don't know that a willing collaborator can call out for us, stuff a coerced subject or a non-world-walker would be useless for. If Doc James gets some crazy idea about turning her into a ghost detainee, we're not going to be able to do that, so I figured I'd start by lowering her expectations, then raise the temperature at the next contact."
"Plausible." Eric nodded again. "It's a plausible excuse."
Mike put the cup down. His throat felt sore. "Is this going to go to oversight?"
Eric was watching him guardedly. "Not unless we fuck up."
"Thought so." Get your cynical head on, Mike. "How do you meant to handle her, then?"
"We go on as planned." Eric looked thoughtful. "For what it's worth I agree with you. I had a run-in with James over how we deal with contacts, and while he's a whole lot more political than I thought, he's also a realist. Beckstein isn't a career criminal, you're right about that side of things. Not that it'd be a problem to nail her on conspiracy charges, or even treason-the DoJ has a hard-on for anyone it can label as a terrorist, especially if they're collaborating with enemy governments to make war on the United States-but there's no need to bring out the big stick if we don't need it. If you can coax her into coming in willingly, I'll do my best to persuade James to reactivate one of the old Cold War defector programs. You can tell her that, next time you see her."
"Cold War defector program?"
"How do you think we used to handle KGB agents who wanted to come over? They'd worked for an enemy power, maybe did us serious damage, but you don't see many of them doing time in Club Fed, do you? You don't burn willing defectors, not if you want there to be more defectors in future. There were a couple of Eisenhower-era presidential directives to handle this kind of shit, and I think they're still in force. It's just a matter of working on James and figuring out what the correct protocol is."
"Okay, I think I see what you're getting at." Mike eased back against the pillows. "It fits with the timetable. The only problem is, she hasn't gotten back in touch this week, has she? Are you tapping my home telephone?"
"You know I can't tell you that." Eric looked irritated. "I'm not aware of any contact attempts, but I'll make inquiries. I'd be surprised if nobody was watching your apartment-or mine, for that matter-but that's not my call to make."
"Okay. Then can you tell me where I am? Or when I'm going to be let out of this place, or what the hell is happening to my leg in there?" Mike gestured loosely at the bulky plastic brace and the cocoon of dressings. "It's kind of disturbing..."
"Shit." Eric glanced away. "I don't know," he admitted. "I'll ask one of the medics to tell you. They told me was your leg was broken, got chewed up pretty badly-who the hell expected them to be using mantraps in this day and age?"
"It's not this day and age over there," Mike offered dryly.
Eric laughed, a brief bark: "Okay, you got me! Listen, I figure the medics should give you the full rundown. What they told me is that you'll be off your legs for a few weeks and you won't be running any marathons for the rest of this year, but you should make a full recovery. They were more worried about the infection you brought home, except it responds well to penicillin, of all things. Something about there being no antibiotic resistance in the sample they cultured... anyway. You're in a private wing of Northern Westchester. We've closed it off to make it look like it's under maintenance, the folks who're seeing you are all cleared, there are guards on the front desk, and as soon as you're ready to move we're going to send you home. Officially you're on medical leave for the next month, renewed as long as the doctors think necessary. Unofficially, once I confirm this with Dr. James, you're going to be on station waiting for Iris Beckstein to get in touch. You can call in backup if you see fit-even a full surveillance team and SWAT backup-but from what you're telling me, she's got tradecraft, which would make that a high-risk strategy. Think you're up to it?"
"I'll have to be." Mike reached for the water again. "What a mess."
"That's what you get when you go back to running agents." Eric stood up. "Enough of that, I've got to go type all this up." He frowned. "Be seeing you..."
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:
(Coldly.) "You realize that if anyone else had done this, I'd have had them shot."
"Yes, dear: I was counting on it. This way, hopefully the auld bitches won't be expecting it."
"Sky Father, give me patience! What did you think you were playing at? We've got a war on, in case you hadn't noticed-"
"Oh, really? And I suppose the sky is a funny non-red color, too? I'm not playing, I'm deadly serious: this is more important than your little war."
"Damn it, woman! Can't you leave your mother's embroidery circle alone just this once?"
(Exasperated sigh.) "Who exactly do you think it was that started the war, brother?"
"What- excuse me. You can't be serious. Do you really expect me to believe that she's in cahoots with Egon?"
"Absolutely not! It would be beneath her dignity to be in cahoots with anyone below the rank of the Romish Pope-Emperor. But you know, she's always been opposed to the idea of marrying into the royal family, hasn't she? "Marrying beneath our station,' indeed. She set up this stupid business with Creon by way of Henryk, in order to provoke Egon. And really, do you believe for a moment that Egon was a real threat to us, absent her maneuvering? She set Helge up as a target while she had me under her proxy's thumb in Niejwein. If she hadn't overreached herself I'd still be stuck there."
"That's... curiously plausible. Hmm. You said she overreached herself. Do you mean Hildegarde didn't expect Egon to mount the putsch then and there?"
"I doubt it." (Pause.) "She wouldn't have shown her precious nose at the betrothal if she thought it was going to be cut off by the hussars, would she? But her intent was there. I know her schemes, the way her mind works. I think she meant to provoke Egon into doing something stupid, like the way he poisoned his younger brother all those years ago. She doesn't like Helge, as you might have noticed. After what she did to her sister, do you question her ruthlessness?"
"All right." (Pause.) "Your mother's embroidery circle dabbles in dangerous waters, and it is a bad idea to
cross them. They've stirred up a third of the nobility against us and Egon's raiders arc harrowing the countryside with fire and the sword-at least until we force him to group his army so that we can crush it beneath our boot-heel. As we shall, when the time comes, and make no mistake-they have carronades and musketry, but we have machine guns and radios. But, still. You have not yet explained why you did that thing. You'd best try to explain it to me, and get your story straight-the council will be a much less receptive audience, sister."