"Burr was evidently not as forthcoming about his Mr. Pine as you were about your Dr. Apostoll, Joe," he was saying, with enough reproach in his voice to sting.
"Pine and Apostoll were different types of sources. They were not comparable in any way," Strelski retorted, pleased to hear himself loosening up. It must have been Flynn's about Hearing Aids.
"Like to explain that a little, Joe?"
"Apostoll was a decadent creep. Pine was ― Pine was an honourable guy who took risks for the right side. Burr was very strong on that. Pine was an operative, he was a colleague, he was family. Nobody ever called Apo family. Not even his daughter."
"Was this Pine the same man who practically dismembered your agent, Joe?"
"He was under tension. It was a big piece of theatre. Maybe pounds over-reacted, took his instructions a little too much to heart."
"Is that what Burr told you?"
"We tried to work it out that way."
"That was generous of you, Joe. An agent in your employ uses a beating to the tune of twenty thousand dollars' worth of medication plus three months' sick leave and a pending law-suit, and you tell me his assailant maybe overreacted a little. Some of these Oxford-educated Englishmen can be very persuasive in their arguments. Did Leonard Burr ever strike you as a disingenuous person?"
Everyone is in the past, thought Strelski. Including me. "I don’t know what that means," he lied.
"Lacking in candour? Insincere? Morally fraudulent in some way?
"No."
"Just no?"
"Burr's a good operator and a good man."
Prescott took another tour round the room. As a good man himself, he seemed to have difficulty wrestling with the facts of life.
"Joe, we have a couple of problems with the Brits right now. I'm speaking at the Enforcement level. What your Mr. Burr and his confederates promised us here was a squeaky-clean witness in the form of Mr. Pine, a sophisticated operation, some big heads on a platter. We went along with that. We had fine expectations of Mr. Burr, and of Mr. Pine. I have to tell you that at the Enforcement level the British have not lived up to their promises. In their dealings with us, they have shown a duplicity which some of us might not have expected of them. Others, with longer memories, on the other hand, might."
Strelski supposed he should join Prescott in some general damnation of the British, but he didn't feel inclined. He liked Burr. Burr was the kind of fellow you could rustle horses with. He'd learned to like Rooke, although he was a tight-ass. They were a pair of nice guys, and they had run a good operation.
"Joe, this class act of yours ― forgive me, of Mr. Burr's ― this honourable guy, this Mr. Pine, has a criminal record going back for years. Barbara Vandon in London and friends of hers up in Langley have dug up some very unsettling background material on Mr. Pine. It seems he is a closet psychopath. Unfortunately, the British pandered to his appetites. There was a quite bad killing in Ireland, something with a semiautomatic. We haven't gotten to the bottom of it, because they hushed it up." Prescott gave a sigh. The ways of men were devious indeed. "Mr. Pine kills, Joe. He kills and he steals and he runs dope, and it's a mystery to me that he never used that knife he pulled on your agent. Mr. Pine is also a cook, a night owl, a close-combat expert and a painter. Joe, that is the classic pattern of a psychopathic fantasist. I do not like Mr. Pine. I would not trust him with my daughter. Mr. Pine had a psychopathic relationship with a doper's hooker in Cairo, and ended up beating her to death. I would not trust Mr. Pine on the stand as my witness, and I have the gravest, and I mean the gravest, reservations about the intelligence he has hitherto supplied. I've seen it, Joe. I've studied it at the many points where his testimony stands alone and uncorroborated yet indispensable to the credibility of our case. Men like Mr. Pine are the secret liars of society. They will sell their own mothers and believe themselves to be Jesus Christ while they do it. Your friend Burr may be capable, but he was an ambitious man who was breaking his ass to get his own outfit off the ground and have it compete with the big players. Such men are the natural prey of the fabricator. I do not believe that Mr. Burr and Mr. Pine made a wholesome pair. I don't say they consciously conspired, but men in secret conclave can psych one another up in ways that make them cavalier with the truth. If Dr. Apostoll; were still with us ― well, he was a lawyer, and even if he was I a little crazy, it was my belief that he would hold up pretty, well in the stand. Juries always have a place in their hearts for a man who has returned to God. However, that is not to be. Dr. Apostoll's no longer available as a witness."
Strelski was trying to help Prescott off the hook. "It never happened, right, Ed? How's about we agree the whole case was a piece of horseshit? There's no dope, no guns, Mr. Onslow Roper never broke bread with the cartels, mistaken identity, you name it."
Prescott pulled a rueful smile as if to say he did not think that he would go that far. "We are talking about what's demonstrable, Joe. That's a lawyer's job. The lay citizen has the luxury of believing in the truth. A lawyer has to be content with the demonstrable. Put it that way."
"Sure." Strelski was smiling too. "Ed, may I say something?" Strelski leaned forward in his leather chair and opened his hands in a gesture of magnanimity.
"Go right ahead, Joe."
"Ed, relax, please. Don't strain yourself. Operation Limpet. It's dead. Langley killed it. You're just the mortician. I understand that. Operation Flagship lives, but I'm not Flagship cleared. My guess is, you are. You want to screw me, Ed? Listen, I’ve been screwed before; you don't have to take me to dinner first. I've been screwed so many times, with so many variations, I'm a veteran. This time it's Langley and some bad Brits. Not to mention a few Colombians. Last time it was Langley and some bad somebody else, maybe they were Brazilians ― -no, dammit, they were Cubans, and they'd done us a few favours in the dark days. Time before that it was Langley and some very, very rich Venezuelans, but I think there were also some Israelis besides ― to be honest, I forget ― and the files got lost. And I think there was an Operation Surefire, but I wasn't Surefire cleared."