Grace presents the information clinically. Knox is more seat-of-the-pants field op than strategist, but he’s often a full step ahead of everyone else. She can feel it now: he hasn’t put the mugging behind him. They have not discussed the fact that Akram may indeed have slipped a note onto Knox without Knox’s knowledge. That Dulwich may have put Knox in Istanbul with an ulterior motive — a motive like the drop — in mind.
“Mashe is a nuclear physicist—” Knox says.
“What little evidence we have supports this.”
“—who works for Iran. A government under severe sanctions.”
She inhales sharply. “A shopping list!”
“—can’t be sent electronically.”
“Too easily intercepted,” Grace continues, enjoying the repartee. “The Iranian government assigns one of its scientists, a man who travels to see his ill mother, the role of mule. A dead drop. A double blind. Something to protect your scientist but make sure the list reaches the supplier.”
“And if you are the Israelis and you can intercept Mashe’s parts list, you have a better idea how far the Iranian nuclear program has progressed. Invaluable.”
“It is well beyond the charter of Rutherford Risk,” Grace says. “Aiding a governmental agency? If caught, Mr. Primer would face his company being shut down. No such intercept would be contracted out to the private sector. Besides, the Israelis are better at such intercepts than anyone.”
“Which brings us back to Sarge and his client.”
“I tell you: Mr. Primer would not accept the job.”
“Your argument is also an explanation,” Knox says, testing her. Does he dare go there? It’s like telling the star pupil the teacher cheated in college. When she pauses, he fills in the gap. “Who says Primer knows anything about it? Have you had contact with him? Any contact at all?”
Grace’s eyes go wide, then vacant.
Knox continues. “Sarge told me I couldn’t contact Digital Services directly. Had to go through you. Since when?”
She whispers now. “I have been wondering this myself.”
“No one will get killed, he told me. Implied we were saving the world.”
“However,” Grace adds, “the pretext of the sale — the Harmodius — the requirement that we are physically with the mark for no less than five minutes… these do not so easily add up if the goal is to intercept a dead drop.”
Knox counters. “The art sale is to get me in a room with Mashe. At some point during those five minutes, the shopping list is supposed to be put on me without my knowledge. I walk out of there an unknowing cutout. We would never have considered anything like this if I hadn’t been mugged. Israeli agents — Mossad? — were never part of the Iranian plans. Without meaning to, the Israelis have tipped us off. By jumping the gun, they’ve told us that they have no idea when the exchange is scheduled.”
“But, John, David would not… How can we even think such a thing?” Grace sounds unconvinced. “Crap,” she says. It’s as close to cussing as she usually gets. As close to acceptance as well.
“If he’s rogue, then by association we’re part of it,” Knox says, thinking aloud.
“We lack sufficient evidence.”
“We have plenty of circumstantial evidence. And consider this: if we run, they follow. This isn’t Boy Scouts. You don’t get a pass. Neither of us want to say it, but I think Sarge got taken. He rose to the bait and bit and now it’s us — you and me — with the hooks in good and tight.”
“Just because the column adds up to a particular sum, it does not mean the original values were accurate. One misplaced decimal—”
“I was more of a wood shop guy,” Knox confesses. “Gym. Cafeteria. Not exactly AP math.”
“What I am saying—” She wears panic awkwardly; it doesn’t suit her. Grace Chu is a team player; the idea of being separated from the collective appears to nauseate her.
“I get it,” Knox says. It can be cute when his joking goes over her head, but it’s frustrating as well. She doesn’t want to face what he’s suggesting, knows that once it’s inside, the rat can’t turn around in the maze.
The hotel room has become claustrophobic. Victoria texts him to say that she’s made the arrangements for Adjani to assay the Harmodius. Knox stares at the message for a long time, wondering where to put his trust. He’s uneasy and twitchy. A response to caffeine or the right impulse? It comes down to whom he trusts more: Akram Okle, or Victoria?
He presents his plan to Grace, trying to read her face.
“The mind cannot be in two places at once,” she says, quoting a proverb.
“We need a fourth,” Knox says. “Without Sarge—”
“Besim,” Grace says, drawing a blank look from Knox. “My driver.”
“Who must be wondering where you are.”
“He can watch your Victoria for us. He has helped me in this way. David need not know.”
“Your driver could be working for Sarge.”
She shakes her head. “No. I hired him. David did not want any connective tissue tying him—” She can’t finish the sentence.
Knox compliments her on her solution. Her lips purse to contain a smile. She appreciates being appreciated; it is a card he can play when needed, though it slipped out this time of its own accord.
“I will call Besim. You call Akram,” she says. “It is not the cry, but the flight of the wild duck that leads the flock to fly and follow.”
“We say, ‘actions speak louder than words.’”
“And we Chinese say, ‘Man who runs in front of car gets tired; man who runs behind car gets exhausted.’”
He thinks she’s trying for a joke. Reconsiders. “We need to stay ahead on this,” he proposes.
“Just so,” Grace says.
Knox holds up his phone as a signal for both of them to make their calls. It feels more like jumping off a cliff than joining a path.
In the dark, the narrow, twisting streets make Knox claustrophobic. The hills of Istanbul have enough dead-end streets to get a man killed.
Knox keeps his phone’s map app on. The tiny blue dot representing him inches along, providing some solace. Grace sits beside him in the back of the cab, their shoulders warm where they touch. She’s quietly meditative, perhaps rehearsing her role. Hers is a planned and practiced life, organized and prepared. He has no idea what that feels like.
The location and timing of the meet have been dictated by Akram for the second time. The first didn’t go so well.
“I felt better near the aqueduct,” Knox says after the car engine strains for several minutes to climb, the power steering crying with each turn to the left. “More public, more touristy part of town.”
“I understand.” It’s all Grace says.
Knox takes it as her signal that she has no interest in conversation. The talking is behind them. He suspects she, like him, is leery of a trap; she, like him, understands the op has passed a point where they can abort; she, like him, doesn’t appreciate the feeling of being a puppet instead of a player. He can’t help himself; his mouth has a mind of its own.
“Nice view,” he says, turning around.
She does not look, does not speak.
A patchwork of yellow light filling the apartment windows they pass reminds Knox of a nativity calendar. He thinks of Tommy and feels guilt over his failure to stay in touch while on the job. He sees men smoking inside tight rooms; families gathered; television light pulsing. He’s never lived like that in his adult life. He wonders now if he could hack it. Dulwich is responsible for getting him re-addicted to adrenaline after Knox’s successful withdrawal following their contract work in Kuwait.
Would Dulwich willingly sacrifice him and Grace for some wish list of maintenance parts, for the chance to gain intelligence about Iranian nuclear capabilities? Would he see the lives of two colleagues, two friends, as a necessary sacrifice in the bigger picture of Middle Eastern stability? Would he convince himself that despite the risks, Knox can and will prevail, that the danger is worth the reward?