An Affair of Deceit (5 page)

“Nope. I don’t even know where he was born.” Greene sighed. “He has friends in high places. They’re doing everything they can to keep him out of the China mole investigation, but I promise you, I will not back down. Someone is sneaking the PRC top-level intel, and I will find out who it is.”

“Absolutely.” On that, finally, Riley could agree wholeheartedly. “But about the French ambush. Have you talked to the two people who escaped the slaughter? One was CIA, and the other British, right? With their Serious Organized Crime Agency?”

“Yeah, SOCA. Their guy is Oliver McCrea. Our girl is Evangeline Quill.”

“Never heard of her.”

“Me neither.” Greene barked a hard laugh. “Took me three goddamned days to convince everyone that CI has a right to know this shit.”

Riley murmured sympathetically, having heard that type of complaint many times before. Greene hated the way everyone else in the agency tried to shut their unit out of investigations, but counterintelligence was basically an internal affairs squad and thus rightly feared.

“Anyway, neither McCrea nor Quill was in the caravan headed to Marseille, where Kral was going to be held until he could be prosecuted,” Greene said. “They left a few minutes after the rest of the team did, and came upon the carnage. They picked the two guys who seemed the least dead and did CPR until help showed up. Not that it did any good, but I guess they had to try.”

“Did they see the smuggler and his men leave the scene?”

“No. Kral’s team was gone by the time they arrived. And the last time they saw Mason was in the storeroom in Arles where Kral was keeping those Stingers. Apparently, the British agent had been on a long-term, deep-cover assignment to get Kral.”

It was Riley’s turn to whistle. “McCrea got on the inside of Kral’s weapons ring?”

“Yup, and he brought one of Mason’s little protégées with him.”

“Ah. So that’s the connection. Quill is one of Mason’s field operatives?”

“You got it. She and McCrea managed to get invited inside of Kral’s secure compound.”

“The fortress outside of Nîmes?”

“It’s about an hour south of it, in the middle of fucking nowhere. The compound was also some sort of safe haven for Kral’s entire extended family, all of whom are Czech, all of whom live in the village and work the surrounding fields.”

“Like a fiefdom.”

Greene snorted. “More like a plantation. But the presence of the serfs makes it impossible for us to air-strike the place, and the single access point is a narrow bridge over a massive ravine. It’s incredibly well defended against ground attack. Kral and Mason are probably inside, but we can’t get in to find out. Langley’s got a satellite overhead, but all we see are dudes with guns patrolling the streets and the surrounding forest. Place is on lockdown.”

Riley walked to the stone steps of the courthouse and sat down. They were a little wet, but so was he. “How’d Mason get McCrea and Quill inside Kral’s circle?”

“McCrea says Kral is obsessed with the idea of fraternity. And trust—he’s big on testing loyalty. McCrea came in as a buyer for those Stingers and played along until Kral led him to his personal storage facility in Arles, where Kral housed most of his small-weapons stock.”

“So McCrea makes sure the Stingers are in place and then calls for reinforcements.”

“Yup. Mason and Quill bust in with a team of SOCA and French National Police commandos. They take control of Kral and leave half the team behind to secure the missiles.”

“Right. Then Kral’s men jump the storeroom and grab the missiles, while a second crew ambushes the caravan, rescues Kral, and makes off with our man?”

“Mason’s not ‘our man,’ but otherwise, yes, that’s how it went.”

“And we have no idea where Kral’s men took all of those Stingers? No one saw anything?”

“Not that we’ve found yet—or that anyone’s telling me. It was a busy morning. Some sort of street market was going on nearby, and no one saw or heard anything.”

“So,” Riley summarized, “there is an extremely volatile Czech weapons dealer in possession of shoulder-powered missiles that can shoot down airplanes, and he is either in cahoots with or holding hostage one of our most successful clandestine officers.”

“Sounds about right, except I think it’s time to reclassify Kral as a terrorist, not just a sympathizer and supplier. I’m flying to North Africa to track down information about the source of the missiles. I want you in France ASAP. Interview Mason’s wife this morning, churn up whatever files you need to at Langley, and then get your ass on a plane.”

“Well, when you ask so nicely, it’s hard to refuse.”

“I’m your commanding officer, little buddy. I don’t have to ask,” Greene said. “Oh, you’ll like this. Ricardo just unearthed a nice piece of intel. Looks like Mason’s been visiting his wife periodically over the past few years. Push her hard on that. The family line has been that they were abandoned, but it looks like that was a lie. You know what I say about lies…”

“I know, I know. They’re like ants. You find one—”

“—and there’s a thousand more right behind it.”

“B
ETH
.” A
BIGAIL BUZZED
her secretary on the intercom.

“In here, please.”

Beth, an African-American woman in her forties, walked into Abigail’s office four seconds later with a yellow legal pad, a few files, and a large day planner balanced on her left arm. Her pale cotton skirt made a soft swishing sound as she brushed past the door.

“When am I due in court?” Abigail asked, knowing the answer.

“Three,” Beth answered, not needing to consult the diary.

“Have you finished the paperwork for the Chatham case?”

“Yes.”

Abigail took the file Beth presented and put it on her desk. If her father had fallen victim to foul play, Abigail was going to find out. “Good. I need a report on the state of American diplomacy in southern France, from grassroots community development through top-level State Department activities. Everything.”

“Absolutely. Any other parameters you need me to meet?”

Abigail recalled the French city where Dr. Riley had said her father had disappeared. “The town of Arles. Focus on it. I know we don’t maintain a diplomatic presence there, but I need to know if there have been any recent meetings or conferences
nearby that might attract a diplomatic crowd. I also need a general travel guide, maps, et cetera.”

Beth didn’t raise an eyebrow. “What’s my deadline?”

“End of the day. Put everything else aside and work as hard as you can until I tell you to stop.”

“I’ll get right on it. Coffee?”

“You don’t have time. I’ll get it myself if I need it.”

Beth nodded, turned like a dancer on the ball of a sensibly clad foot, and walked to the door in five quick strides. Abigail watched her for a moment, realizing for the first time that because Beth always wore her chestnut-brown hair in a smooth bun, Abigail had no idea how long her hair actually was.

Abigail liked Beth, though she knew absolutely nothing about her personal life. If her secretary was married or had children, then she did an excellent job of keeping those distractions at home. What mattered to Abigail was that Beth was unflappable in a crisis, worked with a strong sense of urgency, and had a mind as logical as a computer. Beth was also the best legal researcher in the building, and Abigail felt confident that when she handed the woman an assignment, it would be completed almost as well as though Abigail had done it herself.

But this was one thing Abigail wanted to investigate on her own.

She flipped open her laptop and powered it on. She connected to Interpol’s main database and typed in her father’s name.

Peter Mason
.

No exact hits, though there were plenty of individuals with the same surname. She tried a new angle.

Arles, France
.

The screen filled with information on the city’s criminal history. She narrowed the parameters to incidents that had taken place in the last six months, and the list shortened considerably. She began to digest the information. These weren’t
snatch-and-grab thefts or minor municipal violations, but major crimes with international implications.

Two months ago, a large shipment of assault rifles was tracked from a North African freighter to the port at Marseille, where it was transferred to a truck and driven to Arles. Customs officials there halted its further progression. Its recipient was still unknown.

Three days later, a French police officer named Alexis Durand was shot dead in an alley. It was probably just a sign of the rise of violence from nearby rough-and-tumble Marseille, but Abigail was curious. She navigated to the Internet and searched for news articles concerning the dead policeman. He had been young, just twenty-seven, and had been on the Arles force for a mere six months. Durand had left behind a wife and two-year-old daughter, pictures of whom were plastered on the news accounts. An Interpol search for Durand’s wife’s name came up predictably empty. She was clean, at least on the surface. Turning to a satellite map site, Abigail learned that the alley in which Durand was killed extended off the big, crowded Boulevard des Lices in the commercial center of Arles. She tabbed back to the news article. No shots were heard on the day Durand was murdered, which could mean that a silenced weapon had been used or that the city had been busy that day.

Or maybe the locals knew when to keep their mouths shut.

Her chair squeaked as she leaned closer to the screen. She ignored the images of the tearful wife and toddler, instead focusing on the posed picture of Durand in his formal police uniform. Thin and pale, and with his serious face set firmly in the lock-jawed expression favored by young men trying to look older than their years. He looked otherwise sincere. If Abigail had to guess, she would say that he did not have greed in his eyes.

She sat back in her chair. Had poor Officer Durand wandered into the alley on the trail of an offense that a more jaded officer would have ignored? Was it whispered around the station
that he should have minded his own business? Or did they say it was just bad luck and a crying shame that Durand hadn’t stuck to the main road that day?

It was impossible to know without more information. Durand’s assailant was as yet unknown, but when Abigail clicked through the file, she found a cross-reference to a more recent crime. Three days ago, a Frenchman with a criminal record a mile long had been found floating in the river underneath the famous Pont du Gard just outside of Nîmes, France, his body a mass of bullet wounds. It was an awfully gruesome discovery for a tourist. Whoever had dumped the body in such a high-profile location would have expected it to be found quickly. It had been a message to someone.

But it was also careless, because it allowed law enforcement to surmise that the same person who had killed a gunrunner in the hills of southern France had also killed a policeman in the heart of Arles, for a bullet lodged in the Frenchman’s cranium had the same distinctive markings as the one found in the alley where Durand was shot. Experienced assassins preferred to avoid leaving a trail of bodies. So who was responsible for these deaths?

Abigail looked away from the screen. There was something dangerous going on in Arles, but she didn’t know what her father could have to do with any of it. She didn’t even know if she could trust the information Dr. Riley had leaked to her this morning. Really, his easy manner had been too smooth to be trusted. Who was this man?

Curious, she typed “James Riley” into a search engine. The first page of the results list contained nothing that seemed to pertain to him. It was a common name, apparently. She scrolled through the next few pages of poets, professors, musicians, and soccer players who shared his name. But the fifth page of results contained details that might relate to the man she’d met this morning.

She clicked on one link. The website listed the results of Virginia state high school track and field championships for several years back, and there, about fifteen years ago, winning the 400-meter race with a record-setting time of 45.54, was one James Riley. He’d also placed first in the 300-meter hurdles, and his team had won the 4 x 400-meter relay with him at anchor.

Interesting. She couldn’t be positive that it referred to her Dr. James Riley, but the man she’d met this morning had looked to be around her age or slightly older, so the numbers fit. He’d had the loping gait of a mid-distance runner—she’d imagined him to be a triathlete on first glance, which he might be now—and she knew plenty of government agents who had grown up around the capital region. It made sense that the track star and the doctor might be the same man.

If so, then he’d attended secondary school at the super-posh Bellevue Academy. She clicked around and located the prep school’s web page and spent a few minutes poking around to see what references to James Riley she could locate. Little information dated to Riley’s years there, but she learned that the school was in Arlington, a wealthy suburb of DC.

She made a little sound of disapproval in the back of her throat. So he came from money. Not surprising. Such straight teeth and easy affability were not the hallmarks of a child who’d grown up in a household stressed by financial struggles. With all that smiling and good cheer, he’d looked like the kind of person who’d had a perfectly safe, comfortable childhood.