An Affair of Deceit (9 page)

Greene ran a towel over his shaved head. “I thought we were running an investigation here, not a dating service.”

“Damn it, you’re frustrating. Nobody’s dating anybody.”

“Sounds like a challenge.”

“Well, it’s not.”

“All you have to do is say the word and I’ll back off,” Greene said, opening his arms wide.

“Quit screwing around. She’s part of the investigation.” Riley looked in the direction of the locker room, where Abigail had
gone with the others when class had ended. “Besides, she’s not exactly on the market.”

“They’re all on the market. You just have to find their price.”

“You’re disgusting.” They’d been best friends since the day they met, but Greene’s one-dimensional view of women differed vastly from Riley’s.

“Come on! She’s just a woman,” Greene insisted.

“‘Just a woman’? You’re an animal. Were you raised by wolves?”

Greene’s face froze in a bitter smile. “More like a black widow.”

“Lila isn’t that bad,” Riley said, regretting calling Greene’s mother a wolf. “At least she didn’t eat your dad after she mated with him.”

Greene wrinkled his face in exaggerated revulsion. “Now that’s disgusting,” he said, but then he appeared to consider it. “You know, I don’t think poor ol’ Dad gave Lila the chance. He hightailed it the hell away from her as soon as he pulled out.”

“That’s more information than I ever needed to know about your conception.”

“Hey, you brought it up.” Greene’s laugh was deep and real, and the moment of darkness was gone.

“I didn’t say ‘sex,’ I said ‘mating.’ Mating and sex are two different things.”

“Mating and sex are
exactly
the same thing, genius.” Greene’s mouth opened in mock surprise. “Oh, I’m sorry. You probably have trouble remembering what it’s like to get laid. It’s been what, five years since that waitress?”

“Four and a half, her name was Gina, and I didn’t sleep with her.”

Greene began stuffing his sparring pads into a black gym bag at his feet. “Are you kidding me? I practically bought her for you.”

“That’s true, and it didn’t add to the magic.”

“What about Christie? That cute little thing you seduced on the job?”

“Christie was over long before Gina.” Riley ran his tongue over his teeth, irritated by the memories of these women for whom he no longer had an ounce of feeling.

“We have got to get you laid, my friend!”

“No, ‘we’ do not.”

“We?” Greene looked puzzled, and then he grimaced. “Oh man. That reminds me. Did I tell you about what happened with that stewardess from Alitalia?”

“I don’t want to know.”

“Trust me, you do. I think she taped it, but I can’t find it on YouTube.”

“Don’t lose hope. I’m sure there are dirty videos of you on the Internet somewhere.”

Greene patted his heart and looked up in silent prayer. “We all have dreams. You want to introduce the Chinese ice princess to your dick. I want to appear in Italian amateur porn.”

“Please don’t talk about my dick. And Italian porn’s not your dream. Your dream is to prove that the ice princess’s daddy is a threat to national security.”

“Now that’s the truth.” Greene’s face became stony and serious, no longer the lighthearted best friend, but the ever-vigilant counterintelligence officer. His moods had always turned on a dime, but Riley understood. The only reason that Greene and Riley could trade barbs in the midst of a serious investigation was because they spent their whole lives in a series of serious investigations. If they waited until things slowed down to crack a joke, they’d never laugh. That’s how agents burned out. So Riley appreciated Greene’s pliable moods and warped sense of humor. It kept them both sane and reminded them that they were something other than CI agents, distrusted by their peers and ignored by everyone else.

Greene guided Riley down the narrow stairs that led out to the street, slinging his gym bag over his shoulder as he talked
quietly. “I’m on a plane to Algiers tomorrow morning. Couldn’t get anything sooner. Fucking dickwads in transportation said they were all booked. I promise you they’d have found a spot for someone not in CI.”

“I know, I know. Everyone hates us.”

“When do you leave for Nice?”

“Tomorrow afternoon. Same deal. But it gives me time to rifle through some State Department files.”

“Fantastic. Those bastards are hiding something.”

Riley gave Greene a firm nod before they parted at the street into separate cars. “Everyone is.”

A
BIGAIL DID SOMETHING
the next morning that she’d never done before.

She called in sick. Or something like that. She didn’t actually say that she was ill, but she wasn’t sure how people normally went about taking time off from work on short notice, so she simply told the DA’s executive assistant that an event had occurred that required her attention. He’d sounded concerned and asked her if she was OK. Being “OK” implied an absentminded acceptance of one’s present circumstances, and by that definition, Abigail was never OK. Abigail never absentmindedly accepted anything. But she understood it to be a common statement of emotional support, so she took care to assure the man that she was indeed “OK.”

She needed time off to find answers. Over and over again, she replayed Riley’s comforting voice telling her mother, “I know he visits you.”

I know he visits you.
The words contained layers of meaning for Abigail. Yes, it meant that her father had, for some reason, chosen to visit her mother and keep himself from his daughter. But it also meant that her mother had been lying to her for years, and that Riley wasn’t nearly as honest as he pretended to be. He could have told her this bit of information, but he hadn’t. He’d
chosen to keep it from her, even as he insisted that she trust him. Then he showed up at her dojo with that slice of beefcake, and for what reason? To intimidate her? It made no sense.

So she wasn’t OK. Not one bit. But it was 8:47 a.m. and she was sitting in a heavily cushioned armchair in a musty office in Arlington, waiting to speak with the only person who might be able to answer her questions about her father.

“Abigail Mason,” said a gravelly male voice behind her. “I always knew you would grow into a beautiful woman. But I never imagined it would happen so quickly!”

She stood and turned to greet the speaker, a white-haired man who leaned heavily on an elaborately carved wooden cane.

Donald Wheeler was much older than she remembered. His pale gray suit was perfectly pressed, though, as it always had been, and his cheerful orange handkerchief and matching tie spoke of his still-optimistic nature.

“It has been too long,” she said, and stepped forward to give him a gentle kiss on his cheek. It was cool and velvety, like the thin skin of a grandfather. Which he must be, she realized. She’d lost count of the number of sons and daughters to his name, and she had to assume that at least one of them had procreated another generation.

“How have you been?” she asked, really wanting to know.

“Better than I deserve. Ruth is in remission, thank God, and we have a great-grandchild on the way.”

Cancer. A
great
-grandchild. She wished she’d come to see him sooner, and for reasons that weren’t so self-motivated. Though he’d only been a junior-level administrator at the time, he had helped her and her mother leave Taiwan on such short notice. Once they were settled in the US, he had remained interested in Abigail’s progress through school, going so far as to provide a reference letter for her appointment to assistant district attorney. As the Foreign Service Institute director, his word held considerable weight.

“What of you, Abigail? What’s new in your life? I gather that your work at the courthouse is well regarded by your colleagues.”

She nodded, but Abigail valued his time too much to bother with more small talk. “I must say that my affairs are disjointed at the moment. There’s a very persistent man from the CIA who thinks I should be concerned about the fact that my father is missing. Again. Or for the first time. I’m not entirely sure.”

The lack of surprise on his wrinkled face told Abigail that he was already aware of the CIA’s interest. “They should respect your lack of concern. I will talk with the officers in charge.”

She wasn’t sure she wanted him to do that. Now that the hornet’s nest had been stirred, she wanted answers, not another few decades of silence. “I don’t know if that’s what I need, however irritating it may be to have Dr. Riley show up at every turn.”

Donald walked slowly to his desk and sat down in the well-worn burgundy leather chair behind it. “What did you say his name was?”

“James Riley. PhD.” She sat back down in one of the cushioned chairs facing Donald’s desk. “I don’t know his job title. And there’s a second man, a tall, well-built black man who shaves his head.”

“That would be Ethan Greene, James Riley’s commanding officer.” Wheeler leaned back in his chair and rested his chin in one hand. He knew more, she was certain, and he appeared to be considering how much more to say.

“You know them. How?”

He shrugged. “They aren’t unknown.”

Obtuse man. “What do they want with my father?”

“Surely you have your own suspicions, after all these years.”

“I don’t deal in suspicions. I deal in facts.”

“Facts are hard to come by in this business. What are your feelings on the matter? Come now. The thought of Peter Mason being a diplomat is, well…” He stopped and chuckled. “Frankly, it’s laughable. Surely you never believed that nonsense.”

She thought about the question before she spoke. “No, I suppose I never really did believe it. He wasn’t the type.” She tried to not feel too naïve for needing it spelled out. “But State Department employees aren’t allowed to work under CIA cover.”

Wheeler nodded. “Not under official cover, no. But unofficially, it happens, and rather often. Less so now that we’re out of the Cold War, but nonetheless, plenty of diplomats still report to Langley. Technically, plenty of CIA officers still pretend to be diplomats. The relationship is…complicated.”

“Was that why we had to leave Taiwan? Because my father’s identity as a CIA agent was uncovered by the PRC?” She used the acronym smoothly. Everyone even remotely involved with international affairs knew it stood for the People’s Republic of China, which had been the official name of the mainland China since 1949, when Mao Zedong’s Chinese Communist Party finally wrestled control away from Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist army. Chiang Kai-shek and his loyalists then retreated to the small island of Taiwan. There, Chiang governed under the banner of the Republic of China, and he remained determined to retake the remainder of his rightful territory from the Communists. The Communists, comfortably established on the enormous mainland as the People’s Republic of China, were equally determined to regain Taiwan—as well as whatever other territories in East Asia they could snatch, as evidenced by their military support of North Korea in the Korean War. The United States, concerned about the spread of Communism and still hopeful that Chiang’s troops might one day regain the mainland, defended Taiwan from a Communist takeover during the Korean War and beyond. With American support, Chiang’s government on Taiwan remained intact, and the Chinese Civil War had never officially ended. Even now, more than thirty years after the PRC officially took China’s seat at the United Nations, there remained, effectively, two Chinas, and Taiwan’s sovereignty was a point of
tension in world affairs. “I presume he was working against the Communists in Taiwan.”

“No.” Wheeler was firm. “Your father’s identity was intact. The PRC never sniffed him out, not once. He was better than that.”

“Then why couldn’t we be a family again after we left Taiwan? What happened that kept him from returning to us?”

“He was working in Europe at that point. His work had changed. It was too dangerous for him to have a family anymore.”

“Then explain why he never really abandoned my mother. Explain why he’s continued to visit her all these years.”

He frowned. “Who told you that? Was it James?”

“Riley? How would he know?” Abigail pretended confusion. “My mother told me.”

“She did? That’s highly, highly unexpected.” Wheeler glanced in the direction of the big black phone that sat on the corner of his desk. He wanted to call someone.

She didn’t want to let him get away, not when she had him cornered. “What made my father not return to my family, Mr. Wheeler?”

“As I said, his work had become too dangerous. You were no longer safe around him.”

She tried another angle. “Is my father in trouble, or is he the source of trouble?”

“Your father has always been a source of trouble, dear. For you, for me, and for everyone he works with.” Wheeler leaned forward and spoke with conviction. “But when it comes to his profession, I have always known him to be an honorable man, and I cannot see how this occasion would be any different.”

“Then you understand why I have to be involved. Riley is steamrolling his name.”

“He’s doing nothing of the sort. If anything, he works to protect your father’s reputation against crusaders who would do otherwise.”