Persuader

“What about the guy in the ocean?”

“He got the blueprints from the guy he was blackmailing,” I said. “Piece by piece, over a long period of time. We were watching him. We knew exactly what he was doing. He was aiming to sell them to Iraqi Intelligence. The Iraqis wanted to level the playing field for the next time around. The U.S. Army didn’t want that to happen.”

Eliot stared at me. “So they had the guy killed?”

I shook my head. “We sent a couple of MPs down to arrest him. Standard operating procedure, all legal and aboveboard, believe me. But it went wrong. He got away. He was going to disappear. The U.S. Army really didn’t want that to happen.”

“So then they had him killed?”

I looked up at the sky again. Didn’t answer.

“That wasn’t standard procedure,” Eliot said. “Was it?”

I said nothing.

“It was off the books,” he said. “Wasn’t it?”

I didn’t answer.

“But he didn’t die,” Duffy said. “What was his name?”

“Qui

“And you saw him in Beck’s car on Saturday?”

I nodded. “He was being chauffeured away from Symphony Hall.”

I gave them all the details I had. But as I talked we all knew the information was useless. It was inconceivable that Qui

“Why didn’t his prints match?” Eliot asked.

“He was erased,” I said. “Like he never existed.”

“Why didn’t he die?”

“Silenced.22,” I said. “Our standard issue weapon for covert close work. But not a very powerful weapon.”

“Is he still dangerous?”

“Not to the army,” I said. “He’s ancient history. This all was ten years ago. The APFSDS will be in the museum soon. So will the Abrams tank.”

“So why try to trace him?”

“Because depending on exactly what he remembers he could be dangerous to the guy who went to take him out.”

Eliot nodded. Said nothing.

“Did he look important?” Duffy asked. “On Saturday? In Beck’s car?”

“He looked wealthy,” I said. “Expensive cashmere overcoat, leather gloves, silk scarf. He looked like a guy who was accustomed to being chauffeured around. He just jumped right in, like he did it all the time.”

“Did he greet the driver?”

“I don’t know.”

“We need to place him,” she said. “We need context. How did he act? He was using Beck’s car, but did he look entitled? Or like somebody was doing him a favor?”

“He looked entitled,” I said. “Like he uses it every day of the week.”

“So is he Beck’s equal?”

I shrugged. “He could be Beck’s boss.”

“Partner at best,” Eliot said. “Our LA guy wouldn’t travel to meet with an underling.”

“I don’t see Qui

“What was he like?”

“ Normal,” I said. “For an intelligence officer. In most ways.”

“Except for the espionage,” Eliot said.

“Yes,” I said. “Except for that.”

“And whatever got him killed off the books.”

“That too.”

Duffy had gone quiet. She was thinking hard. I was pretty sure she was thinking of ways she could use me. And I didn’t mind at all.

“Will you stay in Boston?” she asked. “Where we can find you?”

I said I would, and they left, and that was the end of day five.

I found a scalper in a sports bar and spent most of days six and seven at Fenway Park watching the Red Sox struggling through an early-season homestand. The Friday game went seventeen i

Susan Duffy called me again on the morning of day nine, Sunday. She sounded different. She sounded like a person who had done a lot more thinking. She sounded like a person with a plan.

“Hotel lobby at noon,” she said.

She showed up in a car. Alone. The car was a Taurus built down to a very plain specification. It was grimy inside. A government vehicle. She was wearing faded denim jeans with good shoes and a battered leather jacket. Her hair was newly washed and combed back from her forehead. I got in on the passenger side and she crossed six lanes of traffic and drove straight into the mouth of a tu

“Zachary Beck has a son,” she said.

She took an underground curve fast and the tu

“He’s a college junior,” she said. “Some small no-account liberal-arts place, not too far from here, as it happens. We talked to a classmate in exchange for burying a ca

“What kind of something?”

“He was kidnapped.”

I said nothing.

“You see?” Duffy said. “You know how often regular people get kidnapped these days?”

“No,” I said.

“Doesn’t happen,” she said. “It’s an extinct crime. So it must have been a turf war thing. It’s practically proof his dad’s a racketeer.”

“That’s a stretch.”

“OK, but it’s very persuasive. And it was never reported. FBI has no record of it. Whatever happened was handled privately. And not very well. The classmate says Richard Beck is missing an ear.”

“So?”

She didn’t answer. She just drove west. I stretched out on the passenger seat and watched her out of the corner of my eye. She looked good. She was long and lean and pretty, and she had life in her eyes. She was wearing no makeup. She was one of those women who absolutely didn’t need to. I was very happy to let her drive me around. But she wasn’t just driving me around. She was taking me somewhere. That was clear. She had come with a plan.

“I studied your whole service record,” she said. “In great detail. You’re an impressive guy.”

“Not really,” I said.

“And you’ve got big feet,” she said. “That’s good, too.”

“Why?”

“You’ll see,” she said.

“Tell me,” I said.

“We’re very alike,” she said. “You and me. We have something in common. I want to get close to Zachary Beck to get my agent back. You want to get close to him to find Qui

“Your agent is dead. Eight weeks now, it would be a miracle. You should face it.”

She said nothing.

“And I don’t care about Qui

She glanced right and shook her head.

“You do,” she said. “You really do. I can see that from here. It’s eating you up. He’s unfinished business. And my guess is you’re the sort of guy who hates unfinished business.” Then she paused for a second. “And I’m proceeding on the assumption that my agent is still alive, unless and until you supply definitive proof to the contrary.”

“Me?” I said.

“I can’t use one of my people,” she said. “You understand that, right? This whole thing is illegal as far as the Justice Department is concerned. So whatever I do next has to stay off the books. And my guess is you’re the sort of guy who understands off-the-books operations. And is comfortable with them. Even prefers them, maybe.”

“So?”

“I need to get somebody inside Beck’s place. And I’ve decided it’s going to be you. You’re going to be my very own long-rod penetrator.”

“How?”

“Richard Beck is going to take you there.”

She came off the pike about forty miles west of Boston and turned north into the Massachusetts countryside. We passed through picture-perfect New England villages. Fire departments were out on the curbs polishing their trucks. Birds were singing. People were putting stuff on their lawns and pruning their bushes. There was the smell of woodsmoke in the air.