The Disciple

That shut him up.

I took a tourist visa app from my desk drawer. “You and your wife need to do some thinking. Here is a tourist visa application.” I passed it through the hole.

He took it, nodded and stood. Abtahi had obviously been trying to follow the conversation and had gotten lost. His face mirrored his confusion.

After they left, I went down the hall to my soundproof phone booth and placed a call to Jake Grafton on the satellite telephone.

“Hey, Tommy,” he said.

“Hey, boss. Got a favor to ask. I approved a tourist visa application for a guy named Abdullaziz Nasr Qomi and haven’t heard back from the State Department. I doubt they’re going to approve it. Could you check on that?”

“Tommy-” he began.

“This is a personal favor I’m asking, Admiral. This guy has only one leg, and he needs a chance. I want the app approved.”

He hesitated for about three seconds, then said, “Spell the name.”

After I did, he said, “Anything else?”

“Yeah. Guy named Mustafa Abtahi is maybe going to submit a tourist visa application.” I spelled that name, too. “If he does, I’d like it approved as well.”

Grafton chuckled, then the chuckle became a belly laugh. “Tommy,” he said finally, “you are supposed to be a rough, tough spy guy.”

“Yeah.”

“Anyone else you want smuggled in? A widow, orphan, child prodigy or somebody with a weird disease?”

“Not right now.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” he said.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Jake Grafton was in his office at Langley when his assistant, Robin, brought him a cassette tape. “They just brought this upstairs. Said you would want to listen to it as soon as possible.”

“Thanks.”

When the door closed behind her, he got out his old tape player and slipped the cassette in. This player had some miles on it, but it still worked pretty well. Even the earphones. He put them on and pushed the play button.

“-ed to chat. I thought we might meet for drinks tomorrow evening.” A man’s voice, one Grafton recognized.

“Solzhenitsyn’s, perhaps. On H Street. Do you know it?” Another man’s voice, with a pronounced accent, yet easily understandable.

“Perfect. The usual time?”

“Right.”

The co

Grafton listened to the conversation two more times, then picked up the telephone and called a colleague in the FBI, Myron Emerick.

After the social preliminaries, Emerick asked, “So what can we do for you today, Admiral?”

“I want a restaurant bugged under that National Security John Doe warrant we got last week. Solzhenitsyn’s on H Street.”

“When?”

“Just as fast as you can get it done. Meet may be tomorrow night, ‘at the usual time.’ That could mean this evening, tomorrow, Friday, Saturday, Sunday noon, whatever.”

“You don’t want to wait until they close tonight?”

“No. Invent an excuse to close them when you get there. Leaking gas next door, whatever.”

“What if ‘the usual time’ means someplace else?”

“Then they’re just too clever for us old fudds.”

“I’ll get right on it.”

“I’m a phone call away. If the bugs pick up that voice, call me immediately.”

“I know the drill.”

“Thanks, Myron.”

After Jake hung up, he sat staring at the cassette. The conversation on this cassette had been picked up by a computer that sampled tens of thousands of telephone calls an hour, listening for particular voices. The voices were actually compared by voiceprints, no two of which were exactly alike. When the computer found a voiceprint it recognized, it began recording the conversation.

A similar, although smaller, computer would monitor the bugs the FBI agents were secreting all over the Solzhenitsyn restaurant. No conversations would be recorded, protecting the privacy of the diners, until the computer recognized that voice. The agent monitoring the computer would alert Grafton, who had to be nearby. He would need a hotel room in the neighborhood.

He called Robin in, and together they examined a map of downtown Washington.

The hotel nearest to the restaurant turned out to be right above it. Solzhenitsyn’s was in the basement. Robin reserved three rooms, one for Jake and two for the FBI. Jake went home, packed clothes and managed to get to the hotel by four that afternoon. A light rain was falling from a low gray sky.

A gas company truck was parked in front of the restaurant, and the door sported a closed sign. The hotel seemed to be doing business as usual, though. He left his car with the valet, gave his bag to the bellman and went inside.

The hotel was in a building that had been a bank. The lobby was huge, three stories high, and a round open safe door formed part of one wall. Patrons went through the safe door into a cocktail lounge. The check-in counter had obviously once been a teller window. The counters and floor were marble.

As Jake signed in, he asked, “I notice there is a gas company truck parked right outside. Is there a problem?”

“Routine maintenance, sir.”

“Fine.”

His room was on the fifth floor. He had a view of a side street and an apartment building across the street. After a few minutes of standing at the window watching Washington in the rain, he rigged up his computer, arranged his cell and encrypted satellite phone on either side, took off his shoes and sagged into the padded easy chair. Callie had given him a copy of the Post and Wall Street Journal, so he settled in with them. By seven, after sunset, he was disgusted with the state of the nation and the planet. He turned on the television, found a baseball game and ordered di

At nine his wife called. “Any fish yet?”

“No.”

“Sounds exciting.”

“I’m taking my pulse every quarter hour to ensure I’m still alive.”

“Sooo… I don’t have anything scheduled for tomorrow morning. Mind if I join you in your little love nest?”

“Take off your wedding ring, sneak in and don’t let anyone see your face. Room five-oh-seven. Seriously, take a taxi and use the side entrance. The elevators are in a hallway off the lobby. Don’t go into or through the lobby.”

Callie chuckled. “See you in about an hour.”

They were still awake at midnight, lying in bed watching raindrops on the window. A light shining on the side of the hotel made every drop visible on the glass. Apropos of nothing, Jake said, “I’ve had a good life, you know.”

“It isn’t over yet.”

“I know. I’m just commenting.”

“We are very lucky,” she told him. “We’ve had each other all these years, Amy, good health, interesting jobs… This fish you are waiting for-has he anything to do with Iran?”

“Yes.”

“You are going to have to go there one of these days, aren’t you?”

“One of these days,” he said and kissed her before she could say any more.

Israeli agent and embassy janitor Tom Mottaki stopped by the break room where Frank and I hung out when we weren’t denying Paradise to the locals. Since he and I were the only people there just now, he showed me a photo. The camera had captured an image of a figure dressed in a chador, on an empty street, with the remnants of an iron pipe fence behind her.

“She serviced the drop.”

“Man, I can’t make out her face.”

“Welcome to the club. That photo was taken with a little unma

“Terrific. Who the hell is it?”

“A woman, probably,” Mottaki said, pulling the print out of my grasp. He studied it for a moment. “Maybe not.”

“Okay. What did she put in there?”

From his pocket he pulled a sheaf of papers. I opened them. They were copies of government documents, reports of production of enriched plutonium. One of the documents was the plan for testing a neutron generator, the trigger for an atomic weapon. The last sheet in the pile was a timetable. I studied it. According to the timetable, if I was reading this correctly, the Irani ans were still a year away from having an operational warhead.