Bloodmoney

5

Jeffrey Gertz spent his last minutes of ignorance in his car, driving over the mountains to work from an appointment with his dentist in Beverly Hills. That was what made him late. The operations center hadn’t wanted to call him until they were sure they had a problem, what with the twelve-hour time difference from Pakistan. And then, when the ops center tried, they couldn’t reach him. So he didn’t get the news that Howard Egan was missing until he got to work. Gertz fired the watch officer later, as if it had been his fault.

It was a June morning, the air so clear and fluffy it might have been run through the washer-dryer. Gertz steered his shiny red Corvette through the downward slope of Coldwater Canyon, chewing sugarless gum and listening to a military history audiobook on the car stereo. It was just past nine, and the sun was streaming into the San Fernando Valley. He was listening to An Army at Dawn, the first volume of Rick Atkinson’s history of World War II. When he was done, he would buy the second volume and listen to that, too. Like every warrior, he wanted a good war.

The cassette ended as he neared Ventura Boulevard. The only sound in the car now was the air-conditioning and the murmur of traffic. Gertz let his mind wander. Maybe The Hit Parade needed a motto, he mused. Every successful organization had one, including secret organizations. “The invisibles: We deliver”…or: “The shadow service: Reinventing intelligence.” He thought about it, and wondered if maybe he should order up a secret logo, as well, with something spooky like a half-moon or a lightning bolt and no words, no explanation at all.

Gertz had a face that was all angles: raised cheekbones; a firm chin; sharp eyes. He had started wearing a goatee a few years ago, to soften his appearance and make him look less like an Army Ranger. He had short brown hair, trimmed once a month by a stylist in Beverly Hills. He had stopped challenging colleagues to do push-ups on the office floor a few years before, but that was mainly because a superior had advised him it was offensive to women and would hurt his career.

Gertz’s nickname had been “Killer” when he joined the agency fifteen years before. People who met him back then weren’t sure whether he had acquired the name because he had actually killed someone, or because he was so ambitious. He had tried to tone down his tough-guy image when he moved to Los Angeles, and had even sought the advice of a wardrobe consultant at a clothier on Rodeo Drive. That was characteristic of Gertz. He studied everything. He wanted to get it right.

Today Gertz was dressed in a royal-blue blazer, a blue so bright it reminded you of a Caribbean cruise, with an open-neck black shirt and a pair of light charcoal slacks. He looked like one of the thousands of people in West Los Angeles who prospered through some connection with what was called “the industry.” When he gave people his card that said “The Hit Parade: Entertainment Is Our Business,” it was almost believable.

When Gertz reached Ventura Boulevard, he turned right at the Ralphs Supermarket. A few shoppers were plodding toward the door. They looked like they hadn’t slept all night. He put in a new cassette. The Allies were on their way to Kasserine Pass.

Sophie Marx was at the office when the news came in from Karachi. She had been at home, trying to get some rest, calling the operations room every few hours to check on Howard Egan’s progress. The watch officer called her when they got the message about the meeting being moved up a day. After that, she couldn’t sleep, so she had come on back. It wasn’t a premonition, exactly, but she knew how worried Egan had been about the trip. She had told him everything would be fine, but in the middle of the night, in her bed in Sherman Oaks, she had remembered what it felt like to be alone in a city where people would kill you, for a certainty, if they knew who you were. That was when she decided to come in.

“Call Gertz,” she said when it was clear that something had happened. The watch officer tried his cell, but by then he was at the dentist’s. It wasn’t anybody’s fault, but this was a day when things went wrong.

Marx waited for the boss with other senior officers who had gathered outside his office on the fifth floor. She was the most junior member of this group. It was only a week before that Gertz had asked her to run counterintelligence for the little organization. The senior staff wasn’t a talky group, even on a good day. They had all spent too many years keeping their mouths shut. The head of Support, a man named Tommy Arden, asked if there was any news yet from the “Death Star,” by which he meant Headquarters. Several people answered no.

Gertz emerged from the elevator with his usual fixed smile, but it vanished in an instant. The watch officer was waiting for him, hovering awkwardly by the elevator door. His name was Julian and he wore an earring. The operations chief, Steve Rossetti, was lurking a little farther on, with the nervous eye of a man who didn’t want to be blamed, along with Arden, the head of Support. Marx wasn’t in the inner circle; she stood farther off. But she was Egan’s contact, so in a sense it was her problem.

“What’s going on?” Gertz asked. “This looks like a suicide watch.”

“It’s Howard Egan,” said the watch officer.

“What about him? He’s in Karachi.”

“He’s gone missing. He was supposed to be at a meeting nearly an hour ago, but we can’t find him.”

“What are you talking about? That meet is tomorrow. Isn’t that right, Steve?”

He turned to the operations chief, who was older than Gertz by about ten years and whose body was as lumpy as Gertz’s was fit. He had been in the ops job three months. The rumor was that he had been sent by Langley to keep an eye on Gertz.

“Change of plans, apparently. Sophie’s read the traffic.” He turned to Marx.

She stepped forward, toward the boss. She was trying not to think that this was her fault.

“The asset wanted to change the meeting time,” she said. “Egan messaged us about six hours ago to say that it had been moved up. He was supposed to be there at nine p.m., Karachi time-nine a.m. our time. But he missed the meet.” She looked at her watch. “He’s now almost an hour past due.”

“Call his BlackBerry. Tell him he’s late. Ask him where the hell he is.”

“We did that. No answer.”

“Flash message?”

“No answer.”

Gertz stroked his goatee as he pondered the possibility that this wasn’t just a screw-up.

“What about the asset he’s supposed to be pitching? The tribal guy.”

“The asset is waiting for Egan, at the place they agreed. There’s just no Egan.”

“Have you called the access agent, the Pakistani who set this up?

“Yes, sir,” said Marx. “His crypt is AC/POINTER, true name is Hamid Akbar. And yes, we’ve tried that. He isn’t answering his phone, either.”

Gertz shook his head. This day had started off so reasonably. The bad news didn’t fit.

“Maybe Egan is spooked,” he said. “He got the jitters the last time he was in Karachi, aborted two meetings. Maybe the same thing happened this time. He’s just freaking out somewhere, having a drink and looking at shadows.”

“Maybe, but we don’t think so,” said Rossetti, the operations chief. “We’re still tracking his BlackBerry signal. It’s been on the move for the last two hours, plus. He’s just not answering.”

Gertz shook his head. The room was quiet. He looked at Rossetti.

“Christ. This is bad.”

“I’m afraid so.”

Gertz stared at the floor, trying to compose himself. The color had drained from his face. It was almost as if he were embarrassed that something had gone wrong. His people weren’t supposed to make mistakes. They had big hearts. There was a dead quiet, which Rossetti filled.

“What’s Egan’s cover job?” asked the operations chief. It wasn’t on his cheat sheet. He was new. He still didn’t know most of the network.

Gertz was still looking at the floor, stroking that goatee some more. Marx broke the silence.

“He works for a hedge fund in London called Alphabet Capital. The only person there who’s witting is the chief executive.”

“Perkins,” said Gertz. “His name is Thomas Perkins.”

“That’s not very secure,” said Rossetti. “Why doesn’t Egan have his own platform?”

Gertz frowned. He didn’t like being quizzed by his operations chief.

“He’s a legacy, Steve. Blame your friends at Headquarters. Where’s Tommy? He can explain it.”

Tommy Arden, who as head of Support was responsible for organizing cover, scurried forward.

“He was a holdover from the old NOC group,” said Arden. “We got him from the Global Deployment Center. He’d been working for another investment company in London. We found him a new cover. It seemed to work, until about an hour ago.”

“Who knows he’s traveling?” asked Gertz. “Does he have a wife and kids?”

“Nope, he’s the usual NOC loner.”

“Good, that’s fewer people to notify.”

Gertz was being a hard-ass, but that wasn’t right. Not today. To be a leader, you had to take the lead.

“Okay, when London wakes up I am going to call Perkins and tell him that his man is missing. He’ll have to put out a statement. Otherwise, zip it. Total radio silence. Understood?”

Sophie Marx nodded assent, along with everyone else. She watched as the group fell away. She wasn’t a religious person; her counterculture parents, when they had thought about religion at all, had told her it was lies and nonsense. But as she thought about Howard Egan, gone missing halfway around the world in a frightening city, she asked God to watch over him.

Marx recalled her last conversation with Egan. She wished now that she hadn’t told him to “suck it up” when he had expressed anxiety about the mission.