Payback

16

The directions Ambassador Hemes Jackson gave Rubens led to a condominium complex a few miles south of Washington, D.C. This was not one of the ultrachic enclaves with gates at the entry road and Mercedes S’s in the guest spots. The units were small one- and two-bedroom town houses jammed four by four into postage stamp lots.

Rubens wondered if he’d made a mistake. But the number on the unit was correct, and when he rang the bell Jackson pulled open the door.

“Mr. Ambassador,” said Rubens, sticking out his hand.

“How are you, Dr. Rubens?” said Jackson. He was a short man, whose gray head barely came to Rubens’ chest.

“Very well, sir. A little hungry, perhaps.”

“Is it warm out?”

“Yes. My car’s right here.”

The outside door opened into the living room. A plaid couch at least twenty years old dominated the sparse furnishings.

“I neglected to ask about your wife,” said Rubens. “If she’d care to join us.”

“My wife, unfortunately, passed on a year ago.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“Is it going to rain?”

“I think it will hold off.”

Rubens took Jackson to a restaurant he knew a few miles away. The food was dependable and, more important, he knew he could get a table in a private comer. The wine list was also excellent, but when his guest said he didn’t drink wine, Rubens stuck with sparkling water.

“Does retirement suit you?”

“Not particularly,” said Jackson. “You needn’t beat around the bush, Dr. Rubens. I’m not much for chitchat, really.”

Rubens felt instantly relieved-he wasn’t much for chitchat himself.

“I’m interested in Peru.”

“Peru? In all honesty it was never a focus of mine.”

“It was in your purview.”

“For a time,” said Jackson. “Before I was ambassador.”

Rubens nodded, waiting for him to continue.

“A beautiful country, with a rich history, good ore deposits, but in terms of its strategic or economic value, well, it pales beside Argentina and Brazil.”

“What did you think of Vladimiro Montesinos?”

“The head of the intelligence service? A thief and swindler. You’re aware of the Jordanian business?”

“Only vaguely.”

Jackson reviewed the highlights. Among other things, the head of Peru’s intelligence service, Vladimiro Montesinos, had arranged to buy shoulder-launched antiaircraft missiles from Jordan. The CIA had signed off on the deal — only to realize much later that the missiles had been sold to Colombian narco-guerrillas.

“Was there ever any talk that one of our people may have been involved?” Rubens asked.

“No one had an opportunity, I would think.”

Rubens nodded.

“The undersecretary of state was quite livid when he found out what had happened. Rightly so. Everyone was. Is that what you’re interested in?”

“I’m not sure,” said Rubens honestly. “Did the CIA run an operation to recover the antiaircraft missiles?”

“I didn’t hear of one,” said Jackson. “I’m not entirely positive I would have.”

Neither had Rubens, a strong argument that they hadn’tor rather, that they hadn’t gotten the weapons back if they had.

“Peru is not like Bolivia or, God save us, Colombia,” continued Jackson. “Their border wars with Ecuador in the 1990s piqued some interest, but otherwise they’re part of a blur to most people. Outside as well as inside the Beltway, I’d suppose.”

“There is a good deal of drug production there,” said Rubens.

“Yes, absolutely. During my time, the estimates were as high as two hundred thousand people involved, mostly in the Amazonian regions and nearby. This was where the mess with Air Bridge came in.”

“Regrettable,” said Rubens. Air Bridge was a CIA program intended to cut down on the use of airplanes by drug smugglers in the region. Two civilians had died in a case of mistaken identity in 2001 when they were shot down by an Air Bridge aircraft. The program was subsequently suspended.

“The CIA does have a habit of tripping over itself in South and Central America,” observed Jackson.

The waiter came over, and Jackson turned his attention to the menu. After they had ordered, the ambassador spoke about the Incas and their remarkable civilization. He had taken several trips to Inca ruins, including Machu Picchu, a royal estate in almost impossible to reach (but breathtaking) terrain. He described some of what he had seen, his details of the stone and chiseled figures as precise as if he were looking at a photo.

“You realize why the guerrillas, the Shining Path, ended in failure?” said the ambassador, abruptly shifting from the travelogue to politics.

“It was foreign to the people,” said Rubens. “Maoism doesn’t particularly fit in South America.”

“Absolutely.” Jackson smiled, and Rubens had the distinct impression that the ambassador had posed the question as a sort of test.

“It was also rather psychotic,” said Rubens.

“Sanity has never been a requirement for running a country,” Jackson remarked.

“No, I guess it hasn’t.”

Dinner arrived. The ambassador spoke of the sights in Peru and then Brazil and Argentina, peppering his descriptions with observations about the people. Rubens let him go on, waiting until they ordered coffee to return to serious matters.

“I find myself in need of someone who could deliver a good perspective on the region,” said Rubens, using a formula that would let the ambassador bow out gracefully if he wasn’t interested. “My people are often in need of background on different situations.”

“I didn’t realize there was a need for that at Fort Meade.”

“There is, from time to time. Someone who could look at recent cables, briefings, findings, reports, put them all into perspective for us. Someone who was independent, who had a great deal of mature knowledge, that person might fit in very well.”

“Someone who came with the proper clearances?”

“Those would be a start.”

Depending on what he gave the ambassador access to, the security checks could be quite extensive and include invasive lie detector tests. But Rubens decided not to go into the details until he was sure that Jackson was willing.

“And if I say no?”

“Of course you can say no, Ambassador. This is entirely optional. It’s rather routine. Probably boring for a man of your talents.”

“I don’t know that it would be that boring,” said Jackson. “But I must ask, isn’t this usually the sort of thing that a CIA analyst does? Or someone from the State Department? Surely they would give you a full rundown on the region if you ask.”

“We have asked. And we have had briefings,” said Rubens. “I have questions about whether I’ve received the entire story. That’s why I emphasize independence.”

Jackson put his thumb and forefinger to his closed lips, massaging them gently. His brow furled, and his eyes narrowed, as if he were reading something inside his skull.

“Oh. You’re not sure what has been left out. And that’s your problem.”

“Very possibly, nothing has been left out.”

“Oh, something is always left out,” said Jackson.

“That would be my fear.”

The spider’s nest of lines at the sides of Jackson’s face grew deeper. When Rubens had picked him up, he thought Jackson appeared at least five years younger than the age in his bio, which was seventy-two. Now he looked ten years older than that.

He’s going to turn me down, Rubens thought. He’s worried about offending someone he used to know. Or maybe he just doesn’t want the trouble.

“When do you want me to begin?” asked Jackson.

“Tomorrow morning would be good,” said Rubens.

After he dropped the ambassador off at his house, Rubens checked in with the Art Room. Telach had gone home for some rest; her relief, Chris Farlekas, filled him in on the situation in Peru. They had hacked their way into the computers where the list for the voting machine distribution was kept, decrypted the list, and determined that the cards would be shipped to too many places to make intercepting them convenient. Therefore, they were going to have to break into the bank the next night.

“We have a good plan,” said Farlekas. “Tommy Karr’s chomping at the bit.”

“Mr. Karr would be eager to tap-dance into Hades. What does Mr. Dean think?”

“Charlie says fine. Lia agrees.”

“Very well. Move forward with the plan. I will be in first thing in the morning.”

Rubens snapped off the phone.

The CIA people had analyzed past elections and predicted that the cards would be sent en masse to a single city or at most two, most likely in the south where Ortez was weak.

Wrong.

Surely not a deliberate mistake, thought Rubens, just a simple mistake. And yet he couldn’t quite convince himself.