Strategic Moves

FORTY-TWO

At nine the following morning the group sat down. Stone spoke first, to Lance. “I sent you a message last night. Was it delivered?”

“It was,” Lance replied.

“Do we have an understanding that all this nonsense will end as of this moment?”

Lance didn’t speak right away.

“Or we can shut this down right now,” Stone said.

“Pablo won’t be followed,” Lance said.

“I don’t know what else you’re cooking up, Lance, but I can tell you right now, I won’t tolerate it.”

“All right,” Lance said through clenched teeth.

“Pablo,” Stone said, “you may continue.”

Pablo began recounting details of further arms sales. After a few minutes, Lance stopped him.

“The name you just gave us is not in our databases,” Lance said.

Stone assumed that whoever was watching at Langley was running names through their computers and communicating with Lance through an earpiece.

“Often my buyers employ noms de guerre,” Pablo said. “I do not always know their names.”

“Describe the man you just mentioned,” Lance said.

Pablo immediately gave a detailed description.

“Thank you,” Lance said. “Proceed.”

Pablo took up where he had left off.

At the end of the day Lance called Stone aside. “My technical people tell me that we are having gaps in the video and audio sent from your house,” he said.

“Any of these gaps occur during Pablo’s testimony?” Stone asked.

“Not so far.”

“I am entitled to privacy in my own home and in my consultations with clients,” Stone said. “Neither Pablo nor I signed up to have our private conversations recorded by your people.”

“All right,” Lance said, “but when this is over I am going to want to know how you did it. My people are driving me crazy.”

“We’ll see,” Stone said.

On the third day of Pablo’s testimony, the CIA team began asking a lot more questions, many of them very pointed, but Pablo always responded immediately and smoothly. At the end of the day Stone took Pablo into his library and employed Cantor’s device.

“Pablo,” Stone said, “are you beginning to withhold information in your answers to their questions?”

“I am not,” Pablo said.

“I’m beginning to get the feeling that the people listening to us back at Langley have information about your activities that disagrees with your account of events, and they are communicating their doubts to Lance and his team.”

Pablo shrugged. “Is it not common for those participating in events to have different versions of what happened?”

“Of course it is,” Stone said. “I just want to be sure that you are not coloring events or altering them in such a way that the Agency is having doubts about your truthfulness.”

“I can only tell them what I remember,” Pablo said, “not what other sources may have told them.”

“Quite right,” Stone said. “Tomorrow, remember to bring your maps.”

“There is only one map,” Pablo replied.

That night at Elaine’s, as Stone and Dino were having dinner, Bill Eggers of Woodman & Weld walked in and sat down.

“Good evening, Bill,” Stone said, and Dino nodded.

“I am getting reports,” Eggers said, “that doubt is being cast on your client’s veracity in the discussions you and he are having with Lance Cabot and his people.”

“My client and I have sensed that belief in Lance and his people,” Stone replied.

“Stone, it would not reflect well on Woodman & Weld if this project of yours turned out to be an embarrassment.”

“Bill, I don’t know how something you were never supposed to know about could possibly turn into an embarrassment, but let me tell you this: to the best of my knowledge, my client has answered truthfully every question put to him, and he intends to continue to do so.”

“I hope you’re right,” Eggers said.

“Would you kindly explain to me how you and the firm became involved in this event?” Stone asked.

“We did not ask to be involved,” Eggers replied. “Lance, for reasons of his own, decided to tell me certain things.”

“For reasons of his own, indeed,” Stone said. “What he is attempting to do is to put pressure on me, through you, to give him what he wants.”

“Well, why don’t you just give it to him?” Eggers asked.

“I and my client are giving Lance exactly what we told him we would, and for reasons of his own, as you put it, he is somehow dissatisfied. Or maybe he’s just using the pressure from you as insurance. I would be grateful, Bill, if you would just tell Lance that you have every confidence that I am keeping my word.”

“I have already told him that,” Eggers said, “but he does not seem to be satisfied.”

“I think that, after tomorrow, his level of satisfaction may rise,” Stone said.

“Why do you think that?” Eggers asked.

“Because tomorrow, Pablo is going to give Lance a bonus, one that he is unlikely to want to discuss with you.”

“And what is the bonus?”

“I can’t tell you that, Bill; only Lance can, but don’t expect him to.”

“All right, Stone,” Eggers said, rising, “but I have to tell you that Lance is a valued source of business referral to us, and I don’t want you to do anything to queer that.”

“I have no intention of doing so,” Stone said, “but I have to say I’m surprised that Lance is sending you business.”

“Rain is made from all parts of the sky,” Eggers said, then left.

“This gets weirder and weirder,” Dino said.

“I can’t disagree with you.”

“Are you doing something to make Lance think you and your client are lying to him?”

Stone shook his head. “Not deliberately, but Lance’s people have wired my house for sound and pictures, and Bob Cantor has seen to it that I have some control over what he sees and hears.”

“I’m not sure I want to know what that means,” Dino said.