A Gentleman's Game

23

Hertfordshire-St. Albans, Crocker Family Residence 10 September 0114 GMT Paul Crocker had snuck into each of his daughters' rooms, first Ariel's and then Sabrina's, part of the ritual he performed every night he was home, and wished them each a whispered good night. Neither woke, but that was hardly the point, and convinced that both were safely asleep, he turned to his own bedroom, where Jenny had fallen asleep, book open in her hand, the television murmuring nonsense.

He was as far as putting on his pajama bottoms when the phone on the nightstand rang, and he lurched for it, trying to catch it before his wife woke, an exercise doomed to failure. Jenny sat up with a start, glanced at the alarm clock, and frowned.

"It's bad," she said. "It's always bad when it's this late."

Crocker nodded, answering the phone, and expecting the Duty Ops Officer.

Instead, he got Angela Cheng.

"How's Chace?" Cheng asked him.

"Not on this line."

"See, I know how she is," Cheng continued, as if she hadn't heard him. "That's just to give you a taste of what I know. And I know something else, Paul. What I know is that you need to get your ass into your office in like, say, the next hour, and have an escort meet me in the lobby so I can come up to see you."

"Your President decided to invade some other oil-rich country, that it?"

"Ha ha, you're funny, you're a very funny guy. One hour, Paul, I mean it." Cheng hung up.

Propped on her pillow, Jenny's frown deepened. "There was a time when we would make love at night."

"Did we?" Crocker moved to the closet, pulling down a fresh suit and laying it out at the foot of the bed, then going back for a shirt and tie.

"Must've done. There are two proofs asleep in their respective rooms below us."

"Who are almost, but not quite, as lovely as their mother."

Jenny retrieved her book, marking her page before closing it, then scooted forward beneath the bedclothes, toward her husband. He had his pants on by then, and the shirt, and he stopped buttoning the front to reach out and run his fingers through her dark hair.

She didn't move, then kissed his hand as he moved it back. "Tie doesn't match."

"The shirt is white, Jenny. Any tie goes with white."

"Your shirt is not the problem." She threw back the covers, grinning as he looked at her bare legs, then disappeared into their closet. "The suit is the problem."

Crocker sat on the bed, pulling on his socks and shoes. "You're the only person who cares about these things."

"Someone must." She returned with a simple navy silk tie, draped it around his neck, then kissed him on the forehead. "See you tonight?"

"God, I hope so," Paul Crocker said with a sincerity that surprised him. • "Who died?"

"Funny you should ask," Cheng said, and then slapped the folder she'd hand-carried from Grosvenor Square onto Crocker's desk.

He finished lighting his cigarette, then flipped the folder open. The routings along the top of the paper were CIA standard, but the subheading declared "U.S.-U.K. Eyes Only," and it reassured Crocker somewhat that Cheng wasn't sneaking him anything he shouldn't be privy to in the first place.

As he read, he said, "Chace is fine. Suffered an injury to the right foot, impaled herself on a piece of glass. No tendon damage, had it stitched up as soon as she was back."

"I know," Cheng said flatly.

Crocker stopped middraw on his cigarette, staring down at the paper.

"Ah, just go to the juicy bit."

"This is confirmed?" he asked.

"From three different sources."

"Why am I finding this out from you?" Crocker glared at Cheng, but only because she was the only one there. "Why the hell didn't I learn this from Simon?"

"I don't know how you run your stations, Paul." Cheng gave up on waiting for an invitation and sat, tucking her legs beneath her seat. "All I know is what I get from Langley, and Langley says that two people were murdered in the Al-Jami' al-Kamir in San'a' yesterday, each of them shot at point-blank multiple times. Dr. Faud bin Abdullah al-Shimmari and Salih bin Muhammad bin Sultan."

Crocker closed the folder in disgust, rocked back in his chair, almost spitting smoke. "What the hell was he doing there?"

"Chace didn't say? Did she even file?"

"Her after-action was filed immediately on her return," Crocker replied angrily. "Before she went to the bloody hospital, she came in here and filed her after-action. She said she missed the window on el-Sayd but was able to take Faud and had to take one other as collateral. She couldn't shoot Faud and leave the other one just kneeling there."

"Kneeling there?" Cheng sat upright. "Oh, fuck me, Paul, don't tell me they were praying when she killed them."

"According to Chace, yes."

Cheng stared at him, then sank back, shaking her head.

Crocker flicked ash, missing the tray and scattering it on his desk. It did nothing to help his mood.

"You're going to take it straight on the chin," Cheng said after a moment.

"Go to hell, Angela," Crocker growled. • "She killed who?" Barclay demanded. He was on his feet behind his desk, both hands planted in fists on his blotter, and Crocker decided the shade his C had turned was probably most accurately described as cherry.

"Salih bin Muhammad bin Sultan," Crocker answered. "One of the almost seven thousand princes of the House of Saud."

"In a mosque?"

Crocker thought that Barclay was actually shaking with his fury.

"All of this is detailed in Minder One's after-action report, sir." Crocker motioned to the report resting on the stack of "Immediates" on Barclay's desk.

"Oddly, no, it isn't. Chace nowhere writes 'I shot a Saudi prince in the back of the head as he was kneeling in prayer.' In point of fact, there's no mention of royalty of any kind. So you may, perhaps, understand my displeasure at finding your agents committing regicide!"

Crocker closed his mouth, deciding that now probably wasn't the best time to point out that Chace hadn't, in fact, killed a king but only a prince. To his side, also standing, Weldon shifted uneasily, then stopped as Barclay moved his glare to the Deputy Chief.

"How in the name of God did this happen, Donald?" Barclay shoved the copy of the after-action away from him. "You authorized Tanglefoot, why didn't you put a stop to this?"

"Tanglefoot didn't specify location or means, sir," Weldon said tightly. "It simply undertook to fulfill HMG's order, to effect the assassination of Dr. Faud-"

Barclay waved a furious hand and Weldon went silent.

For several seconds, none of the men moved and none of them spoke. Weldon shifted again, then straightened his tie and looked past Barclay, out the window. Crocker kept his hands behind his back, watching as the color slowly began fading from his C's face. It left his ears last.

"I have been summoned to Number Ten," Barclay said softly. "I have been asked to explain how it was that an SIS officer murdered two men in the holiest site in Yemen."

"Then you should tell them it was done with efficiency and precision," Crocker said.

"I beg your pardon?"

Crocker hesitated, then elaborated. "SIS fulfilled HMG's request to the letter of the concept of operations, sir. Exactly as requested, and in short order of the request. While they may not like the result, Operation: Tanglefoot is a complete success. Minder One did exactly what she was sent to do, and did it brilliantly. Something I hope you will convey to the Prime Minister."

"Oh, I shall convey it, Crocker." Barclay's glare superbly mixed outrage with incredulity. "Oh, yes, absolutely. And when the PM asks just what it is we're supposed to tell the Saudis, I'll direct his inquiry to you, shall I?"

"If Prince Salih bin Muhammad bin Sultan was meeting with Faud in San'a', sir, the Prince was involved in Faud's organization and activities, most likely as the source of their funding," Crocker answered seriously. "If the Prime Minister wishes, I'm certain the Deputy Chief and D-Int would be happy to brief him on the Saudi royal family's donations to organizations that promote and foster terrorism, not just in the Middle East but in the U.K. as well. Further, I'm sure Mr. David Kinney at Box would be happy to join them in the briefing, to provide the Security Services' point of view on the situation."

"Do you think this is a joke, Crocker?" Barclay snapped.

"I think very little is a joke, sir."

"Then you must think the Prime Minister a fool, or an idiot, or worse that he isn't already aware of these things."

"Certainly he is aware of them. The question is to what extent, and to what extent politics dictates action rather than matters of security or intelligence."

"Politics has always pulled the sled. As well it should. Left unchecked, you would have your Minders putting bullets in half of the leaders in the Middle East."

Crocker's jaw tightened, sending the start of a new headache climbing along his skull. "This Service exists to protect the British people, not to serve any elected official's political agenda."

"You assume that the Prime Minister's agenda isn't the same as yours. And you further-arrogantly-assume that you are in possession of more facts at any given moment than the PM and the Cabinet."

"From what I've seen, sir," Crocker said, "that conclusion is self-evident. The PM asked SIS to undertake retaliatory action. Operation: Tanglefoot was approved by me, Director Intelligence, the Deputy Chief, and yourself before presentation to the Cabinet. If the Cabinet was worried that Chace might track blood onto the carpet, they should have rejected the proposal. Now it's done, and it's far too late to wish it undone."

"All true, and ultimately all bloody irrelevant when we're asked to mollify the Saudis."

"I'm not interested in mollifying the Saudis," Crocker replied. "Neither should the Prime Minister be. For that matter, neither should you."

"As I have stated time and time again, we follow our Government, we do not lead it, certainly not in policy."

"Then we're no better than the Americans chasing after Saudi oil." Crocker paused, took a breath, trying to calm himself. Barclay's gaze was unblinking, still enraged, and Weldon was still alternately interested in his necktie and the view just past Barclay's shoulder of the window.

"Oil we depend upon, too, I would point out."

"Halliburton doesn't have a desk at SIS yet, do they?" Crocker said before he could catch himself.

Barclay's scowl was of a quality to wither limbs.

"Look, sir, it is unfortunate that the Prince was in the wrong place at the wrong time," Crocker said after a moment's pause. "But if he was clean, he wouldn't have been there."

Weldon cleared his throat. "The Saudis will claim that Salih was in the mosque to worship, and we won't be able to prove otherwise. It looks like a cold-blooded slaughter, an affront not simply to the Saudis but to all of Islam."

"Of course that's how it bloody looks," Crocker retorted, feeling his temper starting to slip. "That was the whole bloody point, and if the PM and the Cabinet didn't see that when they ordered us to assassinate Faud, they damn well should've done. There was no way the assassination of a prominent imam could be interpreted as anything else, and that was the obvious goal of the operation."

"You know damn well it wasn't!" Barclay snarled. "The goal was the retaliatory killing of Faud for the attacks on the Underground, not to start a bloody war with the Saudis!"

"We haven't started a war, sir. We're trying to fight one."

"Not by attacking two men in a mosque, not by murdering them that way!"

Crocker stared at Barclay, wondering how a man with so much similar experience, of so many shared years, could be so blind. When he answered, it was with a bitterness he hadn't heard from himself in years.

"Perhaps when you speak to the Prime Minister, sir, you can inquire of him as to exactly which way he would rather we had murdered them?"

Barclay grimaced in disgust, poked at the intercom on his desk, and curtly called for his car.

"Are we still clean?" he asked both men coldly. "Did she at least get out clean?"

"Chace was at no point compromised, sir," Weldon answered. "There's no reason for the Saudis to think we had any hand in what transpired."

"How certain are we of that?"

"Director Intelligence is still looking into it, but so far the Saudis seem to be following their usual response in incidents of this nature."

"Their usual response?"

"They're blaming the Israelis," Crocker replied.

Barclay considered, then nodded, pulling on his overcoat.

"Well, that's good news, at least," he said.