Dark Zone

7

Dean looked up from his seat as the door opened. He’d been in the police interrogation room now for nearly two hours, repeating the same story at least a half-dozen times. It was a short story, at least: it relayed exactly what he had seen at the park and included the outlines of the cover he had been supplied with. With the exception of his cover — businessman in town for a conference, taking a stroll with a friend he’d chanced to meet — it was all absolutely true.

It left out a lot, but it was true.

“Who is it that you know at the embassy?” asked the chief inspector, the older of the two men who’d been questioning him. His name was Lang and he smelled of cigarettes. Dean noticed that his fingertips were stained brown. Every so often he excused himself, probably to grab a smoke.

“I don’t know anyone,” said Dean. “I just called the number you gave me.”

“The embassy sent someone to speak to my superior,” said the detective. “It was all very unnecessary.”

“I didn’t mean to cause any trouble,” said Dean. “I’ve answered all your questions and told you what I saw several times. You can’t think I had anything to do with shooting the man.”

The detective gave him a look that suggested the contrary. He slid a pad of paper down on the table.

“A place where I can contact you, both here and in the States,” he told Dean. “Include address and phone number, if you will.”

Dean wrote down the name of the hotel Desk Three had reserved, then added his home address and phone number. The chief inspector took back the pad and looked over the information so slowly that he seemed to be checking each letter against some master file in his brain. Then he got up and waved the pad at Dean, indicating that he should follow.

When he got downstairs, Tommy Karr was there, talking to the desk sergeant about the best place to get “real” shepherd’s pie and a pint. As Dean walked up, the policeman had just mentioned a place near Waterloo Station — a major train station on the other side of the Thames — and Karr acted with exaggerated surprise, as if authentic British beer could not be purchased anywhere near a railway. They chatted on for a few more minutes, Karr oblivious to Dean or the embassy representative, who was waiting for them nearby. The representative was a young man in a business suit whose close-cropped hair and posture screamed military.

Karr finished kibitzing with the sergeant, pointing at the policeman as if he were a drinking buddy before walking away. “Later,” he told the sergeant, strolling over to the man from the embassy. “Say, can I get you to give me a lift? I just got some good pointers on places on food. It’s a little past teatime, but I’m hungry. Charlie, you grab some grub, too.”

“Actually, sir, the ambassador wishes to speak with you,” said the escort.

“You oughta be a salesman, or maybe a politician,” Dean told Karr as they walked to the embassy car. “You have that hail-fellow-well-met act down cold.”

“Just getting some local intelligence,” said Karr, bending himself into the backseat of the embassy’s Ford. Dean slid beside him.

“I’m guessing you’re a Marine who was ordered to dress down for the occasion,” Karr said as the driver put on his seat belt.

“Lieutenant Dalton, sir.”

“Charlie was a Marine,” offered Karr. “Back in the old days. Who was it you fought, Charlie? Barbary pirates?”

“From Tripoli to the Halls of Montezuma,” Dean said drily.

Karr smiled. Dalton glanced in the mirror. Dean realized he’d balled his fingers into a fist, tensing in anticipation of the questions: “Where did you serve?” “What was your rank?” “What did you do?”

It felt so long ago now that talking about it was an effort, one he didn’t feel like making. But the young man said nothing.

Dean reached into his pocket and took out the room key that he had snatched from the dead man. Without saying anything, he held it out so Karr could see.

Karr grinned. “They thought it was yours?”

“The first policeman made me empty my pockets in the park. Good thing we didn’t check in.”

“Ah, you would have come up with something,” said Karr.

Dean wasn’t sure about that. He’d never been a particularly good liar, and he certainly couldn’t joke and josh the way Karr did. He remembered the words an older commander had once used to describe him on a fitness report or something similar: taciturn by nature.

He’d seen it as a compliment then. Now he wasn’t so sure.

“Semper fi,” the lieutenant said as he left Dean and Karr in a waiting room upstairs in the embassy. “Good luck, sir.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” said Dean. “Semper fi.”

“Nice furniture, huh?” said Karr. He dropped back into a frail-looking antique chair against the wall.

“What are we going to do now?” Dean asked.

Karr shrugged. “We give the Art Room time to sort this all out, Charlie. Relax. You’re too wound up.”

“I should be more like you, right? Water off a duck’s back.”

Karr chuckled. Dean knew by now that the op actually was much more serious, much more focused, than he appeared. Under his “What, me worry?” veneer and his corny sense of humor, he was calculating several steps ahead. He was a sharp, truly bright kid who also happened to be immensely big. Dean thought Karr had learned to pretend to be goofy as a boy growing up. Bright kids usually didn’t fit in by showing how smart they were; they had to adopt some sort of act, like class clown. And yet nonchalance was definitely part of Karr’s personality. The op would laugh in the face of a hurricane and probably honestly think getting soaked was interesting.

The door opened. A man in his early thirties stuck his head out into the hallway. “Karr, what are you doing in London?”

“Stephens, you Anglophile you.” Karr jumped up and walked to the man. As he came close, he reared back and started to throw a punch with such force that Dean thought he would knock the man through the wall. But he pulled his fist back at the last second, stopping it a half inch from Stephens’ shoulder.

“I knew you weren’t going to hit me,” said Stephens, whose posture and closed eyes suggested the exact opposite.

“You’re awful trusting for a spook,” said Karr.

“You’re awful obnoxious for an NSA clown.” The man turned to Dean. “You’re Charles Dean?”

“Yes.”

“Nice to meet you. I feel sorry for you, if you have to work with Tommy Karr. He ever tell you how he came to be called Tommy?”

“I’ve never asked.”

“Don’t. Come on inside. I have a million questions for you, though I’m sure you won’t answer most of them.”

Just then there were footsteps on the nearby staircase; Dean and Karr turned to see a young woman and an older man descending. Dean recognized the woman’s skirt before her face came into view — it was the girl they had helped in the street.

“You,” she said as she came into view.

“Well, hey, hello,” said Karr.

“Oh my God. These are the people I told you about, Daddy.” The girl came over to them. “What are you doing in the embassy?”

“Lost my passport,” said Karr, patting his pockets. “Would you believe it? Dumb of me, huh? Lose my head if it wasn’t attached.”

The girl frowned, clearly not believing him. She looked to Dean. He nodded solemnly, but her frown only deepened.

“Thank you for helping my daughter,” said the ambassador.

“Anytime,” said Karr. “Pleasure was mine.”

Stephens stood awkwardly to the side. The ambassador nodded at him, then tapped his daughter’s arm to get her to follow as he went back to the stairs.

“Whoa,” said Stephens inside. “You know the ambassador’s daughter?”

“I know her purse better,” said Karr. He recounted what had happened.

“Wow. I wish I’d saved her purse,” said Stephens.

“Start out with something like her keys, then work your way up,” said Karr. “Now where’s the encrypted phone? I think we’re supposed to call home and get yelled at.”