Murder at the Opera

TWENTY-SIX

Milton Crowley decided to extend his stay in Washington for a few days. He didn’t feel well, chalking up his general malaise to the fatigue of the traveling he’d endured over the past week. He was staying at the Hotel Monaco, a relatively new boutique hotel in what once had been a post office and the home to the Tariff Commission. It had been recommended to Crowley by a colleague who’d recently visited Washington: “It’s a small oasis of sanity, Milton, in an otherwise insane city.”

Crowley dismissed his friend’s characterization of D.C. Truth was, he liked Washington, and enjoyed strolling its wide avenues and seeking out unusual shops on its side streets. He also found the hotel very much to his liking, particularly its restaurant, Poste, with its pleasant outdoor terrace, where he enjoyed sitting, a single-malt Scotch and crab cocktail with papaya on the table, along with an ashtray. Crowley was a smoker-a discreet one, to be sure, but genuinely fond of the pleasure it gave him, the crusading fanatics be damned.

This day, after checking in with the British Embassy, he decided to spend a portion of the day leisurely strolling the National Gallery of Art’s West Building. He’d visited the museum on earlier trips to Washington, marveling at its size and the scope of its collections; truly, the entire history of Western art from the 12th century to the present was contained in the building’s half-million square feet of interior space, one of the world’s largest marble structures. He was particularly fond of the Italian collection, which included Ginevra de’ Benci, the only work of Leonardo da Vinci’s on permanent display in the Americas. During his last visit, Crowley stood in front of that portrait of a young merchant’s wife and wept. He saw in the woman’s face the face of his own wife, Cora, who’d died a dozen years ago of cancer. It had been a childless marriage, which had suited them fine. Now Crowley sometimes wondered what it would be like to have a son or daughter bearing his name and carrying his blood. He’d never remarried, nor had he seriously pursued a new mate. His work became his mistress and spouse, but that, too, had provided less compensation in recent years. Whoever had invented the concept of retirement had done so with Milton Crowley in mind.

Soon.

Rather than begin in the Italian gallery, he stopped first in the East Hall, off the Rotunda, where 17th and 18th century French paintings were displayed. Renoir’s A Girl with a Watering Can captivated him, and he spent many minutes taking pleasure from it and recalling what Renoir had said about the work: “A painting should be a lovable thing, gay and pretty; yes, pretty. There are enough things to bore us in life without our making more of them.” How true, Crowley thought as he moved from Fragonard to Manet, Cézanne to Monet, and Renoir to Seurat before exiting that space and going to the West Hall, home of Italian art, of Ginevra de’ Benci, which he now almost considered a portrait of his beloved Cora.

His cell phone rang. A guard gave him a stern look.

“Sorry,” Crowley muttered, cupping his hand over the phone and speaking in whispered tones. “Now?” he said. “Can’t it wait?” He was told it could not. “All right,” he said. “I’ll come immediately.”

Sour over having been deprived of spending time with Cora, he replaced the phone in his pocket and abandoned his leisurely pace for a faster one in the direction of the main entrance, where taxis would be waiting. He grimaced against a stabbing pain in his hip and leaned against a wall for a moment to allow it to pass. He squeezed into the back of a cab and gave the address of the British Embassy on Massachusetts Avenue-Embassy Row, as it is known.

He closed his eyes as the driver lurched from the curb and executed a tight U-turn. What could be so important that he had to be there immediately? he wondered. They knew he’d elected to take a few days off before heading back to his post at the British Foreign Service’s Baghdad office. He’d discharged his responsibilities by briefing Browning at Homeland Security. He was now sorry that he’d decided to extend his stay. Better to be on an airplane, where no one could reach you.

He was deposited at a small brick guardhouse at the gated entrance to the sprawling embassy, arguably the most stately in a city of stately embassies. The guard confirmed his credentials, called inside the main house, and allowed Crowley to enter. He was met at the front door by the embassy’s head of chancery. “Mr. Crowley,” he said in a pinched tone, “right this way.”

They went down the main hallway, a long, wide corridor with bloodred walls and a checkerboard floor of white Vermont marble and black Pennsylvania slate. Huge portraits of British leaders past and present peered down at them as Crowley was ushered into a room with unmarked double doors. Heavy maroon drapes covered whatever windows were behind them. A large Tabriz carpet dominated the small, square room whose furniture was distinctly in the Louis XVI style, chairs and side tables all gold and blue. On the walls were four carved plaster friezes of Grinling Gibbons motifs, interspersed with landscapes by the hand of an artist unfamiliar to Crowley. Maybe Constable, he mused as the other men in the room stood at his entrance.

He knew two of them. Joseph Browning, replete in a three-piece suit different from what he’d worn when they’d last met at the Department of Homeland Security’s headquarters, offered his hand. The second face familiar to Crowley was Jillian Thomas of the British Foreign Service home office in London. What is he doing here?

The third man, a stranger to Crowley, introduced himself: “Wendell Jones, Mr. Crowley, Canadian Security Intelligence Service.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Crowley said after shaking Jones’ hand. The representative of the CSIS was a portly man, probably in his mid-fifties, Crowley judged, with a round, shiny face, gelled black hair, and heavy lips defined by a too narrow black moustache above them.

Thomas, tall and as slender as a javelin, was slightly hunchbacked, referred to in his circles as a “socialite slouch.” In his sixties, he possessed a full head of flowing silver hair in which he obviously took immense pride, judging from the care with which it was arranged. An almost perpetual sneer, like his curved back, would be considered a sign of world-weariness and keenly honed cynicism. Crowley did not like him and never did, although his subservient position in the Foreign Service’s hierarchy precluded him from demonstrating it.

“Enjoying your holiday?” Thomas asked Crowley after everyone was seated in a circle in their gold-and-blue chairs.

“I hadn’t considered it a holiday,” Crowley said, not pleased with how defensive he sounded. “Just a day or two between assignments.”

“Yes, quite,” Thomas said. “Well, I see no reason to delay the topic of our gathering. Mr. Browning, please.”

The American reached into the recesses of a large, battered, top-opening briefcase and extracted a sheaf of papers. He looked through them, chose one, and handed it to the Canadian, Jones, who slipped on a pair of half-glasses and frowned as he read. Crowley waited patiently, adjusting himself in the lovely-to-look-at, uncomfortable-to-sit-in chair to accommodate his nagging hip.

“Yes, this matches what we’ve been told,” Jones said, handing the paper back to Thomas.

“May I ask what this is about?” Crowley asked, after first clearing his throat.

“It’s about what the bloody terrorists are planning, Milton,” said Thomas. “It’s about what your people in Amman have been hinting at for months but never quite delivered.”

Crowley extended his hand to Thomas. “May I see what is of such interest?” he asked.

Thomas grimaced, ran fingertips down his prominent nose, and handed Crowley the dispatch. Milton was aware that six eyes were trained on him, awaiting a response. He read slowly and deliberately, ignoring the tendency to want to accommodate them by reading faster. Finished, he looked up and said, “Yes, the Canadian connection is very much in line with what my people in Jordan were able to gather from their Iraqi sources.”

“Hardly a great revelation,” Thomas said. “The question, Crowley, is why these gentlemen’s intelligence agencies were able to pinpoint with greater specificity the threat, while your people only pussyfooted around it. You run a flaming expensive operation. A king’s ransom. And for what?”

Crowley began to respond, but fell silent.

“I might also say,” Thomas added, “that the leaks coming out of Amman are enough to sink the Queen Mary II.”

Many thoughts ran through Crowley’s mind. If he was being made a scapegoat, it wouldn’t be the first time. It occurred to him that the three intelligence agencies represented in this faux Louis XVI room were competing with one another for dominance, or at least for the most slaps on the back. He found it distasteful, at best. Terrorists were out there planning to kill as many non-Muslims as possible, and here they were, men jockeying for political position and kudos. Thomas, his boss at the Foreign Service, was not a man to take criticism with aplomb, Crowley had learned over the years. Of course! Crowley thought. Thomas, and the British intelligence services he represented, had been made to look, at best, inept. How handy for Thomas to have Crowley on hand to take the blame in front of his bosses’ counterparts. The Canadian, Jones, was cheeky to sit there and claim success. From what Crowley knew, the Canadians had squandered much of their counterintelligence resources worrying about foreign governments spying on Canadian industry, money obviously of a higher priority than lives. Bastards! How dare they subject me to such embarrassment? I’ve given the best years of my life to the fugging Foreign Service, and have done a damn fine job, to boot.

A vision of the cottage in Dorset came and went.

“You’ve lost two of your so-called sources in Amman,” Thomas said. “Obviously the enemy knows only too well what’s going on within your operation.”

“Two?” Crowley said.

“You haven’t heard, Crowley?” Thomas said. He was showboating, performing for the others’ benefit. “Your man, Steamer-I believe that was what he was called-got it in the neck, in a manner of speaking.”

“I didn’t know,” Crowley said. “I’ve been here and…” His stomach churned at the thought of the big Brit with the code name “Steamer” no longer being alive.

Thomas’ sigh was loud and said much.

“If I might, I’d like to narrow down this conversation to some pertinent matters in these intercepts,” Jones said, removing his glasses and leaning toward Crowley. “Mr. Crowley, as you read, it seems that the terrorists-presumably led by al-Qaeda, although that’s not set in stone-intend to press forward with their plans to assassinate political leaders. It’s my understanding that you had said as much in briefings you’ve given Mr. Browning and Mr. Thomas.”

“It was only, as Mr. Thomas said, hinted at. Attempts were made to gather more specific information but-”

“You might be interested in this, Crowley,” Thomas said, handing his subordinate another piece of paper.

Crowley read it, quickly this time, and handed it back. “The same intent, a different target,” he said.

“The question is,” Jones said, “whether anything your sources in Amman told you might have forecast such a shift in their targeting.”

“No, nothing.”

“You can understand my government’s interest in this shift, which we’ve gotten through intercepts-the terrorists’ chatter, as it were,” said Jones.

“Of course,” Crowley agreed. The paper he’d just read indicated that rather than attempt the assassination of American political figures, the emphasis would now be on Canadian and British leaders.

“I might echo what my distinguished friend from Canada has just said,” Thomas intoned. “We’re now talking about terrorism on our home front, Crowley. The stakes have been raised considerably.”

Why? Crowley wondered. Were Canadian and British leaders more important than Americans? They were, of course, to those charged with protecting them. But in the larger scheme of things?

Besides, he thought, putting so much credence in the babble of Arab terrorists was misguided. If al-Qaeda knew that the Americans had been alerted to their plans to assassinate their top political figures, it would be easy to “chatter” about a change of targets, whether it represented the truth or not. The terrorists might be ruthless and bloodthirsty, but they weren’t stupid.

The security of the Western world was not, he decided on the spot, in especially competent hands.

“Is there anything else?” Crowley asked, anxious to bolt. “I think it best that I leave Washington immediately and return to Baghdad.”

His superior coughed politely into his closed fist.

“One other thing, Mr. Crowley,” Jones said. Browning handed Jones yet another communiqué, which was passed to Crowley. Again, he read quickly, but stopped midway and focused more attention on the words. When he was finished, he removed his glasses, rubbed his eyes, and shook his head. “This means nothing to me,” he said.

“These names never came up in all the months you’ve been handling sources in Amman?” Thomas asked, forcing incredulity into his voice. “Never?”

“Never.”

“They’ve only recently captured the attention of our people,” the Canadian intelligence operative, Jones, said. “We’d been aware of the potential of their involvement with terrorist organizations, but it’s so damned difficult to trace these things, especially when the company does everything aboveboard, or appears to.”

“Who are they?” Crowley asked.

“Talent agents,” Browning answered. “They represent opera singers and such. Offices in Toronto.”

“They represent many foreign singers, mostly operatic,” Jones added. “Their reputation isn’t pristine, I might say, some shady dealings alleged, pocketing fees belonging to clients, bringing young performers to Canada from other countries on the pretense of finding them training and work, taking their money, and leaving them high and dry. Not unusual, I suppose, for people in that line of work.”

“They represented that young opera singer who was murdered at the Kennedy Center,” Browning said.

“They’ve had dealings with Middle Eastern groups, we’ve learned. It all seems kosher, if that’s an acceptable way to put it considering the circumstances, but the name did come up in one of our intercepts.”

Crowley again shook his head, and groaned.

“Problem, Crowley?” Thomas asked.

“My hip,” Crowley said. “Acts up now and then.”

“You sound like a candidate for a hip replacement,” Browning offered.

“Perhaps,” Crowley replied, finding it strange for this discussion of terrorism and planned assassinations of political leaders to morph into talk of his hip. “If that’s all,” he said, standing, “I’d best be going.”

Without anyone saying anything, Jones and Browning shook Crowley’s hand and walked from the room, leaving him alone with Thomas. Crowley started to leave, too, but Thomas said, “A word with you, Milton,” indicating with his hand for Crowley to again take his seat. When he had, Thomas said, “I’m quite sure it’s evident, Milton, that we’ve fallen behind our colleagues in the gathering and assimilating of useful intelligence on the ground in Iraq.”

Crowley didn’t respond; his jaw moved silently.

“Somewhat embarrassing, I’d say,” Thomas said, examining his fingernails. “Let me cut to the chase, Milton. Hunting down these bloody savages is a young man’s game, wouldn’t you agree?”

“I hadn’t given it much thought, Jillian.”

“Well,” Thomas said, forcing a smile, “I think it’s time you did. As a matter of fact, I’ve been giving it considerable thought for some time now.”

“And?”

“And, Milton, I believe it is time to relieve you of your duties in Baghdad. Collinsworth will take over for you there, effective immediately.”

“Collinsworth?”

Adrian Collinsworth, in his early forties, had been transferred to Baghdad from Cairo six months earlier as Crowley’s second in command. He was, as far as Crowley was concerned, a thoroughly dislikable man, skilled at boot-licking but lacking even rudimentary skill at intelligence analysis.

“I suppose I don’t have a say in this,” Crowley said, successfully masking a small smile behind his hand.

“Afraid not, old chap. It’s for the greater good, you understand. Nothing personal. Time marches on. A new guard is always waiting in the wings to pick up where we leave off. It’s the way of the world, Milton. Happens to the best of us. At any rate, my friend, your early retirement-I might say immediate retirement-has been arranged. No need to worry about your personal items. Your things will be shipped from Baghdad forthwith, to that cottage of yours, I assume. Where is it? The Cotswolds?”

“Wareham, Dorset.”

“Yes, Wareham. Lovely spot. I know, I know, you’ll find it an adjustment to be a gentleman of leisure after the excitement and intrigue to which you’ve been accustomed all these years. But think of it this way, Milton, you’ll now have a leg up on your golden years, enjoying the sort of civilized comfort that’s been lacking in that hellhole Baghdad. Good food, good drink, and perhaps even a good woman with whom to commune.” His laugh was annoyingly lascivious. “Well, my friend, no need to prolong this. Any questions?”

Crowley fought to keep his face from reflecting what he was thinking and feeling at that moment. He remained stoic as he said, “No, Jillian. As disappointing as this is, I must agree with you. There is a greater good to be considered. All I can say is that my years of service have been highly satisfactory, and I trust my contributions have not gone unappreciated.”

They stood. Thomas placed his arm over Crowley’s shoulder and smiled broadly, displaying a large set of dull teeth. “You’ve been a true patriot to the Crown, Milton. The nation is in your debt. Make your travel arrangements through the embassy.” His laugh was accompanied by a deep, rattling cough. “And for God’s sake, man, remember to book a flight to London, not Baghdad. Cheerio, Milton. See you back home.” A firm slap on the back ended the meeting.

Crowley left the embassy with a spring in his step that hadn’t been there in quite a while. His hip was pain-free. Had he dared, he would have attempted to leap into the air and click his heels the way Russian dancers do. He enjoyed a cigarette outside the building before hailing a passing taxi. “The National Gallery,” he told the driver. Once inside the museum, he went directly to the Italian gallery and stood before Leonardo’s Ginevra de’ Benci, a smile on his face.

“Good news, Cora, darling,” he said. “We’ll be back in Dorset before we know it.”