Simple Simon

Chapter Twelve Missing Links

Nelson Van Horn looked long at the piece of paper the A-SAC handed him before his eyes came up. “Where did you get this?”

“Do you know what it is?” Art responded with his own question. Behind him, one of the com room’s secure fax machines began to spit pages.

“It’s KIWI ciphertext.”

Art handed a photocopy of the page from The Tinkery to Van Horn. “And this? Is this in KIWI also?”

Van Horn needed just a quick scan to confirm that it was. He nodded and asked again, “Where did you get this?”

“Nels, I can’t tell you that right now. But I need to find out something.”

“What?”

“What’s in these,” Art said, seeking the information as confirmation of, well, the impossible made real. “Can you do that loop back thing you told me about last week?”

“Sure, but…”

“Nels, this is damn important. And sensitive.”

No shit, Van Horn thought, looking at the pair of ciphertext pages. For all he knew they could be things not intended to be seen. Intelligence of the highest order. And to have someone hand him two pages of ciphertext— KIWI ciphertext! — and want to know what was in them, well…

But it wasn’t just someone. It was the A-SAC. It was Jefferson. No one came straighter than him.

“All right,” Van Horn said. “It’ll just take a minute.”

A quarter to five, the sun red and low in the west. Keiko Kimura stood on the balcony of her second floor room at the Belle View Inn and watched a fishing boat lumber in the distance. She could not see the setting sun, but its shimmer was quite plain, and quite beautiful, on the wide waters of the Potomac.

She was in America.

The hunger roiled impatiently within. One boy could not quench the desire.

But she had to resist the temptation to seek out another just yet. There was the one she had been promised. The one she had to work her magic on.

And only that one.

America, a smorgasbord of her favorite flavors. She ached at thought of what she would miss once she was gone. Her desires denied.

Being here, experiencing here, only to leave. Torture, she thought. It is torture.

A stale bagel sat on the desk of Angelo Breem, United States Attorney, a bite-size chunk missing and a fly picking at the rest. Breem rolled a brief tight and swung at the insect, making contact and batting it across his office. It landed on the floor by the door and was squashed when Assistant United States Attorney Janice Powach came excitedly in.

“A knock would be nice,” Breem commented, turning his attention quickly back to the work on his desk.

Powach approached, a devilish, satisfied grin teasing. She stood right at the edge of Breem’s desk, red skirt pressed against it, and said nothing.

After a second, Breem knew he had to ask. It was a familiar game, and would have grown tiring long ago if the legs beneath the skirt weren’t wrapped around him on occasion. “Yes, Janice?”

“We got a transfer hit on one of Fiorello’s accounts,” Powach said. “One hundred thousand from a stateside account to an overseas account.”

“Mm-hmm,” Breem grunted, but did not look up. Fiorello had ceased being interesting, becoming more a reminder of that damn Jefferson.

Powach leaned forward on the desk, and now he looked up. She had on a white blouse, the loose one. “Don’t you want to know who got the money?”

“Okay,” Breem said, his eyes moving from her face, to her neck, and to the cleavage she was so innocently letting him admire. “Who?”

“The name is Anne Preston,” Powach said, and when Breem did not react or lift his eyes she put a hand under his chin and lifted.

“Preston. Who’s that?”

“Her name isn’t Preston anymore,” Powach explained. “It’s Jefferson.”

Breem’s eyelids batted fast, and he pulled slowly back, settling into his chair. “Anne Jefferson?”

“His pretty new wife,” Powach confirmed, standing now, the inviting curve of her body drawing no interest from her boss.

“His wife!” Breem commented incredulously. “Son of a bitch.”

“Was it okay not to knock?” Powach asked playfully. Breem was staring past her.

“He used his wife,” Breem said, a gleeful smile forming. “Jefferson, Jefferson, Jefferson. I have you.” A fist came down hard on the meaningless work of the day. “I have you!”

As he was leaving for the day, Craig Dean didn’t notice the contrast of the shiny black Chrysler LHS parked next to his aging Toyota, but he jumped when his name was called through an open window.

The shudder faded, and Dean turned and bent to look through the passenger window of the LHS. Mr. Kudrow sat on the opposite side, behind the wheel. “Mr. Kudrow.”

“Long day, Dean?”

Keys jingled nervously in Dean’s hand. “Yeah. Well, you know.”

Kudrow nodded. “Get in.”

Eyes that had been fatigued slits ballooned. “I…was heading home.”

Kudrow looked forward through the windshield, away from Dean. “It’s about MAYFLY, son. There may have been a leak.”

A wet bulge rolled down Dean’s narrow throat. He told himself to stay cool, that it was all right, that, after all, he was the one doing the postmortem on MAYFLY, and that he had been really careful with the money and they’d never find it, so there was no way he could be accused of anything. Be cool. Be cool. It was probably something simple anyway. Maybe a crypto clerk that quit some time ago — they were always leaving. Or the British. There had been that initial suspicion of someone in their structure, since they used MAYFLY, too. Cool, calm, easy.

Dean opened the door and got in, the comfortable leather accepting his wiry frame. Kudrow locked the door from his side and rolled the window up.

“We have to talk about it,” Kudrow said, then started the car.

“Where are we going?” Dean asked, nervous eyes on the ignition.

“We can’t talk here. You’ll understand.”

The LHS pulled out of its space and moved through the workers’ lot, passing two guard posts where barrier gates sank into the pavement and allowed it into a serpentine path between concrete planters. Dean forced his gaze straight ahead, glancing only once or twice toward Kudrow once they were off base and on the highway, heading northwest. Hands at ten and two, Kudrow never even tickled the speed limit.

They meandered on interstates and state routes until, just outside a place called Sunshine, Kudrow said, “We’re being followed.”

Dean looked cautiously over his left shoulder, out the tinted rear window, but all he could see were headlights that appeared no different from any other. “Where? Why would anyone follow us?”

A rural intersection came fast upon them, and Kudrow hardly slowed when he turned the LHS right, heading now for Patuxent River State Park. “Because we’re about to save your life,” Kudrow said, looking briefly at his passenger. “I’m disappointed in you, son.”

The bulge that had rolled down his throat now seemed minuscule to what Dean fought to keep down. He slid a hand onto the armrest built into the door, searching for the door release.

“It won’t open unless I want it to,” Kudrow said, flicking a switch quickly once to demonstrate. “Good old American ingenuity.” He turned left onto a narrow, rutted access road that snaked into the trees. “But you’re more familiar with how our Japanese friends work, aren’t you, son?”

“I…” Cool, cool, oh, shit, no…

The LHS bounced, and Kudrow slowed to match the road’s condition, the headlights sweeping the desolate path ahead. Dean looked out the back window again.

“They’ll wait at the road,” Kudrow said. “To make sure we’re not disturbed while we talk.”

“Mr. Kudrow, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dean said, not pleading yet, even though the urge to was almost overpowering. Apologize, express remorse. Come clean. No. Not yet. He has nothing. Noth—

The micro cassette player Kudrow pulled from inside his jacket brought an abrupt end to Dean’s self reassurance. “Are you aware how far surveillance technology has come?”

Dean stared at the silvery player, the brand name almost bringing a smile to his pained face.

“Rock Creek Park, not far from the planetarium,” Kudrow said to freshen Dean’s memory and lower his resistance. His thumb hovered over the PLAY button as he spun the wheel with his free hand, guiding the car into a circular bald spot in the forest, a turnaround for construction vehicles that maintained the park’s network of primitive interior roads. As the car stopped, Kudrow looked hard at Dean and asked, “Would you like to hear what you said to Mr. Atsako last night?”

The young eyes, tired, defeated, looked away.

“Or see the pictures?” Kudrow challenged further.

Dean had no reason to consider the option at any length and shook his head. Kudrow slid the player back inside his jacket and flipped a switch on his armrest. The latches clicked. “Get out.”

Dean hesitated.

“Your new life begins tonight, Mr. Dean,” Kudrow said in a calm, yet firm voice. Reassuring, he thought with some satisfaction. “Your treachery has cost a great deal. Both in dollars and in some lives.” He noted that Dean actually flinched at that. It was a touching, but futile flash of humanity. “And that was from MAYFLY. If you had succeeded in giving your friends someone who might have broken KIWI, well…the consequences would be unimaginable.”

Silence held Dean. What could he say? Should he tell Kudrow that money had been his motivation. Money? Cash. A growing bundle stashed, of all places, in a shed behind his brother’s farmhouse in Iowa. Nothing he could say could change what he’d done. He was suddenly sorry beyond words, and fought to hold back the tears.

“So now, what happens?” Kudrow continued. “I’ll tell you. You and I will get out into the fresh air, and we will have a talk. You will tell me everything. Everything about what you’ve done, and what you are still to do. About this contact you are supposed to meet Saturday. About what you were going to tell her.”

A sniffle got past Dean’s resistance. He dragged his coat sleeve across his nose and nodded.

“And then, Mr. Dean, you will be gone.” The young, now read eyes, turned worried and locked on Kudrow’s. “A new identity, son. Your Japanese friends won’t be too happy with you for failing. And certain people on our side either, if things should get out.”

“No jail?” Dean asked weakly.

Kudrow shook his head in complete truth. “No jail.”

Dean could hardly believe it. He’d always expected that, if he were caught, it would mean a long time, if not life, in a solitary cell in a federal institution somewhere. Not a new start. He couldn’t finger his emotion right then. Relieved was closest he could come, but that was not strong enough. “I’ll turn the money over.”

“That goes without saying. Now…” Kudrow opened his door. “Shall we have our talk?”

Dean followed Kudrow to the clearing in front of the car. They stood facing each other, talking for almost an hour, the deputy director asking frequent questions and the youthful cryptographer answering every one to the best of his ability. Dean never became boastful of what he was able to accomplish, but the atmosphere was actually becoming cordial.

He was quite surprised, then, when Kudrow removed a pistol from the pocket of his overcoat and pointed it at him.

Kudrow said nothing at first, watching instead as Dean took a half step backward, and as utter shock hardened his expression. “I have to thank you for your cooperation,” Kudrow said, then lowered the pistol a bit and shot Dean in the left knee.

“SHIT! AHHHH!” Dean collapsed on his right side and pulled his shattered joint to his chest with both hands over the wound. Blood trickled between the fingers and spilled onto the ground.

“But I’ve never trusted the Hollywood depiction of moments like these. I’ve always figured that a person who has a gun pointed at them and knows they’re going to die would fight to survive. Rush their would-be executioner.” Dean pushed with his good leg, scooting his body toward the trees, frightened eyes wide and watching Kudrow follow. “I would.”

“Don’t, Mr. Kudrow!” Dean pleaded, a wave of pain twisting his face into a wincing mask of agony.

“I come here often to walk,” Kudrow told Dean. “There’s a crevice about a hundred feet into the woods. That way. A few shovels of dirt and some dead wood tossed in, and no one will find your body.” Kudrow pointed the pistol at Dean’s face, his finger on the trigger, feeling the steel, bringing another hand up to steady the weapon, breathing, breathing, breathing…

“There was no one following us,” Dean said through the pain, as if it were some timely, salient point to make.

Kudrow shook his head and squeezed the trigger four times.

When he was able to lower the pistol more than a minute later he was surprised, utterly astonished at how easy killing a man had been.

Five men sat around a poker table, cigar smoke wafting upward into a fan whose wasted motion only served to circulate the fumes for later inhalation. Each man held five cards, and each had chips before them, some in neat stacks, some in tilted and fallen piles. One man, the dealer at the moment, had far more chips than any other player. And he was smiling, teeth clenched on a stogie.

Two players folded, then a third after examining his hand long and hard. That left the dealer just one challenger.

“I’m waiting,” the dealer said jauntily. The others at the weekly game knew him as Mr. Pritchard.

The challenger, setting his cigar in a flat metal ash tray, tossed two blue chips into the pot as a door opened behind Mr. Pritchard. A young man entered and leaned close to Pritchard’s right ear. “There may be a situation developing.”

“In a minute, Sanders,” Pritchard said, and the young man retreated out of the room. “Is that a call?”

The challenger nodded and laid his hand on the table. Three queens and two fours stared into the whirling, smoke-shrouded fan blades. “And you?”

Pritchard’s smile never waned as he laid a pair of eights on the felt.

“That’s it?” the challenger said, shock turning to laughter an instant later. “You stupid son of a bitch.”

“Had you going, didn’t I?” Pritchard said as the challenger scooped up his winnings.

“You get joy in bluffing, don’t you, Pritchard?” one of the men asked.

Pritchard left his trash cards on the table and stood, blowing smoke toward the fan. “I’d rather have four aces. Now, if you’ll excuse me for a moment.”

His cigar clamped firmly in one side of his jaw, Pritchard left the smoky room and found Sanders waiting in the hall. “Go ahead.”

“A situation may be developing,” Sanders repeated.

“You said that. Where? And what’s the involvement?”

“It’s coming from inside and it involves an extreme innocent,” Sanders elaborated.

Pritchard removed his cigar. “An extreme innocent?”

Sanders nodded. He knew what that characterization would mean to Mr. Pritchard, what weight it would carry.

“You’ll watch the situation closely and let me know,” Pritchard said.

“If we wait, sir, it may be too late,” Sanders said, every bit of seriousness he could manage thrown into his tone.

Pritchard, though, met him with his own brand of seriousness, a stare that had melted the toughest of men where they stood. “Nothing, Sanders, I repeat, nothing, is worth rushing into. Nothing.”

Sanders swallowed and accepted the dressing down with a deferring nod. “Yes, sir.”

The cigar found its way back between Pritchard’s surprisingly white teeth. “Extreme innocent, you say?”

“Yes.”

Pritchard considered that through two puffs. “In the morning, Sanders. Get the particulars to me. I’ll bring it up with the boys.”

A somewhat re-inflated Sanders nodded crisply. “Yes, sir.”

The young man hurried off down the hall. Pritchard watched him, admiring the eagerness, thanking whoever was up there that people like Sanders had chosen his side of the fence to play on. There were enough on the other side already.