Spymaster

CHAPTER 63

They met at the Riggsby bar in the Carlyle Hotel at DuPont Circle. Ryan wore an emerald-toned dress that matched her eyes. Kopec wore a black, ill-fitting suit that matched his mood.

“I’ll have a Manhattan, please,” she said, as the waitress took her order and disappeared.

Kopec, as was his habit, had arrived before her and had started without her. He had been halfway through his second cocktail when she entered the bar.

Though it was only a few years old, the Riggsby looked as if it had been around since the 1940s. With its forest green walls, old-school furniture, and keyhole entryway, it was a passage back to a bygone era.

A plate of sardines sat on the table and Kopec nudged it forward, indicating Ryan should help herself.

“I’m fine, thank you,” she replied.

“That must be how you stay so skinny.”

He was maudlin. The booze was probably part of it, but there was something else going on.

“What do you have for me, Artur?” she asked.

Removing his phone, he pulled up a series of photographs and slid the phone across the table to her.

Ryan scrolled through the photos. “Where did you get these?”

“My contact in Belarus was able to access one of the kits,” he said. Technically, it was his contact’s contact, but she didn’t need to know that.

“That’s wonderful. Where are the rest of them?”

“Somewhere near Minsk, we believe.”

“All of them?”

The Polish intelligence officer nodded.

“This is very good news. Who has control of them?” she asked.

“We don’t know. They’re using a cutout, a middleman.”

“Then how do we get them back?”

“You must purchase them.”

Ryan glared at him. “Purchase them?” she snapped. “The hell we will. Those are property of the United States government. We’re not paying someone to give us back what’s rightfully ours.”

“You don’t have an alternative.”

“Like hell I don’t. I’ll send a team in and we’ll take them back ourselves.”

“A paramilitary team. On a direct-action assignment.”

“Yes,” she replied. “Exactly.”

Kopec shook his head sadly.

“I paid you a lot of money to track those kits down, Artur. It wasn’t your job to set up a purchase.” Pausing, she then asked, “Are you trying to rip us off? Because if you are, I promise you, we’re going to have a big problem.”

“Lydia, please. Of course not,” he protested. “The kits were stolen and now they’re in the hands of another party who wishes to sell them.”

“I want the identity of the cutout.”

The Polish intelligence officer threw up his hands. “Why? He’s not going to reveal his source.”

“You don’t know that. We could buy him off. It’d be cheaper than buying our merchandise back.”

“And then what? Steal the kits, maybe kill the person or persons who have them?”

“You don’t need to concern yourself with what happens next.”

“He’s my source, Lydia. He’d be as good as dead. You don’t understand how things work in Belarus.”

“To tell you the truth, Artur, I don’t care. I want those kits back, damn it.”

In the entire time he had known her, he didn’t think he had ever heard her swear before. Granted, the United States had to be losing its collective mind over this issue, but the stress really seemed to be getting to Ryan. It was time to lay his cards on the table.

“There might be one scenario under which I would be willing to give you my source.”

Ryan, whose Manhattan had just arrived, was about to take a sip. “Name it,” she said.

“You must give me Matterhorn.”

“Jesus Christ, Artur. How many times do I have to tell you? I don’t have him. I don’t know who he is. I don’t know where he is. Only Reed Carlton knows. And he’s not exactly in any shape to talk.”

“Or so you say.”

Her eyes went wide. “You don’t believe me?”

“I’d like to see him for myself.”

“And I explained to you why that wasn’t possible. He has been classified as a risk to National Security. This isn’t like visiting the old folks’ home, having a cup of tea and a sweet chat, then leaving. He is in bad shape and he could say anything.”

“I’m willing to risk it.”

Ryan laughed. “You’re willing to risk it. That’s cute. These are American secrets and American national security we’re talking about, not Polish.”

“Matterhorn is a matter of Polish national security as far as Poland is concerned.”

A long, cold silence fell over the table. Ryan picked up her cocktail and sipped from it, trying to decide what to say. What Kopec did next, though, stunned her.

Standing up, he placed a hundred-dollar bill on the table. “When you’re ready to get serious about your upgrade kits, you know how to reach me.”

“Don’t do this to me, Artur,” she implored. But it was no use. Without so much as good-bye, the Polish intelligence officer turned and left the bar.