The Mordida Man

28

The day after Dunjee was flown back to Rome from Tripoli, he sat with Faraj Abedsaid at a sidewalk table at Doney’s, a brandy and an espresso before him. In front of Abedsaid was a small bottle of San Pellegrino mineral water. It was shortly before two o’clock in the afternoon.

“How many did you say are on you?” Dunjee said.

“When I left my hotel at noon, I think I spotted three. Possibly four. If there is a fourth one, he’s very good.”

“Any of them around now?”

“One behind you about six tables away. Twenty-nine or thirty. He’s found something terribly interesting in the Daily American. There’s also a woman. Twelve tables up. Fat, frumpish, about forty. She’s not bad. Green polyester slacks, orange sweater, mouse hair. She has tourist stamped all over her.”

“Just so we’ve got our audience.”

“We have it.”

“When’s your meeting with Dokubo?”

Abedsaid looked at his watch. “In about thirty minutes.”

“Still at the FAO?”

“Yes.”

“How is he?”

“Dokubo? Very bright, very smooth, very skillful — and exceedingly adept at scrambling about in quicksand. Using charm alone, I think he could keep these negotiations stalled for another six months. Back in Oklahoma, we’d say he was all hat and no cattle.”

Dunjee smiled. “Well, let’s do it.”

“Would you prefer me to be imperceptible — or obvious?”

“Hell, you’re the spy.”

“Yes, and I’m violating every precept of my trade. I do think I’ll be a wee bit clumsy — just so they don’t blink and miss it.”

Abedsaid looked at his watch again. “Well, I really must be going,” he said. Abedsaid started to rise, seemed to notice a forgotten folded copy of the Herald Tribune in his lap, and caught it before it fell. He placed the newspaper on the table as if he had finished reading it. “Keep in touch,” he told Dunjee.

“Right.”

Dunjee continued to sit at the table, people-watching and slowly sipping his brandy. After fifteen minutes, he glanced around as if trying to find his waiter. He spotted the fortyish woman in the green slacks and orange sweater. She seemed to be devoting all of her attention to a rather large mound of ice cream. Dunjee could not locate any young man with a Daily American who fitted Abedsaid’s description.

After paying the bill, Dunjee rose, tucked the folded Herald Tribune under his arm, and turned right down the Via Veneto in the general direction of the American Embassy. He walked slowly, strolling really, and at the next corner turned right, as though wandering back toward his hotel.

He stopped several times to gaze into shopwindows. He even turned around once to go back and inspect a display of antique jewelry that seemed to fascinate him. As far as he could determine, no one was following.

His casual, almost peripatetic stroll led him past the Eden Hotel. He continued to stop frequently at shopwindows. It was seventy-five yards past the Eden Hotel that the green Peugeot sedan pulled up in a no-parking space and the big man with the bald head and the sloped shoulders opened the rear door and got out. In the front seat, near the curb, was another man with a big jaw and a rubbery face. His eyes never left Dunjee.

The big bald-headed man walked slowly back toward Dunjee. As he came he hitched his pants up over his protruding stomach, but they immediately slid back down.

“You’re Chubb Dunjee?”

“That’s right.”

“We’d like to talk to you.”

“Who’s we?”

“My name’s Reese. Alex Reese. We’re with the government.”

“Whose government?”

“Your government.”

Dunjee stared at Reese. Then he smiled. It was Dunjee’s best smile, full of charm and exceedingly white. “See my lawyer,” he said and turned away.

The front door of the Peugeot popped open. The man with the big jaw and the rubbery face was now blocking Dunjee’s path. It had taken less than a second.

“You with the government, too?” Dunjee said.

The man wiped a hand hard across his mouth. It seemed to be a habit. Perhaps a nervous habit, although Dunjee thought the man looked about as nervous as a rock.

“My name’s Arnold,” the man said. “I’m with him.”

“There’re two of you,” Dunjee said, as if slightly surprised at how his addition had turned out.

“And one in the car makes three,” Reese said.

“Have you got anything that says you’re with the government — a piece of paper, a badge maybe?”

Reese reached into a pocket and came out with a plastic sealed card with a photograph on it. “This do?” he said, giving Dunjee a glimpse of it.

“A guy flashed something that looked like that at me in East St. Louis once,” Dunjee said. “It wound up costing me about three hundred bucks.”

“He’d like a closer look,” said Franklin Keeling, who had said his name was Arnold.

“Here,” Reese said, and handed Dunjee the ID card.

“Alex Merrifax Reese,” Dunjee read. “I used to know some Merrifaxes in Borger, Texas. Any kin?”

Reese shook his head.

Dunjee went back to his reading. “Twenty-two forty-one Bonnie Brae Drive, Bethesda, Maryland. Bonnie Brae. Is that out near Glen Echo along the C and O Canal?”

“Around in there.”

“Nice part of town.” Dunjee read some more. “United States Department of Agriculture.” He looked at Reese. “Chicken inspector?”

“You’ve got a very quick mouth, Mr. Dunjee,” Reese said with a pleasant smile.

“I’m just trying to keep from getting into a car in a strange town with three guys I don’t know.”

Franklin Keeling wiped a hand across his mouth again. “You haven’t got any choice.”

Dunjee shrugged. “It’s beginning to look that way.” He looked around and found what he needed. A trash receptacle. He removed the folded Herald Tribune from under his arm and took a step toward the receptacle. “Since I’ve already done the puzzle, I’ll just toss this first.”

Reese took the newspaper out of his hand. “I’ll take it,” he said. “I haven’t read the funnies.”

“I was afraid of that.”

“Yeah,” Reese said and smiled. “I thought you might be.”

They sandwiched Dunjee in between Reese and Keeling in the back seat. It was a tight fit. Jack Spiceman, the former FBI special agent, drove. The Rome traffic didn’t seem to bother him.

Dunjee paid almost no attention to where they were going. Instead, he watched as Alex Reese carefully opened the Herald Tribune and then began turning it, page by page.

The envelope was where it was supposed to be, between pages eight and nine. The envelope was sealed. Reese examined its front, then its back, and then the front again, reading aloud the name that was printed on its upper left-hand corner.

“The Grand Hotel,” he said. “Nice old place.”

“Just off the Baths of Diocletian,” Dunjee said. “An easy stroll to the Via Veneto.”

Reese put the envelope up to his ear and shook it. “You’re staying at the Hassler, right?”

“That’s nice, too,” Dunjee said. “A little expensive, but what the hell.”

“Let me use your knife, Frank,” Reese said. Keeling dug around in a pants pocket and produced a a small penknife. Reese opened it and carefully slit the letter. He closed the knife and handed it back to Keeling.

“How’d you run into Abedsaid?” Reese said.

“Accidentally,” Dunjee said.

Reese nodded. “I bet.” He peered into the envelope. “A piece of paper.” He took the paper out carefully. It seemed to be a piece of hotel stationery, folded in the conventional manner. Reese unfolded it. “Well, now,” he said. “What do you know — a map.”

“Is that what it is?” Dunjee said.

“Sure. Look. Here’s a road or something and here’s what looks like a house. And here’s the scale down here, see? One centimeter equals five meters. Not a very big map though, is it?”

“Not very,” Dunjee said.

“You know something?”

“What?”

“I’m not really with the Department of Agriculture.”

“You fooled me,” Dunjee said and began looking out the window as the car turned left and started up a steep winding street. He had no idea where he was.

“You know who I’m really with?” Reese said.

“Who?”

“The CIA.”

“That must be interesting.”

“No, it’s really kind of frustrating sometimes,” Reese said. “Take for instance yesterday and today. I flew in here day before yesterday to take charge of a certain operation. We’re looking for somebody, somebody important. You follow me?”

Dunjee nodded. “I think so.”

“Well, we’ve had all our people alerted for days. So I check in with our chief of station here in Rome. That’s what we call them — chiefs of station. So I say to him, Well, what’ve you got? And he gets this funny look on his face.”

Reese fell silent for several seconds as though haunted by what he had seen on the face of the Rome chief of station.

After another few moments, Dunjee said, “A funny look, you said.”

“Yeah, a funny look. Well, it seems that some of our casual help sent in a report. And somehow it dropped between the cracks. Until yesterday. It seems there was this yacht docked in Valletta.”

“In Malta,” Dunjee said.

“Yeah, Malta. A Libyan yacht. A ninety-two-footer called the True Oasis. It was built for King Idris of Libya. Well, to make a long story short this part-time help we’ve got in Malta reported some funny kind of people going aboard the True Oasis.”

“What kind of funny-looking people?” Dunjee said.

“According to this report that sort of dropped between the cracks, there was an Oriental — maybe a Japanese — a German — or a Dutchman — and a woman, young, thin, brunette, and possibly French.”

“Going aboard a Libyan yacht,” Dunjee said.

“Right. Well, I won’t go into all the details, but we figured these three funny-looking people maybe could’ve led us to the guy we’re really looking for. You follow me?”

“I think so.”

“So quick like a snake I send some of our people over to Valletta, and guess what?”

“No yacht.”

“No yacht. Well, hell, you can’t hide a ninety-two-foot yacht, so we call the Navy. And they send some planes up and guess what?”

“This time I give up.”

“Well, out there in the Mediterranean, halfway between Valletta and Tripoli is the True Oasis, broken down with engine trouble and radioing for help. And the real funny thing about it is that they’re radioing for help when a U.S. destroyer is only about five miles away. Well, this destroyer of ours rushes over and hoves to, or whatever the hell they do in the Navy, and sends a crew aboard. A twelve-man crew. And sure enough those Libyans have got engine trouble, which took our guys about fifteen minutes to fix. Then the Libyans claim that they’ve got a few other problems they’d like the U.S. Navy to look at while they’re there. So our guys are given a tour of the whole fucking yacht, from stem to stern. And you know what? There weren’t any funny-looking people aboard any more — not unless you count the Libyans.”

“That’s quite a story,” Dunjee said as the car reached the top of the hill and turned into a short straight drive which led to a garage that occupied half of the ground floor of a four-story cream-colored villa.

In the front seat, Jack Spiceman took out a small metal box and pointed it at the garage. He pressed a button and the overhead door went up. The car drove into the garage. The overhead door came down.

“This is what in our business we call a safe house,” Reese said.

“A safe house.”

“We’re all going to get out of the car and go upstairs and talk to somebody about that little map of yours.”

“Who’re we going to talk to?” Dunjee asked.

“A patriot.”

“You know something?” Dunjee said.

“What?”

“That’s what somebody accused me of being the other day.’