The Red Room

25

The plaza across the street from the Alzer Hotel is an oasis of flagstone, immature trees and park benches, reminding Knox of a museum’s café courtyard, one where the coffee is overpriced and the quiche tastes store-bought. Well-dressed tourists and locals crisscross the space, their attention on the drama of the mosque to the east or the hum from the Parisian café tables in front of the Alzer to the west.

A man sits unmoving amid the plaza’s activity, his shoulders as wide as a gate, his face as ordinary and uninteresting as that of any school’s gym teacher.

David Dulwich might be a piece of urban art—Man on a Park Bench, sculpted from concrete. But his collar riffles in the breeze and he squints against the street dust and litter. Focused on the entrance to the Alzer, and now Knox, who has exited the building and is looking in his direction, Dulwich sits unmoving and stoic. Let the mountain come to Mohammed.

“You bastard!” Knox stands, hands shoved deeply into his jean pockets, looking nine feet tall.

“You want me to walk away, I will.”

“Go ahead and try.”

For a moment, as Dulwich shifts on the bench, it appears he might challenge Knox. But all he’s doing is making enough room for Knox to sit.

Knox remains standing. “Takes a two-oh-seven to hear from you.”

“I’ve had contact with Chu prior to this. You know that.”

“They’ve got her. And you’re sitting over here singing a chorus of ‘Feed the Birds’ like you haven’t got a care in the world.” Knox takes a step closer, a drunk begging for a bar fight.

Dulwich sits up taller, though he clearly doesn’t mean to give Knox the power in the conversation. “It’s what we do,” Dulwich says. “We’re good at this.”

“For our clients. We do this for our clients. Not our own people. Not like this.”

“Clete Danner,” Dulwich says, reminding Knox of the Shanghai op and why Knox took it in the first place.

“Fuck off.”

“You can’t contact our company directly.”

“I did, didn’t I? Apparently I’m on leave. You said ‘an in-and-out.’ Wait around in a hotel room. What happened to that?”

“Grace is the company contact, not you. We can’t risk losing your cover. Grace can be replaced. You’re too important.”

“She’s indisposed, so I texted you.”

“And I handled it. We’re on it. What part of the assignment did you not understand?”

“They’ve abducted her!”

“Keep your voice down. Sit.” Dulwich indicates the space next to him. “Tone it down. Or I’m gone.”

“You say you’re ‘on it.’ How? What’s the plan?”

Impassive.

“What are you doing for her?” Knox closes the distance, putting his face an inch from Dulwich’s. “What the hell am I into? The Red Room? ‘On leave’? Some spook watching Grace, who’s monitoring FedEx shipments of medical devices?”

Dulwich is so well trained he has few tells, but Knox picks up a change of pulse in the flesh near the burn scar. “Digital Services has your video,” Dulwich says calmly. “They’re monitoring Istanbul police radio traffic and CCTV available cameras as you suggested — quick thinking on your part, for what it’s worth. If we’re lucky, we pick up some scraps. I’m here for your debrief.”

Knox hands over his phone, cued to the video. Dulwich produces earbuds. Knox doesn’t need to hear. He remembers nearly every word.

He cringes as he tries to read Grace’s lips.

“He studied abroad eleven years. Returned to Iran. Taught for eight months and then goes off the grid.”

“Mashe Okle surfaces.”

“I love puzzles.”

Her abduction feels faster this time. Knox wonders how time can condense and expand as it does in these moments.

“You know one of those guys,” Knox says, astonished, studying Dulwich in profile. “Who is he?”

“There’s a methodology, a science to it. You know that, Knox.”

“There’s not going to be a ransom.”

“No.” Dulwich’s first concession. One that Knox does not want. “What is she doing talking to you about the POI’s education? Where the fuck does it say she takes a flyer to dig into this guy?”

“It’s Grace, Sarge. You assigned her his finances—”

“But his education? You know who these people are?”

“That’s rhetorical, I trust.”

“Christ almighty! She hacked an Iranian university? What kind of response did she expect?”

“Not this. I guaran-fuckin’-tee you that. This thing is nine layers deeper than you let on. Surveillance on Grace. Hostiles chasing me and the Obama. Package intercepts. Sick people who maybe aren’t. Well people who may be sick.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“You’re not here. You don’t want to know.”

“Let me be the judge of that.”

“I don’t think so. It’s Grace’s intel. You recover Grace, she’ll download you.” Knox hopes that if Dulwich didn’t have enough motivation to throw everything at this extraction before, the fire’s lit now.

Dulwich stabs the bench. His fingers look like big pieces of broken sticks, most, but not all, with full fingernails. “This thing…” He shakes his head. Bears down on Knox with intensely angry eyes. A conversation passes between them, a dust devil dropping pieces of friendship, frustration, fear. “You are to sell the Harmodius. You and Grace spend five minutes in the room with the mark. You get the fuck out and go home to Tommy. What was not clear about that?”

Knox knows better than to answer. He has Dulwich right where he wants him: in need.

“What is this about the mark’s health?” Dulwich asks.

“You’ll need to ask her.”

Dulwich stabs the phone too hard. Knox takes it back and pockets it. “Motherfucker.” He tries to reassure himself. “She’s a big girl.”

“She’s tiny.”

“Inside, asshole. Brass onions, that girl. Clanging brass onions.”

“And we both know that’s what’ll get her killed. No way she’s going to talk,” Knox says.

“Not right away.”

“Iranians. You’re saying they’re Iranians who responded that fast to someone cracking a university site? Give me a break.”

“They responded that fast to cracking Mashe Okle.”

“His name’s Nawriz Melemet. He’s a nuclear physicist.” Knox would have gotten the same effect by delivering a blow to the man’s solar plexus. Sarge has gone slightly pale. He looks up to take in the pedestrians, the drivers, the dozens of men and women across the street at tables.

“You two fucked up. You fucked up good.”

“You encouraged Grace to dig.”

“Not with a backhoe.”

“Kick Xin in the butt,” Knox says. “Get me some reliable intel. We’re not waiting on this. We’re not handling this the way we tell our clients it should be handled.”

“Agreed.” Dulwich shoots him an unreadable look. “It’s only bigger — nine layers deep, you say — because you two dug the hole.”

“Present time.”

“Primer will disavow. There’s no protocol for something like this.”

“Bullshit! It’s an extraction.”

“I don’t mean it like that.”

“There are two of us. We’re going to get her back. Right now.”

The two men exchange several years of personal history in a single look.

“Damn right,” Dulwich says.

Dulwich seldom admits to Knox being right about anything. The win comes at a time Knox can’t appreciate it.

“We… owe… her,” Knox says.

“I know. I know.” Dulwich nods.

Says nothing more.