The Red Room

44

Knox is not asleep. Despite the meds, his mind is overactive. It’s easier to focus without looking at the weathered faces of the old Turkish women riding the bus, the wide-eyed toddlers in strollers, the men reading newspapers as if they plan never to disembark.

He hears the bus wipers engage and realizes it’s raining again. A few seconds later, the report on the roof confirms: it’s pouring. His legs twinge; the pain presents a real problem, though he’s unwilling to admit it. He thinks back to Grace pushing him around in a wheelchair in Shanghai as cover, marvels at how things change. He works through the possible variations of what could go wrong at the meet and how to react. He stores each reaction, a bullet list of responses depending on the situation. Into his assumptions, he must fit his disability.

The pieces do not mesh well. If Dulwich or the client pulls something, if Knox was supposed to escape by his wit and physical prowess, the plan has failed before it even started. He’s going to hobble in and hobble out. They will all have to wait for the Harmodius to be in Mashe Okle’s custody. If they are to be used as unwitting couriers, the complications will escalate due to his infirmity.

“We have to bring it with us,” Knox says, eyes closed.

“Impossible. The funds will never be transferred.”

“Sarge wanted us and the prize in the room for five minutes. If it plays out the way I planned, using Victoria, Mashe may not see the piece until he’s back in Iran. We’ll have done all of this for nothing.”

“There is nothing inside it. It was X-rayed. You said so yourself. It is a piece of metal sculpture, that is all.”

“We don’t want to wait around for its retrieval. That kind of down time is too dangerous. Sarge kept stressing an in-and-out. Why? What if he didn’t mean the op as a whole, but just the five- minute meet?”

“He would have told me this when I met with him.”

Knox knows Dulwich to be a pragmatic man. He’ll defend the op first, the operatives second. Grace filled the man’s head with evidence of a possible dead drop. From that moment on, Dulwich was thinking only of preserving his side of the op. “I’d like to think he’d hate to lose us, don’t get me wrong. But his flag waving with you was meant to drive home a point: the op’s success is bigger than any one of us. Any two of us. What you have to know about Sarge is this: the man’s a patriot. First and foremost. His ultimate loyalty is not to you or me or even Brian Primer. He’s an agnostic whose higher power is life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. No one’s going to change that. If he perceives that the gain will require loss…”

Knox sits up. It’s a deluge out there. Looking through the windshield is like trying to see through Saran Wrap. “The one thing we haven’t given serious consideration to is the idea that Sarge has gone rogue.”

Grace is unblinking.

Knox says, “Use of the Red Room. Mine was at lunch hour. Yours?”

She doesn’t answer. Doesn’t have to.

“Fewer people in the office during lunch. No one using that room.”

“He made it clear that Mr. Primer was not to be involved. Was upset when we made direct contact with Xin.”

“When I called, the op wasn’t listed. We took that to be a security measure. But maybe it isn’t listed anywhere. The Harmodius is tied to Israel. Sarge is in bed with the Israelis. We are now in bed with the Israelis.”

“Speculative. And how does any of this help us?”

Knox shuts his eyes again. Listens to the slap of the wipers. A man clears his throat. The air brakes wheeze. Knox checks his watch. Turns on his phone.

In a painful heave, Knox sits bolt upright. “Mashe’s going to defect. It’s an elaborate plan to allow him to defect! It could never look like it. Never be connected. His own guards would kill him. Sarge never said people wouldn’t die; he said that the POI wouldn’t be killed. The POI is going to defect to the Israelis through us, a private company. If he does, Western intelligence of the Iranian nuclear program takes a giant leap forward. The program itself loses another scientist.”

“But since it is arranged privately,” Grace says. She’s going along with him, though he can’t tell from her face how much she’s buying it. “The Iranians do not know to which country he has defected, making it the more difficult to track him down and—”

“So who takes out the guards?”

The bus rumbles. Knox can’t make sense of it. So close…

“Akram,” Grace is gloating. “We will be searched, certainly. But the brother is no threat. He is familiar to them. The last person they will suspect of such a crime.”

“That’s all well and good but there are pieces that don’t fit.” Knox can’t be sure if he spoke the words or only thought them. He experiences another rush of sensational warmth from the Vicodin. Doesn’t see the point of arguing. Of anything. “Akram,” he hears himself say.

He’s not echoing her conviction but looking at his phone’s screen, where an alert shows. He passes the phone to Grace.

“It is an address,” she informs him. “We have twenty minutes.”