The Falconer’s Tale. Gordon Kent

didn’t think so.”

      “Not pleased to be jerked away from fishing?”

      “It costs five hundred bucks a day to fish here, he told me. For salmon, anyway.”

      “If you all got to the point of talking about fishing, I’d say he wasn’t too upset.”

      Dukas shrugged. Craik ordered a beer. He said, “Partlow telling him what this is about, you suppose?”

      “One assumes. Now if they’d just tell me what it’s about. How about you tell me what it’s about, Al?”

      “I told you over the phone—if I knew, I’d tell you. All I know is Partlow was looking for Jerry Piat for an operation, and you keep up with Jerry Piat. Our part was to bring him in, period.”

      “You’re trusting Clyde Partlow?”

      “Not with anything important like my wallet, but yeah, as little as you and I are involved, yeah.”

      Dukas drank the last of his beer and stared gloomily at the bottle. “I don’t get you helping a shit like Partlow.”

      “It’s called ‘I’ll scratch your back now and you’ll owe me one.’”

      “I wouldn’t want Clyde Partlow to owe me one.” Craik shrugged. Dukas gave up trying to save money and ordered another beer and then said, “This is a fine mess you’ve got us into, Stanley.” He waited for a response, got none. “Well?”

      Grinning, Craik said, “You know what a working group is?”

      “Mrs Luce, I am a Catholic.”

      “Okay, I was at a meeting of a working group—sixty people in a big room sharing secrets. Or not sharing secrets, as the case may be. Although, with all the bullshit that’s been said since Nine-Eleven about agencies not sharing intelligence, in fact the amount of sharing that actually goes on is astonishing. Anyway, Partlow is a long-time regular at this particular working group; I’m a regular now because of my new job. When we took a break, Partlow made a beeline for me and asked me if you weren’t a friend of mine.”

      “‘Oh-ho,’ you said to yourself, ‘this is suspicious.’”

      “No, I said to myself, ‘Clyde Partlow is a good guy to do a favor for.’” Craik was silent for several seconds. “Now Partlow owes me one. And he owes you one—what’s wrong with that?”

      “I was building up debts from assholes like Partlow when you were in Pampers.” Dukas waited while a fresh bottle of beer was put in front of him. “You’ve changed.”

      “Older and wiser.”

      “Where’s the Al Craik who used to say, ‘Damn the torpedoes, we’re going in without a country clearance’?”

      “You know what the shelf life of a collections officer is? Short. I figure doing a favor for somebody like Partlow might give my sell-by date a little leeway.”

      “I feel like I don’t know you so good anymore.”

      “Yeah, you do. Same old lovable Craik, only I’ve wised up about Washington politics. Anyway, Partlow came over to me and asked about you, and I said why and so on, and he finally dropped Piat’s name like he was passing me the secret combination to Bush’s wall safe.” He slipped into a Partlow imitation, cheeks puffed, head back. “‘Might your friend Dukas know how Piat could be reached?’ So I said I’d check. And I did. And here we are.”

      “Why?”

      “Ah, da big question! I love da big questions! I dunno, Mike—Partlow has an operation that he wants Piat for, that’s all I could get. It’s on the up-and-up—it’s got a task number; and it’s passed the working group. It’s kosher.” He lowered his head, smiled. “But why would he want an untouchable like Piat?”

      “You mean it smells.”

      “N-o-o-o—”

      “If it’s passed the working group, you heard it discussed.”

      “Unh-unh. Discussion is general—tasks and goals. Peons like me not to know.”

      “That’s sure what I call sharing information.” Dukas wiped a hand over his face. “Man, I’m tired. You at least got a night’s sleep. You know what you have to do to fly to Reykjavik from fucking Naples? Now I gotta do it in reverse. You of course feel great and look great, you bastard.”

      “A healthy mind in a healthy body.”

      Dukas sat looking at him, lips pushed out, eyebrows drawn together “You’re the guy who used to lecture me about honor, duty. Idealism. Now you’re running errands for one of the most political shits in the business.” He shook his head and held Craik’s eyes. “What happened to that fine rage you used to work up when other people did things for slimy reasons?”

      Craik’s smile was tentative, apologetic. “My last fine rage got me a call from my detailer saying that if I didn’t can it, I wasn’t going to make captain.”

      “And now you’re a captain.”

      Craik nodded. The same small smile was still on his face “‘Honor, duty, idealism.’ Right.” He looked up. “But I believe you gotta pick your battles and your battlefield. And lost causes get you nowhere. Isn’t it okay to scratch the itch of my curiosity about Partlow’s wanting Piat, and maybe have Partlow owe me a favor at the same time?”

      Dukas stared at his friend, then finished his second beer. Setting the bottle down carefully on its own old ring, he said, “It sure is comforting to know you’re still an idealist.”

       2

      Piat had never had a case officer before. Case officers are the men and women who recruit agents and then handle them—long hours of manipulation, a shoulder on which to cry, a voice when it is dark. Piat was used to being the shoulder and the voice.

      “Dave’s” was not the shoulder or the voice that Piat would have chosen. Dave was clearly the man’s cover name—he didn’t always respond when the name was called. His voice was rough, assertive, yet with a surprising repertoire of high-pitched giggles and nervous laughter. He had had trouble parking his rental car. He had shown considerable resentment while walking Piat through some shopping in Oban. Piat had been tempted to start coaching him then and there.

      Two hours later, Piat sat next to the man on the cafeteria deck of MV Isle of Mull and tried not to gnaw on the sore ends of how little he wanted to do this. He’d taken the money, and there wasn’t much he could do about any of it, but it smelled.

      Partlow should have run him himself. They loathed each other, but Partlow was a competent case officer and would have made sure that things got done on time and under budget. Dave was so clearly a second stringer that Piat wanted to ask him what other agents he’d run—if any. It was as if, having recruited Piat, Partlow was now distancing himself from the operation. That wasn’t like Clyde. He didn’t usually let go of anything once he had it in his well-manicured hands.

      Piat was sure that if he wanted to, he could ditch Dave at Craignure, the ferry terminal he’d already noted on the map of Mull. And then he’d walk. It was a tempting thought. Dave struck Piat as the type who’d order a lot of searches done by other people and spend a lot of time in cars. Piat thought it might be fun to walk away. In Piat’s experience, the way to lose Americans was to walk. It worked on Russians and Chinese, too.

      He’d been paid half the money and he’d discovered that the Agency really didn’t have much on him—or had buried the evidence to protect themselves. He could probably manage a day’s fishing before he flew—

      Pure fantasy. He had one passport—his own—and they’d come looking for him. Mull was an island cul-de-sac with only a couple of exits.

      Ten