Persuader Part 31

"But what gave her away?" she said. "In the first place? That's what I want to know. I mean, she only lasted two days. And that was nine whole weeks before they broke into the computer."

"What background story did you give her?"

"The usual, for this kind of work. Unmarried, unattached, no family, no roots. Like you, except you didn't have to fake it."

I nodded slowly. A good-looking thirty-year-old woman who would never be missed. A huge temptation for guys like Paulie or Angel Doll. Maybe irresistible. A fun thing to have around. And the rest of their crew might be even worse. Like Harley, for instance.

He didn't strike me as much of an advertis.e.m.e.nt for the benefits of civilization.

"Maybe nothing gave her away," I said. "Maybe she just went missing, you know, like women do. Lots of women go missing. Young women especially. Single, unattached women. Happens all the time. Thousands a year."

"But you found the room they were keeping her in."

"All those missing women have to be somewhere. They're only missing as far as the rest of us are concerned. They know where they are, and the men who took them know where they are."

She looked at me. "You think it's like that?"

"Could be."

"Will she be OK?"

"I don't know," I said. "I hope so."

"Will they keep her alive?"

"I think they want to keep her alive. Because they don't know she's a federal agent. They think she's just a woman."

A fun thing to have around.

"Can you find her before they check her shoes?"

"They might never check them," I said. "You know, if they're seeing her in one particular light, as it were, it would be a leap to start seeing her as something else."

She looked away. Went quiet.

"One particular light," she repeated. "Why don't we just say what we mean?"

"Because we don't want to," I said.

She stayed quiet. One minute. Two. Then she looked straight back at me. A brand-new thought.

"What about your shoes?" she said.

I shook my head.

"Same thing," I said. "They're getting used to me. It would be a leap to start seeing me as something else."

"It's still a big risk."

I shrugged.

"Beck gave me a Beretta M9," I said. "So I'll wait and see. If he bends down to take a look I'll shoot him through the middle of the forehead."

"But he's just a businessman, right? Basically? Would he really do bad stuff to Teresa without knowing she was a threat to his business?"

"I don't know," I said.

"Did he kill the maid?"

I shook my head. "Quinn did."

"Were you a witness?"

"No."

"So how do you know?"

I looked away.

"I recognized the handiwork," I said.

The fourth time I ever saw Sergeant First Cla.s.s Dominique Kohl was a week after the night we spent in the bar. The weather was still hot. There was talk of a tropical storm blowing in from the direction of Bermuda. I had a million files on my desk. We had rapes, homicides, suicides, weapons thefts, a.s.saults, and there had been a riot the night before because the refrigeration had broken down in the enlisted mess kitchens and the ice cream had turned to water. I had just gotten off the phone with a buddy at Fort Irwin in California who told me it was the same over there whenever the desert winds were blowing.

Kohl came in wearing shorts and a tank top shirt. She still wasn't sweating. Her skin was still dusty. She was carrying her file, which was then about eight times as thick as when I had first given it to her.

"The sabot has got to be metal," she said. "That's their final conclusion."

"Is it?" I said.

"They'd have preferred plastic, but I think that's just s...o...b..ating."

"OK," I said.

"I'm trying to tell you they've finished with the sabot design. They're ready to move on with the important stuff now."

"You still feel all warm and fuzzy about this Gorowski guy?"

She nodded. "It would be a tragedy to bust him. He's a nice guy and an innocent victim.

And the bottom line is he's good at his job and useful to the army."

"So what do you want to do?"

"It's tricky," she said. "I guess what I want to do is bring him on board and get him to feed phony stuff to whoever it is who's got the hook in. That way we keep the investigation going without risking putting anything real out there."

"But?"

"The real thing looks phony in itself. It's a very weird device. It's like a big lawn dart. It has no explosive in it."

"So how does it work?"

"Kinetic energy, dense metals, depleted uranium, heat, all that kind of stuff. Were you a physics postgrad?"

"No."

"Then you won't understand it. But my feeling is if we screw with the designs the bad guy is going to know. It'll put Gorowski at risk. Or his baby girls, or whatever."

"So you want to let the real blueprints out there?"

"I think we have to."

"Big risk," I said.

"Your call," she said. "That's why you get the big bucks."

"I'm a captain," I said. "I'd be on food stamps if I ever got time to eat."

"Decision?"

"Got a line on the bad guy yet?"

"No."

"Feel confident you won't let it get away?"

"Totally," she said.

I smiled. Right then she looked like the most self-possessed human being I had ever seen.

Shining eyes, serious expression, hair hooked behind her ears, short khaki shorts, tiny khaki shirt, socks and parachute boots, dark dusty skin everywhere.

"So go for it," I said.

"I never dance," she said.

"What?"

"It wasn't just you," she said. "In fact, I'd have liked to. I appreciated the invitation. But I never dance with anybody."

"Why not?"

"Just a thing," she said. "I feel self-conscious. I'm not very coordinated."

"Neither am I."

"Maybe we should practice in private," she said.

"Separately?"

"One-on-one mentoring helps," she said. "Like with alcoholism."

Then she winked and walked out and left a very faint trace of her perfume behind her in the hot heavy air.

Duffy and I finished our coffee in silence. Mine tasted thin and cold and bitter. I had no stomach for it. My right shoe pinched. It wasn't a perfect fit. And it was starting to feel like a ball and chain. It had felt ingenious at first. Smart, and cool, and clever. I remembered the first time I opened the heel, three days ago, soon after I first arrived at the house, soon after Duke locked the door to my room. I'm in. I had felt like a guy in a movie. Then I remembered the last time I opened it. Up in Duke's bathroom, an hour and a half ago. I had fired up the unit and Duffy's message had been waiting there for me: We need to meet.

"Why did you want to meet?" I asked her.

She shook her head. "Doesn't matter now. I'm revising the mission. I'm sc.r.a.pping all our objectives except getting Teresa back. Just find her and get her out of there, OK?"

"What about Beck?"

"We're not going to get Beck. I screwed up again. This maid person was a legitimate agent and Teresa wasn't. Nor were you. And the maid died, so they're going to fire me for going off the books with Teresa and you, and they're going to abandon the case against Beck because I compromised procedure so badly they could never make it stand up in court anymore. So just get Teresa the h.e.l.l out and we'll all go home."

"OK," I said.

"You'll have to forget about Quinn," she said. "Just let it go."

I said nothing.

"We failed anyway," she said. "You haven't found anything useful. Not a thing. No evidence at all. It's been a complete waste of time, beginning to end."

I said nothing.

"Like my career," she said.

"When are you going to tell the Justice Department?"

"About the maid?"

I nodded.

"Right away," she said. "Immediately. I'll have to. No choice. But I'll search the files first and find out who put her in there. Because I'd prefer to break the news face-to-face, I guess, at my own level. It'll give me a chance to apologize. Any other way all h.e.l.l will break loose before I get the opportunity. All my access codes will be canceled and I'll be handed a cardboard box and told to clear my desk within thirty minutes."

"How long have you been there?"

"A long time. I thought I was going to be the first woman director."

I said nothing.

"I would have told you," she said. "I promise, if I'd had another agent in there I would have told you."

"I know," I said. "I'm sorry for jumping to conclusions."

"It's the stress," she said. "Undercover is tough."

I nodded. "It's like a hall of mirrors up there. One d.a.m.n thing after another. Everything feels unreal."

We left our half-finished cups on the table and headed out, into the mall's interior sidewalks, and then outside into the rain. We had parked near each other. She kissed me on the cheek. Then she got into her Taurus and headed south and I got into the Saab and headed north.