Teeth of the Tiger jrj-1 Read online

  "Think so?"

  "It's not getting any better out there." Hendley waved at the window.

  * * *

  They were at a sidewalk cafe in Vienna. The nights were turning less cold, and the patrons of the establishment were enduring the chill to enjoy a meal on the wide sidewalk.

  "So, what is your interest with us?" Pablo asked.

  "There is a confluence of interests between us," Mohammed answered, then clarified: "We share enemies."

  He gazed off. The women passing by were dressed in the formal, almost severe local fashion, and the traffic noise, especially the electric trams, made it impossible for anyone to listen in on their conversation. To the casual, or even the professional, observer, these were simply two men from other countries — and there were a lot of them in this imperial city — talking business in a quiet and amiable fashion. They were speaking in English, which was also not unusual.

  "Yes, that is the truth," Pablo had to agree. "The enemies part, that is. What of the interests?"

  "You have assets for which we have use. We have assets for which you have use," the Muslim explained patiently.

  "I see." Pablo added cream to his coffee and stirred. To his surprise, the coffee here was as good as in his own country.

  He'd be slow to reach an agreement, Mohammed expected. His guest was not as senior as he would have preferred. But the enemy they shared had enjoyed greater success against Pablo's organization than his own. It continued to surprise him. They had ample reason to employ effective security measures, but as with all monetarily motivated people they lacked the purity of purpose that his own colleagues exercised. And from that fact came their higher vulnerability. But Mohammed was not so foolish as to assume that made them his inferiors. Killing one Israeli spy didn't make him Superman, after all. Clearly they had ample expertise. It just had limits. As his own people had limits. As everyone but Allah Himself had limits. In that knowledge came more realistic expectations, and gentler disappointments when things went badly. One could not allow emotions to get in the way of "business," as his guest would have misidentified his Holy Cause. But he was dealing with an unbeliever, and allowances had to be made.

  "What can you offer us?" Pablo asked, displaying his greed, much as Mohammed had expected.

  "You need to establish a reliable network in Europe, correct?"

  "Yes, we do." They'd had a little trouble of late. European police agencies were not as restrained as the American sort.

  "We have such a network." And since Muslims were not thought to be active in the drug trade — drug dealers often lost their heads in Saudi Arabia, for example — so much the better.

  "In return for what?"

  "You have a highly successful network in America, and you have reason to dislike America, do you not?"

  "That is so," Pablo agreed. Colombia was starting to make progress with the Cartel's uneasy ideological allies in the mountains of Pablo's home country. Sooner or later, the FARC would cave in to the pressure and then, doubtless, turn on their "friends" — really "associates" was a loose enough word — as their price of admission to the democratic process. At that time, the security of the Cartel might be seriously threatened. Political instability was their best friend in South America, but that might not last forever. The same was true of his host, Pablo considered, and that did make them allies of convenience. "Precisely what services would you require of us?"

  Mohammed told him. He didn't add that no money would be exchanged for the Cartel's service. The first shipment that Mohammed's people shepherded into — Greece? Yes, that would probably be the easiest — would be sufficient to seal the venture, wouldn't it?

  "That is all?"

  "My friend, more than anything else we trade in ideas, not physical objects. The few material items we need are quite compact, and can be obtained locally if necessary. And I have no doubt that you can help with travel documents."

  Pablo nearly choked on his coffee. "Yes, that is easily done."

  "So, is there any reason why this alliance cannot be struck?"

  "I must discuss it with my superiors," Pablo cautioned, "but on the surface I see no reason why our interests should be in conflict."

  "Excellent. How may we communicate further?"

  "My boss prefers to meet those with whom he does business."

  Mohammed thought that over. Travel made him and his associates nervous, but there was no avoiding it. And he did have enough passports to see him through the airports of the world. And he also had the necessary language skills. His education at Cambridge had not been wasted. He could thank his parents for that. And he blessed his English mother for her gift of complexion and blue eyes. Truly he could pass for a native of any country outside of China and Africa. The remains of a Cambridge accent didn't hurt, either.

  "You need merely tell me the time and the place," Mohammed replied. He handed over his business card. It had his e-mail address, the most useful tool for covert communications ever invented. And with the miracle of modern air travel, he could be anywhere on the globe in forty-eight hours.

  CHAPTER 2

  JOINING UP

  He came in at a quarter to five. Anyone who passed him on the street would not have given him a second look, though he might have caught the eye of the odd unattached female. At six-one, a hundred eighty or so pounds — he worked out regularly — black hair and blue eyes, he wasn't exactly movie star material, but neither was he the sort of man that a pretty young female professional would have summarily kicked out of bed.

  He also dressed well, Gerry Hendley saw. Blue suit with a red pinstripe — it looked English-made — vest, red-and-yellow-striped tie, nice gold tie bar. Fashionable shirt. Decent haircut. The confident look that came from having both money and a good education to go with a youth that would not be misspent. His car was parked in the visitors' lot in front of the building. A yellow Hummer 2 SUV, the sort of vehicle favored by people who herded cattle in Wyoming, or money in New York. And, probably, that was why…

  "So, what brings you here?" Gerry asked, waving his guest to a comfortable seat on the other side of his mahogany desk.

  "I haven't decided what I want to do yet, just sort of bumping around, looking for a niche I might fit into."

  Hendley smiled. "Yeah, I'm not so old that I can't remember how confusing it is when you get out of school. Which one did you go to?"

  "Georgetown. Family tradition." The boy smiled gently. That was one good thing about him that Hendley saw and appreciated — he wasn't trying to impress anyone with his name and family background. He might even be a little uneasy with it, wanting to make his own way and his own name, as a lot of young men did. The smart ones, anyway. It was a pity that there was no place for him on The Campus.

  "Your dad really likes Jesuit schools."

  "Even Mom converted. Sally didn't go to Bennington. She got through her premed up at Fordham in New York. Hopkins Med now, of course. Wants to be a doc, like Mom. What the hell, it's an honorable profession."

  "Unlike law?" Gerry asked.

  "You know how Dad is about that," the boy pointed out with a grin. "What was your undergraduate degree in?" he asked Hendley, knowing the answer already, of course.

  "Economics and mathematics. I took a double major." It had been very useful indeed for modeling trading patterns in commodities markets. "So, how's your family doing?"

  "Oh, fine. Dad's back writing again — his memoirs. Mostly he bitches that he isn't old enough to do that sort of book, but he's working pretty hard to get it done right. He's not real keen on the new President."

  "Yeah, Kealty has a real talent for bouncing back. When they finally bury the guy, they'd better park a truck on top of his headstone." That joke had even made the Washington Post.

  "I've heard that one. Dad says it can only take one idiot to unmake the work of ten geniuses." That adage had not made the Washington Post. But it was the reason the young man's father had set up The Campus, though the young man himself didn't k
now it.

  "That's overstating things. This new guy only happened by accident."

  "Yeah, well, when it comes time to execute that klukker retard down in Mississippi, how much you want to bet he commutes the sentence?"

  "Opposition to capital punishment is a matter of principle to him," Hendley pointed out. "Or so he says. Some people do feel that way, and it is an honorable opinion."

  "Principle? To him that's the nice old lady who runs a grammar school."

  "If you want to have a political discussion, there's a nice bar and grill a mile down Route 29," Gerry suggested.

  "No, that's not it. Sorry for the digression, sir."

  This boy is holding his cards pretty close, Hendley thought. "Well, it's not a bad subject for one. So, what can I do for you?"

  "I'm curious."

  "About what?" the former senator asked.

  "What you do here," his visitor said.

  "Mainly currency arbitrage." Hendley stretched to show his weary relaxation at the end of a working day.

  "Uh-huh," the kid said, just a slight bit dubiously.

  "There's really money to be made there, if you have good information, and if you have the nerves to act on it."

  "You know, Dad likes you a lot. He says it's a shame you and he don't see each other anymore."

  Hendley nodded. "Yeah, and that's my fault, not his."

  "He also said you were too smart to fuck up the way you did."

  Ordinarily, it would have been a positively seismic faux pas, but it was obvious from looking in the boy's eyes that he hadn't meant it as any sort of insult but rather as a question… or was it? Hendley suddenly asked himself.

  "It was a bad time for me," Gerry reminded his guest. "And anybody can make a mistake. Your dad even made a few himself."

  "That's true. But Dad was lucky to have Arnie around to cover his ass." That left his host an opening, which he jumped at.

  "How's Arnie doing?" Hendley asked, making the dodge to maneuver for time, still wondering why the kid was here, and actually starting to get a little uneasy about it, though he was not sure why he should feel that way.

  "Fine. He's going to be the new chancellor for the University of Ohio. He ought to be good at it, and he needs a calm sort of job, Dad thinks. I think he's right. How that guy managed not to have a heart attack is beyond me and Mom both. Maybe some people really do thrive on the action." His eyes never left Hendley's through the entire discourse. "I learned a lot talking to Arnie."

  "What about from your father?"

  "Oh, a thing or two. Mainly, I learned things from the rest of the bunch."

  "Who do you mean?"

  "Mike Brennan for one. He was my Principal Agent," Jack Jr. explained. "Holy Cross graduate, career Secret Service. Hell of a pistol shot. He's the guy who taught me to shoot."

  "Oh?"

  "The Service has a range on the Old Post Office Building, couple of blocks from the White House. I still get to go there occasionally. Mike's an instructor in the Secret Service Academy now, up at Beltsville. Really good guy, smart and laid-back. Anyway, you know, he was my baby-sitter, like, and I used to ping on him about stuff, ask him what Secret Service people do, how they train, how they think, the things they look for while they're protecting Mom and Dad. I learned a lot from him. And all the other people."

  "Like?"

  "FBI guys, Dan Murray, Pat O'Day — Pat's the Major Case Inspector for Murray. He's getting ready to retire. Can you believe it, he's going to raise beef cattle up in Maine. Funny damned place to punch cattle. He's a shooter, too, like Wild Bill Hickock with an attitude, but it's too easy to forget he's a Princeton grad. Pretty smart guy, Pat is. He taught me a lot about how the Bureau runs investigations. And his wife, Andrea, she's a mind reader. Ought to be, she ran Dad's detail during a very scary time, master's degree in psychology from University of Virginia. I learned a shitload from her. And the Agency people, of course, Ed and Mary Pat Foley — God Almighty, what a pair they are. But you know who the most interesting one of all was?"

  He did. "John Clark?"

  "Oh yeah. The trick was getting him to talk. I swear, compared to him, the Foleys are Desi and Lucy. But once he trusts you, he will open up some. I cornered him when he got his Medal of Honor — it was on TV briefly, retired Navy chief petty officer gets his decoration from Vietnam. About sixty seconds of videotape on a slow news day. You know, not one reporter asked what he did after he left the Navy. Not one. Jesus, they are thick. Bob Holtzman knew part of it, I think. He was there, standing in the corner, across the room from me. He's pretty smart for a newsie. Dad likes him, just doesn't trust him as far as he can sling an anchor. Anyway, Big John — Clark, I mean — he's one serious honcho. He's been there, and done that, and he has the T-shirt. How come he isn't here?"

  "Jack, my boy, when you come to the point, you do come to the point," Hendley said, with a touch of admiration in his voice.

  "When you knew his name, I knew I had you, sir." A briefly triumphant look in the eyes. "I've been checking you out for a couple of weeks."

  "Oh?" And with that, Hendley felt his stomach contract.

  "It wasn't hard. It's all on the public record, just a question of mix and match. Like the connect-the-dots things they give to little kids in their activity books. You know, it amazes me that this place never made the news—"

  "Young man, if that's a threat—"

  "What?" Jack Jr. was surprised by the interruption. "You mean, blackmail you? No, Senator, what I meant to say is that there's so much raw information lying around out there, that you have to wonder how reporters miss it. I mean, even a blind squirrel will find an acorn once in a while, y'know?" He paused for a moment before his eyes lit up. "Oh, I get it. You handed them what they expected to find, and they ran with it."

  "It's not that hard, but it's dangerous to underestimate them," Hendley warned.

  "Just don't talk to them. Dad told me a long time ago: 'A closed mouth gathers no foot.' He always let Arnie do the leaks. Nobody else said anything to the press without Arnie's guidance. I swear, I think the media was scared of that guy. He's the one who lifted a Times reporter's White House pass and made it stick."

  "I remember that," Hendley responded. There had been quite a stink about it, but soon enough even the New York Times realized that having no reporter in the White House Press Room hurt in a very tender spot. It had been an object lesson in manners which had lasted for almost six months. Arnie van Damm had a longer and nastier memory than the media, which was quite something in and of itself. Arnold van Damm was a serious player of five-card-draw poker.

  "What's your point, Jack? Why are you here?"

  "Senator, I want to play in the bigs. This here, I think, is the bigs."

  "Explain," Hendley commanded. Just how much had the boy put together?

  John Patrick Ryan, Jr., opened his briefcase. "For starters, this is the only building taller than a private residence on the sight line from NSA Fort Meade to CIA Langley. You can download satellite photos off the Internet. I printed them all up. Here." He handed a small binder across. "I checked with the zoning offices, and I found out that three other office buildings were planned for this area, and all were denied construction permits. The records didn't say why, but nobody made a fuss about it. The medical center down the road, however, got really nice finance terms from Citibank on their revised plans. Most of your personnel are former spooks. Your security people are all former military police, rank E-7 or higher. The electronic security system here is better than they have at Fort Meade. How the hell did you manage that, by the way?"

  "Private citizens have a lot more freedom negotiating with contractors. Go on," the former senator said.

  "You never did anything illegal. That conflict-of-interest charge that killed your Senate career was a crock of shit. Any decent lawyer could have had it tossed right out of court on a summary judgment, but you rolled over and played dead on it. I remember how Dad always liked you for your brains, and he alwa
ys said you were a straight shooter. He didn't say that about all that many people on The Hill. The senior people at CIA liked working with you, and you helped with funding for a project some other folks on The Hill had a conniption fit over. I don't know why it is, but a lot of people there hate the intelligence services. Used to drive Dad nuts, how every time he had to sit down with senators and congressmen over that stuff, had to bribe them with pet projects for their districts and stuff. Jeez, Dad hated that. Whenever he did it, he'd grumble for a week before and after. But you helped him a lot. You used to be pretty good working inside the Capitol Building. But when you had your political problem, you just caved in. I thought it was pretty hard to believe. But what I really had trouble swallowing was how Dad never talked about it at all. He never said a single word. When I asked, he changed the subject. Even Arnie never talked about it — and Arnie answered every question I ever hit him with. So, the dogs didn't bark, y'know?" Jack leaned back, keeping his eyes on his host at all times. "Anyway, I never said anything either, but I sniffed around during my senior year at Georgetown, and I kept talking to people, and those folks taught me how to look into things quietly. Again, it's not all that hard."

  "And so, what conclusion did you reach?"

  "You would have been a good president, Senator, but losing your wife and kids was a big hit. We were all busted up about that. Mom really liked your wife. Please excuse me for bringing it up, sir. That's why you left politics, but I think you're too much of a patriot to forget about your country, and I think Hendley Associates is your way of serving your country — but off the books, like. I remember Dad and Mr. Clark talking over drinks upstairs one night — my senior year of high school, it was. I didn't catch much of it. They didn't want me there, and so I went back to watching the History Channel. Coincidence, they had a show about SOE that night, the British Special Operations Executive from World War Two. They were mostly bankers. 'Wild Bill' Donovan recruited lawyers to start up the OSS, but the Brits used bankers to screw over people. I wondered why, and Dad said bankers are smarter. They know how to make money in the real world, whereas lawyers aren't quite as smart — that's what Dad said, anyway. I guess he figured that's what he did. With his trading background, I mean. But you're a different sort of pirate, Senator. I think you're a spook, and I think Hendley Associates is a privately funded spook shop that works off the books — completely outside the federal budget process. So, you don't have to worry about senators and congress-critters snooping around and leaking stuff because they think you do bad things. Hell, I did a Google search and there's only six mentions of your company on the Internet. You know, there's more pieces than that about my mom's hairstyle. Women's Wear Daily used to like clobbering her. Really pissed Dad off."