One Rough Man - Brad Taylor [93]
He stopped when his phone chirped. “Jesus. I got six calls while I was inside there.”
He closed the phone. “Let’s get some dinner tonight. I’m sure you’ve got some things you want to tell me that you didn’t want to say in there.”
Smart man. “You read my mind. I held some cards back. There’s a great little fish stand near our hotel. Give me a call at the hotel when you’re ready to go.”
I watched him walk off, dialing his phone.
INSIDE THE STATION, Eric finished his coordination with his compatriots in Guatemala to check out Pike’s story. Talking to the deputy, he was disappointed to hear that it would be a couple of days before they could get on the ground at Flores, but was satisfied when he said they could make some calls to contacts up there for an initial snapshot. Eric thanked him, asking him to call back tomorrow at eight A.M. with any results, and hung up.
The phone rang with his hand still on it, startling him. Picking it back up, he was startled again when he found out that the chief of the Latin America division was giving him a personal call from Langley. Listening intently, he began to take notes.
WHEN JENNIFER AND I GOT BACK TO OUR ROOM, I noticed the red light blinking on our old-fashioned phone. Jennifer went to the bathroom, leaving me to get the message.
Coming back out, she asked, “Who was that? Kurt? Is he going to take us out to a nice dinner instead of the taco stand?”
“I wish. Kurt’s been called back to D.C. Something important came up, and he’s got to get back immediately. He said to send him a message through Eric, and he’d take it from there.”
“Well, he seemed like a pretty busy guy. I’m surprised he even flew down.”
She could see that I was disappointed, and tried to make a joke. “He clearly knew better than to mess with you. I’m sure if you send another cable, he’ll do something with it. Maybe you should tell him to meet us in the Caribbean, and that he needs to give us some tickets to get there.”
“He’ll do something with it, but cables are never as good as face-to-face. Whatever called him back will take front seat. It’ll be hard to pry him away from that now.”
I was surprised at the level of my disappointment, and wondered if I was more upset at our theories taking a backseat to something else, or that this adventure was drawing to a close. I hadn’t realized how much I had wanted to go to that meeting tomorrow, and to continue on with this excursion. I think in my heart I was hoping Kurt would take me with him to figure out what was going on. What a fantasy.
I said, “Let’s go get a flight out of here for tomorrow. No sense hanging around here now. Whatever we find out at the meeting tomorrow morning, the rest of this will be in someone else’s hands.”
“That sounds good to me. I’m ready to get back to my simple college life.”
Her words gave me another kick in the gut. I hear you. Boy, am I ever ready to get back to being a worthless fucking bum. Once we left the embassy tomorrow, she would go back to her life and I’d go back to mine. All I had to look forward to was waking up in a rage every morning. I could already feel my self-worth eroding. The thought was depressing and must have showed on my face.
“What’s wrong? Are you really that worried about the cable doing nothing? I thought Kurt was the Wizard of Oz.”
I lied, “Yeah, I’m worried about the cable. You’re probably right, though. No sense in crying over it now. Let’s see what happens tomorrow. Come on. I’d like to get a plane that doesn’t allow goats in the aisle.”
“PALMER,” President Warren said, “can you hang on a second?”
Alexander Palmer stopped at the door to the Oval Office, letting the other members of the president’s national security team leave.
“Sure, sir. What’s up?”
Warren stood up and leaned against his desk. “The Taskforce got a Prometheus alert, but I never saw it.”
“Oh, yeah. Standish told me about it. He’s run it to ground already. Some sort of misfire. It wasn’t Prometheus material. Sorry if I didn’t bring it to your attention, but it was nothing.