Twice a Spy_ A Novel - Keith Thomson [100]
“We’ve picked up a good deal of chatter that a Punjabi separatist group was in the market for an ADM,” Eskridge assured Charlie. “If not for you, though, we wouldn’t have any idea about Vasant Panchami, or even that the bomb was heading to India.”
“What if Bream just wants you to think he tried to kill me and my father?” Charlie asked. “That way, our India revelation would carry more weight.”
Eskridge shrugged. “If Bream had meant to use India as a decoy, eliminating you would have eliminated his means of decoying us.”
Nodding, Doxstader scribbled a note on what appeared to be a sheet of white light hovering above the table.
“The thing is, he probably would have taken into account that my father could land a plane,” Charlie said. “Also, if he really wanted to kill us, why not just shoot us beforehand on the beach?”
Doxstader said, “Sir, if I’m not mistaken, you said that, at that time, your father was suffering from extreme disorientation symptomatic of Alzheimer’s disease.” He checked his notes. “ ‘A four,’ you said.”
“Right, at the time, he couldn’t have flown a kite. But Bream knew that my father had episodes of lucidity. And my father wasn’t our only option. If Alice hadn’t called, someone at one of the control towers in the area might have given us instructions over the radio.”
Eskridge appeared to ponder this, pulling the knot of his tie to the point where it would take some effort to undo. “Mr. Clark, do you have any factual basis for your speculation that the target might be in the United States?”
“For one thing, I don’t see Bream being on the level about his employers. The Injuns, he called them. Every bit of information he volunteered was tailored to a clever cover—it was only at the very end that I saw his redneck act for what it was.”
“So he’s more intelligent than he let on.” Eskridge inspected his fingernails. “There’s a fellow here at the agency. Summa cum laude from MIT, top of his class at the Farm, National Clandestine Service fast track. He had some home trouble. Now he works in Food Service.”
Food Service gave Charlie a new line of thought. “You know, I asked Bream if he’d celebrate the sale of the ADM with a good bottle of wine—I was fishing for where he was taking the bomb. He pooh-poohed me. He’d be having Budweiser, he said, and a rack of ribs. Not exactly standard Mumbai fare.”
“Probably just playing to his cover again,” Eskridge said.
“What if it were one of the bits of truth mixed in to give foundation to the lies?”
“You’d be surprised what you can find in Mumbai,” said Doxstader. “There are now two hundred and forty-four McDonald’s in India.”
Eskridge remained intent on a thumbnail. “Alternately, if you’ve just sold a nuclear weapon to folks who have no compunction about using one, you don’t want to stick around. You want to get bloody well back on your plane. Later, you celebrate, sure. At a good ribs joint, if that’s your thing. Or a sushi bar. I don’t see how it pertains.”
With a sudden sense that he was closing in on the clue that had been eluding him, Charlie rushed his words. “Right after that, I asked him how the collateral would affect his appetite. I was hoping to bring his ego into play. He asked if my knowing he was kept up nights by thoughts of the victims made him less of a villain in my eyes. Then he said that he’d made the decision to go ahead anyway because it’s the wake-up call our country needs.”
Eskridge shook his head. “It’s more likely that, as you said earlier, he wants the mansion. Ultimately, the bad guys all want the mansion. The good guys too.”
Charlie pulled his seat closer to the table. “But if we walk back the cat—”
Eskridge turned to Doxstader to explain. “Old counterintelligence expression.”
The junior man nodded, as if impressed. Charlie suspected they were mocking him, but he forged on. “He made so many disparaging remarks about the ‘Culinary Institute of America’ and other ‘so-called’ intelligence agencies. If the best and brightest were on this case, he said, he wouldn’t have had such an easy time of it. Maybe he