Twice a Spy_ A Novel - Keith Thomson [65]
The Baron thumped down from the chair, dead, momentarily pinning Alice to the floor and enabling Frank to get a firm grip on the gun.
“You are lucky we are not allowed to kill you,” he said in a thick Italian accent.
“You have no such luck,” Alice said.
But that was just adrenaline talking. She knew she would be in chains from here on in. At best.
Mountain peaks speared the feathery clouds above Saint Lucia. Through the window by his seat in the DC-3, Stanley could see the entire island, which was about half the size of Martinique. He watched the plane’s shadow pass over verdant mountains and meadows with galaxies of vibrant tropical flowers. He’d thought all Caribbean islands looked alike, but this was Eden with typing-paper-white beaches.
Leaving Hadley to finish questioning Bream, he had initially procured a de Havilland Twin Otter seaplane to fly directly from Martinique to Detention III. He made the mistake of cabling the plan to headquarters. Saint Lucia’s CIA base chief, a man named Corbitt, requested—demanded, really—that Stanley first come to Castries, the tiny capital city of Saint Lucia, to be debriefed. This was the base chief’s right, to an extent. Headquarters needed Corbitt to exert his influence so that the Starfish people would hand the Clarks to the CIA rather than to their primary employer, Martinique’s police department.
Stanley deliberated cabling Eskridge to request that the Europe division chief tell the Latin America division chief to order Corbitt to stand the hell down. Jesus Christ, a base chief on an island with the population of New Haven? His job was to make life easier for operations officers. Ultimately, Stanley decided that he could chat with Corbitt in less time than he would spend waiting for the succession of cables.
At George F. L. Charles Airport, before Stanley was halfway down the plane’s stairs, someone thrust out a right hand. It was connected to a short and doughy fifty-year-old in a just-pressed suit, starched shirt, and gleaming golden 1990s power tie. “Clyde Corbitt,” the man said, the words accompanied by a gust of wintergreen-minty breath.
Although Stanley had read nothing about Corbitt, not even his first name, he suspected he knew everything pertinent. Low rank, to begin with. GS-12, maybe. The “base” of which he was chief consisted of a nothing-special office. Either he was a one-man shop or he was aided only by an operations support assistant—government-speak for “secretary”—almost certainly a local, whose most dramatic clandestine operation would be using the special telephone with the encryption device. And, as sure as the sky was up, this was Corbitt’s first command, bestowed upon the career desk jockey either as a reward for twentysomething years of service or because Langley simply needed a body in Castries. Probably when he received the cable—C/O IN MARTINIQUE ON COVERT OP. GIVE HIM ALL ASSISTANCE HE DESIRES—Corbitt had an inkling that he was about to embark on the most exciting chapter of his tour.
Shaking the base chief’s moist hand, Stanley said, “Great to meet you.”
Corbitt had arranged for a driver and a stretch Town Car with tinted bulletproof windows. He helped Stanley into a cavernous backseat. The air was set to Arctic. Clad only in a polo shirt and chinos, like every other white-collar type in the islands except Corbitt, Stanley labored not to shiver. At least there was no need to worry that the ice in the minibar would melt during the trip to the American consulate, which the driver speculated would be half an hour on unusually congested roads.
Corbitt sat on the opposite leather bench, his back to the Plexiglas divider separating them from the driver. “I took the liberty of scheduling us a lunch.”
“Very thoughtful of you,” Stanley said. “It’s a shame I already ate lunch.” In fact, that had been yesterday.
He just wanted to get to the damned