Twice a Spy_ A Novel - Keith Thomson [96]
“Look, our commo folks sent an encrypted cable—flash precedence—to the director, the chief of the Europe division, plus all the honchos in India, Pakistan, and pretty much everywhere else boats go. The U.S. Coast Guard and Homeland Security have cast the satellite and radar version of a tight net over the water between Saint Lucia and the coast of India. And as we speak, the agency’s unleashing NEST teams.”
“What teams?”
“Oh … uh … Nuclear Emergency Search … something?”
“Team?”
“Right. They have dedicated 707s decked out with radiation sniffers, the works. They’ve already taken off, on their way to swarm the Caribbean. It’s only a matter of time until we get the news that they’ve disabled Bream’s boat.”
“What if the radiation is masked?” Charlie didn’t want to give away the fact that the supposedly enriched part of the uranium was essentially pabulum, lest the operation’s secret be cabled flash precedence pretty much everywhere boats went.
“We still have a squadron of UAVs plus a few tricks that you don’t need to know about, but put it this way: Given the intel you provided us, we’ll know about every object larger than a baseball that comes within five hundred miles of India. Either our people or our liaison counterparts will board any ship they can’t swear by, and a good percentage of those that they can.”
“Great, unless the bomb’s not really headed to India.”
“What would make you think that?”
“Half of everything Bream said was a lie.” The groans and sputters of the cables within the elevator shaft seemed to echo Charlie’s thought process.
“There’s no reason to think he was lying about India, and every reason to think you snagged grade-A intel,” Corbitt said. “You’re probably just tired.”
Tired? If only. Fifteen straight hours of sleep and Charlie might be upgraded to tired. “I just feel like we’re overlooking something.”
A chime announced the arrival of the elevator. Brass-plated doors slid open. Corbitt led the way into a car whose Victorian décor predated electric elevators. “I’m telling you, you’ve got nothing to worry about. It probably just needs to set in is all. Take a long bath and crack a cold bottle of beer. You’ve won, bud. The stuff on that Korean Singles site has completely exonerated you—you’re a hundred percent free.”
The doors closed with a hydraulic hiss. Charlie, who had never experienced claustrophobia before, felt as if the mahogany panels were about to close in on him.
Clapping a hand on Charlie’s good shoulder, Corbitt said, “And it gets even better. Stanley and that Lanier woman are locked up someplace really dark, key thrown away, the works. And every U.S. agency this side of the Department of Agriculture is teaming to roll up the rest of the Cavalry—I saw onboard UAV footage of Ali Abdullah in his pajamas being tossed into a French paddy wagon. We also collared a couple of other guys you might know, Ben Mallory and John Pitman?”
Pitman had tried to kill Charlie on at least three occasions in New York. Mallory, another Cavalry man, just twice. “Where are they now?”
“Put it this way: They’d better like vermin.”
The U.S. Embassy in Barbados had flown in so many physicians and so much medical equipment for Drummond and Hadley that the consulate infirmary now looked like the ICU at Mass General. And everywhere there wasn’t a medical professional, there was a marine guard. Charlie figured that he and Drummond were safer here than anywhere they’d been in months, or anywhere they might ever go.
Charlie entered Drummond’s room—a curtained-off section of the infirmary, really. Drummond sat up in bed with obvious pain. His generally wan appearance wasn’t helped by the pale green light from the stack of machines or the intravenous tubes blooming from his arms.
“Good morning,” he said.
It was a little past three A.M.
“How are you feeling, Dad?”
“Fine. Why does everyone keep asking me that?”
Charlie put him at a 4. He decided to try anyway. “Does anything seem strange to you about the Bream business?”
Drummond regarded one of the green curtains. “Pirate, right?”
“In a sense.” Charlie