Twice a Spy_ A Novel - Keith Thomson [97]
“That’s Sid Bream.” A Pittsburgh Pirate. Twenty years ago.
Weighted by frustration, Charlie took a seat at the edge of the bed, careful not to knock loose Drummond’s IVs.
Drummond sat a bit straighter and smiled, restoring some color to his cheeks. “Right, Bream was the name of our pilot too,” he said.
Charlie felt a trickle of optimism. “That’s the one I meant.”
Drummond paused to reflect. “Who was he, really?”
“That’s probably the first question I should have asked.” Charlie put it to Corbitt, chatting with a nurse outside the makeshift doorway.
Stepping into the room, the base chief shrugged. “Maybe you’ll find out in the debrief.”
“What debrief?”
“With Caldwell Eskridge, chief of the Europe division.”
“When does he get here?”
Corbitt looked at Charlie as if he’d asked for the moon. “When do you fly to Langley, Virginia, you mean?” Corbitt said. “As soon as possible.”
“Barring major medical advances in the next hour,” said Charlie, “my father probably won’t be able to get on a plane.” Or out of bed.
“It’s actually McLean, Virginia,” Drummond said. “An interesting piece of information: Langley’s not a city or town. It’s just part of McLean, as Park Slope is part of Brooklyn. You need to go there, Charles.”
“Do I?” Charlie wondered if his father’s danger detector had been disabled. He turned to Corbitt. “Why can’t Eskridge fly here?”
“The mountain doesn’t come to Mohammed.” Sensing Charlie’s anxiety, the base chief added, “I’ll be accompanying you.”
Which did little to ease Charlie’s anxiety. “Great,” he said.
Drummond reached forward, clasped Charlie’s arm, and drew him close. Although his father’s skin was tepid, Charlie felt an infusion of warmth.
“Go to McLean, Charles.” Drummond’s focus appeared to sharpen. Or was it a trick of the fluorescents?
“But until about twenty minutes ago, the agency had us on their To-Kill list.”
“You can handle it. I’m willing to bet on that.”
Eight days earlier, a man whose passport listed him as John Townsend Bream had flown from Puerto Rico to Paris to meet with an Algerian agitator he knew from his Air Force Intelligence days.
A three-hour drive from Charles de Gaulle and Bream was in Dijon, far enough off the security grid that countersurveillance didn’t require too much effort. And because the city was the capital of the Burgundy wine region, the mustard center of Europe, and home to the most dazzling collection of medieval and Renaissance buildings in the world, there was always a large and diverse enough crowd that anyone could blend in.
Or so Bream thought until Cheb Qatada plopped down opposite him in an isolated booth in the back of an otherwise lively brasserie near the train station—a textbook clandestine meeting spot. The problem was, the bearlike Algerian had a tough time blending in anywhere. Although he shaved every morning while in Europe, he sported a five o’clock shadow by lunchtime, and it was now an hour past that—the best time for a meeting because the lunch crowd thins so that friend can more easily be distinguished from foe, or rather foe may be distinguished from genuine tourist. Qatada’s choice to heavily pomade his thick black hair, giving prominence to a V-shaped hairline, made him stand out even more. Also his eyes were set close to an extraordinarily wide and flat nose. But his most remarkable feature was an almost constant toddler-like glee, odd given that the majority of his forty years had been spent on a serial rant—in the form of massacres of innocent civilians—directed at the French government.
“I’m looking to retire,” Bream said.
“As opposed to living on a tropical island and flying once or twice a week?” Qatada spoke fluent British-accented English, at a higher pitch than the growl presaged by his appearance.
Bream gazed at the cricket game on the TV above the bar, without which the dark stone tavern wouldn’t have appeared much different than it had a millennium ago. He used the mirror behind the bar to take an inventory of the crowd, inspecting for shifts in stance