Jad Bell: Bravo Part 8

"He doesn't know," Nessuno hisses, but Bell is already speaking even as she says it.

"But you can't, can you?" Bell says. "You can't give us what you don't have, and you don't know his name."

Tohir slowly draws his gaze back to Bell. "She told you that?"

Bell gets up. "This is bulls.h.i.+t, you know it, I know it. He's scared and he's caught and he's got d.i.c.k. He'll sell his mother, his children, to get out of this room. He's got nothing."

"He's scared," Nessuno murmurs. "He always tried to hide it, but Echo terrified him."

"Let's go," Bell tells Wallford.

Wallford sighs, leans back in his chair to make it sc.r.a.pe again on the concrete floor. He rotates his pen, moves to replace it in the portfolio.

"Wait," Tohir says.

"For what? To listen to you puff yourself up? To listen to a deal when you've got nothing to deal with?" He ignores Tohir, adds to Wallford, "He's wasting our f.u.c.king time."

"Is that true, Vosil? Is this just you playing make-believe?"

Tohir grimaces, and Bell could believe it's the man's hip giving him pain but for the fact that he hasn't moved. "You are right, I cannot give you what you really want. I cannot give you his name. I cannot tell you where to find him. But I am willing to offer other things. I am willing to offer you what I have, but I cannot do it for free. I cannot-it means my life, do you understand? It means my life, and I wish to keep it. But I can give you other things, important things."

Wallford waits, then looks to Bell, and Bell takes his seat again.

"Then get f.u.c.king started," he says.

"You must promise me things first," Tohir says. "You must promise me that I will be moved, that I will be safe. You must do this at once. There isn't much time, not for any of us."

"He can reach you here?"

"You have no idea his reach. You have no idea what he is capable of, who he controls, who he has made his own either through deception or coercion or reward." There is, for a moment, a new note in Vosil Tohir's voice, and Bell hears it, hears the truth in what Nessuno has said. The man is not simply scared. His fear is mortal, and complete.

"We can protect you," Wallford says.

"Sincerely, Jerry, really, f.u.c.k you. f.u.c.k you in the face. Why aren't you listening to me?"

"We can-"

"How many people know I am here?" Tohir, agitated, slams his hand on the table. "How many? Do you even know, Jerry? This guy-you, new guy, yours is a new face. How many new faces are in this house right now, at this very moment? How many people know I am here, people in Langley and Bethesda and D.C.? How many, Jerry?"

Wallford hesitates.

"You don't know, do you? You don't even f.u.c.king know. You've already lost count. That is why you cannot protect me."

"We know how to keep a secret," Wallford says.

Tohir laughs, bitterly amused. "No, you don't. Your head of CIA couldn't keep it secret that he was f.u.c.king his biographer. You have contractors hiding in Russian airports, selling their secrets to China. You don't know how to keep a secret, not one of you does. Elisabet, she knew how to keep a secret. Ask her how to do it, you stupid f.u.c.k. Listen to me, you must move me, you must do it now."

"He scares you that much?" Bell asks. "This guy, this name you don't even know?"

"He f.u.c.king terrifies me, new guy. He should terrify you, too, but you're too stupid, too blind, to understand. You'd s.h.i.+t yourself now, right here, if you knew what I knew."

"There are no secrets," Nessuno murmurs.

"There are no secrets," Bell says.

"Yes! Yes, this, exactly this!" Tohir nods, points, leans forward, wincing yet again. "The man you want, the man who controlled me, I met him only once face-to-face, it was years ago, years ago. Do you understand now what I am telling you? Are you getting this?"

"I understand."

"He could've changed his face, he could've f.u.c.king changed his gender for all I know. He could be in this house, he could be you."

"Not me."

"Which is what he would say, is it not? The only reason I dare believe you is that I know how he works, that he will not dirty his hands if he can at all help it. That is why he needed me. What he does better than anyone else, better than you snakes at CIA, is make others dirty their hands for him."

"How?" Wallford asks.

"The same f.u.c.king way you do; don't be naive. Christ. He has two powers, Jerry. He has reach, and he has information, and with those two things he can make almost anyone do almost anything. It is no different from what you do, what your government does, what everyone around the world strives to do. He buys what he can, and if it is not for sale, he takes it, either through extortion or force or both."

"If he has an agent, a sleeper, someone who knows where you are, and you can tell us-"

"I would have already! Jesus Christ, don't you hear me, Jerry? I don't know who he has, I only know that he does, and I know it as surely as I know you f.u.c.kers shot me, as surely as I know Elisabet lied to me. You must move me, you must move me at once. Someplace secure, someplace hidden. Put me in chains, drug me, whatever you require, but you must limit the people who know. You must learn to keep a secret. Only the people you can trust most, and even then, you must be certain."

Bell shakes his head. "If he has all this reach, why are you even here? Why didn't you know we were coming? If he has all this reach, why don't you already have a bullet in your head?"

"New guy." Tohir looks at him with patent disappointment. "It's coming. This is what I'm saying, listen, f.u.c.k you, listen to me! He doesn't want to free me. He doesn't have a choice now. He knows you have me and he knows I am talking to you right now, because he knows it is my only option. I still breathe because he hasn't done it yet. Why do you have me at all? Because you got f.u.c.king lucky. You had Elisabet, and she gave me to you, and that's all. You got lucky. Your good fortune and my bad. But that is not enough; it will run out. It is running out even now. He will find me and he will kill me. He'll kill everyone here if he has to."

"That doesn't sound smart," Bell says. "That sounds insane."

"No, not insane. Pragmatic."

"And if we just leave you here?" Wallford asks.

"Don't insult me, don't bluff with me. I have told you I am willing to trade. You want what I have."

"We may not actually need you."

"You do. You have nothing without me."

"We have Chalus," Bell says. "We have La Tremoille."

"Yes, because the lying c.u.n.t told you, of course. And you know how I take my coffee and that I enjoyed f.u.c.king her a.s.s and that I have an aversion to avocado. You know some names I deal with, even some names I've used. You know lots of little things, and all of it equals nothing, because it is all in the past, and the past is gone. I see the future."

"Then give us a prediction."

"I'll give you a prophecy, how about that, new guy? I'll give you a prophecy, and once you get me f.u.c.king out of this f.u.c.king not-safe house, I'll give you more. How about that?"

"We're listening."

"The theme park, WilsonVille, it was the primary job, but there was a contingency in place. The same thing, but different."

"Explain."

"No. No, that is all I give right now. You stopped the thing in California because Elisabet knew enough to warn you. And after this you will go to her and you will ask her what else she knows, and she will tell you she knows nothing, and you will not know whether to believe her or not. But in this, she will be telling the truth, she will not know. But I know, and I can warn you."

"That's not enough," Wallford says. "We need a proof, Vosil."

"July twenty-eighth, Lufthansa one-six-nine-seven, Prague to Munich, connecting with Lufthansa four-ten, Munich to Kennedy. You are looking for a pa.s.senger by the name of Zein."

"And why are we looking for him?"

"No; you answer that yourself. Then you move me, you make me disappear, you take me someplace truly safe, someplace n.o.body knows about. Someplace secure. You do that, I will give you more, I will give you the rest, every detail of the operation, the timetable, all of it. But I would do it quickly, Jerry. I'd put it at the top of your to-do list, I'd do it right f.u.c.king now."

"Zein," Wallford says, noting it down. "Is that a surname or-"

"No. We're done. My hip hurts. And you're wasting time."

Chapter Nine.

NESSUNO FEELS THE foam peel from her ears as she lifts the headphones free, sets them down on the long table in front of her. On the flat screens, three views of Vosil Tohir as he's cuffed up again and escorted out of the makes.h.i.+ft interrogation room by two of the undercovers. She focuses on their faces, the way she's focused on every face throughout the safe house since she and Heath arrived. She doesn't recognize any of them, not from Tashkent, not from Vienna, not from Moscow, not from Cairo, not from London, not from any of the places she traveled with Tohir on "business." She stares at the flat screens and, doing this, she doesn't have to look at the others in the room, the ones who've heard everything Tohir has said, just as she has. She tells herself it doesn't matter what they think, that she served her country, that she did what was required to earn his trust.

She thinks all this, but she cannot keep herself from remembering Poland, almost a year and a half prior. She cannot keep from remembering the sounds and the smells and the sights of the farmhouse outside of Prague, the bitterly cold predawn, when Tohir tested Elisabetta Villanova for the final time. He had put a gun in her hand and told her to kill two men kept inside, two broken, beaten, tortured men. The first known to Elisabetta, the same man who had put her and Tohir together so many months prior in a hotel in Moscow over a stolen painting. Elisabetta had never seen the second man before in her life.

CW2 Petra Nessuno, if asked, could not say the same thing.

Heath is already on one of the secure telephones at the monitor station, demanding the pa.s.senger manifests for Lufthansa flights 1697 and 410 this past July 28, for anything in the system on the surname Zein. She's not swearing, which makes Nessuno think she's dealing interagency, perhaps, or more likely with someone who outranks her.

Wallford and Bell are still on the flat screens, Wallford writing in his leather portfolio, Bell pulling the earbud free. She's gratified by the partners.h.i.+p, by how easily he took her commentary and cues during the course of the interrogation, made them his own to redirect and prod Tohir. All the same, she has to wonder at his presence here. He's a shooter, not a thinker, not a planner, and his appearance at the safe house surprised her. She thinks he looks weary as he rises and turns past one of the cameras. Weary and worried, perhaps.

All her time with him, Tohir had demonstrated caution, deliberation, was ever the pragmatist. It was, she had concluded, one of the reasons why Echo trusted him, why Tohir had been so useful. It was one of the reasons, she knew, that Tohir had grown to trust her as well. While Tohir's respect for-if not fear of-Echo had always been evident, it had also always been well controlled. That had been slipping from the first moments of the interrogation, had erupted near its end. For that reason, if none other, Nessuno knows that he's telling the truth, that the lead he's offered is good. To bargain it must be, and Vosil Tohir needs this bargain.

It occurs to her that if Echo can find Tohir here, it's just as likely that Echo can find her as well.

Heath hangs up. "It's going to take a bit. Zein isn't exactly an uncommon name. Sounds German."

"Might be Yemeni."

"And it doesn't ring any bells for you?"

"Not that I can recall. You've already got everything I have on his Yemeni dealings."

Heath looks at her for a moment longer, just long enough for Nessuno to wonder about the seeds of suspicion Tohir was working so diligently to plant. She matches the gaze, doesn't flinch, back-brain conscious of her own expression, of what she's showing her handler.

"You think it's legit?" Heath asks. "You think we're going to get hit again?"

"Count on it," Nessuno says.

Wallford crawls into a phone as soon as he and Bell are back in the room, and for a few minutes there's nothing to do but verify the transcript of the interrogation and double-check that all security is still in place and doing exactly what it should. Tohir is back in his room and under guard once more, and Bell leaves to go walkabout, saying he'll double-check the perimeter. Nessuno turns her attention back to the paperwork, the previous interview transcripts, the background data and briefs that have been compiled. The binders are multiplying. She adds her own notes, punches the new pages and fits them to the rings, then hands everything over to Heath.

She does this, concentrating on the work, aware the whole time of the eyes stealing in her direction, and for an instant she feels such a spur of anger she wants to whirl and confront the room. To shout at them, to say, If there is an accusation, make it. If there's a polygraph, hook me up and let's get started. But even as she thinks this, she feels Elisabetta's manner settling on her again, feels her posture s.h.i.+ft just that much, just enough to c.o.c.k her hip, to brush her hair aside. There is nothing to see in her, just a body men find beautiful, a manner that is self-a.s.sured, self-confident, professional. Show no hesitation, Elisabetta reminds her. Show no fear.

Show no guilt.

By the time Bell has returned it's become clear that they're done for the day. Wallford hasn't indicated one way or another if he's going to move Tohir, but Nessuno thinks it's a done deal. Tohir opened the door, and if Wallford wants what the man is offering, then Wallford will have to walk through. Every couple of minutes his phone rings and he goes off to one of the far corners to speak before coming back, looking less and less cheerful than before.

"Are we done here?" Nessuno finally asks. She directs it to Heath, who is currently bent over one of the laptops, but Wallford answers before she can.

"You can roll."

He stares a moment too long, and she sees him weighing what Tohir has said about her. She wonders if she should worry about him, if she should try to work him, to put him at ease, but this is not the time or the place. She wants to believe that everyone can see this for what it is, their prisoner playing power games, trying to turn the tables.

Wallford looks at Bell, then back to her. "Take the master sergeant with you; he's making me nervous."

Heath gives Nessuno her car keys, so she climbs behind the wheel of the black Civic, waits for Bell to buckle up beside her. He's tall enough that he has to slide the seat all the way back, and it still doesn't look like he's got enough room. It was easy to lose track of time inside the house, but as they turn onto the road it's already dusk. Nessuno heads them the wrong way, into Leesburg and then stair-stepping them through town, and neither of them speaks, the head checks on automatic, and while they do this, she's trying to get a sense of Bell, trying to read him. He's barely looked at her since coming up from interrogation, and this is different. She suspected his attraction to her on the flight, aboard the Lear, was all the more sure of it when she saw his reaction to seeing her for the first time today. She resents Tohir for poisoning that well, and now she has time to slowly fuel the resentment she's feeling, to argue with herself. She knows it's not valid. She knows she's being paranoid.

Once she's satisfied they're clean, she whips the Honda into one last abrupt U-turn before pointing the nose onto the Harry Byrd Highway and back toward the capital.

"The same thing but different," she says.

"That's what the man said."

"So he has knowledge of an imminent terror attack on American soil, that's what he's offering."

"He's playing games," Bell says. "He played games the whole time."

"You don't believe him?"

"Do you?"

"About that, yes."

"He was offering anything to get out of that room. h.e.l.l, he offered you up."

"That why you're here?" She makes a point of not looking at him, still with eyes on the road, eyes on the mirrors, and she's pleased that she asks it without any of the rancor she's feeling. Heath would be proud.

"You think I bought that line?"

It's a redirect, turning the question back to her, and she gives Elisabetta's answer. "He was spewing a lot of poison, and you can't fault his logic, can you? Some of it must have made it into your ears, that CIA man's ears. Whoever's going to end up reading that transcript at DIA and in Bethesda and who knows where. They don't know me any better than you know me. I'd have doubts."

She glances at him, the hint of a smile; it's an Elisabetta move, but it comes as easily as the words.

"Give yourself a little credit even if you don't give it to us, Chief. I say again, Heatdish was offering anything he could to get a leg up. You were the cheap shot. Easiest mind game in the world to play."