Loose Cannon: The Tom Kelly Novels (11 page)

“I wouldn’t have liked this operation if the Joint Chiefs sat down in my office and briefed me on it, Mr. Kelly,” the Attaché said. He hammered the palm of his right hand on the desk. Raising his eyes he added, “It stinks. It stinks like a
sewer
, and I don’t appreciate being dragged into it.”

Kelly nodded, holding the officer’s eyes. “I understand that,” he said as earnestly as any salesman ever spoke, “believe me, I do. But you and I have our orders. And behind those orders stands the nation we serve. There are decisions that are yours and mine to execute but not to make, just as good soldiers have been doing since the world began. If you can’t accept that, Commander Posner, your argument isn’t with me—it’s with your uniform and the oath you swore when you put it on.”

Christ, what bullshit, Kelly thought as he leaned back again. But not all of him thought it was bullshit, and he knew that too. . . .

A brick in the face could not have hit Posner any harder. The Defense Attaché swallowed. He started to draw on his cigarette, looked at it, and crushed it out in transferred anger. “Mr. Kelly,” he said, “I”—he glared at his brass ashtray—“I apologize if I’ve seemed unhelpful. As you point out, we didn’t choose this world, but we have our duties to carry out in it.” He swallowed again before meeting the agent’s eyes. “As for the Kabyles, I’ve arranged a meeting with what we believe is their leadership in the city tomorrow afternoon. At least, there is a group of some sort calling itself the Association of Kabyles. They have a rough idea of what you desire”—Posner managed a bleak smile—“which is all that I have, of course. I assume you’ll conduct these negotiations yourself.”

Kelly nodded. “Right, right,” he said. “And we don’t need an army, twenty people’ll be plenty if they know what they’re doing. God help us all if they don’t . . .” He looked out at the Mediterranean, the dazzle from blue waves. He shook his head back into the present. He was a black-headed lion who knew the spearmen were close, knew the odds were with them . . . but also knew that there was nothing on the plain that he could not rend if he chose to. “No,” the agent continued in a voice that barely reached the Attaché and was not really meant for him, “it doesn’t matter if they speak for their people, whatever . . . so long as they can raise the muscle for one quick and dirty job.”

Kelly blinked, fully present again, and added, “Where’d you get a contact, anyway? Not that it matters so long as you do have one.”

Posner coughed and lit the last cigarette from his pack. He crumpled the foil and cellophane and skidded them off the end of his desk into a wastebasket. “I suppose you could call him a walk-in,” the Attaché admitted. It was nothing to be ashamed of. The Algerians, while not positively hostile, kept the agents of imperialist powers on a pretty short leash. “One of the Chancery guards, actually, Mustapha bou Djema. He’d been working for a few weeks when he stopped me when I was going out one evening. I almost brushed him off, told him he could talk to the GSO if he had a problem. But it wasn’t work, he wanted to talk about ‘politics,’ that’s the normal formula”—Kelly nodded in understanding—“and he’d picked me instead of Warner because I was a military officer. He’d been in French service, it turned out, as well as fighting against them later during the Revolution. I really think that Mustapha’s group may be . . .” the Attaché paused, “quite significant, but I suppose you’ll be able to judge better. Mustapha’s English isn’t any better than my French, I’m afraid.”

There was a knock at the door. Both men tensed instinctively. “Yes?” the commander called.

Sergeant Rowe opened the door. “Just me, sir,” he said. “DeVoe says the cable’s gone out.”

“Then,” remarked Kelly, rising from his chair with the awkwardness of a man just awakened, “I think we’ve covered all we need to for the moment. Is there someplace around here to get lunch? I don’t eat much on planes, and”—he smiled at himself—“I left my packet of Lufthansa peanuts in my other jacket when I changed.”

“Ah, why don’t I run you down to the snack bar?” the sergeant suggested. “It’s a damned good place to eat lunch—and besides, it’s about the only place except for the hotels. Lunch isn’t an Algerian meal. You want to come, sir?” he added to Commander Posner.

The Defense Attaché shook his head, managing a smile of his own. “If DeVoe’s seen the message,” he said, “then I can expect a visit from Harry Warner as soon as you leave the room. I may as well stay and take my medicine.”

Kelly gestured toward the door. “Lead on, Doug,” he said. “My stomach follows.”

XI

Sergeant Rowe waited until they were outside the building to ask, “How do you like Commander Posner, then?” A haze was banked at high altitude along the line of the shore. The breeze across the grounds smelled of flowers, but it was brisk enough to make the agent’s suit more comfortable than the sergeant’s short sleeves.

“Well,” Kelly said, “things’ll work out. Only, people might remember when they’re setting up a deal like this that you can’t make much of a sow’s ear from a bolt of silk, either.”

It was almost two o’clock, local time, and the snack bar had generally cleared out. The stunning black-haired woman who had been at the cash register when Kelly first walked by had been replaced by a young Algerian male. The agent realized that he had not seen any local women—except the previous cashier—at work on the mission grounds. Welcome to Islam, where women have their place—and where they’d damned well better keep to it.

Rowe led the way to the counter at the back. A menu was chalked on a dusty blackboard. The room was packed with plastic chairs around small formica-topped tables. It looked much like a big-city lunchroom anywhere in the US. “Do you like veal parmigiana?”Rowe asked.

“Huh?” responded Kelly. He had been expecting a hamburger—with luck. “Oh. Sure. It’s good here?”

“Two parmigianas and coffee, Achmed,” Rowe called through the window. He began running coffee from the big pot into a pair of mugs. “Everything’s good here, Anna sees to that,” the sergeant explained. “Cream.”

Kelly shook his head. “Hot and black,” he said with a grin, taking one of the coffees and the chair to which Rowe gestured him. There were half a dozen men sitting in pairs at tables. Only two of them were North Americans, judging from their appearance. Beyond the partition in back came the hiss and clatter of kitchen equipment. “What is this, anyway?” the agent asked. “A private restaurant?”

“Well, it’s operated as a service to embassy officers and employees,” the sergeant explained as he sipped his coffee. “The prices are good, and anyway, there really isn’t much place to get lunch in Algiers, like I said upstairs. For a while there, they were feeding all sorts of people off the street—which was great for the American School here, it gets the profits, but it was lousy security, of course. And even later, there was a problem with the maintenance people. The mission maintains all the off-post housing here, you see. The maintenance crews all decided they’d forgotten some part or tool and drove back to the compound here right around noon each day.” Rowe glanced around at the local nationals talking over the remains of their own meals. “Still some of that, the GSO tells me. But except for here, you either carry your lunch or you buy a rotisseried chicken and eat it on the sidewalk. Somebody really ought to start a lunch counter, but the government isn’t crazy about private enterprise even in traditional businesses. They’d probably have a cat-fit if even a local started something new.”

Someone called from the service window and thrust a pair of heavy china plates out onto the counter. Rowe heard, even over the clashing of a boy hauling a tub of dirty dishes into the back.

Before Kelly could get up to help, the sergeant had fetched the plates and pocketed the check. “I always eat Italian here,” Rowe said as he raised a forkful of veal, “but believe me, if Anna decides to fix Eskimo, that’s going to be good too.”

It was excellent, especially when Kelly had figured the price chalked on the board in dinars and found that it was less than three dollars. Naive travelers were often stunned to learn that a hotel room or a meal in Third World countries was generally more expensive than an equivalent would have been in New York City. Tom Kelly had not been called naive for a long time.

As Kelly and the sergeant finished their meals, the two North Americans carried their plates to the counter. “Say, Doug,” said one of them, “did you check about the car?”

“Ah,” said Rowe, “Syd Westram, Don Mayer, this is Tom . . . that is, Angelo Ceriani. Syd and Don are in Econ Section.”

“Actually, I’m in Consular,” said Westram as he shook Kelly’s hand.

Kelly grinned. “Right,” he said. “I’m in business equipment.” He continued eating without haste as the other three wrangled quietly over the car the two Company men wanted to borrow from the Attaché’s Office for some trip or other. Rowe lost interest clearly enough to resume eating himself in the middle of the discussion. The others continued to push long after it was obvious that the sergeant had no authority to clear the loan. Still muttering to one another, the CIA officers finally walked off to pay. The kitchen door opened and out walked the woman Kelly had first seen at the cash register.

She wore white slacks and a red cotton blouse that was loose enough to be comfortable but left no doubt of her sex. She was as tall as Kelly but her weight was a good forty pounds beneath the agent’s one-sixty. Kelly had never in his life dreamed of looking that good.

“Anna,” called Sergeant Rowe, “we were just saying how good the veal is. Oh, Angelo Ceriani, meet Annamaria Gordon.”

Kelly stood up carefully so as not to overset the center-balanced table. He made a half bow.

The woman laughed happily and extended her hand. “My, so gallant,” she murmured in Italian.

“Lady,” replied the agent in the same language, “so lovely a one as yourself deserves the gallantry of true gentlemen, not such as myself.”

“Mother of God, he speaks like a Florentine!” Annamaria cried in delight. She clasped Kelly by both shoulders. “Oh, you don’t know what it’s like to—the Italian Ambassador is an old stick and deaf besides. And his
wife
—Dougie”—switching to English—“Where have you been hiding this one?”

“Well,” said Sergeant Rowe, trapped in his chair by the table behind him and the woman reaching over his head, “he’s—”

“Oh, of course!” Annamaria broke in, “he has to be the, the Thomas Kelly who has my husband so angry, that is so?”

Kelly’s skin prickled again with fear and anger. This time the fear was not misplaced, though the last of the customers had left the room and it was unlikely that the fellow at the cash register could hear even if he did speak English. Anna was an embassy wife, that was clear, and her husband had done too goddamned much talking out of—

“I’m sorry if his Excellency is concerned,” Sergeant Rowe was saying.

Jesus Christ, she was the Ambassador’s wife.

Annamaria—Mrs. Ambassador Gordon—tugged Kelly out into the central aisle of the lunchroom. Releasing him and stepping back a pace, she eyed the agent up and down with the dispassion of a horse-buyer. Embarrassed but as much at a loss as was Rowe—who had finally struggled to his feet—Kelly found himself staring back at the lady.

Her chain necklace was of gold and heavy. It was the one thing besides her beauty that seemed to suit her status.

Reverting to Italian, the black-haired woman asked, “Have you seen the city yet? You won’t have, will you, since you’ve just arrived.”

“Well, I’m not here solely on pleasure . . .” Kelly temporized, distrusting the conversation though he could not believe it was headed where it seemed to be.

Belief be damned. “Come then, this afternoon. I’ll be your guide instead of Doug here,” said Annamaria. “It’s been
so
long since I’ve heard Italian spoken by anyone in the least interesting. And if my husband is so angry without even having met you, you must be interesting.”

“Ah, Mrs. Gordon,” said the agent, switching back to English but trying not to show his horror, “I’d be delighted to see Algiers with you some other time. But we’re going to be busy for the next couple days and—”

Annamaria smiled with a cheerful wickedness. Her eyes were set wide, their pupils very dark. She raised one finger and said, still in Italian, “You don’t intend to see the city? Poof! And what are you going to do this afternoon, tell me?”

The sergeant blinked, aghast now that Kelly’s words had shown him how things were tending. The agent himself met Annamaria’s eyes. The humor of the whole business struck him and he started to laugh. The dish boy looked around in surprise, then ducked back within the kitchen. “All right,” said Kelly, “to tell the truth, I was going to get a tour of the Casbah. Want to come along?” As a dip’s wife, the woman had an automatic “Secret” clearance, barring the kind of negative evidence that would in all likelihood have prevented her husband from getting an ambassadorship. And by God, if there was a better way of giving the establishment a kick in the ass than this, Kelly couldn’t imagine what it was.

“All right, give me fifteen minutes to shower and change,” Annamaria said, her smile broader. “And remember, you have to talk to me.”

“Sir,” said Rowe.

“Tom, for Chrissake,” Kelly remarked, his eyes still on the woman. “No, Mrs. Gordon, you two can pick me up in front of the Aurassi in an hour and a half. And one thing”—this in Italian, and the tone brought her around with her tweezer-shaped eyebrows rising—“what you do when you’re alone is your own business . . . and slacks are fine with me, make a lot of sense. But if you’re going to be with me in the Old City and I’m working, which you know I am—wear a skirt, please? With a skirt, we’re tourists and nobody cares. In trousers, we’re stupid tourists—and it’s not our country to be stupid in.”

Annamaria’s expression was momentarily as black as her hair. “Do you take particular pleasure in ordering women around, Mr. Kelly?” she asked in a new tone.

“Sometimes I think I get the most pleasure from killing a bottle of Jack Black alone in my room,” the agent said quietly. “But that won’t get the job done this time. Mrs. Gordon, if you don’t like something I say or do, just tell me to go piss up a rope.” The phrase had a ring of unexpected obscenity in translation. “But if I’m working, don’t assume that I do anything for fun.”