The Cutout (5 page)

When they entered the room, Darien Atwood was gazing through the rain-spattered window at the belt of trees dividing the Agency campus from the George Washington Parkway. Caroline registered beeches and maples, a preponderance of pin oak. The branches wavered and dissolved in sheets of chilling rain. The DCI ignored the three of them, as though concluding some kind of mental conversation; and so they approached her desk in silence, lowly supplicants before an altar. Scottie reached a furtive hand to his perfectly knotted tie.

Caroline had known Dare Atwood for eleven years. Well before she was DCI, Dare had managed the regional office in which Caroline cut her analytic teeth. Despite the gap in their ages, they were fellow travelers: smart women impatient with mediocrity, demanding of themselves and everyone around them. Dare’s progress through the bureaucratic ranks—her ascension to the Senior Intelligence Service and, eventually, to the post of Director of Central Intelligence—had placed a natural distance between them; but if Caroline possessed a mentor in the clandestine world, it was Dare.

She was familiar, through long association, with the small personal tics that betrayed Dare’s feelings. She studied the DCI’s rigid back and saw that she was enraged.

Dare was a tall woman with a face as lined as a wind-fallen apple. Her black wool dress could have graced a Shaker; her smooth gray hair resembled Joan of Arc’s. Her heels were never more than two inches high. She fairly screamed a capable practicality; in another century, she would have commanded a boarding school for young ladies, or ruled a kingdom through the convenience of a husband. The DCI permitted herself two luxuries: a wardrobe of brilliantly colored Hermès scarves purchased through the years in Paris, and a deep topaz stone, cut in a cabochon, that she wore on her middle finger. They seemed revelations of an interior life far richer than her appearance inferred.

Like Caroline, Dare was born an analyst. She, too, was a High Priestess of Reason. Caroline realized she was depending upon that fact this November morning. Dare would find a way out of Eric’s labyrinth. It was just a question of time.

“It’s three o’clock in the afternoon in Central Europe,” Dare said to the rain beyond her window. “Berlin was hit at twelve. They’ve had three hours to get out of the country.”

“In a helicopter,” Cuddy Wilmot amended. “That means they could be anywhere.”

“If they’re intelligent, they’ll have ditched the chopper within minutes and switched to cars.” Scottie’s voice was dismissive; they all knew that Eric was intelligent. “They’ll assume a few hours’ lead time while the dust settles and we’re confused about the Vice President’s whereabouts. But at this point, the chopper’s a dead end.”

“Assume they’re in a car, then,” Dare said impatiently. “Headed where? Toward Switzerland or Poland?”

She was looking now at Scottie, her back to the
streaming trees, her arms folded tightly across her chest. Rage, still, in every line of her body; rage completely contained. Toward Eric? The situation? Or Caroline?

“They could’ve gone to ground in Germany,” Scottie told her. “Even in Berlin, there are a thousand places they might be hidden.”

“Not with the entire Voekl security force on the loose.” The impatience was scathing now, a personal slap. Dare despised easy answers. “You’ve seen CNN. The men in black are turning Berlin upside-down.”

“If I’d gone to the trouble to stage that medevac rescue,” Caroline said, “it’d be for one reason—to divert attention, and buy time. Then I’d get the hell out of Dodge before the borders closed.”

“So you’re betting on Eastern Europe.” Dare could have added,
Where Eric knows the roads.
The thought, unspoken, hovered over all their heads.

“We have no way of knowing where they’ve gone,” Scottie objected, “until we know who they are.”

“Then let’s hear an educated guess,” the Director snapped. “It’s what we’re paid for.”

“The German police are claiming that the bomb was set by
gastarbeiters,”
Cuddy said tentatively, “the legal aliens Chancellor Voekl wants to send back to Turkey.”

“I’ve seen that report. It’s bullshit.” Dare gripped the edge of her desk and eyed the three of them. “Sophie Payne was not kidnapped by a bunch of disaffected
gastarbeiters.
At this point, the U.S. is the only friend those people have. They’d be mad to strike against us.”

“The Turks make a convenient scapegoat for the Voekl regime,” Caroline pointed out. “So convenient, I’d almost believe Fritz Voekl ordered the hit himself.”

“Then he should have done it before Payne opened
her mouth.” Scottie frowned. “That speech can only have been an embarrassment to him.”

“Incitement to riot, in fact,” Dare agreed. “Next, the Germans will say the Veep brought this whole mess on herself. Then they’ll send us a bill for the Brandenburg.” She twisted the topaz on her finger. “So what are we left with?”

“A presumed-dead case officer on the wrong side of the law.” Scottie, Caroline noticed, was avoiding her eye. The man possessed depths of sensitivity long untapped.

“And with whom is the case officer cavorting?” Dare asked. “Any ideas, Caroline?”

Too many, in fact. I am drowning in Access.
The plane disintegrating, the children like candy wrappers in the up-drafts over Turkey—
Eric, how the fuck could you do this to me?
Access, Ms. Bisby Gets the High Analytics every time.
Never mind the man like a fox in his den.
Assemble the facts. Marshal your arguments.
Analyze.

“Eric worked a number of terrorist targets over the years,” she told Dare. “The PFLP-GC. Abu Nidal. And right at the end, Bin Laden. But he was obsessed with only one—the 30 April Organization.”

“Thirty April.” The DCI traced an intricate pattern on her dark green blotter. “An East European terrorist group with acknowledged hostilities toward the United States. Neo-fascists, reactionary extremists, the type who hate to see women in power.”

“Sophie Payne and her liberal agenda would push all their buttons.”

“Not my first choice for the Vice President, Caroline.” Dare’s voice was harsh. “They’re certifiable.”

“And perfectly capable of pulling off this morning’s hit. Ever since the NATO intervention in Kosovo, they’ve been looking for a way to hurt us.”

“Scottie, what account was Eric working in Budapest?” Dare asked.

“At the time of his death—or what we thought was his death—he was Chief of Station.”

“In other words,” Caroline said, “he wasn’t supposed to be working
anything.”

“Serving more in the role of grand coordinator of everyone else’s targeting, is that it?”

“Eric never really took to management,” Scottie admitted apologetically. “He couldn’t give up the field, Dare. He thought 30 April was too difficult a target for junior CO’s. So he tried to recruit within the organization himself.”

“And did he succeed?”

The Counterterrorism chief hesitated. “I believe he was closer to penetrating them than we’d ever been before.”

Dare took a turn around the room, thinking it through. “Thirty April bombed a plane that Eric Carmichael was supposed to be on. Is that why the plane went down? Because Eric was on the passenger list? It seems a bit excessive, killing two hundred and fifty–plus people in order to get one man—but we know that Krucevic’s boys are a law unto themselves.”

“Or …” Scottie said delicately.

“Or Eric Carmichael was working with 30 April well before MedAir 901, and got the bomb on that plane himself. Again, a bit over the top as a means of declaring oneself dead—but who’s to argue with the irrational?”

Involuntarily, Caroline shook her head.

“You don’t think so?” the DCI challenged. “How much did you know about your husband’s work in Budapest, Carrie?”

I knew about silence. I knew withdrawal. The shrouded figure in the bed each morning, the retching over the porcelain bowl.

“Very little,” she replied evenly. “Eric was always discreet about operational matters.”

“Even with his
wife?”
The DCI was incredulous.

It was what they all expected, Caroline thought, this collusion of marriage. No possible way to excuse her ignorance. She watched them thinking:
What kind of wife were you, anyway?

“Eric always protected me,” she attempted. “He told me nothing. I was the person most at risk besides himself.”

Dare snorted. “Risk! You knew what you were getting into when you married him, Carrie. There were always several Eric Carmichaels. It was a crapshoot which would surface on any given day.”

“Of course.” Caroline bit down on the edge of anger, managed to suggest calm. “Eric was trained to live a lie. That’s what case officers do. And if you’re good at your job—if you work the hard targets—the lies start to seem like the only truth you’ve got.”

“Hear, hear,” Scottie murmured ironically.

Caroline ignored him. “Thirty April operates out of Central Europe. It was clear Eric and I had been sent to Budapest for that reason. Of course I put two and two together. But I never knew how close Eric had gotten to them. And when he was killed, I thought he’d failed.”

“And rather spectacularly, at that.” Dare’s tone was brisk. “How encouraging to learn instead that he succeeded in penetrating the bastards. Now if we only knew
why.”

“He wasn’t on MedAir 901 when it blew up, obviously. I can’t tell you why.
I don’t know.”
Her voice rose—was she defending Eric? Or herself? “I don’t know how he came to be in Berlin this morning. But I do know that Eric Carmichael had a visceral hatred for
terrorists and for 30 April in particular. He would never adopt their methods.”

“We saw him today in that chopper, Mad Dog, kidnapping the Vice President of the United States.”

It was unlike Cuddy to lash her so brutally; he was an analyst, too, he lived by his objectivity. But the anger in his voice was entirely personal. Eric’s defection had rocked Cuddy’s world.

“Isn’t it just possible that once Eric discovered his plane was hit—that he was officially dead—he decided to stay that way? That he infiltrated 30 April in order to nail them for MedAir 901?”

“Caroline,” Scottie said quietly.

But she persisted. “For all we know, he showed himself to us deliberately this morning. What if it was the clearest message he could send?
You’ve got a guy on the inside.”

“Whom we wouldn’t need if he’d done his job in the first place!” Cuddy again, brittle with exasperation.

“We can’t know what Eric is doing,” Scottie declared, “or what he might have done two years ago. Whether he thinks he’s operating under deep cover or not, the truth is, he’s gone completely AWOL. He’s committed an act of terrorism against the U.S. government. Twenty-eight people died this morning. Seven more are in critical condition. Our Veep is missing. We can’t cover him on this one, Carrie.”

“A guy on the inside,” Dare repeated thoughtfully. “Have you considered what President Bigelow is going to say when he learns there was a CIA case officer on that chopper?”

Caroline looked at Scottie. The Terrorism chief did not immediately reply. He merely studied his Director with a frank expression of bemusement, the one he
reserved for particularly boring dinner partners. It was obvious that the President would have all their asses in a sling.

“We’ll be stripped to our shorts and whipped out of town,” Dare informed them succinctly. “We’ll be hauled before a Congressional investigation to explain something none of us understands. We’ll be—”

“Ridiculed and pissed on by every son of a bitch inside the Beltway,” Scottie concluded.

“And we’ll be shut out of the Payne investigation.” Caroline’s voice was tight. “When, at the moment, we’re the only ones with a lead.”

“We’ve got no choice,” Cuddy Wilmot protested.

“Haven’t we?” Dare shot back. “Think what you’re saying, Wilmot. None of us will be immune when the press gets their knives out. Everything will be distorted: Eric’s history, our investigation of MedAir 901, all your work for the past two and a half bloody years. All our efforts to save lives and put these psychos behind bars. Crucified before a television audience of two hundred million.”

“And meanwhile,” Caroline said, “Sophie Payne is still out there. Trying to get home.”

“That German footage?” Dare asked. “Is it being shown on CNN?”

“Yes.” Scottie reached into his breast pocket for cigarettes, although he had quit smoking months ago. “And probably the other networks as well.”

Dare’s dark blue eyes locked on to Caroline’s. “How recognizable is your Eric?”

As a fox in a den, as a shroud among the living. The scent of lemons in the unquiet dark
—

She did not quite answer the question. “When the FBI realizes that Payne has been kidnapped, they’ll shove that tape under a microscope.”

“They won’t be looking for a dead man.” The DCI spoke with decision; she had weighed the options and jumped. “We have no choice but to stand behind Eric Carmichael. He’s our curse and our gift. We blow his cover and we blow our own. But if we let him run for a bit—and follow where he leads—maybe we can salvage something from this travesty.”