Tanner’s mentor, former IS AG instructor, chief tormentor, and friend, Master Chief Boatswain’s Mate Ned Billings, made him an offer he couldn’t refuse, and again he found himself part of an experimental group. The group’s official designator was NSCD (“Knee-sid”) 1202, named for the National Security Council Directive from which it was born. The plaque on the door to the group’s Chesapeake Bay office read Holystone, Shiverick.
In the tradecraft jargon, Holystone was a “fix-it company.” It worked outside normal channels, silent, unacknowledged, and answerable only to the Oval Office. Where the CIA was a shovel, Holystone was a pair of tweezers. Most importantly, Holystone provided the president plausible deniability. In other words, Holystone and its people did not exist. It was called working on the raw. No cover, no backup.
Holystone had unrestricted access to the U.S. intelligence loop without the accompanying squabbles and political infighting. Its budget — a fraction of the size of the CIA’s annual cafeteria allotment — came directly from the president’s covert ops fund and was therefore off-limits to both the General Accounting Office and congressional oversight.
How long had he been with Holystone? Tanner thought. Six years. Cliché or not, time did, in fact, fly. In that time, he’d found a home with Holystone and its people. He’d also lost his wife on a mountain in Colorado and his mentor Ned Billings during a project in the Caribbean — the very same ordeal that had reunited him with his finest friend, Ian Cahil.
And now this. A simple vacation turned murder mystery. So what? he thought. He was witness to a murder. He’d picked up a key Ohira had carried in his hand. It was an impulse — an unwise one at that — but he could turn it in to the police and be done with it.
But try as he might, Tanner couldn’t shake the image of Ohira’s panic-stricken face. And then the shot… the head exploding… Who was Ohira, and why was he worth murdering?
It was one of his many failings, he knew. As a child, the surest way to get Briggs to take on a challenge was to tell him it was either impossible or the answer was a mystery. This same character quirk had pushed him toward the SEALs, where only one in four candidates graduate, then to the ISAG, where the attrition rate exceeded 90 percent. Now, that same quirk — though tempered with hard-earned wisdom — was pushing him toward the mystery of why a man was executed before his very eyes.
Camille saw Briggs walking across the pool patio. She felt her heart skip. Stop it, Camille. He was handsome, yes, but it was more than that. Approaching him last night was so unlike her, but she’d felt lonely and out of place. And then, as if on cue, he’d appeared.
Tanner stood about two inches over six feet, 185 pounds. He carried himself with a sureness, an economy of motion. He was comfortable in his own skin. His hair was coffee brown, his face well tanned — probably from more time spent out-of-doors than in — and his smile was easy. His eyes were ocean-blue, their corners laugh-lined. The eyes, she thought. Yes, they were warm, but there was something else there, a hardness. It was as if they were constantly dissecting and categorizing everything they took in.
She hadn’t slept well the night before. The incident had shaken her, but more than that, she was troubled by the way Briggs had reacted to the shooting. She’d seen such reactions before — usually in soldiers — but in other kinds of men as well, and that’s what worried her. And what about the key? He had palmed and pocketed it smoothly, without hesitation. Was he somehow involved in what had happened?
“Sorry I’m late,” he said, taking a seat under the umbrella. “Have you ordered?”
“Not yet.”
The waiter appeared. They both ordered a fruit salad, wheat toast, and coffee.
“How did you sleep?” Tanner asked.
Camille shrugged. “You?”
“The same.”
A bellman approached the table and offered Tanner a small tray with a receipt and bill. “The item you requested, sir. The concierge is holding it.”
“Thank you,” Tanner signed the slip and handed the man a tip.
“What’s that about?” asked Camille.
“A gift for a friend I met yesterday.”
Breakfast came, and they ate in silence, enjoying the sun. A pair of finches landed beside their table, and Camille dropped them some bread crumbs.
“So,” said Camille. “I never asked. Are you on vacation or business?”
“Vacation. And you?”
“The same. Though last night, it didn’t seem like much of one. May I ask you a question?”
“Go ahead.”
“Why did you do it? Jump over the fence, I mean. They had guns, yes? How did you know you wouldn’t get shot yourself?”
“I didn’t. It was stupid.”
Perhaps, thought Camille, but probably more considered than the average person’s impulse. “Well, I’ll tell you this, Mr. Tanner: If this thing between us is to go any further, it just wouldn’t do to get yourself killed.”
“This thing?” he said with a smile. “What makes you think there will be anything between us?”
“Women know. It’s in your eyes.”
“Really.”
“Oh yes. It’s a gift we have. So, your curiosity: What did it get you?” she asked. “What great mystery did you find in the car?”
“No mystery. I was mostly concerned about other passengers. Now you: What kind of work do you do?”
“I’m an attorney — immigration law. In fact, I do a lot of work in America.”
“I didn’t realize that many Ukrainians wanted to emigrate.”
“Quite a few, really, but also to Israel, Canada, Great Britain. Camille sipped her coffee. “I’m sunbathing this morning, I think. Will you join me?”
“Maybe later. I’m going to take a run, do some diving.”
“Diving where, for what?”
“Up the coast a bit… for fun.”
“You have a strange idea of vacation, I think, running and swimming.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“You’ll be careful?”
“Always. I’d hate to miss our dinner date tonight.”
Camille smiled. “How do you know we’re having dinner tonight?”
“Men know. It’s a gift.”
Camille laughed. “I accept. On two conditions. One, we make it tomorrow night. I must take the shuttle to Tokyo tonight for a meeting. I’ll be back in the morning. And two, over dinner you tell me your life story.”
Tanner stood and pushed in his chair. “Conditions accepted. Tomorrow night, seven o’clock?”
As Tanner walked away, Camille thought, What in God’s name are you doing? It was silly; nothing could come of it. She shrugged, deciding she didn’t give a damn.
Tanner took the two-mile run slowly, but with the twenty-five-pound bag of rice over one shoulder and his rucksack over the other, it turned out to be a fair workout. The time passed quickly as he thought of Camille.
Though she’d covered it well, she’d been probing him. Was it simple curiosity? Or perhaps she was wary of him, thinking he wasn’t what he claimed to be — which he wasn’t, of course. Whatever her reasons, a part of his brain was telling him to tread carefully. Another part, however, was hoping she was exactly what she seemed. Careful, Briggs, he told himself.
He found Mitsu sitting on the front steps of the family’s hut. The boy was engrossed with a quarter-sized beetle that was crawling up his forearm.