“Sorry in advance for not bringing my résumé. Your friend Garza was in a hurry.”
“I don’t like to waste time. So if you’d be kind enough to listen, I’ll brief you on the assignment.”
“Does it have anything to do with that Disney World downstairs? Plane crashes, natural disasters—you call that engineering?”
Glinn gazed at him mildly. “Among other things, EES specializes in the discipline of failure analysis.”
“Failure analysis?”
“Understanding how and why things fail—whether it be an assassination, an aviation accident, or a terrorist attack — is a critical component to solving engineering problems. Failure analysis is the other face of engineering.”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
“Engineering is the science of figuring out how to do or make something. But that’s only half the challenge. The other half is analyzing all possible modes of failure — in order to avoidthem. EES does both. We solve very difficult engineering problems. And we dissect failures. In both these tasks, we have never failed. Ever. With one minor exception, which we’re still working on.” He flicked his hand as if waving away a bothersome fly. “Those two things, engineering and failure analysis, form our primary business. Our visible business. But they are also our cover. Because behind our public façade, we use these same facilities to carry out, from time to time, highly unusual and confidential projects for special clients. Veryspecial clients. We need you for one of these projects.”
“Why me?”
“I’ll get to that in a moment. First, the details. A Chinese scientist is on his way to the United States. We believe the man is carrying the plans for a new, high-technology weapon. We’re not certain, but we have reason to hope he may be defecting.”
Gideon was about to make a sarcastic quip, but the look in Glinn’s eye deterred him.
“For two years,” Glinn went on, “US intelligence has been aware of a mysterious project going on in an underground compound inside the Lop Nor nuclear testing zone in far western China. Staggering amounts of money and scientific talent have been devoted to this effort. The CIA believes they’re developing a new weapon, a kind of Chinese Manhattan Project, something that would change the balance of power completely.”
Gideon stared. “More destructive than the H-Bomb?”
“Yes, that’s the information we have. But now, one of the project’s chief scientists seems to have stolen the plans and is on his way to the United States. Why? We don’t know. We hope he might be defecting to the US with the plans for that weapon, but we can’t be sure.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Apparently, he was the victim of a successful honey trap at a scientific convention in Hong Kong.”
“Honey trap?”
“Surely you’ve heard the term. An attractive woman is employed to get the target in a compromising position, pictures are taken, pressure is then applied…But this honey trap went awry and triggered the man’s panicked flight from China.”
“Right. I get it. So when is this scientist supposed to arrive?”
“He’s on his way now. The man’s on a Japan Airlines flight to New York from Hong Kong. He changed planes in Tokyo nine hours ago and will land at JFK at eleven ten PM — that’s in four hours.”
“Jesus. Okay.”
“Your assignment is simple: tail the man from the airport and, as soon as possible, take those plans away from him and bring them here.”
“How?”
“That’s for you to figure out.”
“In four hours?”
Glinn nodded. “We don’t know what format the plans are in or where they’re hidden. They could be computer code in his laptop, hidden in a steganographic image, on a flash drive in his suitcase, or on an old-fashioned roll of film, for all we know.”
“This is a crazy assignment. Nobody could pull this off.”
“It is true that few could do this. That’s why we’ve reached out to you, Dr. Crew.”
“You’re kidding — right? I’ve never done anything like this before. My work at Los Alamos is in HE. No doubt you’ve got dozens of better-qualified people downstairs.”
“As it happens, you are uniquely suited to this assignment. For two reasons. First is your formercareer.”
“What career would that be?”
“As a thief. Robbing art museums.”
There was a sudden, freezing silence.
“Not the bigger museums, of course. The small private ones, generally, with less sophisticated intrusion-detection systems and lower-profile artwork.”
“I think you need to up your medication,” Gideon said in a low voice. “I’m no art thief. I don’t have even the slightest criminal record.”
“Which shows just how good you were. Such skills can be very valuable. Of course, you dropped this profession when a new and overriding interest came into your life. And with that we get to the second reason. You see, we followed with great interest your deft little operation against General Chamblee S. Tucker.”
Gideon tried to recover from this second surprise. He mustered up his most puzzled look. “Operation? Tucker went nuts and attacked me and one of his employees in his house.”
“So everyone thinks. I know better. I know that you spent the last ten years improving yourself, finishing college and getting your doctorate at MIT, all the while looking for a way to bring Tucker down and vindicate your father. I know how you managed to ‘liberate’ that top-secret document from the Directorate of Information Management, and how you used it to get at Tucker. He was a powerful man, and he had protected himself well. You showed enormous and varied skills setting up that operation, and then great self-possession in the aftermath of the shooting. You spun the business just right. Nobody doubted for a moment your narrative, even as you vindicated your father.”
Gideon felt sick. So this was what it was all about: blackmail. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Come, come. Your secret is safe with me regardless. We ourselves were looking for the best way to bring Tucker down. For a special client of ours, naturally. You saved us the trouble. And that’s how you came to our attention.”
Gideon could think of nothing to say.
“Earlier you asked me: why you? The fact is, we know everythingabout you, Dr. Crew. And not just your burglary skills or run-in with General Tucker. We know about your difficult childhood. About your work at Los Alamos. About your proclivity for gourmet cooking. Your fondness for Hawaiian shirts and cashmere sweaters. Your taste in jazz. Your weakness for alcohol. And — when under the influence — women. The only thing we haven’t been able to learn is how you lost the top joint of your right ring finger.” He raised the brow of his good eye quizzically.
Gideon flushed with anger, took a few deep breaths, and got himself under control.
“If you won’t answer that, perhaps you’ll answer something else: did you plan to turn Dajkovic from the beginning?”
Again Gideon said nothing. It was unbelievable, incredible.
“You have my word whatever you say will stay within these walls. We are, as you might imagine, rather good at keeping secrets.”
Gideon hesitated. The truth was, Glinn had him by the short hairs. But he sensed, behind the hard, blank façade, that the man was truthful. “All right,” he finally said. “The whole thing was planned from beginning to end. I set up the ambush knowing Tucker wouldn’t come himself—the man was a coward. I’d studied his company and the people who worked for him. I figured he’d send Dajkovic, who was fundamentally a decent guy. I knew I could catch him and hoped I could turn him. It worked. We finished the…operation together.”
Glinn nodded. “As I thought. A masterpiece of social engineering on many levels. But you made one mistake. What was it?”
“I forgot to check his boot for that damn knife.”