“Good to see you, Bri,” Locke said, trying to mean it.
Charney took his extended hand with a faint smile. “You too, Chris. It’s been a while.”
Silently both men took their seats.
“I hope the table is to your liking,” Charney opened. “I figured we could use the privacy.”
“You arranged it?” Locke said, not bothering to hide his surprise. “You must pull some weight here. Government’s been good to you, Bri. What is it, still CIA?”
“Hasn’t been for years,” Charney said.
“But you told me—”
“I never told you anything. I just nodded and made lots of evasive answers. You drew your own conclusions.”
“So who do you work for?”
“It’s too complicated to explain. I’m sort of a liaison between the State Department and various tiers of intelligence. The Company is one of them. Basically, I’m just a simple bureaucrat.”
“Simple bureaucrats don’t get corner tables reserved for them in The Tombs.”
“This is the city of bureaucracy, remember?”
A waitress came over and took their drink orders. A Perrier with a twist for Locke, gin and tonic for Charney.
“So how are you doing?” Charney asked.
“You want the truth, Bri?” And suddenly their souls touched like best friends again and Locke felt his guts starting to spill. “Things aren’t too good and that’s an understatement. I’ve got two kids I don’t even know and a wife I have to get to show me a house if I need to talk to her. I’ve got two novels boxed in a closet and that’s probably as much circulation as they’re ever gonna get, not to mention the fact that I’m not exactly on best terms with the Georgetown administration.” Locke held the truth of his dismissal back. Admitting failure in his personal life came easier than admitting failure of a professional nature to someone of Charney’s status. “There’s something wonderful about passing into the great decade of your forties, Bri. For the first time you realize you can’t go back and start all over but that doesn’t stop you from trying; not me anyway.”
“It’s called a midlife crisis,” Charney said lightly.
“Screw that. My midlife crisis started when I was twenty-five. This is worse.”
Locke said that with a smile and Charney smiled back slightly. This was still the same person who had been his best friend in college. They shared both a room and their lives. Charney had thought he’d be able to put all that behind him. After all, twenty years had passed and all the change that went with them. Essentially, though, the two of them hadn’t changed. They were still the same people at the core, and that would make his mandate all the more difficult. Charney had sent men to their death before but never a friend.
“I know about the tenure review board,” he said suddenly, seizing the advantage. He had to take charge now if he was going to go through with it.
“You what?” Locke exclaimed.
“I read their complete report last night.”
“It’s supposed to be confidential.”
“And it is.”
“Yet you read it.”
“The need was there. Need overrides confidentiality.”
“Speak English, Bri. This is about to become the shortest lunch ever.”
The waitress arrived with their drinks.
“This isn’t a social call,” Charney told Locke, sipping his gin and tonic.
“I’m beginning to get that impression.”
“I need your help, Chris, and in return I think I can help you.”
“You’ve piqued my interest. Please continue.”
“The Luber’s dead.”
Locke’s mouth dropped. He felt a numbness in his brain. The glass almost slipped from his fingers but he recovered in time to place it on the table. He wanted to say something but there were no words. The grim finality of Charney’s statement had shattered any possible response.
“He was killed last weekend,” Charney elaborated.
“How?”
“We’re not sure.”
“Eliminated in the course of duty?”
“That’s the indication.”
“Where?”
“Colombia. That’s South America, not District of.”
“Oh, God.” Locke ran his hands over his face, letting the light of The Tombs back in slowly. “Why there?”
“Why not? It would have probably been his last assignment in the field.”
“The Luber wouldn’t retire.”
“We were retiring him,” Charney said.
“I can’t believe it….”
“He was the same age as you, Chris. Think back to what you just said to me about your life; all the questions, all the doubts. You’re starting to see shadows. So was Lube. Only in our business, shadows will get you killed, sometimes other people too. It was in the training, Chris,” Charney noted, meeting Locke’s eyes and understating his words just enough. “We went thought it together, the three of us.”
“Lube must not have learned that lesson very well.”
“No,” Charney said without hesitating. “He just couldn’t accept it in his own case. He knew what was coming and wanted to prove us wrong. The easy life in the sun wasn’t for him, never was. He latched on to something and followed a trail. It led him to something big, all right, but he never got the chance to tell us precisely what.”
“Why are you telling me all this? I assume it’s classified stuff and a man in your position wouldn’t just be exorcising guilt.”
“I want you to take his place.”
Locke was thrown back. “You’re kidding!”
“Hardly. We think whatever the Luber was on to has something to do with the World Hunger Conference, which is scheduled to start in thirteen days. That doesn’t give us much time. They’ll cover the trail if we send out the pros. I think—we think — you could slip by them.”
“Because I spent six glorious months at the Academy?”
“Because you’ve got a personal interest. Because Lube was your best friend. Because you … owe him.”
Locke flinched, stung by the comment. His face reddened. From somewhere down deep came a memory of the Luber pulling him from a crevice in the earth as the sides squeezed together, threatening to crush him.
“If you’re trying to make me mad, you’re doing a pretty damn good job of it” was all he said.
“I’m trying to make you anything that will convince you to help us.”
The waitress returned and took their luncheon orders: two Tombs special turkey clubs, though neither man felt much like eating. Charney opted for another gin and tonic.
“Lots of tonic this time,” he instructed. Then, back to Locke: “We wouldn’t expect you to work for nothing, of course.”
“Can you put my life back together for me?”
“Professionally I think we can. We could promise you a tenured position at the university of your choice.”
“That’s quite a piece of work.”
“There’s more, Chris. Those two novels you’ve got closeted — there are several hardcover publishers that would be glad to bring them out with large advances and a substantial sum up front for two more.”
“You’re trying to buy me, Bri.”
“Who’s kidding whom now, Chris? What person isn’t bought, hasn’t sold out in one way or another? It’s part of life. But there are levels of everything. I’m talking about helping you get your dream back.”
“You didn’t say ‘we’ that time.”
“I still have personal initiative.”
“And apparently a great deal of power.”
“It’s all in knowing how to use it.”
“That must have been the part of the training I missed.” Locke hesitated, suddenly unsure. “How much else did I miss, Bri? How in the hell am I supposed to remember anything after twenty years?”