“We won’t be leaving you alone. I’ll be shadowing you myself every step with the cavalry only a phone call away.” Charney waited as his second gin and tonic was set down before him. “I’m not asking you to act independently. I’m just asking you to run interference for two weeks at most, flush out the bastards who got Lube.”
“I was never good at running interference. Remember my brief football career? … You’re asking me to take a pretty big risk, Bri.”
“I can’t deny that.”
“I don’t know, old buddy, I just don’t know.”
Charney had one more argument to put forward, one he had hoped to avoid. “You weren’t born in this country, Chris.”
“I don’t make any secret of that.”
“Your father brought you over from England during World War II. Your mother, the papers said, was killed in a German blitzkrieg.”
Locke sat silent, waiting for Charney to continue.
Charney’s eyes went cold. “I know the truth. I know she was German-born and was a spy for Hitler all along. I know your father fled England in disgrace when her cover was blown.”
“Fuck off!” Locke shouted, rising.
“Sit down. I’m not finished. She walked out on you and your old man and tried to make it back to Germany. The British caught her and hanged her.”
Locke was still standing but he hadn’t gone anywhere. We completely changed our identities.”
“You can’t bury the truth, Chris. It’s always there if somebody’s willing to dig deep enough for it. You know that.”
Locke sat back down on the edge of his chair. He held his fingers taut on the table, fighting back the urge to fly across and choke the life out of the man who had been one of his two best friends. And he knew he could do it. That part of the training had never left him. Maybe none of it had. He wondered if Charney had enraged him just to illustrate that.
“Why’d you bring this up?”
“Because you owe this country something, Chris. Your mother got a lot of people killed, and some of them were Americans. Then you came over and started fresh with no hard feelings, so let’s say I’m calling in a debt.”
Locke felt the guilt swimming in his stomach like a shark — no, two sharks: one for a horrible accident that had cost a friend his hand, another for the crimes of a mother he barely knew. It was too much for him.
He tapped his fingers nervously against the table. “If I play ball with you, Bri, it’ll be to help nail the bastards who took out Lube. That’s all. I want you to know that.”
And Charney knew he had won. “Whatever you say.”
“You still haven’t given me any idea what the Luber was onto.”
“It’s sketchy. The only connection seems to be food.”
“Food?”
“He was working on the hunger conference, remember? And the village he died in was a farming community.” Charney stopped, reminding himself not to mention the massacre for fear of frightening Locke off. “He was looking at something in the fields during his last report and it scared the hell out of him. I’ll play the tape for you later.”
“And you don’t know what it was?”
Charney shook his head.
“Why don’t you go down there and find out?”
“We’re … trying.”
Locke regarded him closely. “There’s something you’re not telling me, Bri.”
“Only what it’s better for you not to know.”
“Your food connection’s a little thin.”
“It’s all we’ve got.”
“Then what exactly am I supposed to do?”
“We’ve pieced together the trail Lube took en route to Colombia. We even have an idea of the people he spoke with. We’re going to have you retrace his steps. The details and specifics can be worked out later.”
Locke’s features hardened. “But there’s one thing we’d better get straight right now. If I retrace all of the Luber’s steps, I’m gonna end up joining him by the Pearly Gates, and I don’t fancy that much. Please don’t insult me by bothering to deny that possibility exists.”
“Well …”
“So what I want is some provisions made in the event I don’t return. I want my family taken care of.”
Charney nodded. “Enough said.”
“I don’t think so. I want a treasury check in the amount of five hundred thousand dollars delivered to my lawyer in an envelope to be opened if I don’t make it back.”
“Sounds like you don’t trust me, Chris.”
“You haven’t given me much reason to.”
The club sandwiches came but neither man started his.
“I’ll take care of it this afternoon,” Charney promised. “The money will be tax-free, of course.”
“I wouldn’t have expected anything else.”
“They’ll never have to see it, Chris. You’ll be coming back.”
“I’m doing this for them, Bri, and for the Luber, not for you and whoever the hell it is you work for. I just wanted you to know that.” Locke rapped the table hard, then pulled the toothpick from the center of one of his sandwich quarters. “Now, when do I get started?”
“You leave tomorrow night for London,” Charney replied softly, pushing back the pang of guilt struggling to rise inside him.
Chapter 4
The next day was a hectic one for Locke. There were so many affairs to settle. To begin with, his passport had expired and obtaining a new one with twenty-four hours’ notice had proved impossible. Charney said he’d straighten things out. Just bring in a small picture and he’d take care of the rest.
With that behind him, Locke was left to deal with the massive Georgetown bureaucracy to obtain an emergency leave. He owed them nothing now, so he felt not the slightest compunction about taking off for two weeks in the middle of semester. If there was any regret, it was for his students. The classes would be taken by his fellows or canceled altogether.
Locke explained the leave was for medical reasons, refusing to elaborate further. He didn’t have to, as stated in the contract that come May was being yanked from under him. He smiled at them all, feeling suddenly powerful. Brian Charney could get him his job back or obtain him an even better position elsewhere.
As the day wore on, Locke found himself increasingly excited, even ecstatic. Charney was giving much in return for two weeks of his time, and Locke wasn’t worried about the danger. Risk plainly could not be much of a factor, or no government branch would allow an amateur to take the job. Charney was giving him the things he wanted most, and going after the Luber’s killers wasn’t so bad either. He could never express his sorrow and guilt when his friend was alive. Maybe he could make up for it now that he was dead.
Later in the afternoon, Locke found himself focusing on how to tell his family. Considering he hadn’t yet told them about his dismissal from Georgetown, it would all be quite a shock. But this might be good if it served to block their questions. He decided to tell Beth first and approach the kids after.
For the time being, he would say he was leaving Georgetown of his own accord, that they had made life unbearable for him there. Other offers had already come in and now he was going to Europe for two weeks to get his head straight and sort things out. He couldn’t tell his wife the entire truth. She wouldn’t understand; Locke wasn’t even sure he did.
On the way to Charney’s office in the State Department, he stopped off at his lawyer’s to learn that, incredibly, the envelope had arrived. Locke opened it, found the contents to be satisfactory, and then sealed the check in a fresh envelope along with a letter he had typed out before leaving his Georgetown office. The letter to his family was purely technical and advisory in nature, as he fully expected to return in one piece after his mission was complete.