“Great! Let me give you my office address.”
A dry chuckle. “We’re an intelligence agency, remember? I already have it.”
The line went dead.
Gurt lowered her book. “Chinese state security?”
“Miles thinks the guy who broke in here works for them.”
Gurt turned toward him, an elbow propping up her head. “But why. ..?”
“Same question I asked Miles.”
“He is coming here, Miles?”
“So he says.”
Gurt was staring into space. “Strange. He never came back to the States the whole time I knew him. We used to tease him that he wouldn’t come back to this country because he’s knocked some woman down, made her pregnant.”
“Knock up, not down.”
“But you knock someone down, not up.”
“Too bad Miles didn’t know the difference.”
“To come here maybe he wants something.”
“Perhaps. But what?”
The question might have been answered had Lang and Gurt been privy to the phone call Miles made after hanging up.
“Ted? It’s me, Miles.”
“Hello Miles. In case I forgot to thank you, that was great paella in San Juan last week. What’s up? But remember this isn’t a secure line.”
“Glad you liked the paella. Nice thing about San Juan is there’s plenty of it, and Puerto Rico is geographically desirable for keeping an eye on the Caribbean. Speaking of which, you recall I spoke of a fishing trip?”
Ted had to think a moment to recall the remark. “ ‘Fishing around’ for a new asset, I believe is how you put it.”
“Well, I think I have a nibble.”
Law offices of Langford Reilly
11:52 two days later
Miles had changed little in the years since Lang last saw him, his wardrobe not at all. He could have stepped out of GQ. Silk foulard peeping out the breast pocket of a tailored double-breasted blazer with brass buttons bearing the seal of Princeton University, glen plaid gray wool slacks that just caressed loafers that, if you happened to be some sort of lizard, were literally to die for. A red silk tie nestled on a pinpoint oxford shirt. His hair, cut fashionably long, was parted along a streak of premature silver.
Hands clasped behind his back, he was studying the view from the floor-to-ceiling window behind Lang’s desk. Seasonal winter weather had returned. Ragged patches of dirty gray clouds smeared the window with moisture. The mist parted occasionally to allow sights of the street twenty stories below. Pedestrians concealed by umbrellas scurried back and forth to get out of the bone-chilling drizzle that lasted days at a time, uninterrupted by sunlight. Lang had to make an effort not to let the monotonous damp and chill become depressing.
“Weather’s the same, but not quite the view of the Frankfurt Bahnhof,” Miles ventured.
“Thankfully.”
Miles turned to appraise the office’s appointments: eighteenth-century mahogany partners desk with fruitwood inlay. An elaborately carved hunt table behind it served as a credenza. A pair of leather wingback chairs with the distinctive carved-claw feet of Irish Chippendale were on either side of a small Boulle commode. To the right of the desk, a Georgian breakfront showed leather-bound books through wavy, handblown glass at least two and a half centuries old. The muted reds and blues of a Kerman rug floated on the polished wood parquet floor.
Hands still behind his back, Miles moved to study a landscape on the wall facing the desk. “Reynolds?”
Lang smiled. “Good guess. School of.”
Miles waved a hand, including the entire office. “No more government issue for you! I’ve seen lesser antiques in museums. Any chance your clients have a clue what they’re looking at?”
“Probably not, but they know they’re not in the public defender’s office.”
“Ah, well, wasn’t it Shelley or Keats who observed, ‘beauty is truth, truth beauty’?”
“Keats, in ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn.’ Your Ivy League education is showing.”
“Never could keep those guys straight.” Miles helped himself to a seat in one of the wing chairs. “Well, the point is, you have these things here because you enjoy them.”
“I have these things here because I charge outrageous fees.”
Miles thought about that for a moment. “Nice to make money without risking your neck.”
Lang grinned. “Miles, you’re still with the Agency because that’s what you want to do. Which includes why you’re here today.”
“Touche.”
“Which raises the question…”
Miles cleared his throat. “I thought we might discuss it after lunch.”
“I thought we might discuss it now, in case it makes me ill.”
“Ah, Lang, where is the charm, the gracious manner of our native Southern homeland?”
Lang couldn’t suppress a chuckle. “You have it all, Miles. You want something and you know I know it.”
“Never could slip one by you, Lang.” Miles leaned forward in his chair, elbows on his knees. “In one word, Haiti.”
“Haiti?”
“You know, the western half of the island of Hispaniola. Voodoo, zombies, Papa Doc.”
“Poverty, disease, corruption. Not exactly a place Club Med would locate. I can’t imagine anything happening there that would interest anybody but hand wringers, missionaries and the other do-gooders.”
Miles was twisting the tip of his tie between his index and middle fingers, a nervous gesture Lang recalled from years ago. “Until about a month ago, we weren’t.”
“And then?”
“You recall the old SAMOS-F satellite?”
“Navy intelligence, low earth orbit. One of the first to send encrypted surveillance photos. Mostly phased out years ago.”
“That’s the one. We have a couple still functioning.”
“You’re not telling me this to demonstrate how the taxpayers’ money is being saved.”
Miles dropped the tip of his tie. “Hardly. The one I have in mind has an orbit that covered the Caribbean. Someone noticed a series of ships transiting the Panama Canal from east to west and heading from the canal to the north coast of Haiti.”
“So?”
“Since the company owned by the Chinese army has the operating contract for the canal, we monitor Panama fairly regularly. These same ships, the ones headed for Haiti, were Chinese freighters.”
“Maybe the Chinese have found a way to build a car cheap enough for the Haitians to afford it.”
“Cars aren’t crated for shipment. Whatever was unloaded was in containers.”
Lang leaned back in his chair, his hands intertwined across his stomach. “Miles, even back in the dark ages when I was still with the Agency, the resolution of the intel from satellites could distinguish a Ford from a Chevy from three hundred miles up. Whatever was in those containers should have been visible when they were unloaded.”
Miles shook his head. “Should have been. But the Haitians, or whoever was on the ground, dragged them up into the mountains. Those hills are high enough to be in the clouds. The SAMOS-F didn’t have the technology to photograph through cloud cover.”
“I’m sure it’s classified, but I’ll bet we do now.”
Miles was playing with his tie again. “Without saying we do or don’t, I can say that wherever the contents of those containers are now, they aren’t where we can see them.”
Lang pondered this a minute. “What about HUMINT, human intelligence? Surely you have someone on the ground.”
“Until now, Haiti didn’t rate more than a single full-time asset. He disappeared. We have a stringer or two but no idea how reliable they might be. So far, whatever was in those containers might as well have vanished.”
Lang stood, seeing where this was headed. “Miles, I am glad to see you, and Gurt is thrilled to join us for lunch. We’d be pleased if you could stay awhile, have you as our guest. That being said, I am not, repeat, not, going to Haiti.”
“But what makes you think-?”
Lang held up an index finger. “You make your first visit to the U.S. anyone can remember.” A second finger. “You aren’t telling me this story to pass away the time until Gurt joins us.” Third finger. “And you just got through telling me you are shit out of luck when it comes to assets already on the ground. I may have been out of the game for awhile but the rules never change: when you need assets, you get them wherever you can. Now, did I miss anything?”