Oberon broke first. “I need to know what I’m buying.”
“I understand you sent that MiG on the mission in the first place,” the colonel said. “So if anyone knows what was onboard, it’s you.”
Silence again.
“Assuming you’re correct,” the little man said, “why wouldn’t I just send some of my own men to take what should be mine in the first place? Or maybe we already got what was there years ago.”
Now the colonel smiled. He had him. The colonel did play chess. Had been the Air Force Academy champion for three years. “But you haven’t. Your men failed to retrieve…the item, back in eighty-six. The location was only known by your men back then, who failed to relay it back to you.” He was bluffing now. “And your superiors called off the mission, deciding to let it go.”
“Superiors? I had a bunch of dolts who ran the First Chief Directorate back then. Glasnost. Perestroika. What the hell was that all about?”
Colonel Reed hunched his shoulders.
Oberon continued, “What makes you think Jake Adams will find anything in that Arctic wasteland? I understand he’s a drunk now.”
The colonel tightened his jaw. “He has personal reasons.”
The little man laughed. “You mean Captain Olson?”
Damn it. Did this man know everything?
“Your men killed him.” Another guess.
“Maybe he’s alive,” Oberon said. “Took what was ours.”
What the hell was he talking about? Remember, he had been in charge of the disinformation department. He was playing him. If the captain had lived, he would have turned over whatever the Soviets had been up to at the time. There would have been no other reason not to do so.
“Will you buy what we find?” the colonel asked again.
The little man shifted his head to the side and said, “You find something, you give me a call. Then we’ll talk. You can’t sell what you don’t have.” His eyes shifted toward the outside window. “Get down.”
As he said it, the colonel looked at the window as he dove toward the floor.
Bullets crashed through the glass and sprayed the wall where they had both been sitting. People screamed and scattered.
The colonel looked up over a table, but the shooter was gone. As fast as he had shown he was gone. On his knees now, Colonel Reed scanned the recovering patrons. But Oberon, Victor Petrova, was nowhere to be seen. He had vanished.
After Jimmy McLean got a call from his little friend, Gary Dixon, around noon, telling him he was going to Aberdeen to meet with his contact in person, McLean had told the guy to call him as soon as he had more information. McLean had gotten a call shortly after from his people, saying Dixon was on the move — not to the north in the direction of Aberdeen, but to the west toward Glasgow.
Now, just after the supper hour, McLean pulled his Rover to the curb in a nasty little neighborhood a dozen blocks southeast of the city center. Litter was strewn about the street. Graffiti plastered upon brick walls. Among all the chaos of this rundown enclave, written in large red letters on a white background on a poster on a beat up bus stop shelter, was the phrase ‘Love Something.’ Government do-gooder, McLean guessed. Hopeful thinking in this neighborhood.
He checked the address one more time to make sure it was correct. Then called his contact to verify Dixon was still there. He was. He hadn’t moved.
McLean got out and walked toward the apartment building. This dwarf was starting to piss him off. They had gotten a vague confirmation of chatter similar to what Dixon was trying to sell him. Something was going down in Norway. But nobody was sure of the details.
Inside, McLean checked the mail boxes. There were only six apartments. Three down and three on the second level. Which one? Looking at the first door down the hall, he smiled. He pulled a device from his pocket and put it up to the peep hole. The reverse peep-hole viewer allowed him to look inside the apartment, which contained an older couple watching the news. The next two were empty.
He quietly went upstairs. About to use the viewer again, he realized he didn’t need to do so. The peep hole was around crotch level. What were the odds of…
Getting to his knees and placing the viewer over the hole, he saw his little friend scurry across from one side of the room to the next. The lock was a piece of crap. In less than thirty seconds he had it unlocked, and with a quick shove he was inside.
Dixon’s eyes got big when he saw McLean enter. The little guy’s legs shuffled toward the kitchen, but McLean caught him by the scruff of the neck and pulled him back into the living room.
“What the hell,” Dixon yelled.
McLean threw him onto a battered and torn sofa and loomed over the man. “This doesn’t look like Aberdeen.”
“I had to stop by here and knock one off with the old lady. I’m a little guy but I got big needs.”
McLean glanced about the room and saw that everything there was feminine. Flower pillows, dainty doilies, a knock off tiffany lamp. “I thought you might be a little light in the loafers.”
“This coming from a guy who frequently wears a dress?”
“It’s my clan kilt you fugly troll.”
“Jesus. Back to the short jokes.”
He felt like pummeling this little dwarf. But he needed him.
“How’d you find me anyway?” Dixon asked, genuinely confused.
“We have our ways, Gary. But I’m guessing your contact, if there is a contact, is not in Aberdeen. You’re gonna take me to him now. Let’s go.” He waved his hand toward the door.
Dixon hesitated and then shoved his short legs over the side of the couch and hit the floor. “All right. All right. You got me, big guy. I was gonna call ya.”
“Sure.”
They left and went down to McLean’s Rover.
Settled into the passenger seat, Dixon said, “Nice ride. Leather seats for MI-5? You must be a big shot there.”
“This is my private auto,” McLean said, cranking it over and pulling out onto the deserted street. “Nice neighborhood.”
“Hey, my people have been repressed since the beginning of time. Can’t get a decent job. Can’t get a nice place without that. Everyone tries their best to keep the little guy down.”
“But you’re not a tiny bit bitter.”
“Screw you.”
McLean drove nowhere slow.
“You gonna tell me where to go?” McLean asked.
Dixon smiled.
“Better yet. Give me directions to your friend’s place.”
“He’s got a kiosk down in The Barras.”
Great. The Barras was a market in Glasgow where one could get just about anything, including mugged. Kiosks and booths lined the streets, which had been closed off. Many of the items were of questionable legality. It took them a half hour to get there.
McLean got out, made sure his wallet was securely buttoned into his back pocket, and checked his gun under his left arm. A comfort. For every step he took, Dixon took four.
They found the kiosk, which sold everything from Scottish trinkets to Troll dolls. McLean noticed he even had his clan crest on key rings and coffee mugs. The man behind the counter was much older than Dixon, but around the same height. Only this guy’s gut was bigger than his head. He had built a ledge that ran the length of the booth, putting him close to McLean’s level.
“This is the guy,” the kiosk man said. His voice came out like it traveled across broken glass.
“Yeah,” Dixon said. “Tell him what you told me.”
“What about a little consideration?”
“So, you want me to pay you by the inch? Or the quality of the information?”
“You were right, Gary. He’s pretty funny for a big guy.”
McLean glanced around and finally pulled out a combo cell phone slash PDA, caught a signal, touched in a figure, and closed the browser. “There. I just transferred some money to Dixon’s bank account.”