“Yeah,” Piper answered
“Wasn’t…?” Young raised his thin blond eyebrows into a question.
“That’s my point,” said Piper with a nod of his head.
“Wasn’t what?” asked Jennifer, looking from Young to Piper and then back again.
“Wasn’t the president the director of the CIA back then,” Corbett said tonelessly.
“Good God.” Green had gone an even deeper shade of red than normal.
“You can imagine the diplomatic shit storm if this gets out. He wouldn’t survive. I doubt many of us would.” Piper made eye contact with every person around the table, even Jennifer. “I can’t allow that to happen.”
For the first time, Jennifer saw a flicker of fear in Piper’s eyes. His family had bet big on the president winning the election and Piper was already reaping the benefits. Now, he was faced with the possibility of it all crumbling away underneath him.
“So what are you suggesting?” asked Green. “That we just drop the whole thing.”
“No, of course not.” Piper shook his head emphatically. “We can’t just drop a criminal investigation. Not without making the situation a whole lot worse. I’m just saying we gotta be real careful. If the coins lead to Kirk, then Kirk could be traced back to Centaur. We need to find a way to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
“So what are you suggesting?” Corbett insisted.
“That we offer Kirk some sort of deal. Return the four coins he still has, tell us who commissioned the theft, and promise to keep his mouth shut and we’ll wipe his file clean and forgive what he did to us ten years ago. From then on, as far as we’re concerned, Thomas Duval or Kirk or whatever he wants to call himself never existed. The whole issue of the president’s involvement just won’t come up.”
“Think he’ll go for it?” Green asked skeptically.
“Kirk plays the percentages. Always has. He must have spent every day for the past ten years wondering if the next knock at his door was going to be us finally catching up with him. This is a onetime offer to start over. Yeah, he’ll go for it.”
“Well, it sure works for me,” Young confirmed with a nod and a smack of gum against teeth. “This way, everyone wins. This administration’s looking good for a second term. Ah don’t want to be the guy who screws that up.”
“Then there’s no time to lose, Mr. Secretary,” said Corbett, his voice strained and urgent. “We recovered one coin by chance. The longer we leave it, the harder the others will be to track down. We need to get someone over to London to get Kirk on board.”
“Agreed.” Young nodded. “Who do you have in mind?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
As the plane taxied out to the runway, Jennifer settled back into her seat and closed her eyes. She had a long flight ahead and knew she ought to try and get some sleep, but her mind was racing. The moment that Corbett had suggested to Young that she be the person sent to strike a deal with Kirk kept coming back into her head.
“We should send Agent Browne, Mr. Secretary.”
There had been a moment’s silence before Piper had punctured it with a hollow laugh. Jennifer had been tempted to join in but the look on Corbett’s face had told her he was deadly serious.
“Browne. I don’t think so.”
“Why not?” Corbett fired back.
“You want me to spell it out?”
“If you’ve got something to say, then I think we should all hear it.”
Piper swallowed and his eyes had flicked to Jennifer’s and then down to the table before he answered.
“We all know what happened three years ago.” He tapped his finger on one of the three files spread out in front of him. Straining to read their covers upside down, Jennifer could just about make out her name on one of them. Clearly Piper had done his homework. “We need someone we can rely on. Someone who won’t crack under pressure. We can’t take the risk of another… accident. There’s too much riding on this.”
“Mr. Secretary,” Corbett snorted. “We also all know that the inquiry into the shooting that Browne was involved in absolved her of any blame. Her performance since then, and in this investigation in particular, has been faultless.”
“It’s too much of a risk,” Piper insisted. “She’s too inexperienced.”
Jennifer willed herself not to blurt out something she might regret, although it was against every instinct she had to let Corbett fight her corner for her.
“Besides,” Piper continued, “this is Agency business, nothing to do with the FBI.”
“My view, Mr. Secretary,” said Corbett, again ignoring Piper and speaking directly to Young, “is that tactically it would be better to adopt a low-key approach. We want to win Kirk over, not scare him. Using the FBI shows that our focus is on the Fort Knox robbery, not his past misdemeanors. Using Agency personnel might suggest a broader agenda and link back to Centaur. I maintain that Browne would do an excellent job.”
“Jack?” Young nodded toward Green.
“If Bob’s happy, that’s good enough for me,” Green said, shrugging.
Young suddenly turned to Jennifer, his question startling her.
“What do you think, Agent Browne?”
“I… I think that Mr. Piper’s right,” Jennifer said slowly, measuring her words carefully. “I made a mistake and somebody died and that’s something I’m going to have to live with for the rest of my life. But I’m a good agent, sir. I get results.” She threw Piper a defiant look. “You put me out there and you won’t be disappointed because I’m not a quitter. I’m a fighter.”
“Ah do believe you are.” Young turned toward Jennifer, stretched out his hand, and smiled for the first time since she had been in the room. “Make us proud, Agent Browne.”
With a final lurch the plane leapt into the air, breaking into her thoughts, and she shifted uncomfortably in her seat, gripping the armrests with both hands as the customary wave of panic washed over her. It was funny; this was the sort of chance she’d been dreaming about, fighting for these last few years, and now that she had it, she felt almost as apprehensive as she was excited. It was a big chance and she couldn’t afford to screw it up.
Kirk’s file was on her lap and was primarily made up of pooled intelligence reports from Interpol and various national police forces. Overall, it was pretty sketchy. Rumors of jobs he’d done, details of people he had allegedly worked for or with, but nothing certain. From one perspective it all added up to nothing, a flimsy web of innuendo, half-truths, and gossip that collapsed as soon as it was subjected to any form of detailed scrutiny.
And yet from another perspective, when viewed as a whole, it all knitted together to form the damning and compelling biography of a master criminal, a true professional, who used a choking glut of misinformation to shroud his movements and cloud the judgment of his adversaries. But how to separate the fact from the fiction, the myth from the man, when a constant haze of rumor and suspicion dogged his every step?
Corbett, though, was trying to set up a meeting with somebody he thought might help cut through the fog. Someone who’d cooperated with him before on a previous case. Her mind reached for his name. Harry something. Harry Renquist? No, Harry Renwick, that was it. According to Corbett, not only was he a coin expert who could help with the case, but as Piper had confirmed, he also happened to know Kirk well through having worked with his father. If Corbett could try and engineer a meeting between them all, it would be a chance to confront Kirk on home turf and hopefully catch him off his guard. He certainly wouldn’t see that one coming. She smiled at the thought.