“You mean Mata Hari, don’t you?”
“Her too.”
“Are you coming back to work?”
“In the fullness of time, Mandy. Can’t you see I’m in mourning?”
“Laura wouldn’t want to see you like this.”
“Don’t you kid yourself. Laura was a cool hand with the Bolly herself. I recall a New Year’s Eve party in Chicago where she was inspired to do a rather memorable striptease on the bar of the Nikko; management was very exercised about it. God she had wonderful legs. And all those present agreed that her breasts were splendid. Both of them, although I tended to prefer the one on the right. Her right, not mine. I named them, you know? Muffin and Scooter. Scooter was the other one. God bless them both. I find it odd that women do not generally make it a practice to name their naughty bits. I mean, consider the possibilities. Not too late for you, dear. Have you ever—”
“No. I haven’t.”
“Didn’t think so. Would you like to know the name of my—”
“No, I would not.”
“You’re sure? It’s quite clever. A play on the Gaelic word for—”
“Very sure.”
“Well then, as Marcel Proust once remarked, Où sont les meubles de ma tante? Here’s to the remembrance of things past. Here’s to Muffin and Scooter, lost and gone forever. Where’s my drink?”
Mandy raised the coffee.
He took it with a sigh. “I see the forces of moral improvement are upon us. How may I assist you to the door, sweetheart? Or would you prefer a window? I have several, all of them offering speedy access to the cobbles that lie beneath.”
Mandy, ignoring him, was unpacking what looked to be company files from a battered cardboard box. She set them down in front of Dalton and placed a small stainless-steel laptop computer on top of the files.
He drank some coffee while she did this, staring dully at the files and thinking that they looked familiar. “This stuff is from Porter’s desk at Burke and Single.”
“Correct,” said Mandy, looking at him with her head tilted to one side, her expression unreadable, guarded.
“What are you doing with it? We’re not allowed to bring that stuff home.”
“Did you love Porter, Micah?”
Dalton blinked at her. Her dark eyes were fixed on his.
“Love Porter? Love’s a big word—”
“I did.”
“I know, Mandy — it’s a damn—”
“We were lovers. You understand? Micah, try to concentrate.”
“Lovers? You and Porter?”
“Yes. For years.”
Dalton set the coffee cup down and rubbed his face, trying to clear his head. Mandy refilled his cup and watched him in silence.
“Okay. Lovers. Yes, well that’s… that’s fine. I’m glad.”
“I’m glad you’re glad. That’s not the point. All of this stuff is supposed to go to Jack Stallworth by the diplomatic pouch.”
“When?”
She looked at the clock on the wall of the kitchen. “About two hours ago.”
“You didn’t send it?”
“No. Micah, are you functioning yet?”
“I’m getting there.”
“So did you love Porter?”
He looked at her carefully for a while. “Yes. I guess I did. He was a fine man—”
“I need your help. I can’t send this to Langley until I get it.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“You asked me to turn Porter’s life upside down. Remember? In the bathroom at Porter’s house?”
“Yes. I do.”
She handed Dalton a dark blue business envelope. His name was written on the envelope. In the upper left corner were the letters PN.
“It was in my lingerie drawer. In my flat. Taped to the back of the drawer. It’s been there for a while, I think.”
Dalton held the envelope under the downlight from a halogen, tapped it against his palm. “What’s this about, Mandy. You’re dead serious, aren’t you?”
“I am. Look at this.”
She showed him a page of numbers.
He blinked down at it. “Numbers are not my strong suit.”
“This is one of the Burke and Single accounts that Porter was handling. Five years ago a lot of funds started to move out of this account. I haven’t been able to trace all of it, but nine point seven million dollars went to the purchase of a ship. A cruise ship.”
“Nine million dollars?”
“Yes. A French ship, fitted out as a hospital ship — originally La Celestine, based in the Philippines. She was reflagged under a Tongan registry and renamed the Orpheus.”
“Who owns her?”
“No idea.”
“Are you suggesting that Porter has been using Burke and Single funds to pay for a French hospital ship? And why would he, anyway? What would Naumann want with a cruise ship? Mandy, this is just paranoid bullshit. There has to be—”
“Open the envelope, Micah.”
“You’ve already read it, haven’t you?”
“Yes.”
He peeled the cover back and extracted a satellite photo of two ships, one white and one matte gray, moored very close together, somewhere at sea, and a single pale blue sheet.
— February 17 2005 — Osama Hassan Nasr — Milan disappeared — whereabouts unknown
— February 13 2005 Orpheus moored off Venice
— March 19 2006 — Hamidullah Kadhr — killed in crash of private plane off Cagayan de Oro in Mindanao — no wreckage found —
— March 21 2006 Orpheus docks in Guam
— September 8 2006 — Aphostikos Sidheros — plane drops off radar en route to Rhodes
— September 15 2006 Orpheus off coast of Naxos
— June 10 2007 — Musaf Ali Mabri — Deputy Chief Pakistani Intelligence Agency — dies in crash of light plane while vacationing in Alexandria
— June 5 2007 Orpheus seen off Cyprus
— photo: NRO Condor Six — Orpheus in International Waters off coast of Ireland, being refueled by MT Montauk Tanker —
August 11 2007 0923 hours
Dalton looked at the satellite shot again; digitally enhanced, the shot showed two long ships, surrounded by very heavy seas — one a white-painted cruise ship and the other a long wide-bodied tanker — with a boom slung between and some kind of heavy cable, or a fuel pipe, stretched between them.
“I looked up the MT Montauk, Micah. It’s leased to Sea Lift Command. It’s a shallow-draft tanker capable of mounting what’s called ‘under-way refueling,’ operated by the Defense Department. And here it is linked to a ‘private ship’ a hundred miles off the coast of Ireland. What does all this look like to you?”
Dalton rubbed his forehead, fighting a headache. “It looks like… what’s the word?”
“Extraordinary rendition.”
“Yes. It looks like we’re arranging the crash—”
“Or faking the boarding in the first place—”
“—of various light planes in order to cover the kidnapping of these men. I know the first guy here—”
“Osama Moustaka Hassan Nasr,” said Mandy. “He’s a terrorist.”
“Yeah. He was scooped by one of our ER teams, right off the street in Milan. Some Italian prosecutor has indicted thirteen of our guys for it, or tried to. Hamidullah Kadhr is an al Qaeda computer tech. If we actually have him alive that’s a very good thing.”
“Especially if al Qaeda thinks he died in a plane crash.”
“Aphostikos Sidheros. We know he was funneling money to the Chechens. And this guy Musaf Ali Mabri, second in command of the Pakistani Intelligence Agency. Half of the Pakistani intel units are al Qaeda sympathizers. He’s one. Christ, this is a beautiful operation!”