“I went to the library and looked it up,” Lake said.
Feliks was now just a shadow with a glowing red tip in the center of his face. “I thought I could count on your loyalty.”
“I am loyal,” Lake said. “My oath is to defend the Constitution and this country from all enemies, foreign and domestic.” He remembered swearing that oath for the first time on the parade field at Annapolis so many years ago as a young seventeen-year-old plebe. Even at the Ranch, despite the cynicism and covert angle, they worked under the same oath. Or, Lake amended his thoughts, at least they were supposed to.
“The Constitution and the country,” Feliks repeated.
“Very nice. You also are legally bound to obey orders. So again, tell me all the parts you left out of your report to me.”
“I’ve told you all,” Lake said.
“You’re lying,” Feliks said. “You don’t lie well. Oh, I know you can keep your cover well and lie within the confines of a mission, but when it comes to doing it on your own, you just can’t cut it.”
“I suppose you can,” Lake shot back.
“When I feel it is necessary and serves the higher good,” Feliks said.
“Who determines the higher good?” Lake asked. He felt like he was walking on ice, pushing his foot ahead slowly and testing whether it could take his weight.
“I do, of course.” Feliks tapped the ashes off the end of his cigarette. “I take responsibility, something most people, particularly politicians, don’t want to do. Because I take responsibility, it is up to me to determine the tightness or wrongness of each course of action. Of course, it’s not as black and white as all that, but I make do.” His voice changed abruptly. “Now, I want the information you’ve withheld.”
“Why’d you have Jonas working for you?” Lake suddenly asked, taking a leap across the ice.
“The Patriot bar man who was killed?” Feliks asked.
“You just said I shouldn’t treat you as if you’re stupid,” Lake said, “so don’t act the part either. And you have no need to lie to me anymore. You know exactly who I’m talking about. I just found over a hundred thousand dollars in cash and a Ranch phone in his apartment.”
“He did occasional work for us,” Feliks said with a shrug. “He thought he was working for the CIA. Another poor fool.”
“Why wasn’t I informed of that? It was in my operational area.” Lake was seeing the ice he had jumped over cracking and sinking into darkness. He couldn’t go back now.
“You are told what you need to know to do your job. No more. Having both you and him and others reporting in ensured that I was getting the complete picture. One of the most dangerous things in my job is to trust only one source.”
Lake stared at Feliks. He’d never personally liked the old man, but Feliks had been an efficient boss who’d taken care of Lake when he’d needed help on missions. “So you’re the only one who knows all and decides what the higher good is?” Lake asked.
Feliks threw away his cigarette. “I’m wasting time with you. Even if you know more that you’ve told me it’s no longer important. The Korean trawler will be outside the harbor by two in the morning. It will be dealt with and this entire matter finally closed.”
Lake folded his arms across his chest. “What do you mean by ‘finally’? Why are you so concerned about this?”
“It’s my business to be concerned about security threats to our country,” Feliks said.
“No.” Lake shook his head. “I think it goes beyond your job and that you’re personally concerned about this matter.”
“I know much more about this then you will ever know,” Feliks said after a pause. “You really don’t understand the way things work in the real world, do you?”
Lake was tense. He kept the two guards in his peripheral vision while he stayed focused on what Feliks was saying and, just as importantly, what he wasn’t. “Why don’t you tell me?”
Feliks ticked off two fingers as he spoke. “Knowledge and the ability to make decisions. Those are the key to everything. I have both traits, which makes me a rare commodity in this world. You have neither. You’ve only known what I’ve wanted you to know. And you were given orders to carry out, which negates your ability to make decisions. So you’re nothing.”
“Then why are we having this conversation?” Lake asked.
That gave Feliks a momentary pause, then the old man smiled, his teeth glinting in the light reflected off the harbor surface. “You think you’re so damn smart, Lake. I’ve run you on ops for years and you’ve done a good job, but you can train a dog to do a good job. You don’t know shit. Yeah, I was running Jonas, but not just him. Who the hell do you think controls most of the Patriots?”
Lake stared at Feliks, listening to words he should be surprised to hear, but somehow he wasn’t. He was glad he hadn’t given up Genzai Bakudan’s location now. It was all he had to negotiate with. Of course, he didn’t think that Feliks was going to do much negotiating.
“Who was it that said,” Feliks continued, ” “Keep your friends close but your enemies closer’?”
“That’s attributed to Genghis Khan,” Lake answered.
“Don’t you think you can determine the outcome of a chess game much more easily if you play both sides, rather than just one?” Feliks continued.
“So you’ve been running the Patriots?” Lake asked.
“That’s a bit strong. Actually, it would be nice if I had them completely under my thumb, but that’s not possible. First off, we didn’t invent them. They came into being and we slid in and took up some of the reins. Enough so that we could keep a lid on them and also have a good intelligence network inside of their operation.” The smile was still on Feliks’s face. “Plus it looks rather good for us to have such a perfect record stopping their terrorist acts. It’s rather easy to stop acts that you instigate. Sort of what was done with other groups like the Black Panthers in an earlier time.”
“You’re a fucking traitor,” Lake said.
“No, that’s not true,” Feliks said. “There are always going to be people who are going to join an organization such as the Patriots, so we must allow such an organization to exist. One we know about, otherwise they will start one we don’t know about until it’s too late. Then, as a natural progression, an organization such as the Patriots is going to do something. We just make sure they do what we want them to do. We direct which way they go so that way we can control the outcome. Remember what I said, knowledge and the ability to make decisions? It works on everything.”
“The incident on the bridge? Starry and Preston? Were they working for you?”
The smile left Feliks face. “No, I didn’t set that up.”
“So your knowledge is lacking, isn’t it?”
“By tomorrow morning I’ll know everything I need to know,” Feliks said.
“You didn’t instigate that, though, so perhaps things are not only getting out of your range of knowledge, but also your range of control?” Lake pressed. “Maybe someone else has the knowledge and is making some decisions?”
“Sometimes damage control is necessary when there is an accident,” Feliks said.
“That was no accident I stopped,” Lake said. “It was a setup.”
For the first time, Feliks had no answer.
“What’s the connection between the Patriots and Genzai Bakudan?” Lake asked.
“There is none,” Feliks said.
Lake snorted. “Maybe, maybe not, but you don’t really know, do you? What else don’t you know?” Lake pushed on. “You can’t very well make your great decisions without these pieces of knowledge, can you? That’s why you want what I know.”
“You should be more concerned about what you don’t know,” Feliks said with a trace of anger in his voice. “So what don’t I know here?” Lake asked.