She was indeed tall, almost exactly his own height, but he was fascinated by her face. In profile, she reminded him of a Roman cameo: up swept hair, pronounced high cheekbones framing extraordinary green eyes, full, slightly parted lips.
Her expression was serene, almost regal, enhanced by the composure of a woman who knows she is attractive. She appeared to be in her early forties, and she had an attractive figure, which her workaday clothes did little to flatter. When he finally realized she was looking back at him, her eyes held the barest hint of a smile. He felt himself blushing a little. “Shall we go inside, Mr. Stafford?” ‘
At the agreed time, Carson placed a call to Tangent at the 800 number.
“This is Tangent.”
“Carson.”
“Right. We are ready to proceed.”
Carson stopped to think out what he was going to say. An 800 number from a pay phone would be hard to tap and trace, but not impossible. They both understood that it was prudent to speak somewhat in code.
“All right,” Carson replied. “Do you have a proposed date?”
“We do. This coming Sunday. Time at your convenience.”
“That’ll work. How about here at the DRMO? Say after nine P. M.?”
This tune it was Tangent who hesitated. “I don’t know — // if that will work. We were thinking somewhere off federal property.”
Dammit, Carson thought “But here in Atlanta?”
“Oh, yes. Our pickup team is prepared to go anywhere you want in Atlanta. Within reason, of course.”
Pickup team. An image of the drug deal in a parking lot flashed through his mind again. “All right,” he said. “But I was proposing here at the DRMO so that the item doesn’t have to be moved. For obvious reasons, I should think.”
Another hesitation. “Yes. We understand. Let me speak to my principals.
How do you want the payment?”
“In cash.”
“That’s available. But you might want to think about other forms of value. That amount in cash is a lot of paper. Don’t mistake me — we can and will do that. But there are other possible modalities.”
“Such as?”
“Such as diamonds. Purchased by us from a jeweler of your choice. He authenticates their value for you and holds them as trusted agent. We get the item; it’s what you say it is, you go get the diamonds. Just as good as cash, if not better. And much easier to conceal. We’re talking twenty top-quality stones.”
Carson knew absolutely nothing about diamonds. “Let me think about that,” he said. “I’m … I’m nervous about all this. This is a lot of money.”
“I understand.”
“I mean, everything up to now has been some cash hi an envelope. Money by mail. But this—”
“I.understand. For a million, you’re afraid we might stiff you. But consider this: We stiff you, you can always go public. Yes, you’d be in trouble, but if it got out that there was a cylinder of this stuff loose in the arms market, we’d be unable to sell it. It would become a useless, dangerous liability. Surely you understand that we’re going to make more than we’re paying you for this thing. I’ll be honest with you: What you’re getting is the ultimate client’s deposit money, okay? But it’s not our money, so we have no motive to mess around with this deal.
More importantly, the whole thing has to remain secret. Optimally, the Army won’t even know it’s missing, and no one else can know it’s moving through clandestine commercial channels.
That’s also your protection.”
“Yes, I suppose,” Carson said, not wanting even to mention the obvious: They could take the cylinder and kill him, and maintain their precious secrecy. Tangent seemed to read his thoughts.
“And you could always preposition something that could be released to the public in the event something happened to you. We’re assuming you will have done that. Look, Carson, we’ve been doing business for a long time. Good business. Smart business. Low-level, intermittent, nothing to attract auditors. Yes, this is a lot of money. But it’s potentially a hell of score for us, too. And we know this is a onetime deal. Hell, we could both retire, you know? So we have no motivation to screw around here. You know you can’t move it by yourself. You can’t even destroy it.
Where would you dispose of something like that?”
“That’s true.” Actually, that isn’t true, he thought. There’s always the Monster. The real question is, Why would I ever want to destroy it?
“So think about those payment terms, and get back to me in, say, twenty-four hours. We’ll evaluate the DRMO as the place to do the deed.
Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Now, second item — Stafford. Our sources tell us he is who he says he is, but the real reason he’s down there has very little to do with any auction scams or even with DRMOs.”
“That sounds like good news.”
“It is. He’s been shit-canned. Thrown out of Washington. He’s a damned whistle-blower. Got some Senior Executive Service guy in the DCIS up on charges, and then got a senior FBI guy in the shit, too. Now he’s a pariah in the DCIS. He may make it sound like he’s on some big deal case, but he isn’t. We’ll need to be circumspect, of course, but our information is that he’s not a player.”
“That is good news.”
“Yes, we think so. This is a guy whose world is imploding. His wife left him when all the shit started over the whistle-blowing. Divorced his sorry ass and ran off with some Air Force colonel. And in the middle of that, he was getting gas one night in some minimart. Unbeknownst to him, two of Washington’s upstanding citizens were doing a smash-and-grab. He took a stray round in the arm.”
“Yeah, that’s him; he’s basically one-armed. Keeps his right hand in his suit pocket all the time.”
“Right, that’s the guy, then. He supposedly started drinking big-time, but our source wasn’t sure if he was still on the sauce. Hell, after all that, I’d be drinking like a fish. Anyway, be polite, bury him in cooperation and bureaucratic bullshit, but let’s proceed. I’ve gotta go.
Let’s talk same time tomorrow, okay? Think about how we’re going to do this thing.” “Okay,” Carson said, feeling much better already.
“Here’s the new eight hundred number,” Tangent said.
Carson wrote it down, hung up, and walked back to his car. Everything Tangent had said made sense, and it confirmed his own judgment about Stafford. He could forget Investigator Stafford. Truth was, it wasn’t Stafford he was worried about; it was Tangent and that royal “we” he used all the time. He realized now that he knew absolutely nothing about Tangent other than a constantly changing 800 number and his voice. And several years of reliable cash, he reminded himself.
But this deal was for a million dollars, which upped the stakes considerably. So now he had to think in detail about how tp do it. As he left the pay phone, he felt a return of that fluttery feeling, a sense that what he was up to was perhaps getting away from him. By the time he got back to his office, his secretary had returned from lunch. He asked her where Mr. Stafford was. She said he had left a message that he would be out for the day. Back tomorrow afternoon. He thought about that. Now what was that guy up to? On the other hand, he thought, why should I give a shit?
15
General Waddell shut the door behind them as he escorted Colonel Fuller into his private office. They had just come from the first meeting of the newly formed Security Working Group. Carrothers had come up with the name, saying they needed something that would point directly away from the real focus of the task force. Colonel Fuller, an old friend of General Waddell, had been appointed chairman of the task force.