-
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"
"Right, they'll scratch their heads and wonder who the hell he is.
"
Julia said, "There's no clue as to his real identity. They'll have a body, a
fak e
ID, but no family, no friends, no address, no job, nothing. They'll bury hi m
like a pauper and keep the file open for a year. Then they'll close it.
"
"That's not our problem," Teddy said. "We're not doing the killing.
"
"Right," said Lucat. "It'll be a bit messier in the city, but the boy likes t
o wander the streets. They'll get him. Maybe a car will hit him. The Italian s
drive like hell, you know.
"
"It won't be that difficult, will it?
"
"I wouldn't think so.
"
"And what are our chances of knowing when it happens?" Teddy asked
.
Lucat scratched his beard and looked across the table at Julia, who wa s
biting a nail and looking over at Hoby, who was stirring green tea with a
plastic stick. Lucat finally said, "I'd say fifty-fifty, at the scene anyway
.
We'll be watching twenty-four/seven, but the people who'll take him out wil l
be the best of the best. There may be no witnesses.
"
Julia added, "Our best chance will be later, a few weeks after they bury th e
pauper. We have good people in place. We'll listen closely. I think we'll hea
r it later.
"
Lucat said, "As always, when we're not pulling the trigger, there's a chanc e
we won't know for sure.
"
"We cannot screw this up, understand? It'll be nice to know that Backman i s
dead-God knows he deserves it-but the goal of the o p
eration is to see who kills him," Teddy said as his white wrinkled hand s
slowly lifted a paper cup of green tea to his mouth. He slurped it loudly
, crudely
.
Maybe it was time for the old man to fade away in a retirement home
.
"I'm reasonably confident," Lucat said. Hoby wrote that down
.
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"If we leak it now, how long before he's dead?" Teddy asked
.
Lucat shrugged and looked away as he pondered the question. Julia wa s chewing
another nail. "It depends," she said cautiously. "If the Israelis move
, it could happen in a week. The Chinese are usually slower. The Saudis wil l
probably hire a freelance agent; it could take a month to get one on th e
ground.
"
"The Russians could do it in a week," Lucat added
.
"I won't be here when it happens," Teddy said sadly. "And no one on thi s side
of the Atlantic will ever know. Promise me you'll give me a call.
"
"This is the green light?" Lucat asked
.
"Yes. Careful how you leak it, though. All hunters must be given an equa l
chance at the prey.
"
They gave Teddy their final farewells and left his office. At nine-thirty
, Hoby pushed him into the hall and to the elevator. They rode down eigh t
levels to the basement where the bulletproof white vans were waiting for hi s
last trip to the White House
.
The meeting was brief. Dan Sandberg was sitting at his desk at the Pos t when
it began in the Oval Office a few minutes after ten. And he hadn'
t moved twenty minutes later when the call came from Rusty Lowell. "It'
s over," he said
.
"What happened?" Sandberg asked, already pecking at his keyboard
.
"As scripted. The President wanted to know about Backman. Tedd y wouldn't
budge. The President said he was entitled to know everything
.
Teddy agreed but said the information was going to be abused for politica l
purposes and it would compromise a sensitive operation. They argue d briefly.
Teddy got himself fired. Just like I told you.
"
"Wow.
"
"The White House is making an announcement in five minutes. You might want to
watch." As always, the spin began immediately. The somber-faced press
secretary announced that the President had decided to "pursue a fresher course
with our intelligence operations." He praised Director Maynard for his
legendary leadership and seemed downright saddened by the prospect of having
to find his successor. The first question, shot from the front row, was
whether
Maynard resigned or had been fired. "The President and Director Maynard
reached a mutual understanding." "What does that mean?" "Just what I said."
And so it went for thirty minutes. Sandberg's front-page story the following
morning dropped two bombs. It began with the definite confirmation that
Maynard had been fired after he refused to divulge sensitive information for
what he deemed to be raw political purposes. There was no resignation, no [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] - zanotowane.pl
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