Kevern didn’t waste any time moving on the information Bern had given him. First, he introduced Bern to the other three people in his unit. The whole tenor of the operation had changed on a dime, and now Bern needed to start feeling as if he could depend on these people, that he was tied to them, that he was no longer out there working alone.
Then Kevern immediately called Mondragon and told him to stand down. “Just hold off doing anything until I get in touch with you again,” Kevern said. “I’ll explain everything later.”
Kevern was pumped way past any operational high that he had ever experienced, except in a life-threatening situation. But he had his enthusiasm well under control. It wasn’t hard to do. Things weren’t rosy by any means. Bern’s account of the events of the last twelve hours revealed the best and the worst thing that could have happened. A defection by someone of Ghazi Baida’s stature would be the crowning achievement of a career. A huge, huge coup, one that would wash over a lot of past sins.
On the other hand, Susana’s disappearance was a potential disaster. If she was killed, the blowback could create a shit storm in any number of different directions. Baida’s defection would have to be judged in light of the loss of a highly trained clandestine operative. Somebody would have to pay for a loss like that.
In Kevern’s mind, however, Baida’s defection, if Kevern could pull it off, would wash away the other disasters, if they didn’t develop into anything monstrous. But if he couldn’t make it work, this was the end of his life. So, in for the bet, in for the pot: He decided not to call Richard Gordon about any of this. He would play it out a little way first, see where it was going, see what his chances were for redemption.
A lot would depend on the continuing success of the long-shot role of Paul Bern. Kevern had passed along to Gordon that Bern had successfully encountered Mazen Sabella and Ghazi Baida and was now waiting for a confirmation for a second meeting. Like Kevern, Gordon was stunned by Bern’s ballsy drive. Mondragon’s harebrained long shot had succeeded-so far.
But now Bern was going to have to keep it up, and it would be Kevern’s responsibility to keep him focused. Right now, he could tell that Bern was distracted, and he knew why.
He grabbed a soft drink from a Styrofoam cooler sitting on the floor by his desk, pulled a chair over in front of Bern, and sat down. Bern was still sitting in the chair they had given him when he rushed into the room. He had just about emptied his water bottle after almost an hour’s debriefing. Kevern knew that the stress of Bern’s situation had to be weighing heavily on him.
Jack Petersen had gone back down to his post in the building’s foyer, while Mattie and Lupe were busy with chores that Kevern had barked out to them earlier. Mattie was sitting at a makeshift table, poring over a computer screen, while Lupe was on the other side of the room, her back turned to them, talking into her cell phone, her voice a discreet murmur.
Kevern popped the top on the soft-drink can, tugged at the thighs of his pants, and took a sip, keeping his eyes on Bern. A soft groan that seemed to be squeezed out of him preceded his words.
“Look,” he said trying to sound like he was on top of this thing, “we may not know who’s got Susana, but we know she’s okay, because whoever’s got her wants something from us, and her continued good health is their ticket. There’s not a damn thing we can do about it until they contact us and tell us who they are and what it is they want. Then we can start working on a strategy.”
Kevern saw something shift in Bern’s face, an expression that reminded him of Jude when Jude thought he was about to get screwed, or slighted, or not be taken as seriously as he thought he should be. It was a look Kevern had always hated to see because it had meant that Jude was digging in. That he was circling his wagons around his team. .. his team of one. Jude had always thought that if he had to, he could fight-and win-every war by himself. When he hit that resolve, anything could happen. Kevern did not like seeing that look in the face of his twin brother.
“Go ahead,” Kevern said, “spit it out.”
“This will be over, sooner or later,” Bern said. “Don’t lie to me now, because I won’t forget it. And I don’t have anything to lose in this game.”
“Fair enough,” Kevern said. He understood. You didn’t spend a few days and nights with a woman like Susana, in circumstances like these, especially if you were inexperienced in this stuff, especially if you were Jude Lerner’s twin brother, and not start feeling something for her.
“But I’m not screwing with you,” Kevern said. “This’s the way it is. We’ve got to play this hand. If we see an opening, we’ll take it. All of us have worked with Susana before. We give a shit. That’s something you’d learn if you did this long enough. Okay?”
Bern nodded, skeptical, Kevern could tell, but that was expected. In a way, Kevern liked seeing that. Bern didn’t seem to be intimidated by what he was about to do. This guy’s balls were the real thing, and Kevern still found it a little creepy looking at him and talking to him and knowing that he wasn’t Jude. Jude’d had the biggest balls-had been the most buffalo-of any guy Kevern had ever met. And here he was, sitting in front of him again, come back from the dead. Only it wasn’t him, and this guy had come into this thing under the most bizarre circumstances Kevern himself had ever seen in his life, and still he was hanging in there like a pro. Shit, he admired that. He respected that it was in Bern’s blood.
“Right now,” Kevern said, “getting our hands on Ghazi Baida is what we’re focused on. The thing with Susana is tied in with it somehow, and it’ll resolve itself. We’ve got to play this out, and that’s the hard truth of it.”
Kevern upended the soda and drained it in three or four big gulps, then tossed the can into a paper sack on the floor near the window. He looked at his watch.
“We’ve got fifteen minutes till we can call the hospital on the schedule Sabella gave you. Any questions?”
“What if they tell me to go somewhere right now?” Bern asked.
“Do it. We’re going to put a tag on you, and you’re going to tell him about it. If this defection thing is for real, he’s not going to be bothered by that. He’ll know it’s necessary, and he’ll know why.”
“Okay, tech’s up and running,” Lupe said, coming over to them and handing her phone to Bern. “Mattie’s ready anytime.”
Kevern checked his watch.
“We’ve got a few minutes,” he said, examining Bern for signs of stress. He didn’t see them, but he knew they were there. Operational butterflies were a hell of a thing. It was tough. But again, he admired the way Bern was dealing with it.
The room fell silent. Everybody had stopped. The guy they had been trying to kill for the past year was about to get on a cell phone with a dead man, and he was about to do something that would’ve seemed outrageous if anybody- anybody -had ever mentioned it as a possibility.
This was the goose that Lexington Kevern lived for. This was it. In this business, it always came out of nowhere, came suddenly, came with head-spinning, disorienting surprise. And it was the sweetest feeling in the world, better than any number of things that got you high, that got you limp with bliss. Having an operation turn sweet on you was like no other accomplishment in the fucking world, and Kevern was going to relish this one more than any other sweet deal that he had ever experienced. Because the stake here was… everything.
Without getting the nod, Bern started dialing. It caught Kevern by surprise, but it didn’t matter. He was in the slipstream of an operation turned sweet.
When the phone was answered, he asked for the pharmacy. When the pharmacy answered, he asked for Flor. Silence. Prolonged silence. He looked at Kevern, who was listening on another phone, as was Mattie on yet a third phone. Kevern showed nothing, just sat there as if he were waiting for the information operator.
“Flor,” she said in English.
“This is Luis,” Bern said, expecting the woman to draw a blank and ask, “Luis who?”
Pause. “Oh, yes. Momentito, por favor. ” Her voice was flat.
Silence. Then suddenly she was reciting a telephone number. Slowly. Deliberately. At the end, she paused, then repeated it in the same disinterested tone of voice.
“You have that?” she asked.
“Yes, I have it.”
“Tomorrow morning, go to Colonia Santa Luisa,” she said, again speaking very deliberately. “Go to Jardin Morena. It is a small park, and it is market day there tomorrow. There is a man there who sells old issues of comic books on the sidewalk on the north side of the park, in front of Farmacia Pedras. There is a telephone on the sidewalk by the pharmacy door. There will be a red dot by the number six on the keypad. At precisely ten o’clock, use that telephone to call the number I just gave you.”
Bern was watching Mattie, who stood behind Kevern, writing furiously. She looked at Bern and nodded.
“Repeat that to me, please,” Flor said.
Bern did.
“Do you want me to repeat anything?” Flor asked.
“No,” Bern said. “I have it.”
The line went dead.
Bern lay on one of the cots in a third room in Kevern’s safe house on Plaza Rio de Janeiro. The lights were out, but as always in this city, the ambient illumination came in through the windows like an eerie twilight. He could see a couple of overnight bags on the floor, some clothes hanging here and there. He could smell perfume on the bedcovers beneath him. And looking toward the windows, he could see and hear the rising and falling language of the rain.
Sleep was out of the question, but he hoped he would slip in and out of consciousness. The others were still working in the adjacent rooms. He didn’t know how they kept it up. He was exhausted, and scared. And he couldn’t get Susana off his mind. He wanted to believe that Kevern was being honest with him, and he wanted to believe what he read in Kevern’s body language-that it wasn’t time to be alarmed yet. These things had a degree of predictability, a range of expectations. And these people were not totally without an understanding of what was happening to them.
He thought of Susana. He just wanted her to be safe, and to be with her again in a place as far away from this insanity as they could get.
He closed his eyes and listened to the rain.