May 2
NYPD-Midtown North, 18th Precinct
306 West 54th Street
New York City
11:48 A.M. EDT
Beck Casey sat in the aluminum chair, uncomfortably close to the table on which he rested his hands; here, as in all the precinct’s interrogation rooms, the furnishings were immovably bolted to the floor. The door was also decidedly closed—and, he presumed, unequivocally locked.
But at least his hands were free, unshackled to the ring-bolt firmly affixed to the tabletop.
This courteous contradiction stemmed from the general uncertainty of his status, whether of victim or as perpetrator: Beck’s own contribution, since being taken into custody in Central Park he had maintained a polite, respectful, total silence.
He had been hustled into the aging, grim limestone building, mold-stained beneath the window air conditioners that dotted the upper floors; then, in no small measure irked by his refusal to provide any information, much less a name, a pair of New York’s Finest had escorted Beck to his present venue.
They had, of course, confiscated his shoes, tie, belt, and—most intriguing to his custodians—his wallet. The existence of three different driver’s licenses—with three different names, three different addresses, and three different states—had complicated the initial processing considerably.
Beck had made a single concession to their curiosity: He had scrawled out a New York phone number, added a seemingly meaningless series of alphanumeric characters beneath it, and wordlessly passed it to a perplexed detective with an encouraging nod.
And then—under the eye of a wall-mounted video-cam, signaling its own patient watchfulness by its “system active” red LED lamp—he had settled in to wait out the grinding of the bureaucratic gears.
Slightly more than an hour after Beck’s Central Park interlude, the interrogation room’s door opened and a man stepped inside—medium height, slightly balding, wearing a somewhat travel-rumpled gray suit, and with the generally nondescript appearance of a shoestore clerk. He carried two green-and-white paper cups, and the fragrance of coffee wafted across the small space.
Beck’s eyebrows arched in genteel surprise, though his mind shifted into overdrive.
“Hello, Beck,” the man said. “Been a while.”
He gestured self-deprecatingly at himself. “Forgive my appearance. I just flew in from Texas.”
“Hello, Billy,” Beck said, pleasantly enough.
Billy Carson, his mind said, not in a comforting tone. Of course. Good Lord. Of course it had to be goddamn Billy Carson…
• • •
Carson had eased into the down-bolted interrogator’s chair and pushed one of the paper cups across the table.
“You’ve had quite a morning,” Carson smiled.
“You want to talk here?” Beck shot a significant glance at the mirrored wall, then at the wall-mounted camera beside it.
As if on cue, the red light on the camera winked off.
Despite himself, Beck was impressed at the theatricality of it.
But, he reminded himself, outward appearances be damned, Carson had always had a flair for the dramatic gesture.
“The audio recording is off too,” Carson added. “There is one of my people behind the mirror, but only to ensure nobody else enters. Rest assured, he can’t hear us either. Besides, he’s fully cleared—very likely, even above your security rating.”
“Sure. So. Haven’t seen you since the flu outbreak down in Florida. Where have you been keeping yourself, Billy? I thought you were tossed out of the business entirely.”
“Oh, nobody ever really leaves it, Beck. You, of all people, should know that.”
“Uh-huh. So what is it these days? Wait—let me guess: NSA?”
Carson nodded. “Remember back when we all called it ‘No Such Agency?’ Now, with the surveillance scandals all over the media, everybody knows who we are. What most of them still don’t know is that we’re the biggest individual agency in the intelligence community these days. I came aboard almost ten years ago to handle … let’s call it, special situations.”
“Bit of a comedown after being National Security Advisor.”
Carson tried to look modest and failed utterly. “Perhaps less than you might think. But I admit, I enjoy being closer to the tip of the spear now. I get such interesting problems to manage.”
“Am I one of those problems? Is that why they sent you?”
Carson chuckled. “To some extent. You should probably be aware that your little adventure in the park is already on YouTube. Several versions of it, actually. One video there already has more than 250,000 views. Enough to attract the interest of the news media.”
“Perfect.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t worry. Your Miss Hansen is quite imaginative. She has already found an asset who—with a few cosmetic modifications—looks enough like you to pass muster. He’ll be on Good Morning America tomorrow morning, unimpeachably identified as a retired karate instructor from Los Angeles—just a nobody tourist, whom a couple of garden-variety muggers had the bad luck to target.”
“I hope they don’t give him his own cable show afterward.”
“I can safely guarantee that he’ll be among the most inarticulate, boring guests in the history of television. That should prevent any additional requests for guest bookings. He’ll be famous for a few days, and then it will all fade away.”
Again Carson smiled, again failed at making it look genuinely modest.
“And in a reasonable amount of time, my people will quietly remove all the videos from the Internet. It’s rather one of our specialties.”
“I see. But I’m still wondering why I also see you in that chair, instead of a CIA lawyer.”
“No need for one. You’ll be walking out of here in a few minutes. After the original paperwork manages to mysteriously disappear, and a new police report goes into the file.”
“Impressive.”
“You should be impressed, as well as grateful. It was deemed important enough to pull me straight off an airplane, away from a very important matter I’m managing down in Texas and now up here in New York. Instead, I’m in a police station having to make this go away. To turn it into an uninteresting, insignificant mugging.”
“Who were my ‘insignificant muggers’?”
“Now, that is interesting, Beck. Fortunately, we’ve arranged for a physician to attest that neither of them is in any condition for police questioning; as an aside, that’s not much of a fabrication. I congratulate you. You seem to have kept your skills honed.”
“I sucker-punched them, or there would have been a different lie to tell the newspapers.”
“Whatever. But of course, we ran their fingerprints through our own various databanks. Who have you recently annoyed in the Russian mafiya?”
Beck frowned. “They were just hoods? Russians, but not SVR?”
“Their arrest records are convincing, as well as lengthy. Low-level muscle; it’s clear these two did not stumble onto you on their way to a Mensa meeting.”
“I’ve been in the Middle East for months before coming here,” Beck insisted. “To D.C., that is. I haven’t had dealings with Russians for years. Let alone any Russian crime triad.”
“You knew them quite well in your Moscow days. As I recall, they got to know you too. During the torture you received at their hands—I know. It cannot be a pleasant memory for you. But it is a possible connection you should not dismiss lightly.”
“A decade-old connection. It makes no sense.” Beck threw up his hands in frustration. “I’m stumped, Billy. They were following me for blocks. I’d like to know why.”
“Who knows, at this point? They may have been told you were late in paying one of their loan sharks. Or something worse, given the enthusiasm of the man with the knife. He has disappeared entirely, by the way.” Carson glanced at his wristwatch. “We will know more soon. As much as they know. By now, your two friends are both on a plane heading for one of the few offshore sites we still have operating.”
Beck suppressed an involuntary shiver; from personal experience—his, on the painful side of such an interrogation—he was far too well acquainted with the techniques practiced at such locations.
Carson pretended not to notice.
“In the meanwhile, Ms. Hansen has asked me to pass this along to you; for the immediate future, until your substitute doppelgänger is firmly fixed in the public’s eye, you will retain a low profile.”
“What the hell, Billy? I’m up to my neck negotiating with the British and the Israelis, and—”
“Not as of this morning. It seems the new President would feel more comfortable having someone with whom he’s more familiar handle that issue.”
“Because of this?” Beck demanded.
“Because Presidents—especially our new one—want their own people to protect his ass. You are neither a bureaucrat nor a political hack; try to take it like a man. It was inevitable. Even before your little publicity mishap this morning, you already had been replaced. Welcome to that particular club, Beck.”
“I still have to brief the new guy on—”
“Ms. Hansen feels otherwise,” Carson interrupted again. “There’s a new boss now. How much of her own political capital do you think she wanted to invest in keeping you around? She knows that the bull’s eye on your back might easily be transferred to her own.”
Beck’s face was grim.
“So now what?”
“So now, effective immediately, I have been directed to take you under my wing, so to speak. Rather, to hide you under it until your adventures today fade from public memory.”
Carson spread his hands on the table. “We have a history with each other, Beck. I know your value. I agreed to utilize your talents, at least temporarily, on the project in which I am at present primarily engaged.”
Beck’s brow furrowed. “And that would be, what?”
“How much do you know about computers, Beck?” Carson asked. “More specifically, how much experience have you had in cyberwarfare?”