Coffin followed Pete around the corner, where the same old man who’d been with her and McGarvey outside the prison this afternoon was waiting by a battered Volvo station wagon that was painted green.
“You took a pistol from your house, and when we searched your hotel room a few minutes ago, it wasn’t there,” Moshonas said. “Give it to me, Mr. Coffin.”
“I think he’ll feel safer for the moment with it, Detective,” Pete said.
“Actually, it’s Special Agent Moshonas. I work for the NIS.”
“Yes, we know. But I don’t think Mr. Coffin will shoot us.”
“He murdered Dr. Lampros.”
“Almost certainly, but we’ve come here to save Mr. Coffin’s life. And I think he understands that in order for us to do our job, he needs to do his. One hand washes the other.”
Moshonas muttered something but then got in behind the wheel, Pete in front and Coffin in the back, and they headed away from the Acropolis and southwest for the short drive out of the city to the commercial waterfront at Piraeus.
McGarvey had sent Pete to soften the blow, and Moshonas for his authority, rather than approach Coffin himself. “He’ll be on a hair trigger. If I show up, he might want to shoot first and listen later.”
And it had worked, along with allowing him to keep his weapon. But Pete realized she resented Mac’s attitude just a little, even though he was right. If Coffin had pulled his weapon, she was sure she would have been able to handle herself.
She turned and looked back at him. “You could have shot me and simply walked away. Why not?”
“Wouldn’t have been very sporting. In any event, I’m sure you would have responded in kind, and both of us would be on our way to the hospital or the morgue.”
“So, what’s the point? Why’d you set yourself up for the fall? Who’d you think was coming after you? Not us. Your record was clean when you walked away from the Company.”
“It’s more complicated than that, as Walt and Istvan found out.”
Pete understood. “Almost everything usually is.”
“What about the other Alpha Seven operators? Are they okay? Have you managed to make contact?”
“You were our first. We’re still working on the others.”
“Rencke is?”
“Yes. Wager and Fabry were the only ones left still working for us.”
“They’re dead now. So might the others be.”
“We found you,” Pete said, and faced forward as the lights around the harbor came into view. Her skin crawled, having an armed man—especially one of Coffin’s character—sitting behind her.
She’d only ever met a few NOCs in her career, and all of them had been singularly egotistical liars, cheats, and con men—she’d not met a woman NOC field officer. But those traits were the prime requirements for the job of going into badland to spy and not get caught. They had to screw over people on a regular basis in order to fulfill their assignments.
Mac had told her about the one couple who’d moved in next door to an Egyptian major who worked in logistics and supply for the air force. The man was married and had four children, and as a major he was barely making ends meet.
The U.S. wanted to know what aircraft spare parts were most in demand, so Boeing and Northrop and other U.S. suppliers would not only have a leg up in their business dealings with the Egyptians, but so Washington would have a better handle on the actual workload the air force was under.
It started easy. The NOC and his wife, who had two children of their own, invited the major and his family over for an old-fashioned American backyard barbecue, complete with beer and tapes of a couple of Packers football games.
A couple of weeks later the NOC’s oldest son, who was ten, taught the major’s son, who was eight years old, how to ride his bike. The lessons went on for a week, until the major’s son demanded a bike like their neighbor’s boy had.
It was an impossible demand on a major’s pay, so the NOC bought a bike from the BX at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, had it shipped to Cairo. And within two days the major’s son was riding around the neighborhood.
The major had been unable to resist the pressure from his son and his wife to allow the boy to keep the bike, and that had been the beginning of his conversion to a spy for the U.S. against his own government.
The NOC had targeted the major, figured out his weakness, and had homed in on it. Mission accomplished. Two years later, after the NOC and his family transferred out, the major came under suspicion so he killed his wife and children and then put the pistol into his own mouth and pulled the trigger. It was an easier way out for him than military prison.
“Thing is,” McGarvey had told Pete, “we never really needed the information. The parts were all made in the U.S. and the suppliers had all those records.”
* * *
The NIS safe house was aboard a passenger ferry that had blown its engine three months ago and was on chocks on dry land, waiting for a replacement. From the outside, the 110-foot boat was a rusting wreck; on the inside, it wasn’t a lot better, though everything aboard worked, including the galley. No crew was assigned at the moment, so it was just Moshonas, Pete, and Coffin who came aboard.
McGarvey was waiting for them in what had been the crew’s mess belowdecks, just forward of the engine room. Both portholes were open, but still the room was stuffy and smelled of diesel oil.
Eight people could sit around the table, and when Coffin came in, he pulled up short when he spotted the Walther PPK in front of where Mac was sitting.
“I’m glad you could join us without trouble,” McGarvey said. “Give your weapon to Ms. Boylan, please.”
Coffin stepped back a pace, but Pete and Moshonas were right there. Pete reached inside Coffin’s jacket and took the SIG.
“Just so there’re no mistakes,” McGarvey said. “Sit down.”
Coffin did as he was told. Pete sat cross-legged on a chair across the room, her arms draped over the back of it, while Moshonas leaned up against the door.
The mess was functional, but little more than that.
Pete had no idea what was coming next, except that Coffin seemed to be in an agreeable mood. But she couldn’t tell if he was for real, or if he was simply working the situation like any good NOC was trained to do. And by all accounts he was one of the best.