“What you did while working for the Agency.”
“You think I walk around with a stack of Polaroids? I don’t have any proof. You’ll just have to determine for yourself if I’m a crackpot.”
“That’s fair. Why are you doing this? Why now?”
Six turned up a long, hilly road that undulated through hundreds of tombstones and crypts. He drove incredibly slow. He said, “I have been out of the country for five years. I found a way in, so I came back to end this.”
She hesitated. “By killing people?”
“Of course not. I didn’t come here to kill anybody.”
“What about in Chevy Chase?”
“That wasn’t me.”
“You just said—”
“I was there. I was shot. But I didn’t kill Babbitt.”
“What about Dupont Circle?”
“Not me. Again, I was present, but I didn’t kill Max Ohlhauser or the transit cops.”
“What about Washington Highlands?”
It was a long time before the reply came. “Those guys I did kill.”
“And the Easy Market shoot-out?”
The man in the hoodie and the sunglasses exhaled. “I assume you saw the footage, so I assume you know I had to do it.”
“I didn’t see any footage. Just bodies.”
Six shrugged. “Yeah, I killed those guys. Believe me, they had it coming.”
“So . . . you say you aren’t here to kill anyone. Yet by my count eleven people are dead in four incidents, and though you admit to being present at all four incidents you are copping to just five of the killings. In my business that calls you something of an unreliable witness.”
He shrugged. “I only killed the bad ones. That’s kind of my thing.”
“Who killed the rest, if not you?”
“People following the orders of Denny Carmichael.”
She let that statement hang in the air while they drove for a moment, then asked, “Why does the CIA want you dead?”
“The CIA doesn’t want me dead. Carmichael wants me dead. I don’t know the real reason. I thought I did, but now that I’m here, I’m more confused than ever.”
“What is his stated reason?”
“Some operation that happened six years ago. Something that went off without a hitch.”
“But if it went off without a hitch, why does Carmichael want you—”
Six interrupted suddenly, as if something had just come to him. “Do you have contacts in Israeli intelligence?”
Catherine nodded. “Yes. Of course. Well-placed ones, as a matter of fact.”
With excitement in his voice, he said, “Six years ago, a Mossad penetration agent in al Qaeda in Iraq traveled to Trieste, Italy. He was compromised and burned to the opposition but didn’t know it. An al Qaeda assassin showed up to kill him. Before he could act, an operative arrived and rescued the Mossad agent.”
King just said, “I’ve never heard of this incident.”
“Doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.”
“How do you know all this?”
“I was the operative. I termed the al Qaeda gunman and—”
“You did what?”
“Terminated him.”
“Oh. Go on.”
“And I got the Mossad agent to safety. Everything went off the way it was supposed to, but six years later I find out Carmichael is using this old operation as justification to term me.” Court stopped the car in the middle of the little tree-lined road and turned to her. “If you can go to the Israelis and confirm any part of this event in Trieste, make it public, then Denny will have no alternative but to rescind the shoot on sight.”
“Shoot on sight? That sounds like something from a bad movie.” Slowly she looked up at him. This time he didn’t order her to turn away.
He looked crestfallen suddenly. “You think I’m making this entire thing up, don’t you?”
“People lie. Even the legitimate ones enhance their stories sometimes. In my work I see it every day.”
Six rubbed his eyes under his sunglasses. She could see fatigue and frustration on his face, even if his eyes were obscured by the dark lenses.
She softened a little. “I believe you are who you say you are. But some men . . . some women, live and die for their country, and never receive any recognition. They come to me with an exaggeration, an embellishment, something to boost what they’ve accomplished.”
The man behind the wheel all but recoiled. “Seriously, lady, do you really think I want recognition? Do you think any of the boys in SAD are looking for shine time? If I had my way no one on earth would ever know I existed. What I’m doing here, with you, this isn’t about me. This is about finding the truth so I can expose Carmichael’s hunt as an illegal operation. I just want to come home without all this hanging over me.”