Julian had not smoked a cigarette except as part of a cover identity since he left the army after Afghanistan, but he was smoking now, using the cigarette as a prop. It made him look older and a little defiant, and clearly not a government employee. He inhaled and let the smoke roll off his tongue and drift away. The strong bite of the tobacco reminded him that he was doing something he would regret.
He took a last shallow puff, exhaled through his nostrils, snuffed out the butt on the lamppost, and then threw it in the trash. As an afterthought he tossed the pack into the barrel after it, and then the matches. Instantly he felt bad. He could have given the pack to one of the three dozen homeless men sitting on the sidewalk on blankets and sleeping bags a few yards off. If the guy didn’t smoke he could have traded it for something—goodwill, maybe. They sure as hell needed that.
Carson looked at his watch. It was five fifteen. He had been waiting on Market Street for fifteen minutes already. He had watched the cars, scrutinized the windows of hotels and office buildings. He had scanned the groups of tourists and streams of locals going in and out of stores and other businesses, and seen men who could have been the old man but weren’t. Carson knew he had plenty of backup. His worry wasn’t that there wouldn’t be enough agents to snap up one citizen, or at least to spot and tail him. The worry was that they might have so many out here that the subject would spot them.
This wasn’t a normal target, some guy who had been a shopkeeper until he got obsessed with a fanatical movement and went off to another country for a few weeks of half-assed military training. The old man had been trained when a member of the special forces was an expert at moving unnoticed not only through jungles, but also through foreign cities. They all spoke several languages, could do some field surgery, and could operate any piece of hardware they saw. Julian could easily be a breath away, a heartbeat away, from having a bullet plunge into his skin and tear through his muscle and bone before it came out throwing a spray of red mist.
Julian was not afraid exactly, but he was aware that he had a reason to be. He had seen years of combat, and he knew that if the action started he would feel a moment of fear, just the taste of it he allowed himself. Then he would do what he could.
He was in the game now, and there was no way to back out. The men who had been in that hotel suite in Chicago for the meeting were very high-level operational personnel, and they had given him this mission. He had been foolish enough to accept. He could have shut up and said “yes, sir” and “no, sir” until they dismissed him. Or he could have resigned on the spot. But he hadn’t.
Thinking about his bosses reminded him that the biggest threat in the next few minutes would not be from the old man. It was unlikely that the intelligence people had told him everything they thought, suspected, or planned to do.
He assumed the pose of a man waiting for a cable car. He leaned forward as though to stare down Market Street, but when he leaned back he felt a hand settle against his spine.
“Don’t look surprised and don’t turn around.” It was the old man’s voice.
The old man must not have come in a car or approached from a distance, or Julian would have seen him. He must have been here when Julian arrived. Julian looked down the street in the other direction and used the turn of his head to get a glimpse of him.
The old man had let his facial hair grow into a layer of white bristles on his face. A knit cap covered his head, and he wore a hooded sweatshirt with a down vest over it. He looked as dirty and unkempt as the homeless men who had been sitting on the sidewalk, but he didn’t smell like a man who had been sleeping rough in alcoves at the entrances of buildings. The old man said, “Are they really going to take my offer?”
Julian shrugged. “They said to tell you it’s a deal.”
“They’ll leave me alone?”
“That’s what they said.”
“And they’re going to tell the man in Benghazi that I’m dead?”
“I passed on everything you said. I didn’t leave anything out.”
“I know they agreed. I want to know if you think it’s true.”
“You have no right to expect me to predict the future. I’d just be making a guess.”
“Would you be willing to bet your life on them?”
“I’m already betting my life on you. What’s in your hand? A stabbing spike?”
“You’re wearing body armor, aren’t you?” said the old man. “I’m asking you. Would you make a deal with them?”
“If you give up the money, what will you lose?” asked Julian. “If you walk away, how long before they get the money anyway?”
The old man gave a quiet laugh. “As soon as I saw you here, I used a cell phone to set off the electronic transfer. The money is now in the account of the US Department of the Treasury.”
“I don’t know how they’ll feel about that,” Julian said.
“I said I’d deliver it to the US government, not hand it in cash to some faceless agents.”
“Hard to blame you. For me, anyway.”
“Good. Do us both a favor. Stay where you are for five more minutes and pretend you’re still waiting. Otherwise they might think something’s gone wrong, start shooting at me, and kill us both.”