The Old Man(64)

“Yes,” Julian said. He repeated the names to himself. He had memorized them when Harper had said them, but wondered which was which. Now, hearing the man say them, he could tell the names were false. It was always like that. Each bit of information was a reward for great effort, one ring closer to the center of the circle. But there never seemed to be a ring where the information was true. It was only truer than the information in the last ring.

For now, the man Julian thought of as the highest in rank was Mr. Ross. He looked at Julian, his cheekbones resting on both fists. “I think it’s time we had a frank discussion, Mr. Carson.”

“Yes, sir.”

Julian noticed that in front of him on the table was a manila folder. He sensed that Mr. Ross had just closed it.

“You are a very impressive operator. You’ve worked in teams and alone. You’ve worked in South America, the Middle East, Africa, and at home. But now we’re in the middle of an operation that you seem reluctant to complete. Why is that?”

“After San Francisco nobody said anything to me about the operation. I waited for more than two months to hear from intelligence. Nobody called. I assumed that if the operation wasn’t over, I was no longer part of it.”

“You went home to Arkansas, and I understand you made good use of your time off. You spent part of the time being with your family and helping out on the farm, and part of the time reconnecting with old friends. That about right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“During your time away, we were following other avenues.”

Julian said, “You were watching to see if the old man would get in touch with me again.”

Mr. Ross’s mouth turned up and he showed a perfect row of small porcelain-white teeth as he turned to Mr. Bailey and Mr. Prentiss with a look of triumph. “You see that, Mr. Carson? That’s what I meant about you. We can train people for years and years, give them loads of time in the field. What we can’t do is make them smart.”

Julian felt the pride expand in his chest as he savored those words. He knew the words were calculated but he didn’t find the strength to resist. He knew that acknowledging his abilities was a confidence trick, but he longed for it not to be.

“Do you know why you figured out what we were doing? Because it was just what you would have done in our place.”

Julian was silent. He wasn’t sure whether he wanted to admit that.

Mr. Ross said, “You look at guys like Harper and Waters. They each have at least ten years on you. Harper probably has fifteen. They’re competent, loyal, and responsible, but they’re pretty much all they’re going to be. You’re not. Whether you stay in military intelligence or go on to the CIA, you’ll run into both of them again over the years somewhere. They’ll still be perfectly okay, still doing the jobs they’re in now. But you’ll be something else—somebody else. You see?”

“I think so.”

“I know you do. I’ve got my eye on you.” He paused to impart significance to the next words. “And so do other people.”

Julian longed to know which other people. Who? But as always nothing clear and specific was to be said aloud. To ask would be to disappoint, and would prove that you weren’t ready after all.

Mr. Ross opened the manila file. Julian could see that his photograph was attached to the first page. Mr. Ross moved the page to the back of the file, and all Julian could see on the page below it was paragraph after paragraph of small unreadable print.

“You’re wondering why we’re here,” Mr. Ross said. “As you know, Fort Meade is not only military intelligence. The biggest part of it is the National Security Agency.”

He took the next sheet of paper out of the file and pointed at an address printed in a paragraph near the bottom. He held the paper out to Julian. “This is your contact at NSA. Our fugitive is still out there somewhere. This time you’re going to have a whole lot of help finding him.”





22


It was winter and Julian had been living in a barracks at Fort Meade since early fall. He had been home to Jonesboro only twice. The last time he was called back early to check out a theory that the old man was living in a safe house in Montreal that had been set up forty years ago but seldom used.

He couldn’t blame the National Security Agency people for coming up with bizarre theories. They had all the data in the world. Sifting through it to find and connect the threads of a single story was the problem. There had to be something that explained how the old man could make himself so scarce, something like a safe house that old intelligence people had set up and forgotten. The only clear photographs of him had been taken when he was Julian’s age. And every operator except Julian who had gotten a close look at the old man since Libya was dead.

Julian was sitting in the office he’d been assigned at military intelligence when his phone rang. He heard the voice of Goddard, his NSA contact. Goddard said, “I think you’re going to want to come over here. We found him.”

The call was so unexpected that Julian said, “Who?”

“Who else?”

Julian closed his office and hurried over to NSA. When Julian arrived at Goddard’s office, he waited until Goddard had shut the door before he said, “Where is he?”

Goddard was a heavyset man with a dark beard and thinning hair. He leaned back in his desk chair with his hands behind his head, the chubby fingers laced. “He’s living in a cabin up in the San Bernardino Mountains at Big Bear.”