Linguist, I should have said 'antennae," except it sounds silly."
"I concur. I'm also intrigued by your constant apologies over the things you say and think, backtracking, as though I'm a tutor of sorts."
"I guess it's because you were closer to Harry than I was in those areas. He was constantly correcting me, mostly in a nice way, but he never stopped."
"He loved you-"
"Yeah," Drew interrupted wearily.
"Let's change the subject, okay?"
"Okay. What do you think the colonel will come up with, as you put it?"
"I haven't the vaguest idea, but if he's anything like his dossier, it'll be pretty fine-tuned."
THE INTERNA-noN AL HERALD TRIBUNE
Paris Edition Terrorist Attack on U.S. Embassy Personnel
The United States Embassy has revealed that yesterday terrorists in stocking masks assaulted a restaurant in the
Villejuif area, where two Americans were having lunch. Mr.
Drew Latham, an attache at the American Embassy, was killed.
His brother, Mr. Harry Latham, a liaison at the embassy, survived and is currently in hiding on orders of his government.
The assassins escaped and neither the identity nor the cause of the assailants are clear, for they disappeared. They are described as two men, medium height, and wearing dark business suits. The surviving Mr. Latham described both assailants as being severely wounded as a result of his brother's alertness. Mr.
Drew Latham was armed and fired his weapon repeatedly until he was killed. French authorities, under enormous pressure from the American Embassy, are looking into the matter.
Speculations center upon both Iraqi and Syrian" For
Christ's sake, what's going on over there?" yelled the
Secretary of State, Adam Bollinger, over the phone to the ambassador to France, Daniel Courtland.
"If I knew, I'd tell you. Do you want to replace me? If so, go right ahead, Adam. You bastards put me into a raging fire and I don't know enough French to call for help. I'm career State, Mr.
Secretary, not one of your fucking political appointments-come to think of it, none of your contributors speak the language anyway, most barely speak English."
"It's no time to be vitriolic, Daniel."
"It's time to have a chain of command, Bollinger! Drew Latham, one of the very few spooks with an open-minded head on his shoulders, is killed after four previous attempts on his life, and I don't have any answers!"
"His brother's alive," said the Secretary of State lamely.
"That's just terrific! Where the hell is he?"
"I've got open lines to the Agency. As soon as I know, you'll know."
"You're something else," said Courtland derisively, letting his breath out.
"Do you really think deep-cover Agency personnel will tell you a goddamned thing? You're sitting behind a desk, but they have to survive. Hell, I learned that when I was posted to Finland, and the KGB was right next door. We're zeros -in situations like this, Adam. We're told what they want to tell us."
"That's hardly proper. We are the ultimate authority, your chain of command, if you like."
"Tell that to Drew Latham, who got blown away because we couldn't support him. Even our own embassy is penetrated. "
"I simply can't understand you people."
"You'd better begin to, Mr. Secretary. The Nazis are back."
Director Wesley Sorenson of Cons-Op sat at his desk, his head forward, resting on his fingers. His sorrow was such that tears slowly emerged from his eyes, the loss so tragic, so unnecessary, that he questioned the essence of his own life. Drew Latham taken out-as he might have been so many times-and for what? What changes could the life of a single intelligence officer make when the hoo-haws of international negotiations came together at their fancy hotels and their banquets, their flag-strewn parades in convention halls signifying nothing but ceremonial hypocrisy?
Sorenson felt that it was the end for him. He had nothing more to give; he had seen too much death in the shadows of those parades. If there was a spark of light, it did not come:
And then it did!
"Wcs, I trust we're on scrambler," said the familiar voice on the line.
"Drew? My God, is that you?" Sorenson lurched forward over his desk, the blood drained from his face.
"You're alive?"
"I also trust you're alone. I asked your secretary and she gave me an affirmative."
"Yes, of course.. .. Let me catch my breath; this is incredible-I don't know what to say, what to think. This is you?"
"Last time I checked my pulse it was."
Silence. The quiet before the storm.
"Then I believe you have some serious explaining to do, young man! Goddammit, I wrote a sympathy note to your parents."
"Mother's a tough lady, she can handle it; and Dad,