Top Hook (51 page)

“Menzes,” Dukas muttered. It was the first word either had spoken in half an hour. “Agency Internals.”

Menzes came on slowly through the heat. When he was a few feet away, he stopped and nodded at Dukas as if confirming something that Dukas had said. He and Dukas looked at each other.

“Menzes,” he said, putting out a hand to Alan.

“Al Craik.”

“Yeah, I thought so.” Menzes cleared his throat. “I sent my personal apologies to your wife, but I'll say it to you, too.” He stood straight. “I'm sorry.”

Alan nodded.

Menzes moved to stand next to Dukas, and the three of them looked down at the new grave. Only four figures stood there now.

“What were they putting on the grave?” Alan said.

“Medals.” Menzes straightened his back again. “Their intelligence medals.” He was silent as the group below them broke up. One figure began to climb toward them. He was quite an old man and moved painfully through the heat. “'The best intelligence officer of his generation,'” Menzes quoted. “That's what the one who gave the eulogy said. ‘The greatest American patriot since William Casey.'”

Slowly, slowly, the dark figure came closer.

“None of the big shots came. I thought Partlow might come, but he didn't have the balls. Only the Old Guard.”

The old man was close enough now so that they could see that tears had streamed down his face, which was red from the heat and the climb. He was puffing. He stopped twenty feet away, head low like a bull's, getting his breath. He never took his eyes off the three of them. When he could breathe, he started shouting.

“You bastards killed him! We know who you are. You killed him! You hunted him down like a fucking dog, a man you weren't fit to lick his shoes! You
bastards!
”

White foam gathered in the corners of his mouth. One of the other mourners had followed him, and now he turned the old man and, with one hateful glance at them, shepherded him down the slope and led him away. He was still shouting.

“The
Times
said he was a loyal American with a long and distinguished career.”

“That's the public position.”

“What'd they get from him?” Dukas said.

“Nothing. He never woke up.” Menzes stared at the grave. “The disk you got from the woman, though—it had enough treason embedded in the porn to have hanged him. Many times.”

Alan started forward, and the other two were pulled into his wake. They walked down to the grave, moving carefully around stones, black, gray, white, forgotten names chiseled with loving care. Alan stood by the flower-covered mound. “Are we sure he's in there?” he said.

“Are we ever sure of anything?”

This time it was Menzes who moved first, heading for the gate, and the other two who followed. As if separation from the grave released them, they began to talk of other things. Menzes, who seemed to know a lot, asked Dukas about Sally Baranowski. She was in rehab, Dukas said, trying to get her daughter back. He didn't say that whatever might have happened between the two of them hadn't happened; he had been in a hospital, and her life had gone off on its own course.

“Nice woman,” Menzes said. “We interrogated her. She was clean, but the old boys had it in for her because of—” He jerked his head back toward the grave.

“She got reassigned,” Dukas said.

“I know.”

“You?”

Menzes laughed. “Not yet. But they're trying.” They walked on. “How about you?”

“I'm off to Holland as soon as I get out of this fucking
contraption. You wanta come work for the War Crimes Tribunal? I can always use a straight shooter.”

Menzes laughed again. “Seems like yesterday I was saying that to your man Triffler. Good guy.”

“We're all good guys,” Alan growled. “It's just that nobody else thinks so.”

They stopped by Alan's car. He jingled his keys in his good hand. “
Was
he the best intelligence officer of his generation?”

Menzes's lean face was grim. “He was a traitor. He may have been crazy; he may have been well-meaning; but he was a traitor.
We won!
”

“I don't seem to hear the brass band.”

Menzes shrugged. Dukas smiled. Alan shook his head.

Gordon Kent is the pseudonym of a father-and-son writing team, both of whom have extensive personal experience in the US Navy. Both are former Intelligence officers and both served as aircrew. The son earned his Observer wings in S-3 Vikings during the Gulf conflict. After service in the Mediterranean, Persian Gulf, Pacific and Africa, he left active duty in 1999. Both live in the United States.
Top Hook
is their third Alan Craik novel, following
Night Trap
and
Peacemaker
. They are now working on a fourth.

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Night Trap

Peacemaker

Top Hook