Kittredge awoke to the airliner’s cabin lights coming back on near the end of the redeye flight to Caracas, and some sort of inane announcement blaring over the PA system. The stewardess’ nasal voice sounded like a bugle in a dumpster, and it clanged around viciously inside his pounding skull.
He smacked his lips and sensed the disgustingness of his breath. Did a rat die in my mouth? He felt awful, head spinning and heart pounding from the solid day of drinking. He hadn’t slept long enough, and he awoke smack in the middle of a horrible hangover. He was certain that he smelled like a distillery, with the prior day’s liquid courage off-gassing through his pores.
Fighting incipient nausea, he gathered his bag and trundled off of the airplane amidst the gaggle of passengers, feeling like livestock. Livestock with a crushing headache.
He passed a bar en route to the airport exit, and stopped briefly for a Bloody Mary to put a little bit of a shine back on. He couldn’t possibly endure what lay ahead while fighting a hangover, he reasoned.
Constitutional complete, he stopped in the airport bathroom to brush his teeth, and picked up a coffee to go on his way to the taxi stand.
Caracas wasn’t a large city by modern standards, but the cabbies knew where to find fares at four in the morning, and it didn’t take long before Kittredge was on his way back to his Caracas flat for a shower and a change of clothes. And maybe one more little drink to keep his nerves in check.
Kittredge noticed headlights in the rearview mirror and turned to see a black SUV driving behind them. “Are we being followed?” he asked the cabbie.
The cabbie flashed a toothy grin. “Si. By many cars. And also we are following many cars.”
Everyone’s a comedian.
“You are nervous, Señor? Maybe you have diamonds in your pocket? Or you are espia? A spy?” The cabbie laughed. “Or maybe paranoico. Watch too many movies, eh?”
Kittredge didn’t answer. He rode along in silence, and the cabbie dropped him off presently at the apartment he shared with Charley Arlinghaus. “Bye bye, Señor Bond,” the cabbie said after counting the paltry tip Kittredge left him.
He climbed the stairs to the third floor and opened the door to his flat.
What the fuck?
It looked like a war zone. Pictures hung at odd angles on the walls or lay shattered on the hardwood. Every book they owned was strewn on the floor, and Charley’s beloved bric-a-brac had been tossed and shattered. The kitchen cabinets were wide open, and the floor looked like the aftermath of a Greek wedding. Shards of dishware covered most of the tile floor.
“Motherfuckers,” Kittredge repeated over and over as he surveyed the damage. He made his way slowly into the bedroom, where all of their clothes lay in a pile on the center of the bed. Every drawer had been removed from the dresser, and nothing remained hung in the closet. The master bathroom was similarly destroyed, with the contents of every pill bottle in the medicine cabinet now floating in the toilet.
Kittredge moved a pile of clothes and sat down heavily on the bed. Would calling the policia do any good? Would it make any sense? And which department would he even call? No fewer than four jurisdictions laid claim to this section of Caracas, a remnant of the 1989 Venezuelan decentralization that gave rise to a number of entrepreneurially-minded police entities that all competed with each other. Venezuela was a terrible place to be the victim of a crime.
And it wouldn’t have surprised him if one of those police units was behind the redecorating effort.
He debated telling someone at the embassy, but quickly realized that the last thing he needed was embassy attention on his recent activities.
Looks like I suck it up, he concluded.
A thought struck. What if Charley came home and found the place like this, and decided he had to get out of the country? It wasn’t entirely implausible. It might even account for the lie Charley told to his bosses. If he had gotten himself into a compromising position that led to his apartment being ransacked, he probably didn’t want to jeopardize his position at Exel by letting the cat out of the bag.
But that wasn’t a new revelation. Charley obviously lied to his bosses for a reason. It was a dumb lie, too, one that wouldn’t stand up to even a cursory investigation. His dad in a DC hospital? It would take less than a minute to disprove the claim.
Or maybe it was completely different than that. Maybe Charley was running from Exel Oil. Maybe he hadn’t called them at all. Maybe he had just fled, and they caught up to him in DC.
Or, more likely, Exel had someone waiting for him. It wouldn’t take Nostradamus to figure out that Charley would likely make a stop at home before setting out on the lam.
That was an interesting scenario. Maybe Exel was the key.
But that still didn’t solve the riddle of how Quinn and Fredericks found out about Charley’s attack as quickly as they did.
The Agency and Exel. . . Are they in bed together? That would certainly explain a few things.
Kittredge sifted through the pile of clothes on the floor to find something clean to wear, located a towel, and showered. Moments later, he made his way down to the street for his one-mile walk to the US embassy.
**********
It went like clockwork. No one at the embassy had heard about Charley’s attack, which made Kittredge wonder whether Jim Bishop was full of shit when he said that he had heard about it from the embassy duty officer. But it worked to Kittredge’s advantage, as he wasn’t badgered by endless questions about Charley’s condition, how the attack happened, or if the police had any leads. He was able to slip into his office without much notice from his coworkers.
He was senior enough to get his own office, which was really the random detail that made his brief and unsuccessful foray into espionage remotely possible. He shut the door, turned on his computer, and inserted the thumb drive into the USB slot.
That was highly illegal, of course. Every computer belonging to the US State Department flashed a warning screen on login that wagged a virtual finger in users’ faces, warning them against inserting portable disk drives into government-owned computers.
For one thing, computer viruses often lurked in thumb drives. For another, using thumb drives made it relatively easy to do what Peter Kittredge was about to do.
He downloaded the week’s message traffic on high-level economic developments with the Chavez government and its various quasi-governmental arms.
In true Latin- and South-American fashion, it was necessary to grease the palms of various Venezuelan functionaries and adjunct offices in order to receive the permits, licenses, and judiciary findings that allowed commerce. Bureaucracy was its own industry, and bribery was its conveyor belt. So the embassy kept tabs, to the best of its ability, on the most relevant crooked officials to approach in order to get anything done.
This was the information that Kittredge provided to Exel Oil. The message traffic was basically gossip. It was stupid, really, that any of that kind of information should be classified “SECRET.” But it was most definitely classified, and that’s what made Kittredge’s next act fall unambiguously in the category of treason against the United States government.
He saved the relevant traffic streams to the thumb drive, which he placed in a small, smooth, cylindrical plastic container. Then he dropped his pants and inserted the container in his rectum, which wasn’t unpleasant for him as a gay man who enjoyed both of the intercourse roles available to him.
He breezed through the embassy’s security checkpoint with nothing in his hands and walked out into the warm Caracas afternoon.
His hands shook and he felt adrenaline in his stomach as he did his best impersonation of a nonchalant pedestrian, and he had a moment of insight: he enjoyed the rush.
Exel had paid him reasonably well for his trouble, but they sure as hell hadn’t paid him enough to be suitable compensation for the hellish nightmare he had endured over the past couple of days. But the satisfaction and enjoyment of a secret, the knowledge that he was getting over on his government and employer, gave him a perverse thrill. For a brief moment, he felt that the adrenaline rush might really be the thing his life had been missing.
Then a passing car’s horn startled him, and he twisted quickly toward the sound. The sudden movement tore at the scabs that had begun to form on his lower back, where Quinn had used the belt sander and the table salt, and Kittredge was reminded that they called it cloak-and-dagger for a reason. And sometimes the dagger was in your own back. It wasn’t a game for pussies.
Deep down, though he enjoyed the thrill of secrecy and the fun of running around acting like a spy, Kittredge knew that he was a lightweight. Everyone was a pussy at the right level of pain, but he suspected that his threshold was lower than average. That made him scared.
So he stopped for a drink at his local hangout.
It wasn’t strange by Caracas standards, but it was definitely unusual behavior for a US government employee in the middle of a workday, and Kittredge wasn’t smart enough to be concerned about his profile. He sat at a sidewalk table, ordered stuffed Arepa, a bread cake filled with fish and cheese, and sipped vodka while he waited for his food.
Movement caught his eye, and he looked up to see Bill Fredericks staring at him from across the street. His blood ran cold, and he flashed back to his unpleasant interrogation with Fredericks just a little more than twenty-four hours earlier. It seemed like a lifetime ago.
Fredericks walked across the street and approached Kittredge’s table. “Hello, Peter. Helluva nice day, isn’t it? A little muggy for my taste, but at least the temperature is agreeable.”
“Hi Bill. Fancy meeting you here.”
“I was in the neighborhood and thought I’d say hi to my newest friend. How’s Company life treating you?”
“Fuck you, Bill.”
“You’re still sore about the cameras, aren’t you?”
“Yes. And my back hurts. And I don’t appreciate what you did to my apartment. But thanks for asking.”
“Well, I understand your anger, but I won’t claim all of that antisocial behavior you just listed. And I’m glad we’re friends now.”
He smiled, but Kittredge didn’t reciprocate.
“Anyway, just saying hi,” Fredericks said. “We’re here if you need anything.”
“Making sure I behave myself?”
“Obviously. But here to help, too. Quinn gave you the number, right? Don’t be afraid to use it if you need to.”
“What a mensch,” Kittredge said.
“Hey, no hard feelings, okay? Lunch is on me. Take care of yourself, Peter.” Fredericks left the table, handed cash to Kittredge’s waiter, and walked out of the café.
**********
Kittredge finished lunch and wandered aimlessly until the appointed hour. Always between one and one-thirty in the afternoon. That was when foot traffic was heavy enough to cover the drop, but not heavy enough to interfere. Dibiaso likely wanted to be able to watch the whole thing unfold, and too thick a throng at the El Valle Metro station would obstruct the view.
The time finally came. The whole thing was ridiculously unsophisticated. Kittredge stepped into the men’s room, pulled the container out of his ass and washed it off, and removed the thumb drive from the container.
Then he walked to the bank of pay-per-day lockers, deposited change in locker number sixty-nine (Kittredge always appreciated the innuendo), and locked the USB drive inside. That was it. Dead-drop, done. It went without a hitch.
He could return any time after three p.m. to retrieve the duffel bag full of silver bullion. He stopped at a bar to pass the time. Mental miscellany accompanied a double-vodka on the rocks, and helped Kittredge while away the two hours before he could collect his silver. Same-day pay was nice, but it contributed to his delinquency by giving him idle time across town from the rest of his life, time that he filled with booze.
He thought about the silver, and about how much he liked to pick it up, feel its heft, exalt in the shiny richness of it.
Fuck. The silver! Was it still there?
He paid his tab and walked hurriedly out the door and around the corner to the Metro station. He rode to the end of the Blue Line at Plaza Venezuela, dashed through the turnstile and up the stairs, and bounded up the long escalator to the street. One half-block of Olympic sprint-walking, which was his interpretation of being in a hurry without being in a panic, brought him to el Banco de Caracas.
Sweating, he badged into the safety deposit room, found his locker, and inserted the key with trembling hands.
Empty. Fourteen pounds of pure sterling silver, the sum of his remuneration for selling US State Department secrets to Exel Oil, was gone. In its place was a note: We’ll keep this safe for you. Kisses, BF.
Kittredge pounded his fist into the lockers and hollered curses. Women and children stared at him as he slumped to the floor. He fought back tears, progeny of his exhaustion, intoxication, and utter defeat.
They had bent him over in every way possible.
He sat leaning against the wall, arms folded over his knees, and cried quietly into his sleeve. He felt helpless, completely powerless to exert any control over any facet of his life. Friday night’s booty quest had quickly morphed into a complete calamity.
Was there any corner of his existence that hadn’t been violated over the past two days? He couldn’t think of one. My life is a shambles, he repeated over and over to himself.
Despair turned to anger. Kittredge may not have been the most butch of men, but he was no milquetoast, either. He had picked himself up and dusted himself off plenty of times before. Granted, he had never before had his entire life reduced to rubble in front of him. But he knew how to persevere.
Sitting on the safety deposit room floor, Kittredge’s anger hardened into resolve. He would find a way out of the situation. He would find a way to shove it up Fredericks’ ass, he decided. And Quinn’s too.