Mercy Killing (Affairs of State Book 1) (5 page)

“Even after more than twenty years?” Mercy asked.

“I doubt it. I was on a Senate Nuclear Proliferation committee about that time. The magnitude of irradiated particles, water and gases released in an atomic reactor failure. . .” The Senator from Georgia did not sound pleased. “No. It doesn’t just all go away, Mercy. So, that’s the tour? Dragging tourists strapped to roentgen meters around a nuclear wasteland? That's the only reason she was there?”

“Apparently not.” Mercy reread her notes from Gilmer’s chilling brief. “Her editor told me that Mother had been researching a related story on the new countries formed after the dissolution of the old USSR. This included information about thriving black markets. Such as the sale of items abandoned after the Chernobyl tragedy, in what’s termed an Exclusion Zone. Locals call it The Forbidden Zone.”

“The idiots didn’t destroy all of that stuff?”

“Apparently not.” Mercy paused long enough to let the information sink in. “My mother’s editor is worried. He fears whoever is engineering this liquidation of those glowing assets won’t want their buyers to find out the goods came from Chernobyl.”

“That does tend to have a rather negative ring to it, doesn’t it?” Diane said dryly. “Exposing people to these items could be extremely dangerous. Maybe not for the short term, but if they kept the item near them, over a period of time.”

“Exactly. But apparently there's a lot of money involved. Whoever is hawking this stuff—they won't want their scheme leaked to the world. What if they saw Talia as a threat to their business? I have to find her, Senator.”

“Who have you notified so far?”

“Every damn U.S. Federal agency that exists, and the Ukrainian embassy here in Washington. No one admits to knowing a thing.” Mercy sucked in air to steady her nerves. It didn’t help. “If I can get a visa, I’ll go over there myself.”

“No. Absolutely not. That would be foolish. You don’t know the language or your way around the country. You might be putting yourself in harm’s way. Talia wouldn’t want that.”

Mercy blew out a long breath. Diane was right, she supposed. But what choice did she have?

“Diane…Senator, you’re my last hope except for one other person, and I don’t even know if he’s legitimate.”

She hadn’t forgotten Clay’s warning to keep their meeting a secret. But he seemed the kind of man who might make up the rules as he went along, to his own advantage. If he wasn’t playing fair, why should she?

“What do you mean legitimate?” Diane’s voice went from tense to piano-wire taut.

Mercy bit down on her bottom lip. “You can’t tell anyone what I’m about to tell you.”

“Cross my little old Dixie heart,” the Senator cooed.

“I was with Peter at the reception last night,” Mercy began.

“Sorry I didn’t make it.”

Mercy waved away the apology as if Diane could see her. “You didn’t miss much, except for one incident. A strange man cornered me when I was away from the crowd. He identified himself as Lucius Clay. Implied he was working undercover for the CIA or some government entity. He offered to supply information about Talia’s whereabouts.”

For over a minute there was silence. Mercy broke it. “Diane, please, I know you can find out. You have amazing clout in Washington. Is he for real?”

“You realize that it’s illegal for anyone in the government to reveal the name of a covert agent. Since Dorothy Plame Wilson was outed, no one says anything to anyone about CIA, NSA, FBI—”

“No one but Edward Snowden.”

“Right.”

“But my mother—”

“It’s still a Federal offense, hon. People go to prison for outing spies. I can’t do it. I’m sorry.”

Mercy swallowed and blinked away threatening tears.
Where to turn now?

“Listen,” Diane whispered into the phone, “if you think this man has information about Talia, get Peter to meet with him.”

“He won’t.” He hadn’t said as much, but somehow she knew.             

“Oh? Is everything all right between the two of you?”             

“Of course…sure. Yeah.”

She suddenly felt rattled. This conversation wasn’t supposed to be about
her
. Anyway, she and Peter were fine. Or they would be.

If she'd been worried about her mother before, now she felt frantic. “Diane, please, I have to make sure she’s is safe. If you don’t think I should go over there then tell me what the hell to do!”

“I still can’t give out the name of a CIA undercover operative.”

Mercy had an idea. “You could tell me if he’s
not
CIA, couldn’t you?” She felt her heart bumping against her ribs in the long, deep silence that followed.

At first she wondered if the senator had hung up on her. Then there was a soft cough from the other end.

“I suppose. But that’s tiptoeing through a legal minefield—”

“Please,” Mercy pleaded.

Nothing. Then, “All right. I’ll contact you within twenty-four if I find out Mr. Clay’s vitae
don’t
include covert government work. I won’t call otherwise.”

“Thank you,” Mercy breathed.

“Don’t mention it. And I do mean,
don’t mention it!”

By the afternoon of the next day Mercy knew that Lucius Clay was what he claimed. Diane hadn't called back.

5

Thirteenth Street in Washington, D.C. ends abruptly at the river—an urban limb whacked off with a cleaver. If you don’t shoot on over the Potomac on I-95 into Virginia, you end up at a drab marina populated by live-aboard boats that look as if they haven’t left the dock in something like a decade. And a few underwhelming Chris Crafts. Nothing here resembles what a reasonable person might call a yacht. If you live in DC and own a spanking new Leopard catamaran, with multiple staterooms, polished teak throughout, you don’t birth her here. You drive thirty friggin’ miles to Annapolis and plunk down a small fortune to keep your million-dollar baby safe at the Annapolis Yacht Club or Mears’ Marina in Back Creek. So Mercy’s expectations weren’t high when Lucius Clay suggested they should meet at the DC marina.

Mercy parked her Jag in the near-empty parking lot. It was two days after her conversation with Senator Moxley. She triggered the electronic lock, looked around. She hadn’t been down here in years, and then it had been a mistake. She’d let out-of-town friends coax her into dinner at “a great seafood restaurant we heard about.” Only too late did she realize they meant
The Blue Crab—
a
month later, shut down by the Health Department, with good reason.

The only other buildings along the 13
th
Street wharf were a couple of shabby restaurants pretending to be otherwise. At seven a.m. they all were closed, trash bins overflowing, the stench of rancid frying oil perfuming the breeze.

Mercy had always thought this was one of those places that looked as if it had given up all pretense at being metro-chic. Even though it was within a stone’s throw of the Kennedy Center.

She walked across the pitted asphalt onto a splintery dock. Intermittent signs warned:
No Trespassing. Only boat owners and guests allowed.
She doubted they deterred anyone.

She passed half a dozen sailboats, several without masts, floating in their slips on a layer of oily city soot. Used as houseboats, they proved a cheap if unglamorous alternative to the sky-high rents and mortgages of the nation's capital. A heavy growth of slimy green algae skirting their hulls. The place gave her the creeps.

However, Mercy had to admit this wasn’t a bad venue for a meeting if you didn’t want to be noticed. She supposed that was why Lucius Clay suggested the location when she called him.

She selected a bench overlooking the river and its dismal fleet, and waited for the CIA spook to appear. It didn’t take long. A soft voice from behind startled her. “Glad you could make it, Mrs. Davis.”

“I’m not in the mood for games.” She hitched back her shoulders and resisted the urge to turn and face him. “You obviously want something in return for what you know. What is it?”

He came around the end of the bench smirking at her in a beige golf jacket over an open-collared plaid shirt of muted colors. Madras, she thought, like something left over from the ‘70’s or inherited from his dad, and plain khaki slacks. He very nearly blended into the concrete sidewalk.
The invisible man.
Perfect for a spy.

Clay slumped onto the bench beside her, making his body look even less impressive. He offered her popcorn from a red-white-and-blue striped paper sack that looked like the kind sold by street vendors on the grassy mall that ran between Capitol Hill and the Washington Monument.

“No, thank you,” she said.

He chuckled. “You look nervous. Hey, I’m just here to help.”

“If that were so, you’d have already told me what you know.”

“Have to protect my interests, don’t I?” He shrugged and tossed a handful of popcorn into his mouth. A mob of iridescent-gray pigeons materialized with a flutter of wings in front of him.

Mercy tried not to react but cringed at the brush of his thigh against hers as he leaned forward to feed the birds. It felt like an intentional intrusion of her personal space. He moved away a few inches as if he could read her thoughts, but she sensed he was pleased with her reaction.

To hell with his little stupid games
. She unclenched gritted teeth. “Do you know where my mother is or not?”

Clay leaned back against the weathered slats of the bench and let his eyes drift nearly closed. He looked so relaxed anyone watching might assume he was dropping off to sleep. “We’ll get to that,” he murmured. “First we need ground rules.”

Mercy glared at him, incensed. If blood could boil—hers was. “For all I know you’re part of a kidnapping scheme, building up to a ransom demand. I could go to the FBI this moment and report you.”

“Oh, dear. How dramatic.” He grinned and shrugged his shoulders, a harmless looking lump of a man. From his hip pocket he produced a slim wallet, flicked it open to a gold-colored shield. In its center, blue enamel embossed with, Central Intelligence Agency, beneath an eagle’s spread wings. At the bottom were the words: Special Agent, and a three-digit number. The badge appeared official. Yet there was something about the man that she couldn’t define. Something that warned her not to underestimate him. And certainly not to trust him. “I don’t want money from you, Mrs. Davis,” he said as he shifted his weight to one side of his butt while replacing his wallet.

Her frustration maxed out. “What then?”

“Your cooperation. A fair exchange. We help each other.” He leaned forward again, resting elbows on his knees and staring down into the mouth of his greasy bag. It was almost a prayerful posture. Head bowed, hands cupped around the paper sack.

“I don’t understand.”

He shrugged. “It’s simple. You are accompanying your husband to Mexico City where he will fill a highly visible position representing our government. You will be a trusted guest in many private homes and public offices.”

“None of this has anything to do with my mother,” she snapped.

“Patience.” The corners of his lips twisted upward, but his eyes remained as detached and constantly moving as a lizard’s. It struck her that he hadn’t looked directly at her since appearing on the wharf. Not once. “I am interested in the activities of some of the more prominent local families.”

Nothing he’d said so far made any sense to her. “The CIA is interested in Mexican citizens? Why? Does it have something to do with illegal aliens? Or terrorists?”

He didn’t miss a beat. “Slavery.”

At first she thought she’d heard him wrong. “What?”

“Modern slavery. Human trafficking. The U.S. shares a two-thousand-mile border with Mexico. Despite all efforts of U.S. Customs agents, the DEA, and border patrol agents on both sides—illegal drugs, weapons, and people cross back and forth between the U.S. and Mexico.” Clay uncoiled his spine until he was sitting upright. “But nothing is of more concern than the suffering of people who are transported
against
their will then forced into labor. Often of the most degrading sort.”

She stared at him, startled by how much stronger and taller he appeared, now that he was no longer slouching. “Let me understand this,” she said. “You’re saying that someone is moving large numbers of people into the U.S. who
don’t
want to be here?”

She had heard about people being kidnapped in foreign countries, sold to ruthless employers in Third World nations as unpaid laborers. They worked in factories, as house servants, or on immense agricultural plantations, kept there by force. She had even read in the
Washington Post
about a woman who had been discovered working in an Arlington, Virginia home as a live-in maid. It turned out she had been taken from her home in Chile two years earlier and smuggled into the country. She had been kept locked in a basement room when she wasn’t working and was too terrified to complain to anyone. But that had seemed such a bizarre story. Mercy hadn’t believed anything like that was possible on a large scale in her own country.