An Absence of Light

“What do you think?” Kalatis asked as they watched the taillights of Burtell’s car climb the lane and disappear.

Faeber was cautious. “He seemed sure of himself, that he had it under control.”

“I think he was squirming,” Kalatis said. “Maybe he hasn’t got the guts to go through with this.”

“Go through with it?”

“If we don’t call it off. If we go through with it.”

Faeber suddenly felt as if he had missed part of the conversation, that he hadn’t picked up on something crucial. Confused now, his mind scrambled to sort it out But he chose to say nothing else. He simply sat there wondering what in the hell was operating behind the black eyes of Panos Kalatis.

Chapter 17

Driving home, Graver went over and over the disturbing evidence Paula had laid out during the past two hours. There was no mistaking she had uncovered a breach in security that could have disastrous consequences. It was an intelligence director’s worst fear, and the bad news was compounded by the fact that an old, good friend seemed to be involved, if not at the very heart of it.

In truth, this was something Graver still had not accepted, though he had given Paula every indication that he had. It simply was unbelievable. He was going to have to think himself into it. Like a mathematician, he possessed the problem and the theorem, but he had yet to construct a formula of proof. And he would have to see that formula played out, step by step, before he would be able to bring himself to see Dean Burtell as a traitor.

The sticking point was motivation. Graver knew Burtell like a brother, and the motives seen most often in circumstances of betrayal simply did not figure into the equation. Greed? Dean liked to live well, but his affinity for upper-middle-class comforts hardly added up to avarice. Sexual obsession? Graver knew enough about human nature to know that that sort of thing could be held in secret for decades, even lifetimes, but often, if not always, there were indications, hints, of this proclivity in other aspects of the personality. But not in Dean Burtell. Revenge for imagined or actual wrongs? Burtell had never uttered a word along these lines. That, too, commonly exhibited itself sooner or later in someone who felt it strongly enough to seek it. Conflicting ideology or philosophy? Not a factor.

But supposing Burtell had changed, and one of these elements had become an obsession for him, obsession enough for him to betray everything and everyone for it. Would not Graver have noticed the change? Even if Burtell had managed effectively to disguise the motive, would Graver not have noticed something, even some other alteration in his behavior? How could he possibly have missed it? Had Burtell, like Tisler, suddenly acted contrary to character without anyone seeing even minor indications of something amiss-in either of them?

Graver had to admit that Paula’s line of deduction was artful and well constructed, but it did not seem to track with the human factor, an understanding of which also required a kind of sixth sense. Surely there was something here that didn’t add up. Surely, in this instance, appearances-the appearance of Burtell’s involvement-were deceiving. But then that was the problem, wasn’t it? Appearances had been deceiving. And now Graver, while accepting the axiom in the first instance, wanted to force it onto the second. It was the everlasting danger of counterintelligence, mirrors arranged to create the appearance of an infinity of the same image. Graver was on unstable ground, and it scared him.

He stopped at a seafood restaurant on Shepherd and the hostess took him to a small table for two by a window. Graver had not eaten at so many tables for two in his entire life as he had in the last six months. It was a constant and ironic reminder that dining, like sex, was an activity that, ideally, was expected to be done in pairs.

After ordering a dinner of fried shrimp and a bottle of Pacifico beer, he took out his pocket notebook and jotted down a few points that Paula had made that he wanted to rethink. Taking notes was an old habit that was hard to break, and he collected his thoughts much better in the company of old habits.

When his food arrived, he put away his notebook and ordered a second Pacifico. As he ate, he let his attention wander to the other diners, imagining the relationships of the people at each table. It was a favorite diversion, but one that he forced on himself now in a deliberate effort to take his mind off Burtell. It was not an entirely successful endeavor. When he finished eating, he did not order coffee, but quickly motioned to his waiter for the bill, paid it, and left.