Delivering Caliban by Tim Stevens Page A

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    John Purkiss . The face gazed back affably, the hair dark, the cheeks a little shadowed.
    Giordano raised his eyebrows. ‘Doesn’t ring any bells.’
    ‘British SIS. Arrived JFK from London at two this afternoon, alone as far as we can tell. The Feds took him in for a little light questioning. Let him go after ten minutes.’
    ‘ Today…’
    ‘ Yes sir.’ She meant that she understood the potential significance of the timing. Known foreign agents came and went all the time. This one had arrived sixteen hours after a Company operative had been murdered, in the same city.
    ‘ Any idea where he is now?’
    ‘ No sir. This info came through just a minute ago.’ It was now three-thirty p.m. Naomi looked genuinely sorry. ‘Our ears in the British Embassy are on alert, of course, in case he goes there.’
    ‘ All right.’ He gave the little wave that so many people found annoying: run along now .
    In a moment he looked up. ‘What?’
    ‘Boss, why would the FBI question him?’
    Giordano considered, tonguing lunch chicken out of a tooth. ‘Like you said, it was over in ten minutes. They probably just wanted to put the frighteners on him, let him know they were on to his presence in the city. Who understands the arcane workings of the Feeb mind? I didn’t say that, by the way.’
    When she’d gone, Giordano took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. Naomi was right. The Feds, even the paranoid New York ones, didn’t normally routinely haul in foreign spooks for a pep talk, least of all British ones. The Brits were our buddies again, after all, as the President kept saying now that he’d got the reelection business over and could concentrate on establishing his international legacy.
    The FBI people had collared Purkiss for a reason. Probably they hadn’t got much from him and were tailing him even now.
    Which meant they knew why he was here.
    Giordano debated getting up and walking the ten yards or so after Naomi to call her back. Instead he picked up the phone and heard it ringing in her office down the corridor. She answered it in a rush.
    ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Another word?’
    When she’d come back, he said: ‘Find out who the Feds were that spoke to Purkiss. Give the job to Kenny if you like.’
    ‘That’s okay, boss. I’ll do it.’ She beamed, vindicated. ‘Want me to have them put under surveillance?’
    ‘ No, I want you to have them terminated with extreme prejudice.’ After a full five seconds he laughed at her expression. ‘Good God, girl. Too many Jason Bourne movies on your TiVo. Just their names is fine. If I need to speak with them I’ll make a couple of calls myself.’ He placed the glasses back on his nose like a pair of pince-nez. ‘And may I remind you, Agent, that the Central Intelligence Agency is forbidden by federal law from conducting surveillance activities on US soil.’
    ‘ If you say so, sir.’
    One of these days, he thought, she was going to put her tongue out at him. He let them run rings around him like a big teddybear of an uncle.
     
    *
     
    Giordano called Adrienne, something he often did when under pressure. Just the sound of her calm, no-bullshit tone was enough to both ease and lift his spirits. He told her it was ‘staff trouble’ he was having, which was as much as he could reveal. After he’d offloaded, she in turn told him about the difficult conversation she’d had with her son Adam, Giordano’s stepson. The boy was a grad student in business at Columbia who was talking about jacking it all in and becoming an aid worker in Somalia. Adrienne was disappointed but supportive of her son. Giordano thought he was nuts, and had told both him and Adrienne as much. Adam now referred to his stepfather as “that fascist”. Resorting to the F word put you beyond the bounds of rational debate, in Giordano’s opinion.
    He wondered not for the first time what his and Adrienne’s own kids would have been like, if they’d met ten years earlier and had had