The waitress came over to take their orders, which they gave her in turn.
“The young lady at the counter over there is with us, too,” said Morgan. “Be sure to let her know you serve twenty-four-hour breakfast when you take her order. She’ll be happy to hear that.”
The waitress left, and Conley continued. “Once Zalmay was on his way, I had to finish what I started. That night, I snuck into Marwat’s house and eliminated him. After that, I hid out for a couple of days before I skipped the country as a stowaway in one of Acevedo’s own planes.” “Well done!” said Morgan, chuckling.
“I ended up in Frankfurt, where I finally called in that favor from George Koch. Remember him, Morgan? Well, he got me a fresh EU passport and a ticket back here.
“I tried to contact Plante. That’s when I found out he was dead, that it appeared you were the one who killed him, and that now no one could find you. I didn’t believe for a second that you were the killer. So I went to your father’s old cabin, where I thought I’d be most likely to find you. I knew there was more to this than met the eye.”
“There always is,” said Morgan. He went on to relate everything that had happened to him since Plante showed up on his doorstep. At this point, Conley had already been told about Zalmay. It had been the first thing he’d asked about after making sure that Morgan and his family were all right. He listened to the story keenly, deep in thought and never interrupting, as if trying to make everything fit together in his mind. Morgan had just finished telling him about evading the sniper at Plante’s house when he spotted the server walking toward them, balancing three plates of food.
She dropped a plate holding a soggy-looking burger onto the table in front of him, buns open steakhouse-style and topped with a wilted leaf of lettuce. But he hadn’t eaten more than the odd snack picked up at a gas station convenience store for the last few days. To him, this was a feast. He could tell that Peter and Jenny were both also ravenous, and for a few minutes, they ate in silence. Then Morgan broke it, asking Conley, “Do you know about Plante’s investigation of Acevedo?”
“Know about it? I was helping him. What, you think he did all that on his own? We had a couple of contacts in the company who sneaked out some of their financial files, whatever they could get their hands on. Apparently, some people still have consciences, even people who work for soulless traitors. Plante and I compiled that information, looking for the identity of the person responsible for running the drug trade and the traitor in the CIA who was helping them.” He took a pregnant pause.
“But there’s more to it, isn’t there?” asked Morgan.
Conley frowned, thinking, and then said, “Jenny, would you excuse us for a moment? I think it’s best that you don’t hear any of what I’m about to say.”
Jenny, who had been absorbed in the story, looked somewhat deflated by the request, but she acquiesced. “I’ll go check on Alex,” she said, getting up and bringing her coffee and food with her.
Conley lowered his voice. “Look, Dan, I’m telling you this in the strictest confidence. I’m telling you because I trust you, and there’s no one else who can help me with this.”
“You don’t have to worry about me, Peter. I have your back come hell or high water.”
Conley took a deep breath and bit his lip. “This investigation into Acevedo that Plante and I were running was entirely . . . extracurricular. The CIA knew nothing about it. And we had good reason to keep it that way. Our driving suspicion was that Acevedo had someone in the CIA who was leaking information and doing their best to disrupt any investigation or operation against Acevedo.”
“Plante told me that much,” said Morgan.
“Here’s the part I’m certain he didn’t tell you,” said Conley, looking furtively around them and then leaning in closer, his voice scarcely louder than a whisper. “During the course of our investigation, I was approached by a man I didn’t know. Called himself Smith. I had him pegged right away for an intelligence type, careful, measured, and deliberately vague. He accosted me in the street and asked me about the Acevedo investigation. I told him I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about, but I could tell he knew that I did. He said he was a representative from some supersecret worldwide security organization of some kind. He said they were impressed with me and were interested in recruiting me to do some work for them.”
“That’s a likely story,” scoffed Morgan.
“I didn’t believe it myself, at first. Had ‘trap’ written all over it. Of course, we’ve all heard the rumors about such a thing existing, operating on a level that’s even more secret than Clandestine Services, some kind of shadow organization. But I’ve always thought it was a sort of tinfoil-hat fantasy, the CIA bogeyman. Plus, even if I did think such a thing existed, no way in hell did I believe that this guy was associated with it.”