Read Online The Consignment by Grant Sutherland - Free Book Online Page B

did.”
    We paused by the inscription stone at Grant’s Tomb, then turned to stroll around the paved plaza. It was Rita, with her somewhat strange sense of humor, who first selected the memorial as an appropriate meeting place for any exchange of information connected with Hawkeye. I generally preferred these short, out-of-doors encounters to my occasional preappointed forays into her anonymous office at Customs downtown, but so soon after Dimitri’s death, the Tomb cast an undeniable pall.
    “You know, the worst part is I never really liked the guy,” she said. “It was like dealing with someone who had a piece missing. And I can tell you, he didn’t much like working with me, a woman. No offense, but Dimitri was three parts sexist pig.”
    “There’s worse than Dimitri.”
    “I know. I’ve dated both of them.” She shot me a look. “Maybe the IRS screwed up. If they made too much noise, that could have got him killed.”
    “Officially, it’s an accident.”
    “Officially, Ned, you’re a sales manager.”
    I let that one pass.
    “If you felt threatened, in any kind of danger yourself,” she said, “you’d tell me, right?”
    I nodded, but her gaze lingered skeptically on my face. I had a lot of time for Rita Durranti. Mid-thirties, and still single, she was tough in that way a woman can sometimes be after growing up with too many brothers. Rita had five: four older, one younger. She only stood about five feet two in her socks, but she was a packet of energy and drive. Her grandfather and father had both worked the Fulton Fish Market, there wasn’t much anyone could have told her about the ways of the world that she hadn’t learned firsthand by the time she was fifteen. When Channon first introduced us, I admit I had reservations, she seemed too young, too inexperienced for the work. After two years, I’d have been more than a little disappointed if she moved on to the more senior posting in Customs that she richly deserved. If I’d wanted to talk with anyone about how vulnerable Dimitri’s death had made me feel, it would have been with Rita. But I didn’t. Finally she seemed to get the unspoken message. She sat down on a bench.
    “I can’t find any mention of Lagundi in our files. I went through everything on Liberia twice. Zip.”
    “Maybe she’s got nothing to do with Liberia.”
    “You saw Channon’s report?” Rita said. I had. Channon’s report wasn’t actually Channon’s, it was the DIA’s assessment of where Trevanian might eventually deliver the Haplon materiel. Apart from a crazy predilection for placing numerical probabilities on every half-assed guess they make, the DIA’s assessments on these matters is generally superior to the CIA’s. And after processing all the information we’d given them—types and quantities of materiel under discussion, and Trevanian’s name—they’d concluded that Liberia was the most likely destination. Exactly which rebel faction it was going to, they hadn’t quite figured. “How often does he get it wrong?” she said, meaning Channon. “Trevanian’s company’s active there. That’s where there’s a war brewing. That’s where they need the guns.”
    I frowned. I told her Liberia was only a maybe. She asked me where I thought Lagundi came from.
    “Rossiter says Nigeria.”
    She nodded. “End User Certificate’s Nigerian.”
    I cocked my head. “I didn’t tell you that.”
    “You didn’t have to. I got a copy from Commerce this morning. Just for the night-sights.”
    “What date was on it?”
    She was perplexed. “Haplon filed it, Ned. The date’s whatever date you put on it.” We looked at each other a moment, then I turned to face the memorial. “You didn’t date it?” she said.
    “I didn’t see it.”
    She missed a beat. “If there’s an End User Certificate, there’s an order.”
    I told her to fax me a copy of the certificate as soon as she got back to her office. My home number, I said. But by this time Rita’s