“I mean it, Jeff. Why are you here?” Tracy said, suddenly serious. “The truth, please.”
Jeff looked hurt. “When have I ever lied to you?”
Tracy’s eyebrows shot up so far they almost disappeared altogether.
“OK, OK,” said Jeff. “The truth. I’m working for British intelligence.”
Tracy burst out laughing. “You?”
“And why is that so funny?”
“Well now, let me think . . . Perhaps because the last I heard you were on their Most Wanted list?”
Jeff shrugged. “Times change. You’re working for the CIA, after all. Or is it the FBI?”
“That’s different.”
“How? In a world where you and Agent Buck are colleagues, I’d say we’re all pretty far down the rabbit hole. Wouldn’t you?”
Tracy couldn’t deny this. Even so, she found it very hard indeed to picture Jeff as an MI6 stooge.
“OK. So you’re working for the Brits. On what? Group 99?”
Jeff nodded, dropping his voice to a whisper. “I’m here for the same reason you are. The British want to find Hu
nter Drexel. Badly. Julia Cabot doesn’t trust President Havers as far as she can spit. She wants MI6 to find Drexel first so that they can discover whatever it is the Americans are hiding.”
“And what does she think that is?” Tracy asked.
“No idea,” said Jeff. “Let’s order.”
They both ordered green salads. Tracy followed hers with a light bouillabaisse. Jeff, predictably, opted for steak frites.
“This whole thing clearly has something to do with fracking,” Jeff said, once the salads arrived. “Europe’s being carved up according to an underground map of shale gas reserves. It’s the new Wild West, with billions of dollars at stake. Right now the U.S. is the world leader in that industry with China close behind. But that could change. Poland, Greece, Bratislava, they all have gas. Ordinary people there are suffering, yet they have a fortune in natural resources quite literally sitting beneath their feet.”
“You can see why that angers Group 99,” Tracy agreed. “It’s the same old story. Like Africa’s diamonds or Saudi Arabia’s oil. A tiny minority are becoming unimaginably wealthy while the rest of the people starve.”
“But the governments let it happen because the tax revenues are huge.”
“And the GDP soars up.”
“Right.” Jeff smiled. It was wonderful talking with Tracy again. Seeing through the bullshit together. Seeing eye to eye. He’d missed this.
“So that’s the backdrop,” Tracy said. “I understand MI6’s interest. But where do you fit in? What’s your connection?”
“My connection?” Jeff laughed. “My connection is you, Tracy.”
She looked confused.
“I was brought in to keep tabs on you. To find out what you were doing for the Americans. And what you might be doing behind their backs,” Jeff added knowingly. “They had other applicants, but I was the only one with twenty years of experience following you around the globe.”
He grinned, but Tracy didn’t find it funny.
“Let me get this straight. So the plan was for me to do all the legwork. Find Althea, and Hunter Drexel. Figure out the connections. And then you would swoop in and take all the glory?”
“Something like that,” Jeff beamed. “After all, it worked in Madrid. When you helpfully stole the Puerto for me. Remember?”
“How could I forget?”