The Counterfeit Agent by Alex Berenson

Author:Alex Berenson [Berenson, Alex]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Thriller
ISBN: 9780399159732
Amazon: 0399159738
Barnesnoble: 0399159738
Goodreads: 18079700
Publisher: Putnam Adult
Published: 2014-02-05T06:00:00+00:00

14

LANGLEY

Mason’s dead?” Shafer didn’t have to pretend to be shocked. He wanted to argue. But he knew whatever he said would only make him a bigger fool when Carcetti explained how he knew Glenn Mason had departed the planet.

“When this guy told me your theory, I was dubious.” Carcetti chuffed Bunshaft on the arm like a coach sending in a plucky benchwarmer at the end of a blowout. “By dubious, I mean I thought it was the stupidest thing I’d ever heard. But Jess here, you had him convinced. Ellis Shafer says this, Ellis Shafer says that, Ellis Shafer says his ass smells like roses, why don’t I lean over, take a whiff. I told him, check Mason’s records. Figured it was the quickest way to get him out of my office. You get a look at those bank records, Ellis?”

Shafer shook his head.

“Allow me to inform you, then. Mason hasn’t touched his pension for almost four years. Thing’s building up in an HSBC account at the rate of eight hundred forty American dollars every two weeks. Okay, fine, I know what Ellis Shafer will say if I tell him that, he’ll say that’s just what Mason would do if he’s gone undercover to work for the Revolutionary Guard. Of course, dumb Marine like me, I would think that if Mason was working against the United States, he’d be sure to draw that money down so it wouldn’t be obvious, in case anyone ever went looking for him. But fine, I’m trying to think like Ellis Shafer would—”

Each time, Shayy-fur, Carcetti drawing out Shafer’s name, ridiculing it. Mockery was among the oldest interrogation tricks around, and the most effective.

“So I tell Jess, check Glenn’s passport, and wouldn’t you know, that hasn’t been used in close to four years, not since he entered Bangkok on a tourist visa. Not a peep. And so I myself call our COS in Bangkok this afternoon. He’s none too happy to hear from me, what with the time difference, but he picks up like a good soldier. I ask him if come the morning he won’t try to help us find Mr. Mason. Turns out he doesn’t have to. Because before he does, he checks the embassy’s records for reports of Americans who have died in Thailand in the last five years. In those files is the sad tale of an American citizen named Glenn Mason, who drowned in a boat accident off the coast of Phuket. Three weeks after his arrival in Thailand. Mr. Mason was unmarried and without siblings or parent—in fact, without anyone who merited notification. So he was cremated and presumably turned into landfill, or whatever the Thais do with the ashes of Americans that no one wants—”

Shafer had to say something, if only to stop the flood from Carcetti. “When the report came in, nobody at the embassy realized that he was a former case officer?”

“Why would they, Ellis?” This question delivered reasonably enough. Shafer had no answer. American men died regularly in Thailand.

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