The Convert's Song by Sebastian Rotella Page B

“There’s an agency in this building that thinks this government won’t survive these attacks.”
    “What you need,” Pescatore said, “is somebody you trust to run this down. Feed you intel on the side. To know if they play the case straight.”
    Furukawa nodded. “A back channel. But my go-to source for that kind of thing, your boss, is in the hospital. Any suggestions?”
    “I think I got a guy.”
      
    The next day, Belhaj picked up Pescatore in a French embassy vehicle. She showed him a headline in a newspaper: “From Policeman to Terrorist.” The investigation had identified a chief suspect, a former narcotics officer of the provincial police of Buenos Aires. A Muslim convert. His body had been found, surrounded by dead hostages, on the top floor of El Almacén. His name was Belisario Ortega. The newspaper showed a photo of a youthful man in uniform, a stern dark face. Some newspapers said the terrorists appeared to be a mix of Argentines and foreigners, but the police had not made conclusive identifications.
    Belhaj told him that French record checks on Raymond had turned up nothing.
    “If Mercer has been there, he entered from another country or with a different name. We are asking other European countries, but Sunday, the things do not move very fast. Tony said the American records did not find much either.”
    “Can I use your cell phone? I don’t have one anymore. Or a gun, or a computer, or a passport. This sucks.”
    “An orphan in the modern world,” Belhaj said.
    Pescatore remembered her dusky eyes hovering above him the night before while she bandaged his forehead at the embassy. She had insisted on doing it. Her touch was gentle and efficient. Images of her had nagged him overnight, along with the conundrum of Raymond’s role—tipster, terrorist, double agent?—in the eruption of catastrophe in his life.
    Pescatore called Café La Biela. He talked to a waiter he knew, a Galician immigrant named Modesto. He was an old-school gallego : wary, courtly, talkative. After thirty years in Argentina, he retained the rustic accent of his mountain village.
    “Is he there?” Pescatore asked Modesto.
    “He just asked for the check,” the waiter reported. “This one doesn’t stay too long on Sundays.”
    “Modesto, I’m on my way.” Pescatore gestured at Belhaj to have the driver go faster. “There’s fifty pesos in it for you. Keep him there.”
    “How?”
    “Talk to him!”
    “About what?”
    “Soccer, women, I don’t know. Has Televisión Española done any programs on Galicia lately?”
    “Well, now that you mention it, there was an interesting report the other day about the region of the Rías Baixas. Apparently the marine currents—”
    “Perfect. Go tell him about that. We’ll be there in a minute.”
    Pescatore hoped for the best. If Modesto was inspired, he could talk a customer’s ear off. He liked to describe in detail the interminable documentaries with which Spain’s television network fed the nostalgia of the Galician diaspora overseas.
    Pescatore had decided that Dario D’Ambrosio, the former spy chief who hung out at La Biela, was his best prospect for a hip-pocket ally among Facundo’s many contacts. Facundo had said D’Ambrosio owed him and still pulled strings in the intelligence service. Pescatore and Belhaj were making the initial approach.
    “I’m not real presentable,” Pescatore told her in the vehicle, touching the bandage and his swollen upper lip. “I hate to go in there looking like Raging Bull.”
    “It is not grave,” she said. “You have the body of a boxer, and now the face of a boxer.”
    Pescatore digested that comment. The vehicle stopped on Quintana Avenue by the green-and-white awnings of the café. He glanced at Belhaj, who was looking out the drizzle-streaked window.
    “So when you say that about the, uh, body of a boxer, is that a good thing?”
    “C’est une question de goût,” she said, opening her door. “A question of