The Falconer's Tale by Gordon Kent

isn’t as importantas running the Naples office of NCIS. It isn’t as importantas being the collections officer for DIA.”
    â€œIt’s important enough for Partlow to have messaged thehead of NCIS to ask for special cooperation, attention MichaelDukas, NCIS Naples.”
    Dukas flashed Triffler a look of disgust. “This was youridea?”
    â€œThis was Partlow’s idea. He asked me to call you beforethe message got to you so you wouldn’t take it the wrongway. Mike, I know it’s an imposition; I know you’re workingyour ass off; but so am I. I’m just the messenger here. Don’ttake it out on me.”
    Dukas sighed. “So Partlow wants me to bring Piat in. Evenif I have to take time away from my job. And NCIS hasalready said that’s what I should do. Are you in it with me?”
    â€œNot this time. I got no authorization, no orders.”
    â€œYou know, I thought I might actually take Saturday offthis week and take my wife to Capri, which I’ve been promisingto do for two years?”
    Craik made sympathetic noises, and they tossed storiesabout overwork back and forth, and they parted friends.Dukas, when he had hung up, looked at Triffler with anexpression of disgust. “I’ve been drafted,” he said. His handwas still on the secure telephone.
    Triffler, an elegant African American who played Felix toDukas’s Oscar, merely smiled. “Al got another wild harerunning?”
    Dukas grunted and held up a finger, as if to say Wait until I check something . He picked up the phone, and, shaking hishead at Triffler’s pantomimed offer to leave, called his bossin Washington. After a few pleasantries, Dukas said, “I hearI’m being ordered to run an errand for the CIA.”
    A brief silence, then his boss’s voice: “Not my doing.”
    â€œHigher up the line? The DIA?”
    After another hesitation, “Higher than that.”
    When Dukas had put the phone down in its cradle, heturned to Triffler. “What’s the Pentagon’s interest in sendingme to do the CIA’s work?” He cocked a cynical eye at Triffler.“You remember Clyde Partlow?” Dukas told him about theIceland trip and the new request to find Piat. “Piat isn’t exactlymy asshole buddy.”
    â€œSo you send him an email, and if he doesn’t answer,you’re off the hook.”
    â€œWell—” Dukas hitched himself around toward his pile ofpaper. “Apparently I’m getting orders to bring Piat in. I mayhave to leave the office.”
    â€œAnd put me in charge for a day? Lucky me!”
    Dukas waved a hand at the pile of paper. “My son, oneday all this will be yours.”
    â€œWhat’s your wife going to say?”
    Dukas groaned.
    Piat’s Ukrainian deal went down without a hitch, and theseller paid up, just like that. He’d been home for ten days,and Mull seemed very far away. Now Piat sat on the precariousbalcony of his favorite chocolate shop and drank hissecond Helenika of the day, closed his laptop with a snap,and contemplated the archaeological report he had boughton Mull about Scottish crannogs. He was bored and he hadnothing better to do than read it. He’d glanced through iton the plane—very dry, almost no analysis at all—and nowhe turned to the color plates of the finds. Most of themwere dull, and worse, unsaleable—who would buy a three-thousand-year-old bundle of ferns once used as bedding?But there were valuable items, as well: a single gold bead,a copper axe head, a remarkable slate pendant shaped withsides so well smoothed he could almost feel them underhis hands.
    Crannogs were late European Bronze Age. And the coldwater preserved things very well indeed. Piat sipped coffeeand ordered a third. He felt rich.
    Lesvos was full of tourists. Piat had avoided them for ayear by leaving the island during the height of the season—one of the reasons he’d headed