Last Days of the Condor Read Online Free PDF Page A

away.
    Condor said: “The white car is something. And turns out, real.”
    â€œReal?” said Peter. “You say a white car followed you home. We didn’t see that. Then gee, what are the odds? A white car really was parked out front, but … went away.”
    Condor looked at her. “What do you think?”
    â€œWhat I think is, I don’t know,” she answered.
    â€œThat’s something.”
    â€œOh yeah,” said Peter. “Maybe actionable data will come to her in a clong on the way back to base. Me, I think you hit your herbal medication before we knocked on the door. Now take this cup, drop your drawers and give us the sample so we can go.
    â€œAnd for the record,” he added as Condor took the plastic cup: “Is there anything we representatives of a grateful nation need to do for you?”
    Condor said: “You’ve already done me.”
    He told Faye: “I don’t care, but you don’t need to watch.”
    Unbuttoned his pants, let them fall to the kitchen floor.
    She left the two men, walked back to the living room through the gauntlet of ripped newspapers, book pages, and torn trinkets taped or thumbtacked to the walls.
    Maybe because of what she knew she had to do later, when those two men joined her, she let Condor shimmer into Vin . Saw him as a silver-haired man, blue eyes she figured the Agency fixed with laser surgery to increase his operational index. Strong cheekbones, clean jaw. Fit like she’d said, but showing six decades of wear & tear. Yet electricity crackled through him: Is he more than just his diagnoses?
    â€œVin,” she said, “I put my Home Sec card on the mantel.”
    Peter packed up his silver briefcase: “He’s got more Agent In Trouble and help-line numbers than he can use, plus shrink team monitors. Let’s go.”
    â€œIf you see that white car again,” said Faye as Bald Peter’s impatience pulled at her, “or anything else … Call .”
    She left Vin with a real smile she lost as soon as she heard the turquoise door slam behind her, locked onto the tan raincoat back of Peter.
    Faye stormed her partner: “What the Hell! Why were you such a dick to him?”
    Peter stopped in the middle of the street. Whirled to face her. His briefcase cut a silver streak in the night. “There are only two kinds of people—”
    â€œBullshit! There are as many kinds of people as there are people. Don’t sell me some ‘ us and everybody else ’ crap to justify you doing our job like a jerk to that guy!”
    â€œWhat I was gonna say is, there are only two kinds of people who end up doing our job: agents who fucked up and agents who don’t give a fuck .
    â€œWe’re so fucking essential to national security. We check on old men who defected from the Soviet Union that has been gone almost as long as you’ve been alive. We make sure an al Qaeda guy who came over to us in Morocco six years ago is getting his checks while sitting on his ass with nothing to tell us now we don’t already know. And now from what I saw back there with Condor, you give a fuck.”
    Peter shook his bald head. “That means they stuck me with a fuckup. Once a fuckup, always a fuckup, so woe the fuck is me.
    â€œWhat did you do, huh?” he said. “Give a fuck about the wrong thing?”
    â€œMaybe I shot my supervising agent.”
    â€œLike I care,” he told her. “Like you could now. Hell, you’re too busy wasting energy on a long-gone-to-crazy-town stoner like Condor.”
    â€œYou saw that medicine cabinet. It’s more like he’s being stoned.”
    â€œLucky him. He’s got his legs, arms, his dick. He’s together enough to bring in a paycheck plus agent down benefits. And teams of us check on him to see if he’s all right.”
    He stabbed his forefinger at her: “Who’s gonna check on me and